PART IWhat Is Self-Coaching?71A New Self-Therapyhy are you reading this book? Maybe you worry too much, or per-haps lately you’ve been struggling with panicky, out-of-control feelingsthat leave you anxious and frustrated. You may snap at others. Perhapsyour sleep isn’t what it used to be, and you always seem to be in a badmood. Maybe you’ve become depressed; you feel tired, hopeless, or justplain defeated. Sometimes you want to give up.You may feel confused, but one thing you’re sure of. Life’s not sup-posed to be this hard. You want answers—now! The last thing youwant is to waste time.So let’s get started. The following self-quiz will show you how youcan benefit from this book.WIs Self-Coaching for Me?Identify each sentence as either mostly true or mostly false:TTTTTTFFFFFFI often start my thoughts with “what if.”I usually see the glass as being half empty.I worry too much.I’m often fatigued.I have difficulty concentrating.I have trouble meeting deadlines.9SELF-COACHINGTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFI worry about my health.I generally feel as if I’m on edge.I’m often sad.I have trouble falling asleep.I have trouble trusting my perceptions (e.g., Did Ilock that door? Did I talk too much?).I have too much doubt.I would say I’m insecure.I wake up too early.My worst time of the day is mornings.I dread having things go wrong.I’m too concerned with my looks.I have to have things done my way.I can’t relax.I’m never on time.You can never be safe enough.I exaggerate problems.I experience panic.I feel safest when I’m in bed.I’m too sensitive.I often wish I were someone else.I fear growing older.Life is one problem after another.I don’t have much hope of feeling better.I constantly fidget.I’m prone to road rage.I have phobias (e.g., intense fear of closed spaces,bridges, open spaces, social encounters).10A New Self-TherapyTotal your “true” responses. A score of 12 or fewer suggests that youare a relatively well-adjusted individual. Self-coaching can teach you toshake off life’s setbacks. You can expect your social and personal effec-tiveness to improve as you begin to become less tripped-up by emo-tional interference. Mostly, you can expect to enhance your alreadyhealthy personality with a more dynamic approach to life.A score between 13 and 22 suggests that you have a moderatedegree of personality erosion. Self-coaching can quickly and simplyteach you to get beyond the self-limiting effects of anxiety or depres-sion, realizing a more spontaneous, natural way of life.If your score was above 22, you have significant difficulty with anx-iety and/or depression. For you, Self-coaching needs to become a pri-ority. With patience and practice, you can learn to live your lifesymptom free.As beleaguered as you are, I don’t expect you to be convinced easily.For now, just recognize that regardless of how anxious or depressed you are, something in you is managing to read these words. That some-thing, the part of you that hasn’t quit, that healthy part of your person-ality that’s still willing to try to solve the riddle that has become your life—that’s the healthy person in you that Self-coaching wants toreach.Self-Coaching, the ProgramIt took me twenty-three years of clinical work to write this book. That’snot because I’m particularly slow or lazy (far from it), but because ittakes a long time, a really long time, to see through the deceptive mistthat shrouds anxiety and depression. What’s interesting, once youunderstand the nature of faulty perceptions, is that anxiety and depres-sion actually begin to make sense. As irrational as your particularsymptoms may feel, when you learn the punch line, the riddle becomesapparent. You’ll see. These insights were the catalyst for a new form oftherapy I developed to teach patients what they could do to makethemselves better. (I dislike the term “patient,” but I like “client” evenless, so I’ll use “patient” throughout the book.) I consider this method,11SELF-COACHINGwhich I call Self-coaching (Self, with a capital S), my most significantaccomplishment.Symptoms of anxiety and depression are parts of normal day-to-dayliving. Getting uptight if you’re late for an appointment or feelingupset over an argument with a friend are inescapable parts of life. Theproblems occur when your anxiety and depression progress to a pointbeyond your immediate life circumstances, so that these feelings floatfor days, weeks, or months.As a psychologist, the talent I value most is my intuition. Intuitionis the ability, as Carl Gustav Jung once said, to see around corners. Incontrast to the intellect, intuition is much less deliberate—it just hap-pens. When it comes to psychology, strong intuitions are about asimportant as a telescope is to an