KURT FROST psychotherapy

Author: Kurt Frost

  • Failure of Awareness

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    We tend to focus most on our strengths and things within our awareness. Whatever is the most developed part of ourselves tends to lead our experience through life. E.g. Someone who has a rational, intellectual view of situations will tend to be rewarded for this awareness, because it worked for them, and do it more in the future. This just reinforces that trait and tends to weaken other ones that we may pass over from lack of use. Over time, this helps us to build a toolkit of traits that we identify as “us” but not necessarily all that is open to us.

    The same can be said for our weaknesses. We may know that we do this or that, but if we do not take the time to look into it further, they will keep doing their things below the surface. This is because we are still relying on the objects in our awareness of ourselves and the world as we know it and not the bigger picture of what our and the greater reality is. In short, what we don’t know about ourselves controls us.

    It takes a fairly insightful person to stop and wonder what they might be missing or not understanding. The question is then, how do we become aware of the things we are not aware of? There are many ways to increase awareness, but here are a few thoughts:

    • See what others keep telling you about yourself or complain about you.
      • How others experience us is also not the whole picture, but it is often a perspective we had not considered.
    • See what upsets or emotionally triggers you.
      • If you don’t know why you are emotionally reacting in a certain way, there is most likely a story under the surface that you have not delved deep enough into yet. Even if you think you know why you feel or react in a certain way, there probably are aspects of it that you can unravel more fully.
    • See where you are having problems in your life or what roadblocks seem to keep appearing in front of you.
      • The patterns of conflict and struggle in our lives tend to follow a certain pattern. See if you can tease out what that pattern is and try something different.
    • Meditate
      • Find a practice to inquire into your thoughts. Through continued practice, this is a well-established way to peel away at your layers of self-identification, like an onion.
    • Question everything.
      • Don’t take this to the level of neuroticism or paranoia, but don’t take it for granted that what you believe, what you trust is happening, what is “true”, etc is necessarily the case. Ask questions to yourself and others to see if there are other perspectives that you have not considered.

    Again, this is not a definitive list, but merely a few ideas to consider. A good exercise would be to ask yourself in what ways you could delve a little deeper into yourself. You and those in your world will be happier for it. Let me know what you come up with!

  • Getting to Completion with “Topic Lock”

    Getting to Completion with “Topic Lock”

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    Choices are hard, yet seductive. I like to “keep my options open”, but this usually ends up with me procrastinating and not getting things done. There are many things that get in the way of completing work, but usually committing to too much is pretty high on the list.

    In his podcast, Cortex, CGP Grey talks about his yearly theme of “clearing the decks” and this intriguing idea of “topic lock”. It is not complex, mostly that he commits to doing 3 projects at a time and all offshoot ideas that come from these projects need to “go back below decks”.

    It is really just having good boundaries.

    I am working to compartmentalize my multitude of projects and, worse, ideas for projects, but my plan is to focus on fewer projects, with an emphasis on completion. My getting this post out of my head/Evernote and in a public space is a good start!

    You can listen to the full podcast in the player below or just the segment that I am referring to.

    178: The Process of Investigative Reporting, With Jason Schreier – Cortex

    Myke talks to Jason Schreier of Bloomberg about the realities of reporting – how stories start, how sources are built, and how he balances fast-moving news with the slower, deeper work of writing books.
  • What Makes Difficult Conversations Difficult

    What Makes Difficult Conversations Difficult

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Some conversations are much harder to have than others. I have quite a few books on communication and some specifically on difficult conversations, but I had not quite thought of exactly why this is so. Then, listening to Seth Godin this morning, he hit it right on the head by saying that some conversations are more difficult than others because in the difficult ones we want two things, not one.

    …we want someone to change and we want them to like it; we want someone to stop doing something and we want them to not be mad at us; we want someone to change their behaviour and we still want them to be our friend…”

    Seth Godin on Akimbo – Difficult Conversations

    Seth has some good suggestions on how to look at these conversations differently (and the podcast explains them well), but my sense of it is that we need to be clear on what our goal of having this difficult conversation is and why it is important for us to have it. When we are clear on this what and why it will be easier for us to move into this difficult conversation because we are removing, or at least lessening our attachment to, our secondary goal (sometimes called a competing commitment).

