Anxiety
November 12, 2011: Build Your Confidence
November 13, 2011 | 
Author One of the most common themes I see in my office doing counseling, psychotherapy, and coaching with gay male individuals and gay couples is that of low self-esteem and low self-confidence. It’s not surprising; as little gay boys, we get exposed to anti-gay messages outright, or at least to the “invisibility” that comes with the dominant heterosexist paradigm of society (the erroneous belief, according to gay psychologist Gregory Herek, Ph.D., that everyone either IS, or SHOULD BE heterosexual). One of the biggest problems that comes with the tyranny of the majority of heterosexual privilege is that it functions to undermine the self-esteem of all LGBT people (but I focus on gay men here) from a young age.
The adult manifestations of the internalized homophobia and negative messages from society, media, parents, siblings, teachers, coaches, etc. include a general “not feeling good” about yourself, not achieving the career you want, not getting a boyfriend/partner/spouse, not being paid enough at work, not having a safe/comfortable home, not driving a reliable car, not taking care of your health, not mitigating risks at all (unsafe sex, too much alcohol, gambling, etc.), and all the while believing on some level that we, as gay boys, somehow “deserve” to have a life that is “less than” our heterosexual brethren. Baloney.
The little ways it manifests include not being comfortable to ask a guy on a date, not feeling comfortable to go to a party or networking event, avoiding buying a stylish outfit (that you can afford) because you’re afraid you won’t look good in it, and not asking for what we need for many ways.
What do we DO about it? A lot! I could give the flip answer of “go into counseling”, and while that is important and valuable (even if I do say so myself), not everyone is ready for that. So, here are some quick tips, to tide you over until we can really get to work:
1) Understand that you didn’t create the negative messages in your head, you’re only repeating them. Babies aren’t born self-critical; kids (and adults) only get that way because somehow they are hearing they aren’t “good enough” for some reason, and it’s usually a stupid reason (like homophobia, bigotry, or some form of “exclusion” or “elitism”). Understand that while the messages got “in”, it’s up to you make sure they “get out.” If a belief about yourself doesn’t serve you in your adult life, personally or professionally, change it. Louise Hay’s affirmation (famous in her book, You Can Heal Your Life, HayHouse.com), “I love and approve of myself just as I am,” is a classic. Repeat this until you believe it, even it’s 1,000 times a day at first.
2) Begin to notice how often your mind’s “voice” tells you a negative message like “I can’t do that” or, “He’d never like me.” When you catch yourself sending yourself a negative message, stop it, freeze-frame it, and then re-write it: “I have never done that before, but I will try my best now.” Or, “He’s a handsome guy, and wouldn’t it be great if he agreed to date me. If not, there are other fish in the sea and it’s his loss.” You see the difference? To build your confidence, your job is to play “copy editor” with the negative messages in your head until every one of them has been re-written to something positive, or at least something neutral.
3. Apply critical thinking to the negative messages that you carry around in your head about you. Who first told you that? Do you respect their opinion? (In the case of parents who told us the negative message, it’s only human nature to want to believe what they said when we are young children, but sometimes we are older now than they were when they said it). But what if we take that person, and understand that maybe instead of being the authority on everything, they had their own weaknesses, jealousies, insecurities, neuroses, projections, and untamed aggressions that clouded their judgment of you? Then the message loses a little of its sting. If a madman walks up to you on the sidewalk and says, “I’m Julius Caesar, and I declare you the scourge of my empire; you should die by the nearest sword!”, you would be a little scared, but mostly you’d think he was ridiculous because you know he’s suffering from an untreated mental illness and his statement can’t be taken at face value. However, if your cherished mentor in your writing group says that Act II of your script needs a re-write because you didn’t appropriately emphasize the main character, you might take their advice more seriously and do the re-write. In each of these two cases, you are exercising judgment on when to believe someone’s opinions of you, and when not to. This is what makes you an empowered adult, with the critical thinking skills that children lack. Never believe a negative statement about yourself from someone who has hateful, elitist, aggressive, ignorant, discriminatory, superficial, and self-indulgent values you don’t respect.