astronomer. Just as the surface of themoon turns into pockmarked craters under a telescope’s magnification,intuition can begin to reveal the hidden aspects of anxiety or depression.Once I had magnified my view of anxiety and depression, I foundmyself reacting to my patients differently. Instead of treating them ina traditionally passive way, I responded to them in an active, ratherspirited way. This wasn’t a conscious or deliberate strategy. I justallowed my intuition to guide me. With depressed patients, for exam-ple, I sensed that they were missing a vital energy necessary to combattheir difficulties. Using my energy, my optimism, and my enthusiasm,I would model the attitude necessary to conquer the negativity, despair,and inertia. Essentially, I was reflecting what I perceived to be lackingin my patients.With anxiety patients, I followed my intuition, too. For thesepatients I became the voice of encouragement and conviction. I pushedhard for courage and risk taking against life’s worries and fears. Anxi-ety-prone people need to overcome self-doubt while building trust inthemselves.Both anxiety and depression are weeds that grow from the fertilesoil of insecurity. So I became a role model of a can-do attitude. With-out inner confidence, everything becomes a struggle.I realized that my new approach was a dramatic departure from themore traditional therapeutic methods I usually employed, yet I12A New Self-Therapycouldn’t seem to put my finger on exactly what it was that I was doing.One day, while working with a young man who had been strugglingwith anxiety and panic attacks, I heard myself telling him, “You keeplooking to me to make your anxiety go away. I can’t do that for you.Think of me more as your coach than your psychologist.” There it was.I was coaching!—not analyzing, not passively listening, not reflecting.I was coaching strength, confidence, and a sense of empowerment. Mypatient quickly and easily related to this simple concept. Rather thanseeing me as parent-authority-healer, he clearly understood my new,revitalized role—I was coaching hisefforts, hisdetermination, andmost importantly hisneed to overcome anxiety and depression.The ease with which my patient and I progressed convinced me thatapproaching problems as a coach rather than a therapist could have far-reaching implications. By coaching the healing attitude that was miss-ing in my patients, and using a fail-safe technique I call Self-talk, theywere able to stop anxiety and depression where it began, in thethoughts that preceded and fertilized these conditions. Self-talkis amethod of replacing faulty, destructive thinking with healthy, liberatedthinking. This method was first introduced in my book Healing YourHabits, where I called it “Directed Imagination.”It doesn’t matter whether you’re exercising to lose a few pounds,working to improve fitness through power walking, or preparing as aserious athlete for a big race, effective training always involvesfollowinga program of repetition and progressive effort. Psychological training isno different—requiring repetition and progressive effort. Self-talk willbecome the core of your training program, demanding a similar com-mitment—no magic, no gifts, no abracadabra insights, just plain oldhard work—hard work that pays off.As I continued to develop my program, I found that the concept oftraining was particularly appealing to my highly motivated anxiety-prone patients. They usually struggle with traditional therapy’s passiveapproach, especially when they aren’t seeing results. A well-thought-outtraining program was clearly something they could sink their teeth into.Depressed people face a different challenge. Depression makes ithard to muster the energy to do anything. How could I motivate13SELF-COACHINGdepressed patients to want to train? Depression is like driving a carwith one foot on the gas (i.e., healthy desires) and one foot on thebrake (i.e., negative distortions)—you’re forever feeling stuck, frus-trated, and discouraged. I knew that if my method was going to be suc-cessful, the training program had to offer release from the brakingeffects of depression—and that’s exactly what happened. By replacingnegative thoughts with more objective, reality-based thinking, Self-talk, in combination with a coached attitude of optimism, made thedifference. Once patients got a taste of being unstuck, the necessarymotivation for continued training was no longer a problem.This training approach to therapy also explains why results are con-tingent not on therapeutic insights and aha! experiences, but on con-sistent, daily workouts using my Self-talk approach. If you walked intoa gym expecting that ten minutes on the treadmill would take twoinches off your waist, no doubt