    It is important to understand this inner conflict more. The first part of these “two things” is behavioural: we want something to be different. The second part is interpersonal or emotional: we want to preserve a relationship or not feel bad. We want the first part because of some boundary that has been crossed that is important to us. Our concern over the “second thing” is because we either are concerned about the relationship to the other person will be harmed or we are worried there might be some backlash that will harm us (more specifically hurt our feelings or ego).

    Once we get clear what it is we need and why it is important to do the “first thing” (set the boundary), it should be easier for us to realize that the “second thing” is more of a distorted thought rooted in fear. If we handle the “first thing” in the difficult conversation well – be clear, concise, and not emotionally reactive – we will be less attached to the outcome of how another responds to our concerns. Also, it may occur to us that we may be not jeopardizing a relationship by bringing this up, but honouring or strengthening it. You obviously care enough to bring it up, so the other person may recognize and appreciate this.

    It is never easy to have difficult conversations, but we need to be mindful to not let our own fears muddy our perception of them. By dispassionately working to resolve conflict we can, funny enough, tend to have less of it, both with others and within ourselves.

  • The Sounds of My Youth

    The Sounds of My Youth

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Star Wars occupied most of my childhood. The original film was released when I was 5 years old and, after seeing that, Luke Skywalker, tie fighters and Wookies consumed the majority of my brother, Stefan, and my waking hours… during our sleeping hours, we had The Empire Strikes Back sheets!

    It is a movie with very well designed and unique sounds: R2D2 beeps and boops, lightsaber hums and the terrifyingly unmistakable scream of the tie fighter are just a few of the obvious ones. We used to imitate them as we played and Stefan and I can still identify key parts of the movies blindfolded by just hearing the sound effects or music.

    With this history (or misspent youth) I was super pumped to have one of my favourite podcasts, Twenty Thousand Hertz, do an episode on the backstories of many of the key sounds from the Star Wars movies. They interview Ben Burtt, the sound designer who worked with George Lucas to define these iconic sounds and it was fascinating to hear where they came from. I have known some of this history from previous nerdy pursuits, but it was great to hear it from the guy who actually created them and get to hear, from a sound design perspective, how it was done, layer by layer.

    If you love Star Wars too, this is a must-listen. If you don’t, you still may like the show, but, frankly, you have bigger problems. 😉

    Listen on Overcast

  • A Little Bit of Structure Helps the Day Run Smoothly

    A Little Bit of Structure Helps the Day Run Smoothly

    Reading Time: 5 minutes

    If you don’t know where you are going, then any road will get you there.

    paraphrased from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland

    In our last Men in Captivity call, the idea of the importance of having a schedule or structure to our day came up. Though individual experiences are different, many of us are finding that the routines of our pre-lockdown life have gone out the window and it can be easy to allow ourselves to free-float through our days. This attitude is not bad if you’re taking some vacation time and want to just “do nothing” for a while, but this hedonistic reprieve wears thin quickly, giving rise to boredom and unhelpful habits taking root.

    Living between your best & worst

    Without some boundaries for your time and activities, you are relying on the comfort seeking and “old habits” part of you to direct your day. If you think of yourself as a collection of behaviours or selves – with you as your best self leading the way towards your ideals and your worst self coming at life from your base emotions and impulses – you mindlessly floating through your day, doing what comes naturally, is going to most likely be unconsciously pulling ideas from much lower down the food chain of your best-worst self.

    Then, as you persist in these less helpful habits, it will tend to affect your mood. You might feel bored or be annoyed that you did not get done what you had hoped. This then triggers more unconscious behaviours (dig into more junky, comfort foods and watch another season of something on Netflix) and the cycle continues.

    Don’t get the idea that if you are not operating as your best self that things will go to hell. Similarly, if you have really “let yourself go” and feel you are off track, it doesn’t mean that you are beyond redemption. It is a spectrum. Just as your best self is an ideal you can look to and move towards and your worst self is a move towards Darth Vader impulses, how you show up at any given moment will be somewhere between the two extremes. The point is to not focus on what “perfect you” could be doing or on how bad things could possibly get, but to mindfully inquire where you’re at now and see what one step better would look like.

    Finding your way out…

    While the solution to this problem doesn’t need to be scheduling every moment of your day, at least some boundaries around how and when to use your time will go a long way to making you feel more accomplished. It will also ensure you are looking after what is important to you.