4. To build your confidence for achieving things, believe in not “if” something is possible, but under what circumstances or HOW it would be possible. It’s not about thinking, “The CEO of my company would never want to talk to little old me about advancing my career”; it’s, “How can I ask the CEO’s assistant for a 15-minute slot on his calendar to ask him about how he built his career out of the mailroom?”
5. Don’t be afraid to use silly mind-trick encouragements. If you have to use the story of, “The Little Engine That Could” (“I think I can, I think I can”) then for heaven’s sake, use it! It might be the difference between having the confidence to ask your boss for a raise (that’s another blog article entirely) and getting by with the same salary you had last year. Or, pretend that you are someone you know who has confidence and poise, and “play the part.” People in AA will often say that acting “as if” something is true, helps you to manifest it actually happening – fake it till you make it.
6. Get impatient. One of the best ways to move past a lack of confidence is to simply declare to yourself that there just isn’t TIME for this nonsense. There are projects to be accomplished. There are people to see. There are places to go. There are dates to have. There is sex to be had. There are games to be won. There is LIFE to be lived. Even if you live to be 100, there isn’t time for self-doubt; there is only time for doing. Because living your life with confidence is what your life is there for. It’s what you are here to do.
Give these ideas a try. And if you need more support for your specific situation, consider reading my book, Self-Empowerment: Have the Life You Want!, available at LuLu.com (hardcover or paperback), or on Amazon.com (hardcover and e-book). Or, let’s work on it together, in either in-person sessions in my office, or over the phone (310) 726-4357.
It’s never too late to be what you might have been.
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The Importance of Focus and Hope in Your Work
In psychotherapy and coaching sessions with my gay male clients every day, I’ve noticed lately that a frequent focus is about work issues. This makes sense, given that the news and current events atmosphere has focused on a volatile political and economic climate: we get bombarded with news daily, from everything from Facebook to newspaper headlines to network TV news, about a poor job market, global economic peril, and the almost pathetically comical political race for the 2012 elections about who is going to “save the country” and return us all to prosperity. As much as I believe a lot of that is political posturing, for my clients’ sake, I long for the days where I am helping a client make a decision between which of three new job offers to take, or role-playing with them how to do a salary negotiation, or educating clients on which local gay-related charities I recommend for them to donate part of this year’s large annual bonus to (these are things that used to be much more frequent in my office).
Today, I help my clients do more work on maintaining their current job, working out conflicts within it with colleagues, or helping them to find enough work as an independent professional to keep their incomes stable. I don’t blame my clients for being anxious; there is much to be anxious about, especially when we are all subject to inflammatory media messages on a daily basis that the sky is falling, because, you know, “bad news sells newsapers.”
That’s why I try to encourage my clients facing professional challenges to keep a sense of focus and hope. It does no one any good at all to succumb to the news, however much it’s a mixture of hype versus fact. My clients are often handsome, intelligent, knowledgeable men who have learned to grow a thick skin by growing up gay in a more or less homophobic society. For this reason, they are very often excellent salesmen. They’ve had to learn to “read” people when they developed their “gaydar” to see which men are safe to approach romantically or sexually. They’ve to learn to mount defenses to people who would challenge them. Gay culture, in general, tends to teach culture and sophistication, and we often appear “charming” to straight customers. All of these qualities lend themselves to being an influential salesperson.
This can be sales of a product or service (many of the guys I work with are the top salesmen in their company and the envy of the straight guys, who often don’t look as good in a designer suit or can’t charm female (or even male) clients with the same panache). It can also be selling yourself (not in “that” sense, usually, although I have worked with a number of successful escort boys) in the sense of bringing your creative talents to market – as with actors, TV writers, designers, photographers, fashion designers, architects, and interior designers, all who work for themselves as what I call the “gay male creative entrepreneur” as self-employed independent contractors (West Hollywood is nicknamed “the creative city”, after all!).
