Week 2 you’ll draw your social circle — identifying the relationships that help and the ones that hurt — and then explore a few of the stressful ones in detail.
TRY THIS: Want to know what you’re getting yourself into? Skim the book once; then read it week by week and complete the exercises the second time through.
Week 3 is all about feelings and their connection to our relationships and our behavior. You’ll get information and tools to help you express and manage your feelings in ways that will improve your relationships and your mood.
Week 4 is where we talk about the four problem areas that people experience when they feel down, depressed, and lousy and help you pick one to focus on.
In Week 5 we offer step-by-step instructions for setting a “smart” goal. Case examples help you make your goal the smartest it can be.
You can feel free to vent in Week 6. What situation or encounter bothered you the most last week? How did you feel about it? How did you handle it? By the end of the chapter, you’ll be thinking about what you might like to change.
In Week 7, it’s time to go back to the relationship inventory you created in Week 2. We help you identify your “whos” — the people you can count on when times get tough — and coach you to use these people effectively.
PEP TALK: People of all ages and backgrounds use these strategies to feel better, regardless of their challenges. Let’s do this — together!
In Week 8, we help you choose something to change, offering suggestions specific to your particular problem area and helping you cope with the fear of the unknown.
Week 9 is all about expectations — how to uncover yours and understand someone else’s — so you can close the expectation gap that often contributes to depression. We teach you a helpful exercise for couples that Ron brilliantly calls the Matrix (Keanu Reeves impression not required).
Week 10 gives you tips and examples for practicing an important conversation or encounter. What’s the best outcome? The worst? The most realistic? We’ll help you rehearse all three.
In Week 11, we cheer you on from the sidelines while you have a conversation or experience that’s important to achieving your goal.
Week 12 is the happy ending. We help you celebrate your successes, share them with others, and apply what you’ve learned to other areas of your life.
Introducing Kate, Ana, John, and Becky
The star of this book is you, and we’ve invented a supporting cast of four characters, drawn from more than three decades of work with clients, to help you shine. Our hope is that you’ll identify with one individual character, but see aspects of your struggles in all of them, learning each week as they grapple with the concepts, try out the tools, experience setbacks, and celebrate accomplishments.
Meet Kate, a forty-seven-year-old school administrator whose increasingly clingy and controlling husband is making her wonder whose life she’s leading — hers or his. He had been so excited about his retirement from the police force, but six months into his freedom Kate feels as though she’s in prison. She’s exhausted from her husband’s attempts to program her time and embarrassed by his stalker-like behavior when she goes out on her own. “I married you in sickness and health,” she tells him one night. “But not for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
Ana is a new mom. She’s having a hard time accepting that having a baby isn’t like the posts she reads on Facebook, and she misses her old life: the career she worked so hard to build, her prepregnancy body, time with her husband, going out for Sunday brunch with her girlfriends, and eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. She’s ashamed of her feelings — Ana and her husband tried for more than a year to get pregnant, and she feels she should be so happy and grateful to have a healthy, beautiful baby girl. But the reality is that Ana spends every day waffling between resentment and guilt, crying about how much she’s lost and then crying about her inadequacy as a mother. Her husband comes home from work every day — late — and all she wants to do is hand her daughter to him and hide.
John has lived his whole life as the black sheep of his family. He’s the one who, at forty, still lives at home with his mom and dad, doesn’t have friends, and works as a delivery guy for a Chinese restaurant. All John wants is a little respect, but people are such jackasses, judging him, treating him badly, and refusing to play by the rules. He’d like to have a girlfriend, a buddy to hang out with, and civil relationships with his coworkers. But everyone turns out to be a disappointment. Why bother?
When her brother died from cancer a year ago, twenty-three-year-old Becky was devastated. She had put her life on hold to be his only caregiver and in the process lost touch with her friends and fell out of step with her peers. Her days as an art student seem so long ago that it feels as if it was someone else’s work that was nominated for an award last year. And was that really her, that person who loved shopping, turned her hair every color of the rainbow, and never missed a chance to hit the clubs? Becky hasn’t had her hair cut for ages. And her computer might as well be her best friend; they spend so much time together.
Spoiler alert: We helped Kate and her husband see each other’s side. We helped Ana embrace a new role in life. We helped John see in shades of gray. We helped Becky find life after death. We helped all four deal with their depression. And we can’t wait to help you too. Get ready to feel better.
GUY TALK: THE F-WORD
Hi, guys (and gals). I’m Dr. Ron Frey, and Guy Talk is the place where I help men — and the women who love them — make sense of the steps and strategies we present on these pages.
Here’s a friendly heads-up. A lot of what we’ll do together comes down to the F-word.
You know. Feelings.
For many guys, feelings are a foreign language. We’d rather drink, smoke, punch, run, shoot hoops, or yell than say we’re scared, lonely, angry, jealous, frustrated, disappointed, or hurt. We’re doers, not talkers. And those of us who like to talk usually steer clear of the personal stuff. But to feel better, men need to be able to recognize and talk about their feelings.
Many of my clients are male police officers and soldiers. They’re trained to deal with other people’s problems, not their own, and they work in very hierarchical, structured, controlled environments. Orders are issued. Rules are followed. Situations — and people — are either right or wrong. Bad days are choked down. So it’s no wonder that when a cop’s marriage is falling apart, his drinking is getting out of hand, or he’s arguing with his kids, he’s at a loss.
One police officer laid it on the line during our first session. “Dr. Frey,” he