you’d be very discouraged. In contrast,what if you approached the treadmill with a more realistic attitude,combined with a genuine desire to begin training? First off, you’d real-ize that one treadmill session is just that, one treadmill session. Onlyafter repeated training sessions over time would you begin to reap theaccumulated benefits of your efforts—but the benefits would come.Whether in the gym or in therapy, a training approach both requiresand teaches three essential things:1.Patience2.Realistic understanding of the dynamics of change3.Self-relianceThis coaching/training program, using my Self-talk technique forbreaking destructive thought patterns, became the heart and soul of thebook you hold in your hands—with, of course, one major modifica-tion. Rather than having me be your coach, you become your owncoach, directing your own liberation. Understand that the potential forhealing, real healing, always resides within you. Remember, the bestpsychologist in the world can’t make you better. No one can. Only youcan, and Self-coaching will teach you how.14A New Self-TherapyBecoming a Self-CoachNoticing how quickly and easily my patients responded to coaching, Iwondered how effective this method would be in a self-help format.Could what I was doing for my patients be presented in a book? Hadit not been for a cousin who asked me what she could do for her anx-iety, I might not have pursued this possibility. I discussed my techniqueof Self-talk with her and gave her a number of the handouts I had pre-pared for my patients, describing a few simple strategies and exercises.When she called me a few months later reporting that her anxiety wasgone, I was more convinced than ever that coaching could, in fact,make the transition to Self-coaching. It didn’t take me long to makemy final decision to start writing, but what finally convinced me wasn’tmy cousin’s success.I Think I Can, I Thought I CouldSomewhere back in my late thirties I had an inexplicable urge to runthe New York City Marathon. I couldn’t tell you why I wanted to runit. Maybe I did because it just sounded so impossible—26 miles! Per-haps I just wanted to know whether I had it in me. Whatever the rea-son, I decided to give it a shot. I didn’t give my training much thought.After all, I had been a recreational, couple-of-miles-a-day jogger foryears, what could be the problem? You just run longer and longer dis-tances. Right?Fast forward six months.The first couple of hours of the marathon were terrific. I was high-fiving the kids along Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue, enjoying the crowd,my adrenalin, and the race. Why hadn’t I done this before? By the thirdhour however, more than halfway through the race and chuggingthrough Queens, my high-fiving long since abandoned, I began tonotice a deepening fatigue. Four hours into the race, the Bronx beganto fade as all my attention became focused on the squish, squish of blis-ters. The fatigue that began ten miles earlier had become all consum-ing by the fifth hour as I entered Central Park. My mind was taken15SELF-COACHINGover by a survival instinct that sought only to stop the pain and cramp-ing. Somehow, I hung on and finished, five hours and twenty minutesafter I had started. I shuffled through the chutes at the end of the race,trying not to think about the preceding three hours of my life.After recovering for a few months (months in which I vowed never,ever to entertain the notion of running another race), I began talkingto a friend who had run the same marathon at a much more respectablepace. He couldn’t believe that I did all my training on the track.“What, no hill work? No speed work?” I realized how terribly flawedmy training had been. I also realized that some things in life aren’tapparent—at least not at first.More months passed. I came across a great book written by two former coaches and marathoners The Competitive Runner’s Handbook.The book explained and analyzed elements of training in a compre-hensive program. In spite of my resolve never to think about anothermarathon, I found myself devouring the book. I began to understandwhy my legs had become stiff, why I had cramped, why I had fallenapart the last half of the race, and even why my feet had blistered.These problems, I learned, could all be eliminated by proper training.Given the proper program to follow, it should be possible to overcomethe breakdowns that I had experienced. What had been a humiliatingand chaotic experience could actually be deciphered, anticipated, pre-pared for, and—most importantly—conquered. I liked that. I waseager to put my self-coaching to the test.To date, I’ve run three marathons, and I’m currently training formy fourth. My times have dropped, not by