    I came away from the group call with a few key points that I have been trying to put into practice this week. Maybe you will find them helpful too:

    1. Be easy on yourself. You might be feeling only at 60% of what you used to feel like before the pandemic. Recognize this and understand that this might be where you need to be right now. If you want to up your game, ask yourself what 65% might feel like and make some small steps today to do it.
    2. Plan ahead what you want to do. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. Loosely plan out your day with a few key things you want to get done. This can be done on a calendar or even as a simple pen and paper to-do list.
    3. Complete tasks, not projects. A single project can have many tasks, but we often start a project with the goal of finishing it now. Instead, break the project down into manageable task chunks and pick one of those tasks to work on. If you finish it, pat yourself on the back and decide if you want to take on another one or leave that project for another day.
    4. Know what is doable. Don’t schedule yourself like a robot. Be realistic about how long each task should take, considering the time you have, your energy levels and motivation that day. Again, if you are not feeling like you are operating at 100% that day, then decide what a reasonable goal is for you to accomplish. You will benefit far more by completing a smaller task fully than struggling to complete something that feels too big or you are quickly losing motivation for.
    5. Plan transitions. Don’t butt all of your tasks up against each other. If 45 minutes seems like a reasonable time to work on a task, then give yourself 15 minutes to take a break or organize things before doing something new.
    All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
    1. Plan in breaks and fun. This may sound like a suggestion from a productivity madman, but the point here is not to forget to add some fun into your day. Get some work done and then go for a walk, read a book, talk to friends, consciously choose to watch that Netflix show. Don’t be puritanical about your work. All work and no play really does make Jack a dull boy. (If you don’t know this movie reference, then you need to take a break and watch The Shining. If you have been repeatedly writing that phase for the past three hours on your manual typewriter, then you really should stop working for a while and possibly seek professional help.)
    2. Mindfully choose what you do. It’s often mindlessly “choosing” to do unhelpful things that gets you off track. Find ways to “wake up” and mindfully choose your next steps. One handy tool is to set a timer to go off several times per day (even every hour) that will remind you to check in and see if you need to redirect yourself.
    3. Forgive yourself when you get off track. Merely acknowledge the slip and make your next choice one you consciously want. Repeat as needed.
    4. Have filler tasks ready. You may find you have a few extra minutes to work on something, but don’t want to take on another project. Make a list of “filler tasks” of tiny jobs that need to be done that will only take 2 to 5 minutes. Pick one of these off of the list, get it done and then cross it off. Very satisfying…..and now no one will complain that the garbage wasn’t taken out!
    5. Plan shutdown. Once you have completed the tasks that you’ve set out for yourself, wind down your day and put things away for tomorrow. Spend your evening doing non-work tasks and resist the urge to check in on things or do “just one more thing”. It will be there tomorrow. Practicing not working is important for your healthy boundaries. You will find you have more motivation to get back to your work next time if you have been diligently practising not working.
    6. Appreciate yourself. No matter how small the gains you have made today, pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Little steps are still steps and you will feel far more like doing this again if you focus on what you did well rather than missteps.

    So much more can be said on this, but this isn’t meant to be a lesson in productivity. The point is to become aware of what you are up to during your days of the lockdown and to mindfully make choices that you will be proud of yourself for making at the end of the day.

    I strongly encourage you to not get excited about this and try to “change everything”. Start from where you’re at and make small steps to shift that. Doing 10% more tomorrow will feel far better than doing nothing. You will also feel more encouraged to do that much or more again the next day, rather than pushing to be 50% more productive and only getting half of that done. This may seem like you are still getting more work done (25% is a lot more than 10%), but we are not concerned here with work output and you are not a machine. Considering your mood and motivation is vital to keep the ball rolling here. So, be mindful of where you’re at now, where you want to go, and then choose a next step that will make your “best self” proud.

    Try out some of these suggestions and see what you notice. Reach out and let me know how it goes. I’m interested in hearing about your successes or if you have any questions.

  • The Great Thumping Mystery Solved!

    The Great Thumping Mystery Solved!

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    The other day I finally solved a mystery that has been plaguing me for weeks. I had not lost sleep over it, but it was starting to feel like a Scooby Doo mystery.