And what qualities do my most successful clients exhibit? I think they are focus and hope. Our work is often about maintaining a focus on what mindset, point-of-view, and mental positive statements to maintain to get a certain job “deal,” succeed at it, or parlay that success to the next gig. When challenged by not enough work or not enough of the work projects that are especially desired, it’s maintaining hope that their skills, talents, and abilities are indeed needed, often desperately, by someone, somewhere, who is willing to pay for them. Getting work is often a match-making process between the skills and talents that you have, and the person who needs those skills and talents to achieve something important to their own job (think of a casting director who needs to cast just the “right” actor for a part, or an entire movie full of parts!).
I encourage the use of what’s called “metrics” – which is maintaining some sort of records (it could even be an Excel spreadsheet, Quicken data, or other database; even a notebook) of previous sales, deals, and successes. Then, looking at where they came from, what kind of networking did you do to bring those opportunities about, what skills got you the gig, and what the final benefits were to the client you worked for. By analyzing past data, you can get an idea of what’s worked in the past, and what’s likely to work in the future. If you’re a fashion designer who makes commissioned dresses that are one-of-a-kind, and your last three clients who paid $3,000 each for formal event gowns were high-income middle-aged women in West Los Angeles, then it might behoove you to think about what that demographic reads or looks at online to determine where your next advertising strategy might be. If you’re a salesman and the majority of your last quarter sales were all to small start-up companies with young female decision-makers, you might want to call on other companies in your territory that fit that description. Sometimes the best predictor of future success is looking at where your success has come from in the recent past. This kind of focus helps you maintain the hope that you are making the progress you want to make toward your professional goals this year.
It’s important that if you have fallen into the opposites of focus and hope, which are feelings of being demoralized, scattered, unmotivated, or even resentful, and you’ve lost hope, energy, drive, and confidence, that you work quickly to reverse these and mitigate any damage they are causing to your professional “mojo.” Sometimes you need prompting and an outside person to ask you the right questions, help you clarify your own feelings, and identify your internal strengths or external resources that you might have been overlooking. Counseling and coaching can help, before current circumstances undermine the pursuit of your vision of your Ideal Professional Self.
Gay Men’s Mental Health in the Current Political Climate: A Lesson in Hope and Resilience
As the first activities in the 2012 election season begin with events like the recent Republican Iowa Straw Poll, I have noticed an increase in reported stress in my daily practice of therapy with gay men. It seems that the rhetoric in the news daily is an irritant to the men I work with in a way that exacerbates anxiety and/or depression.
We hear Michele Bachmann’s ill-informed rhetoric that is nothing but hateful and mean-spirited. Gay men use their inherent “gaydar” on her husband and rail at his (alleged) hypocrisy and self-loathing as a “therapist” (though he’s not licensed in ANY state) who (allegedly) performs “reparative” or “conversion” therapy on gay men, a technique that has been discredited by every major mental health organization in the United States for many years.
We see victories like achieving full marriage equality rights in New York, but in the process, we hear the hateful rhetoric from the “other side” that the media insists on reporting (when no other minority’s “other side” gets much media reporting).
All of this goes beyond the collective “current events” and impacts individual gay men’s lives, sense of self, mood, and overall mental health and functioning. Hate speech by conservative politicians is an assault for which gay men must develop resilience to in order not to succumb to its ill effects. I hear the anger, frustration, sense of injustice, impatience, and a little despair in my clients’ voices when they report what negative news they have been exposed to, and how it affects them.
It’s easy to say, “Oh, just shrug it off”, but no other current group in America is the recipient (victim?) of so much negative public rhetoric (with the possible exception of illegal immigrants — keyword there, illegal; gay and lesbian American citizens are breaking no laws of the land, even if they are assaulted by the Right with breaking “God’s law”, which is irrelevant to civic life). The truth is, the almost daily new bad rhetoric against the LGBT community, and gay men in particular, is a blight on the mental health of these American citizens. No wonder we’re angry.
What can we do about it? I offer my clients various tips to cope with the hostile media environment without condoning it. These include:
1) Limit yourself to how much “news” you are exposed to — online, TV, radio, Facebook, Twitter, office water cooler, or whatever the source.
