Most people—and I think most therapists and counselors—would say it’s a bad idea to make New Year’s resolutions. But I like them. I think they can be good. It’s just important to make resolutions about wants, not shoulds.

This might sound obvious, but most people just want to do what they want to do, not what they “should” do. “Should” is a setup for failure: “I should eat right, exercise, and follow a budget in the new year,” you might tell yourself. And then, around January 11th or so, you fall back to your old patterns. Why? Well, not because you’re lazy. And not because you’re undisciplined. No—it’s because you (like pretty much everyone) don’t like to follow “should” commands.

It’s just not how we’re wired. We humans are wired to be oppositional—to push back against things, other people, obstacles…even ideas or beliefs. It’s a survival skill. If I know how to push back against someone, that means I can stick up for myself, defend myself, protect myself. It’s just how we are. So if I tell you, “You know, you really should get your act together in 2008 and pay off that credit card!” you’ll be tempted (however unconsciously) to rebel against me by doing the opposite.

So when you sit down to do your New Year’s resolutions, approach them by reflecting on these questions:

What do I really want this year?
What do I want in my relationships?
What kind of financial habits do I want to develop?
What do I really want to do about my career?
How do I want to look, or feel, physically?
What vision do I have about myself, about my better self?

And then, having reflected on these questions, write down some ideas about what the new year might look like for you. Don’t worry about specific, detailed resolutions. Just think of it as your vision for yourself, your vision of who you really are, and what you really want. You’re not predicting the future. You’re not writing down a definite plan. You’re just envisioning a renewed way of living.

And have a happy, happy new year!

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This was how a character on the TV show “Will and Grace” reacted to Grace’s window treatment in a Manhattan department store. The episode aired years ago, but for some reason I never forgot that line. Tonight can be very dark and very sad for some people. Yet there’s something like glamour, something that shines, for many people during the holidays, whether or not they celebrate Christmas, and whether or not they’ve had a good year. Is it hope? Hope about the coming year? Or maybe it is a kind of quiet confidence—that as sure as we are that the sun will return and spring will come, we trust that darkness and pain will not have the last word.

I’ve blogged about the poet Rumi before, so I’ll try your patience with one more quotation from him. Somehow this little poem expresses the darkness and the light of this season:

Keep your intelligence white-hot
and your grief glistening,
so your life will stay fresh.
Cry easily like a little child.

During this time of deep darkness, shining lights, fleeting sun, and all-too-present rain, I wish you all the best for a holiday filled with rest, friends, and glad feasts. Happy holidays!

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My sister emailed me and showed me this blog, and she’s right—it’s funny. And there’s a lot in there about counseling, medications, and emotional problems. If you’re looking for a fresh and funny perspective on moods, relationships, and counselors, check it out!

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Just a note to clients that I won’t be in the office next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, December 24-26. I still have a few appointments later this week and next week, including Saturdays, and would love to see you soon. Take care and remember: next week, the sun begins its return!

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A colleague of mine has a great tool for clearing the air in your relationship. It’s a simple process of stating your feeling, your thought, and your request to the other person. But for some reason, as simple as it is, it can be hard for a lot of people to do it! Hard because you might not like the response you get, or hard because the feelings and thoughts you have are painful. But it’s worth it, and you become stronger and healthier the more you talk honestly with your partner.

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I know someone who left her husband because, she said, “staying with him would have been like stuffing my parachute into a shoebox.” (I have her permission to write about this.)

What she meant was that staying with her husband made her smaller: she had to accommodate his wishes on almost everything, which meant that she did most of the household chores and child care, and she didn’t get to have the intimacy and connection that she wanted in her marriage. She would ask him to come closer to her, to work with her on the relationship, or just to help with cleaning up the kitchen! But no, he wouldn’t budge.

By the time I met her, she had left him. And she had found herself grieving. Weeping, feeling depressed, mourning over her loss of a marriage, a dream, a hope that she and her husband could make it work. It seemed odd to her that she was so sad, because it was she who decided to end the relationship.

As she began to make sense of her new situation, and as she continued building a new life for herself and her family—her new two-household family—she slowly realized that her life was bigger: she was feeling more connected to friends and co-workers, more flexible and free with the time she could give to children and career—and maybe new love. She still occasionally grieves the loss of her marriage—she was serious about the promise she had once made to her ex-husband. But she’s glad that her “parachute” is so full now, and so colorful.

