The unrecognized power of our thoughts

I recently came across a TED talk that just resonated with me like few things ever have. The talk was called Gender Violence - It's a Men's Issue. I highly recommend this, especially for anyone that works with people that have been abused, assaulted, or harassed. I first started thinking about this topic when I noticed that every week, a new story would surface about someone being involved in some type of inappropriate sexual activity. This was happening across all backgrounds and professions, across all socioeconomic statuses, and in all industries. How could this be happening? Why is this so prevalent? Larry Nassar, Harvey Weinstein, Senator Al Franken, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, Dallas Mavericks, Penn State football. What is going on in our society and culture? It has to be not just an individual's background, nature, and nurture causing this; it has to be a much bigger cultural and societal problem for it to effect every industry and profession so generally. I w

I have written about a few of the things that I have learned over the last several years. Things that have helped pull me out of some dark places. Things that quite literally have saved my life. But I have not yet written about what precipitated me needing to learn these things and go through the experiences I have had. It's time I do so.  My outward behaviors started while I was in Residency. I was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. While in the hospital, my nurse was one that I had quite a bit of contact with as she worked on the floor that had the majority of our patients. I had flirted with her quite a bit, and I took this further and we started kissing. This went on for several months. I finished residency and moved to Utah, where I opened my own practice. Over the course of nearly ten years, I kissed two patients. The second patient reported me to the Licensing Board in Utah. When I met with the investigator, and later with the Board, they asked if there were

When I was going through some pretty intensive therapy, one of the questions I was frequently asked by many people, in different settings, was how I could do the things I had done so frequently. I grew up an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, served a mission, got married in the temple. I did all the right things, the things I expected myself to do. In hindsight, I am sure there was an element of I'm doing these things because I "should" do them, I admit. Having acknowledged this, I wanted to do those things for myself, and not because of an expectation. I genuinely believed in those things; they were important to me. This is one reason therapy was such a long hard process. The things I believed in and the actions I took, were so at odds with each other; they were truly polar opposites. What explanation could exist to ever bridge the chasm between my beliefs and actions? It took a lot of time and work to answer that question. I am not g

One of the more helpful things I learned about in therapy was the concept of Cognitive Thought Distortions. There are numerous sites on that you can go to to find a list of these. Here is one of them: (https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/cognitive-distortions/). Before proceeding, let's define what we're talking about. A distortion is the action of giving a misleading account or impression. A thought distortion is a way in which our minds convince us of something that isn't true.  A particular problem with thought distortions is they usually serve to reinforce negative  thinking or emotions - telling ourselves things that sound rational and accurate, which are not rational nor accurate. They serve to keep us feeling bad about ourselves. I found these lists of distortions fascinating. Truth be told, they were even a little intimidating and frightening, as a could readily think of several examples of most of these types of thinking: Should, Blaming, Fallacy of

I've talked on instagram quite a bit about doing thought work and changing our thoughts to something that is more helpful and beneficial. I am concerned that in talking about this, I may have painted a picture, or given an idea that isn't accurate or helpful. Thought work is work, and sometimes it is hard work. We can choose to think whatever we want.  The problem with our thoughts is we often give our thoughts free rein. This is thought work - to choose our thoughts intentionally instead of by accident or by default. This is truth. Like all truth, this can be misunderstood. I want to be very clear and precise about what doing this work means, or rather brings to us. The shortcut way of thinking about this is when we realize what our thoughts are telling us, and what emotions and actions these thoughts are driving, and that if these are negative, all we have to do is change our thoughts and we will be happy. This isn't how it works though. This misunderstanding lead

As I have gotten more involved in life coaching thoughts and activities, I have come to see one thought come out more often than any other. The thought is "I should/shouldn't ..." I believe this thought, more than any other, causes us to become victims of shame and to feel unworthy, unlovable, and less than capable. Our brains are very good at protecting us from harm and dangers that are real. The problem is, they can't discriminate between a real danger and a perceived danger. "Should" thinking, to the brain, is a perceived danger. When we start telling ourselves we should or should not do this or that, we are setting ourselves up for a physiologic danger response. This is one problem with this type of thinking. Another problem is our brains trick us into thinking this kind of thinking is truth. We all have patterns of thinking that are not true. These patterns are called cognitive distortions. Our brains distort what is real, and tell us a message that