minutes, but by hours. IfI say so myself, I’ve learned a lot about self-coaching. My self-coachedmarathon experiences proved invaluable as I pondered the possibilityof putting my experience coaching patients into a Self-coached format.Whether you’re anxious or depressed, Self-coaching can teach youhow to do what’s necessary to eliminate your problems. Our minds, aswell as our bodies, deteriorate if we allow ourselves to follow destruc-tive patterns. That’s what anxiety and depression are. They are pat-162The Seven Principles ofSelf-Coaching HealingThe heart and soul of Self-coached healing can be condensed intoseven basic principles. Although you’ve already had an overview ofthese ideas in Chapter 1, now, as your training gets underway, you willconsolidate them into specific principles to support all your trainingefforts. With practical, daily use, these truths will become more appar-ent. For now, in preparation for the training that’s ahead, it’s importantthat you gain a feel for these principles. I recommend that you writethese seven principles down on a slip of paper and keep them in yourwallet or purse. Occasionally, just read through the list, allowing your-self to absorb them and reflect on them. As soon as you have a casual,working awareness of them, you’re ready to begin Part II—the prob-lems Self-coaching can heal.Principle 1: Everyone Has a Legacy of Insecurity, the Insecure ChildGrowing up human means growing up with some degree of insecurity.It’s inevitable. Children are ill equipped to cope with—much less makesense of—early traumas, conflicts, misunderstandings, or loss. Whenchildren feel out of control and vulnerable, they resort to any strategythat offers relief: tantrums, whining, sulking—whatever works. Theseare primitive tactics designed to reduce vulnerability by gaining morecontrol.19SELF-COACHINGOver time, your strategies as a child become habits, and your per-sonality is shaped accordingly. These habits make your here-and-nowthinking—when threatened—become primitive and coarse, reminis-cent of your earliest struggles. With practice, you can begin to beattuned to these simple-minded, tormented reactions to life. I call the“voice” in you that spews fear and panic the Insecure Child. Differen-tiating your Insecure Child’s voice from your healthy thinking is thefirst step to a more mature, liberated, healthy life.Chapter 3 will introduce you to a technique called Self-talk, whichwill teach you how to break the habit of listening to the dictates of yourInsecure Child.Principle 2: Thoughts Precede Feelings, Anxieties, and DepressionsMost people, when it comes to feeling anxious or depressed, see them-selves as victims: “She called me a jerk, so of course I’m depressed.Wouldn’t you be?” or “See, now you got me upset. Are you satisfied?”or “How could you stay out so late? I was worried sick.” Victims feelthey have no choice; someone or something is always “making” themworry, panic, get upset, or unhappy. “How can I stop worrying? Withmy crazy job, I have no choice!”Sometimes, when a mood or anxiety seems to appear withoutrhyme or reason, you feel like a victim of fate: “I wasn’t doing anything,I was just driving to work and I got this panic attack.” When feelinglike a victim, it never occurs to you that you can do anything abouthow you feel.Once you realize that thoughts precede feelings, you can understandthat you’re not powerless. There is something you can do. You canchange how you think and simultaneously discover that you’re begin-ning to feel better. Self-coaching can teach you how to take responsi-bility for your thoughts and change that victim attitude—especially thethoughts produced by your Insecure Child. If left unchallenged, yourInsecure Child will ruin your life. Learning to challenge the primitivethoughts of your Insecure Child is how you’ll reclaim your life.20The Seven Principles of Self-Coaching HealingPrinciple 3: Anxiety and Depression Are MisguidedAttempts to Control LifeWhen insecurity leaves you feeling vulnerable and helpless, anxiety anddepression are nothing more than misguided attempts to regain con-trol. Anxiety does this through an expenditure of energy (worry, panic,rumination, “what-iffing,” etc.), depression by a withdrawal of energy(isolation and withdrawal, fatigue, avoidance, not caring, etc.). Unfor-tunately, rather than helping, anxiety and depression become part ofthe problem, a big part.It may seem strange to view anxiety and depression as coping strate-gies trying to protect you from perceived harm. Rather than copingstrategies, you can view them as “controlling strategies.” Anxiety mobi-lizes all your anticipatory resources trying to brace (i.e., control) youfor a collision. Depression, on the other hand, controls