About Paul Elmore
Hi. I'm Paul.
I'm a counselor in Portland, OR, specializing in Sexual Abuse Recovery and Sexual Addiction. You can find out more about my education and experience here.
Failure 101 Rebroadcast—Episode 3
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When you’ve made mistakes over and over… and when you’ve experienced the pain, disappointment, and frustration that follows those mistakes, it’s common to move into a place that says, “I don’t want to try anymore.”
New things become very uncomfortable.
And yet, without the willingness to step into new places and experiences, we end up stuck. Stale. Rotting.
In this episode, we discuss the necessity of taking risks, how to let go of control, and how to trust again, despite the reality that you still might make more mistakes and you still might get hurt.
Failure 101 Rebroadcast—Episode 2
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One of the painful consequences of failure is the impact it has on your self-perception. It can make you doubt yourself, your choices, your skills, your worth, and your value.
In essence, it’s a common belief that your mistakes make you a bad person.
Fortunately, that might not be totally true.
Unfortunately, that lie sets deep roots and can sometimes be a pain in the butt to break lose.
In this second episode of Failure 101 we talk about how to overcome failures and why it has such a profound impact on how you view yourself.
Failure101 Rebroadcast
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Three years ago I taught a series called Failure101. I thought I’d make it available again for those that may be new to my podcast or those that wanted to hear it again.
I hope you find it helpful.
P.S. If you haven’t yet, this is where you can subscribe to my podcast.
No One Likes To Fail
The bad news is, its part of the human condition and can’t be avoided.
You may have spent a lot of time and energy trying to avoid failure. You’re afraid if you fail it means you aren’t good enough (shame) or you won’t be accepted (conditional love).
Instead Of Being Afraid Of Failure, Wouldn’t It Be Nice To…
- … know how to learn from your mistakes.
- … separate who you are from what you’ve done.
- … know how to forgive yourself and others when mistakes are made.
Redeem Your Mistakes With Failure 101
The Failure 101 series looks at the common issues that are related to failing.
- Why failing hurts so much.
- Failures often shape how we view ourselves. Learn the difference between shame and guilt.
- Learning how to take healthy risks again after major failures.
- When we fail, we often pursue more control. Instead, learn how to truly live in grace.
- Failures often lead to conflict. Learn how to have productive fights.
- When others fail us, learn why and how to forgive (and how to forgive yourself).
- When failures can’t be fixed, learned how to grieve effectively.
Mother Teresa said…
“…our community is not composed of those who are already saints, but of those who are trying to become saints. Therefore, let us be extremely patient with each other’s faults and failures.”
Paul Harvey’s Things ToLearn
Again, more thoughts that are not my own, but important enough to share…
“
Paul Harvey writes…
— We tried so hard to make things better for our kids that we made them worse. For my grandchildren, I’d like better. I’d really like for them to know about hand-me-down clothes and homemade ice cream and leftover meatloaf sandwiches. I really would.— I hope you learn humility by being humiliated, and that you learn honesty by being cheated. I hope you learn to make your own bed and mow the lawn and wash the car.
— And I really hope nobody gives you a brand new car when you are sixteen.
— It will be good if at least one time you can see puppies born and your dog put to sleep. I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in.
— I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother. And it’s all right if you have to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he’s scared, I hope you let him.
— When you want to see a movie and your little brother wants to tag along, I hope you’ll let him. I hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely.
— On rainy days when you have to catch a ride, I hope you don’t ask your driver to drop you two blocks away so you won’t be seen riding with someone as un-cool as your Mom.
— If you want a slingshot, I hope your Dad teaches you how to make one instead of buying one. I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books. When you learn to use computers, I hope you also learn to add and subtract in your head.
— I hope you get teased by your friends when you have your first crush on a girl, and when you talk back to your mother that you learn what ivory soap tastes like.
— May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on a stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole. I don’t care if you try a beer once, but I hope you don’t like it. And if a friend offers you dope, I hope you realize he is not your friend.
— I sure hope you make time to sit on a porch with your Grandpa and go fishing with your Uncle. May you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays. I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball through your neighbor’s window and that she hugs you and kisses you at Christmastime when you give her a plaster mold of your hand.
— These things I wish for you – tough times and hard work, disappointment and happiness. To me, it’s the only way to appreciate life.”
Paul Harvey, Things to Learn
Waves Of Rest
People who are sitting in great pain experience waves of profound sadness and loss, fearing that they will be consumed.
And yet, the waves keep coming.
Unrelenting.
If this is you, I’d humbly ask you to consider that the waves are a blessing and part of an elegant design.