2) Understand that coping with helplessness is a lesson in understanding what you CAN do, and affect, and what you CAN’T. Doing what you can WILL make a difference. Protest. Write editorials. And perhaps most of all, vote for gay-affirmative candidates at every opportunity.
3) Trust history. Women, African-Americans, Jews, workers, and others endured much public negative rhetoric before finally achieving equal rights under the Law.
4) Diversify your attention. Sure, it’s great to be an informed citizen. I think that’s part of civic duty and a part of self-empowerment. But you can’t save the world; even Superman sleeps or eats or bangs Lois Lane once in a while. If you have your own fun, the bad guys don’t win in their attempts to defeat your spirit. Living well is the best revenge.
5) Evaluate the source of negative rhetoric and realize their agenda behind it — money, power, Narcissistic ego satisfaction, Sadistic impulses, etc. One way to build resilience is to completely divest ANY respect for the aggressor. They are buffoons who publicly despise the gay community in service to their own selfish power-grab (The Bachmanns, Perry, Romney, Santorum, Palin, Dobson, Robertson, etc.). However, they can be gaining political POWER, and this is why they must be defended against in all legal ways (voting, protest, public education, person-to-person education, etc.).
6) Separate how negative rhetoric in the media is affecting your anxiety and/or depression, versus other sources, such as natural ups and downs in your symptoms. Evaluate also the role of other stressors in your life: financial, health, local, interpersonal, domestic, occupational, etc.
In the current climate, negative anti-gay rhetoric DOES indeed impede our quality of life — but only to a certain degree. Much of rhetoric we can ignore, except if it leads to the stripping of legal civil rights by candidates who have promised to do so. Then, we must answer the call to mount a defense to that threat, lest the situation worsens beyond the point where we can defend ourselves legally, emotionally, and even physically.
The current political climate now — and probably for some time yet to come in the new election season — is a combination of reasons for much hope, and also a time of threat and apprehension, but with the commitment and belief that our rights will steadily march along the path of progress. Self-empowerment is being an informed citizen and exercising your rights, but balancing this with your own personal and individual needs for peace of mind. Achieving this balance can help you to…Have the Life You Want!
Conquering Anxiety with… Probability??
Think about how you’ve been feeling lately. Felt any anxiety?
If no, perhaps get another cup of coffee, read another blog, or go back to work. 
But my guess is, yes, you have felt at least some anxiety about something in relatively recent times. Like maybe this morning.
I think what has helped me, personally, the most in managing anxiety (yes, therapists have feelings, too, including anxiety at times), as well as what has helped my patients, is disarming anxiety by way of… probability. Yes, probability.
Wait, hear me out. While that might sound really strange, let’s take a closer look: I define anxiety as “the fear of loss”. It can be loss of our physical security, such as if I don’t wear my car seatbelt, I might be anxious that if I have an accident, I’ll be thrown from the car and crushed in a million pieces. Fair enough; wear the belt. But I might also be anxious before I speak to a large audience (heck, even a small one — ever had to make a presentation at work??). But in that case, the audience isn’t going to crush me into a million pieces. The “loss” in this situation might be a threat to the loss of our dignity, or looking socially inept if the audience doesn’t like our presentation. So, why are the feelings of anticipatory anxiety the same? Because in both cases, it’s the anticipation of the fear of possible loss.
And it’s that “anticipation of the fear of possible loss” where probability comes into play. We have to ask ourselves, while we are in the role of fortune-telling, future-predicting swami, what is the fear, specifically, that arouses my anxiety? Am I going to go out there, give my presentation to an audience, and have them throw rotten tomatoes at me while they scream, Boo! Get off the stage, you quack, Howard! Then we have to ask ourselves, How likely is what I fear to happen? What is its probability? In a case like that, not very much. So, if the probability is not bloody likely, then why do we have fear? What happens to our fear, when we assess the probability of it actually happening? Kinda takes the wind out of our Anxiety Sails, doesn’t it?