through disen-gagement from what you perceive as a threat. Whether you wind updepressed or anxious really isn’t important—either way, you lose.Either way, you’re being duped by your Insecure Child.Principle 4: Control Is an Illusion, Not an AnswerInsecurity creates a feeling of vulnerability. When you feel vulnerable,wanting to be in control seems like a natural, constructive desire. Itmay start out as a constructive desire, but a controlled life alwaysinvites anxiety and depression. Insecurity is greedy: The more controlyou have, the more you seek. Nothing ever makes you feel secureenough. You’re doomed to chase control’s carrot. As you grow desper-ate and pursue your “carrots” with increased agitation, you can’t helpbut notice that depression and anxiety are becoming permanent fix-tures in your life.The truth is that life cannot be controlled. What confuses most isthe fact that control does give temporary relief. If you’ve managed tomanipulate or cajole life into appearing tamed and controlled, you dofeel relief—for the moment. When you’re desperate, this temporaryrelief is spelled with a capital “R.” If you’re honest, however, you know21SELF-COACHINGthat control is only and always an illusion. Like the eye of a hurricane,it’s a false sense of calm before the remainder of the storm.If controlling life is an impossibility—nothing more than a dan-gling carrot—then what’s the answer? The answer is to resurrect a feel-ing of self-trust and confidence so that instead of controlling life, weare courageous enough just to live it.Principle 5: Insecurity Is a Habit, and Any Habit Can Be BrokenYou weren’t born insecure; you learned it. Because children are illequipped to adequately cope with early traumas, conflicts, misunder-standings, or loss, some amount of insecurity is inescapable. We learnself-doubt and self-distrust, and if these destructive attitudes are rein-forced, they become habits. Habits are difficult to break because, likeany muscle, given enough exercise, they grow in strength.Self-coaching will give you the strength, technique, and willpowerto break your habits of insecurity. Start convincing yourself now thatwhat you learned can be unlearned. No question about it—any habitcan be broken. All that’s needed is a plan, a little patience, and a Self-coached determination.Principle 6: Healthy Thinking Is a ChoiceYoumay not realize it (not yet), but you have a choice not to be ham-mered by anxiety or depression. Perhaps you can’t control thoughts frompopping into your mind, but you don’t have to follow them around likean obedient puppy. If, for example, you have the thought, “I can’t do it; I’m going to fail,” you’re obviously being challenged by yourInsecure Child. Here is where you have the choice. Do you continuewith this thought, “What if I fail? What will I do? This is terrible . . . ,”or do you stop the Insecure Child in her or his tracks? If you realize youhave a choice, then you can insist, “This is my Insecure Child talking,and I refuse to listen. I choosenot to be bullied by these thoughts.” Self-talk will make it crystal clear how you build the necessary muscle tochoose healthy thinking.22The Seven Principles of Self-Coaching HealingPrinciple 7: A Good Coach Is a Good MotivatorThe best coach in the world must also be a good motivator. Technique,skill, and conditioning will get you so far, but without proper motiva-tion, your results will be disappointing. Nowhere is this more impor-tant than in Self-coached healing. If you’re suffering from anxiety ordepression, then your Insecure Child has all the muscle (i.e., habitstrength). This puts your emotional health at a grave disadvantage.Why? Because your Child has been constantly undermining yourattempts to feel better. In order to turn the tide—building healthymuscle/habit to resist the distortions of insecurity—you must keepyourself pumped up for the challenge.You’re going to learn to disregard your Insecure Child’s resistance,using Self-coaching tools to bring out the best in yourself. Fighting thegood fight requires two things: the right attitude and proper motiva-tion. Attitude is simply having the right, positive frame of mind, andmotivation is infusing this can-do attitude with energy. Motivation iswhat allows you to sustain your efforts and go the distance. Start shift-ing that attitude right now. Begin with some positive affirmations—“I’m going to beat this.”✤✤✤TRAININGSUGGESTIONBecause anxiety and depression have a tendency to confuse anddisorient you, be sure to write down these seven principles on aslip of paper. You might find it helpful in moments of stress or struggle toread through the list. These principles will become your mantrafor success. Read and repeat them to yourself often.✤✤✤23