Waves provide reprieve.
They give you a chance to come up for breath.
If sadness came as a flood, and you experienced all the pain and loss at once, you would drown.
It would be unsurvivable.
Instead, you are given just as much as you can handle. And then you find rest for a few moments.
And when you are able, you accept your next portion.
Until there are no more waves.
And you find enduring peace.
And rest.
Have You Let Your Emotional Problems Define You?
When you are emotionally hurting there are lots of things you can do that will help you.
But there are also lots of things that can hurt you.
One of the biggest things is letting your problems identify you.
“…with emotional upheavals of this sort we typically do a funny thing. We let the incident define us… We completely identify with the problem.
With a rash we say, “I have a rash,” not “I am a rash.”
With an episode of sadness we do the exact opposite. We say, “I am depressed” instead of “I have sadness.” This is a huge difference and a huge problem.
The following is a mind-shifting article that every person who has been diagnosed with some “mental illness” or stuggles with emotional problems should read and share. It is written by Eric Maisel, Ph.D. and is taken from Psychology Toda (Link to original article).
Enjoy.
Can You Be Mentally Healthy and Hurting?
Let’s say that you’ve done a lot of personality work, growth work, and healing work on yourself and you feel that emotionally you’re in pretty good shape. Then something unfortunate happens. You’re hit with an episode of sadness, an incident of anxiety, a period of overwhelm, a stint of confusion, a bout of malaise, a meaning crisis, a week of upset. As much work as we do on ourselves, these events still do happen.
These emotional changes make themselves felt in very powerful and painful ways, just as a broken leg or a severe rash would. But with emotional upheavals of this sort we typically do a funny thing. We let the incident define us. We don’t “have a bout of sadness,” we “are depressed.” We completely identify with the problem. With a rash we say, “I have a rash,” not “I am a rash.” With an episode of sadness we do the exact opposite. We say, “I am depressed” instead of “I have sadness.” This is a huge difference and a huge problem.
Our current model of mental health and mental illness prevents us from speaking subtly or correctly about human emotional states. It misleads us on purpose into believing that when we experience emotional pain we have become “mentally ill.” The truth is quite different. We may be essentiallymentally healthy but dealing with a profound emotional problem, just as we may be essentiallyphysically healthy but dealing with a broken leg or a severe rash. “I am mentally healthy but currently experiencing emotional pain” is a very different reality from “I have the mental disorder of depression.”
It is certainly the case that the itchy rash may be the only thing on our mind. Still we do not choose to have it define us. We know that it would be a fundamental mistake and misunderstanding to say, “I am rash.” The sadness may likewise be the only thing on our mind and yet here we find it easy, and maybe even convenient, to say, “I am depressed.” It is almost as if we want to distance ourselves from the possibility that this sadness is caused by something that we might need to address.
Consider the following example. Picture someone who is deeply upset in an ongoing way because the actions of her youth have resulted in her inability to have children. She continues to grieve that loss, she continues to feel guilty about her part in the situation, and she continues to feel angry about how society and the people around her, including family members, contributed to her current reality. She is very strong and very healthy in many ways but this particular pain is never-ending.
In a real way this grief colors her days and makes her sadder (called “depression” in the inaccurate parlance of the medical model mental health industry) than she otherwise would be. At the same time she manifests emotional strength in all sorts of ways and actually feels good, except for this sadness. As it turns out, and really strangely enough, we do not have a way to talk about emotional situations of this sort. With physical problems we use language to make exactly these sorts of distinctions and with emotional problems we do not.
With physical problems we say, “I’m feeling just fine except that I’m dealing with a broken arm.” We say, “My health has never been better but this allergy season is killing me!” We say, “I am bothered by a chronic neck ache from sitting at the computer for so many hours each day and I’m doing exercises to help with that but otherwise I feel just fine.” That is, with physical ailments we have a way of distinguishing a particular problem from our general state of being. With emotional states we don’t.
We are not accustomed to saying and don’t seem to want to say, “I am feeling emotionally very well except that I am currently sad.” We are not accustomed to saying and don’t seem to want to say, “I am feeling emotionally very well but I still get anxious when I think about flying.” In the first instance we say “I’m depressed” and in the second instance we say “I’m phobic,” perhaps not quite realizing what a disservice we are doing ourselves by characterizing ourselves in such globally disabled ways.