Let’s try a different anxiety, same situation. What if I’m anxious because part of my presentation isn’t rehearsed well, because I had to work late last night on another deadline and only rehearsed the first two-thirds of my speech? What if I’m anxious because I might look stupid because the last third isn’t well-rehearsed, and I might get very confrontive questions from the audience on that portion, and I might blush and feel flustered and embarrassed? OK; the probability of that happening might be a little more, if we truly did not rehearse adequately. But what if, instead of getting flustered, we rely on our considerable experience and knowledge from previous presentations and make a good “improvisation” at that point, and just go with the flow, trusting that we know what we’re talking about in the general area of that last portion of the presentation, because, after all, we wrote it? We have a coping strategy in the moment. OK, now what happens to our anxiety? Less, right? Because we feel prepared and confident, including the parts that feel least prepared.
In other words, our anxiety is always reduced when we consider that it is human nature to over-state the probability of our fear fantasies (and we humans are a creative bunch; we do tend to have wildly imaginative fear fantasies). And, our anxiety is reduced when we have something — anything — that is a potential coping strategy.
So, the next time you feel anxious, you have work to do. Ask yourself:
1) What are my fear fantasies?
2) How likely is that to actually happen?
3) How could I cope with the situation even if that did happen?
and….
4) How can I re-focus my thinking on something more realistic that helps me to concentrate on something more important?
See? And you thought those classes in Statistics and Probability back in school wouldn’t ever be useful.
Managing Recession Anxiety: How to Cope with Layoff
While the current economic recession may spare many of us as gay men, who are often considered an “affluent” segment of society, it will ensnare others. Even the threat of being affected by the recession is enough to cause anxiety, but for those who are laid off, have a partner who is, or who have to be the ones doing the laying off, anxiety pervades. How do we cope? Here are some ideas:
Handling Being Laid Off
According to the Alaska Department of Labor, being laid off includes acknowledging and coping with an entire series of stressors, including the loss of:
· Wages and benefits – the basic livelihood for our lifestyle
· Your role as a worker and provider; independence
· Dignity and self-esteem of work
· Expectations we had for the “American Dream”
· Trust in our economic system
· Feelings of control over your life
· Your daily pattern and comfortable, familiar routines
· Your “work family” of colleagues
· Feelings of patriotism and collective strength
These losses can cause symptoms of stress. But for every stressor, there is often a recommended resource and response. For example, for:
- Getting sick more often? Practice self –care of good food, exercise, and rest
- Feeling tired all the time? Sleep regular hours, eat balanced meals, do some cardio
- Sadness and depression? Seek counseling/therapy, especially cognitive-behavioral therapy
- Eating more or eating less? Eat a regular diet, small regular meals
- Having trouble sleeping? Ask your doctor for a prescription sleep aid, consider relaxation CDs
- Feeling shaky or dizzy? Consult your doctor, practice meditation, guided imagery, biofeedback or yoga
- Sexual problems? Cuddle, hug, take the pressure off “performance”, seek couples counseling as needed
- Not interested in anything? Seek therapy for possible depression; get outside of yourself and volunteer to help others
- Increased use of drugs or alcohol? Practice harm reduction; reduce or eliminate these; find alternative “treats” and indulgences
- Getting angry more easily? Forgive yourself and others; practice relaxation
- Feeling out of control? Identify things you can control; do 2-3 things per day in support of yourself; say “I could _________” over and over; volunteer for a cause; keep a journal of your small successes each day
Coping with a layoff also involves dealing with the obvious financial crisis this often brings. Various time-honored tips for financial crisis management include the following:
- Evaluate your financial situation – know your monthly expenses and any income or resources; make a budget and stick to it
- Pay minimums on your credit cards and other debts, but keep every debt current
- Negotiate your “exit package” with your employer before you leave your job – severance pay, job search “outplacement” or resume service fees, extended health and other benefits beyond date of separation
- Try to take copies of important documents before you receive notice of layoff or the day of, if you are allowed to according to your company’s intellectual property policy – such as your Rolodex or Outlook contact files, important memos you wrote, brochures you made, photographs of projects, PowerPoint presentations, successful proposals or reports you wrote, – things that would be part of a “portfolio” of impressive work product samples to show new potential employers
- Get recommendation letters from colleagues, and a letter from Human Resources verifying that you were laid off, not fired
- Enroll in COBRA quickly to preserve your health care coverage for emergencies and routine care
- Make personal/professional business cards on VistaPrint.com to network with – give them out constantly after your layoff
- Pretend you have to live on much less than you actually have – try $10/day for everything
- Use social networking sites – Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Craigslist
- Sell any unused stuff in a garage or yard sale – (Avoid Ebay; its owner is a major Prop 8 supporter!)
