The Christmas Family
Christmas is a stressful time. Presents, food, social activities.
Most significantly, it is a time for family.
And that is not always easy.
This blog explores what can make Christmas a difficult time in family life.
The roles that we have in families become heightened at Christmas time and can cause tension.
The 2011 film Arthur Christmas is a good guide for seeing this tension in a very exaggerated context.
Love: The Struggle of Every Man
The drive for financial security is ingrained in the male personality. This drive is well-meaning. It is there biologically so that men will overcome pain to provide for those they love.
Unfortunately, the drive for financial security can overpower the motive of love and become self-serving.
The film The Family Man dramatises this struggle. A successful man on Wall Street sees the life he could have had with a loving family.
The film is appropriately set at Christmas time. A time when the stress between family and material wealth is at its peak.
Gardening: It Grows You
Gardening, good for the body, the mood and soul, or so they say.
What is it that makes Gardening so attractive for people? What makes it good for us?
If it is so good for us what is it that holds us back from going out into the outback, our own wilderness?
How can we get over our barriers to creating our hideaway. our oasis of calm?
Is Christmas good for you?
Many people just don’t like Christmas. It’s not that they are Ba Hum Bug, they just don’t care.
There can be genuinely understandable reasons for this. So can a person who is just not into Christmas enjoy Christmas?
How do you have a happy time over Christmas when you’d rather it just didn’t exist?
Money: The yes you can attitude
Managing money is a key life skill. Lets be honest we do need a degree of financial security.
We can have issues with being controlled by or overspending money. Money mismanagement has negative effects on relationships/marriages. It is a key skill in learning responsibility.
Winning Gold in life's Olympics
Can we achieve greatness in the ordinary? Yes. Sometimes just getting through the mundane can be a great achievement in its own right. Do you believe this? Does it sound like pop psychology?
Whatever you may think about it I encourage you to take on the great adventure of going for gold in your own life story.
Supporting the fragile
How do we support our loved ones when their mood is low and behaviour is very negative? We should not be affraid to engage with them anjust sit with them in their space.
We do not have to cheer them up, or help solve their problems. If they want company they mostly just want you to be there.
This maybe enough for them to share with you what pain they are dealing with and start to heal.
Eating disorders and food control
Eating disorders are one of the hardest conditions to treat. The person involved has many layers of hurt that the control of food becomes their seemingly only way to cope with emotional pain.
Unfortunately, the associated behaviours are often very manipulative and destructive on the person themselves and those close to them.
When occurring in a family context, family therapy is often the main therapeutic approach, with individual support as needed.
This blog covers the main types of eating disorders. The cognitive, behavioural and emotional impacts are also discussed.
Violence in the Inner Man
Are men naturally violent? Is the aggressive response of men always a bad thing? There are lots of questions we have about men and violence. One thing that most will accept is that men are generally more aggressive than women and that this aggression can be very destructive.
The source of aggressive behaviour would seem to be partly learned through social expectations and partly biological through testosterone.