By saying “I’m depressed,” “I’m attention deficit disordered,” “I’m phobic,” “I’m anxious,” and so on, we not only do a poor job of honoring our wellness but we may completely forget about that wellness and begin to see ourselves as essentially not well, as opposed to essentially well but burdened by issues that need attention. Yes, it is odd and cumbersome to say “I am sad but essentially well” or “I am anxious but essentially well” but if that is the truth, if in fact we are emotionally in pretty good shape except for some current sadness or some current anxiety, then it pays us to honor that reality and remind ourselves of the well part as well as thecurrent difficulty.
This odd, cumbersome but truthful way of speaking to yourself will help remind you that this is quite likely a passing event (though of course it may be very painful and though of course it may reoccur) and that, as a real but passing event like a broken arm or a case of poison ivy it must be addressed. If, for example, this episode of sadness is being caused by your sense that neither you nor your efforts matter, if, that is, you are experiencing a meaning crisis and an episode of existential sadness, then that must be addressed. It will not pay you to just mouth the words, “I am depressed.”
It is possible to envision many varieties of mental health that mirror more closely how people actually live and actually feel. The one I’ve just described, of a woman plagued by regrets and sadness about her infertility but who is also emotionally healthy and strong, we might call “healthy but in recurring emotional pain.” This is as much a state of health as it is of illness. Her basic emotional strength must be honored just as her enduring pain must be addressed. She is not “mentally ill,” she is a healthy person in real pain. There is a difference!
Counselors Are Like Mayonnaise
You don’t want to skimp on the quality of your counselor just because they’re cheap or just around the corner.
Like mayonnaise and socks, find the really good ones. You’ll be happier in the long run.
When’s The Last Time You Played Video Games?
For Christmas, my sons got an Xbox. It’s now almost 12 days after Christmas and they’re finally starting to emerge from they cyber-coma.
Being the good dad that I am, I decided to try and play one of their games with them.
(An important side note is to explain that I’m not one of those cool dads that play video games for fun. I seemed to have missed the video game gene and can usually play them for only a few minutes before I start wondering what’s the point.)
I asked that they go easy on me, and start on the beginning levels using the easiest settings… Sort of like going bowling with the bumpers up.
Within the first few seconds it became obvious that a significant power shift was happening. Dad, the all-knowing wise one is now “as smart as a brick” (direct quote from my son.)
And so, the nick name has stuck. Dad, The Brick.
But this Brick is still capable of learning… not much about video games, but about the wisdom of my children.
Even though I don’t understand the attraction of the videos game, it’s blatantly obvious that these games require a tremendous amount of skill, strategy, knowledge, ingenuity, team work, memory, and patience… all the things I would like to see developed in my boys.
Their creativity is what surprises me the most.
They introduced me to the game Minecraft. If you’re not familiar with the game, it’s a “Sandbox” game where they get to build their own world using raw materials they dig up, or mine, from the earth.
My boys have spent hours on the game. They’ve talked and researched and studied Minecraft until their fingers have bled.
And they’ve taken hours trying to explain Minecraft to me… to no avail.
And then I took the time to enter into their world, literally, to see what they have been doing.
And what I found astounded me.
My intelligent children have built multiple cities, block by block. They’ve built secret tunnels and traps to protect their creations. They’ve worked together to share resources and supplies to make the entire environment work for everyone. They’ve demonstrated creativity beyond their years, on the same caliber as any of the worlds greatest architects.
They’re simply amazing.
And I’ve been missing it.
Because I’m not “a video game guy” I’ve dismissed their efforts and achievements. Because their affinities didn’t line up with mine, I’ve missed watching their minds develop and grow. Because I’ve been too lazy to learn something new, I’ve been isolated from the young men I am personally charged with to shape and direct in this life.
But no more.
The Brick is going to humble himself, get schooled over and over by his 10, 13, and 15 year old Masters and absorb every second of enjoying my sons.
They may not be like me, but I can learn to be more like them.
Blessing Your Children
When I was a little kid, my parents told me that I was good at art. Whether or not I actually WAS good at art doesn’t matter. Because they told me I was, I believed them and started BEING artistic.
Now, as an adult, I have gone through life with a higher level of confidence in my artistic ability. I risk more artistically. I try things I wouldn’t normally try, simply because I have more confidence that it might work out.
My parents blessed me. Literally.
They spoke a word of blessing over my life that I have enjoyed and reaped the benefits from.
Curses work the same way… but to the detriment of our children.
As parents, we can speak things into existence in our children’s lives. What we tell them, they will believe… They will live out… They will create in their lives.
Have you blessed or cursed your children? Have you actually believed in them and seen hope in their lives? Do you see them as more than they ARE at this moment?
Remember, they will live up to the things you’ve been telling them.