- Go back to basics – food, sleep, exercise, stress management, family/peer support
- Brainstorm cheap entertainment – games, books, discount theatres, home-made dinners
- Separate “you” from “you in the job” – you are/were NOT your job – recognize that you have a professional self that transcends any one organization or title
- Research public benefits – Enroll in CA Unemployment, or if you have a physical or psychiatric disability (stress, depression), consider talking to your doctor about enrolling in SDI, the CA short-term disability program (which pays more than Unemployment).
- Register with temporary agencies or make yourself available for consulting. Always network with others with a, “How can I serve you?” attitude, not a, “Give me a job” one.
- Make your job-hunt your new job – Follow a Monday-Friday, 9 to 5 schedule.
- Get new training or go back to school for new work skills, if necessary.
- Be open to taking what you can get job-wise, and make the most of it. Read Jack Canfield’s, The Success Principles for a detailed description of great attitudes to adopt.
- Grieve and vent a little; you have to get these feelings off your chest with someone.
Supporting a Partner Who’s Been Laid Off
Maybe it’s not you, but your partner who has been laid off. What do you do then? Here are some other tips:
- Offer support as he wants it – not how you want to give it. Does he need you to just listen? Give advice? Make jokes? Talk about it? NOT talk about it? Help him with job networking? Role-play “mock” job interviews to build confidence?
- Discuss the issue as a two-person family – don’t think in terms of you/me; it’s “US”
- Review your household budget and try to make some sacrifices evenly between the two of you
- Try to boost your partner’s self-esteem by giving sincere compliments and recognition of things he does well outside of work (I bet you know a few…*ahem*).
- Discuss how if one partner picks up more expenses, the other “contributes” in non-monetary ways such as more domestic duties; discuss what might be fair in terms of money, chores, and other contributions to the household
Handling Laying Off Employees
Perhaps it’s not you, or your partner, who has been laid off, but you’re the one doing the laying off as a manager or director in your company. This is a thankless, unpleasant, and guilt-inducing task, but at times it must be done for the good of the company you represent.
These are ways to cope with this chore:
- Separate your role as a manager/officer of the company from your relationships with colleagues
- Keep in contact with your supervisor and HR – use them as resources so you follow proper legal protocols and not feel isolated in this process
- Focus on your role to keep your whole department “sound” – it’s not about individual employees when you are a manager
- Find trusted “buddies” to vent to – preferably on the same management level (don’t vent to subordinates or superiors)
- Balance the number of “bodies” on your staff in terms of quality versus quantity of workers
- Be quick, firm, but compassionate – offer to write letters of recommendation or take reference calls, if your company allows that
- Don’t be omnipotent. These people are going to sink or swim, with or without you. You can’t take credit if someone leaves and is a success, and you can’t take blame if they leave and have hard times. There are too many variables besides you affecting that person’s success, and they have to take responsibility for their own lives
- Motivate the employees you have left – keep up morale with low-cost recognitions. The book 1,000 Ways to Reward Employees can help.
- Stop feeling guilty – most laid-off employees do just fine, relatively shortly
Finally, remember that economic recessions are inherently temporary. These downturns are to be expected at several points in the long span of your career, and it might help to evoke the ancient wisdom of, “This, too, shall pass.” And then, my friends, the party is ON!