Resources

You need to get enough and get better sleep, improve your diet, exercise, learn to meditate to reduce your stress, work on your connections to other people, resolve your past and future and have therapy.

Start now

We recommend that you begin by monitoring where you are now. Our e-book Take Charge Of Your Life contains some simple charts you can use to see where you are at. See the side margin for details and a sample. Or sign up for therapy and you will receive a copy for free.

Here are the reasons you need to start doing this

You will reduce your stress, and thus, give yourself the chance to actually change the things that are bothering you.

By doing these types of activities, with yourself, or with someone else, you will change your way of being with your self, and being with others, that will make profound differences in who you are being.

Most importantly, it gives a clear and direct signal to yourself that you are taking control of you – now – that you are no longer running away from yourself or from what is bothering you and that you are going to make your life to better. Instead of just wishing for things to change, you are actually changing the things that you want to change. You are in control of you. No one else. Just you. You are not in control of anyone else. Everyone has autonomy for themselves. You cannot change anyone (not for long). No one can change you (not for long, not really). You need to start now. Doing a few physical things to show yourself that you are back in the driver seat will start you on the road to making the difference that you need, for you (and by changing you, you will influence others to change themselves, for their self).

Look at your reasons for doing things. Are you eating lot of sugar becausse you crave stimulation and you are not getting the fulfillment you need in your life? Are you a "stim junkie"?

Balance. It is not just about finding your center again, but finding a balance for yourself between the confusions in your life.

We say we all want change. No cost. No hassle. No time. But our choices really are, what are we really willing to take control of ourselves (not of anyone else in our life's, but us), to make that positive shift happen? It takes effort to get healthy and to stay healthy.

It is up to us to start to make things happen for ourselves. As a therapist, I can help, but you have to, on some level, start to want change, for change to start to happen for you. None of the principles below will be enough of what you want to grow and change for yourself, but they are a start on the path back to you. Each one of any and all of the exercises can be both a tool to help you grow, and a weapon against yourself.

So these are the basics. This is what I say to just about every person who walks in my door. This is what I have said to my mother. Start here. It won't solve all your problems, but it will put you back in the road to being in control of you.

But be careful of turning these changes into a weapon against yourself. Cleaning up your diet is great – but living only for food, only to eat, is getting lost. Stress reduction is essential – joining a cult is not. Exercising is fantastic way to treat depression and many other things, but if you exercise too much, you will just get hurt and this will take you away from what you needed to feel in the first place. Sleeping all day is just getting lost. The word is, "balance", "balance" for you, you, now.

Window dressing

It is not enough to change the plates on the table, when the whole meal doesn't work. It is not enough to change just a little, when a radical overhaul is what's required. It is another way to run away, to change a little something, when a lot of the right thing is required.

Stop. Stop. Stop with all your destructive habits. You are not a child anymore, so stop running away from what you need to do for you - be it stopping the drugs and alcohol or just not being so self-indulgent. Come back to who you need you to be, for you, now.

Other resources

We can refer you to a number of excellent resources such as websites and books on a range of topics. If you require information about a particular concern, please email us .

What should I do next?

Contact us to arrange for face to face therapy in Chicago (city, north, west and southsides) and in the Northern, Southern and Western Suburbs or online therapy in other areas by phoning 1-888-870-1775 or by contacting us.