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When I was in college I had a roommate–and she’s still a friend, believe it or not–who took a long, long, loooong time unpacking her boxes when we moved into our off-campus house. It bugged me. Since I was only about 20 years old (this was a great long time ago), I decided to try a passive-aggressive approach: I’d see the boxes in the kitchen and call out to no one in particular, “Whose boxes are these?!”

It didn’t work. My roommate saw what was going on and responded in a very healthy way to my maneuver: she slowed down her unpacking and let the boxes sit in the kitchen far longer than she had first intended.

Now that I’m a little older and wiser, I think I know the answer to my question about the boxes: whose boxes are these? Mine. They’re mine. They weren’t bothering my roommate. They were bothering me. To her they physically were boxes, but they didn’t make much difference to her. She’d get to them eventually. So they’re mine–mine in the sense that I’m the one getting angry about them, I’m the one trying to manipulate my roommate, and I’m the one who needs to figure out a more effective way to ask for what I want.

If you find yourself doing this kind of thing, I hope this story reassures you that it’s common. Most of us resort to passive-aggressive games from time to time. (Especially when we’re talking about college roommates.) But the answer to your questions, your maneuvers, your use of sarcasm or subtlety or sarcastic hints to get what you want–the answer is you. It is up to you to think through what you want from others, own up to your own behavior, and be the better roommate, or partner, or friend.

I could have just told my roommate the boxes were getting underfoot, and ask if it’s OK for me to move them into her room. Now, wouldn’t that have been a lot easier?!

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If you’ve just experienced a breakup and you can’t get past your feelings of sadness, loneliness, and low self-esteem, you might want to think about two illusions most people have. If you see them as illusions, it might help you feel a little better about your situation and move forward in your life.

The first illusion is this: when people are in a relationship, they have the illusion of not being alone. I’m in a relationship, so I’m set, right?! There’s someone sleeping next to me, or going on trips with me, or making a home and a life with me, and so I’m not single, I’m not on my own, I’m not alone. But–you are alone, in certain important ways. You’re still responsible for your own behavior, your own happiness, your own daily rhythm of life and work. Your partner can’t live your life for you. Though you are with someone, whether it’s dating them or living in a partnership or marriage of many years, you’re still an individual. Your relationship doesn’t protect you from the bumps and bruises of life as an individual.

The second illusion is this: when people lose a relationship, they have the illusion of being alone. It’s understandable, of course. You’re living alone–and maybe you had to leave the home you shared with your ex! You’re sleeping alone–or if not, you’re sleeping with new sexual partners, and sometimes that can feel pretty lonely in the immediate aftermath of a relationship. You’re “picking up the pieces” of your life by yourself. But…you still have the ability to connect with friends, family, co-workers, whatever and whoever it is you call community, to sustain and strengthen you during this time. If you feel lonesome, again, it’s understandable. And your existential condition of being an individual human being hasn’t changed. But you can connect with others. Even if you don’t feel like it, make the connections. Say yes to the holiday party you think you can’t go to without your ex-partner. Say yes to walks or coffee with friends. Say yes to brand-new activities that get you out of your head, out of your emotional darkness.

Bottom line: whether we’re in a relationship or not, we are alone and not alone. And whether we’re in a relationship or not, we have more power to change and improve our thoughts and feelings than we might think.

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It’s snowing here in Seattle, and for us this is always a treat…and a headache. We get only one or two snow days a year, so few of us know how to drive in it, and traffic can be a nightmare. But today’s snow is beautiful: heavy flurries, light dustings, then more flurries, white against blue, silent and fluttering white against deep, darkening blue. December is here.

This can be a blue time for many people. The holidays are coming, lights are shining, snow is falling, and the season can sometimes be a sad reminder of lost love, lost friends, or just loss itself.

I hope that even if you have a hard time in December, you can appreciate the cold, harsh beauty of this season. The sun is hard to find, hard to hold onto: before you know it, it’s 4:00 p.m., and twilight is upon us. But the sky is sometimes luminous with the cold, deep blue of December: glittering stars, cold darkness, and silence. I hope that whatever it is that you grieve this year, you can find in these dark days a few bright lights, a few reminders that the coming new year will bring increasing light, increasing warmth, and a way forward.

And if you live in Seattle, don’t forget to play in the snow! It will be gone by Monday!

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