    It all started one day when I was sitting at my house and I heard a rhythmic thumping sound. It sounded like a rubber ball hitting the ground and then slowly speeding up as it came to rest: thump………….thump………… thump…..thump…..thump…. thump……thump….thump..thump..thump..thump…… I kept thinking it was coming from upstairs or possibly outside. I looked around a bit and couldn’t find anything that would explain it. Like all good mystery protagonists, I figured it was probably nothing, shrugged my shoulders, and went back to what I was doing.

    A while later I heard it again. More looking and increased curiosity. Still, I couldn’t find or think of anything that would make this sound.

    Many days later, after hearing it again, I asked my son Ben if he had heard it at any point. He said he had and joined me in this thumping hunt.

    Jumping forward a week or so to earlier this week, I was putting the recycling bins out to the road and heard this same thumping sound behind me. This time, though, it was coming from the field between where I was and my house. I was finally getting a break in this case! This was something not only outside, but most likely a creature of some sort!

    I finished up my garbageman duties and headed back to the house, already formulating the Google search I would do when I got there: “thumping sound forest speeding up”. Low and behold, a very clear result popped up at the top of the search results.

    It turned out this sound was just a ruffled grouse somewhere in the forest nearby putting on a show for lady grouses. Here’s the video I found that blew this mystery wide open:

    Feeling proud of myself, I later told my wife, Liz, how I had solved this case. It was not very satisfying for me, as her response was that she knew what it was all along, but had just not heard it when I did and therefore did not think of it when I had mentioned it to her earlier. (The Mystery Gang usually gets a lot more credit and congratulations when they solve a mystery.) She thinks it is funny that I have lived here for 15 years and have never noticed this before. (Maybe I should go outside more?)

    Regardless, I am glad to have solved this mystery and to have learned a bit more about the world that is apparently only 15 feet from my house. Who knows what future mysteries may await me, but for now I can relax each time I hear this thumping sound knowing it is a guy out in the forest thumping his chest, looking tough and trying to pick up “chicks”. It is safe to say that many of us have been there before. Good luck grouse-man!

    After all that, though, I keep thinking that the real moral of solving this mystery is to remember that my wife knows best and that I should listen to her more often.

  • A Comics Podcast to Pass the Time

    A Comics Podcast to Pass the Time

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Listen on Overcast

    You may have a bit more time on your hands these days. If you are looking for something to do – and if you like superheroes or comics (and why wouldn’t you?) – you just may like this new podcast from Marvel, called Marvels.

    As opposed to many superhero stories, the heroes are not the protagonists, they are the background story. The story is told from the perspective of journalists living in a superhero world. This type of storytelling twist has been done a few times in more recent years in comics and the media in general, but Marvels predates all, or at least most, of them.

    Marvels graphic novel

    The podcast is based on the 1994 graphic novel of the same name by writer Kurt Busiek and artist, Alex Ross (one of the most eerily realistic comic artists out there). A good friend of mine, Tim Levins (who is an awesome comic book artist himself!) lent me his copy several years ago and I fell in love with it. It opened my eyes to deeper, more interesting storytelling that can still love superheroes, but have bigger topics to cover and statements to make than heroes punching bad guys.

    (If you would rather be reading than listening to podcasts, you can get the comic on Amazon or digitally on Comixology. There are other, less official ways of reading this on the web, but I won’t go into that here.)

    The comic tells a more epic story, starting in 1939 and ending in the ’70’s, covering the very Golden Age of heroes. It has a very old-timey feel to it and focuses on photographer Phil Sheldon doing his job as a journalist amongst the crazy superhero and villain stuff going on around him in NYC.

    The podcast picks a smaller time period of the 1970’s and tells a more detailed, portion of the original print version. The series is not complete yet, so I am not sure where they will take it. All I can say so far is that I am really enjoying it and am excited for the next episode.

    Let me know how you like the podcast if you listen to it. If your are familiar with the comic and, even better, have read it, tell me what you think and if you have any other suggestions.

  • Easy Side-by-Side Windows in Windows 10

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    I have never liked messing around with my carefully curated windows in Windows 10. Like many things in my life, I have spent time getting them just the way I want them and have thus foregone the convenience of working with side-side windows because of the pain of resizing everything when I am done. (Sorry to those who have to put up with my particular ways.)

    Then, I was playing around with some Windows system settings the other day and found this automatic way to work with side-by-side windows without changing the default window sizes. It is quick and painless, so I thought I would pass it on.

  • Living Inside of the Circle

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    It is a productivity/personal development cliche by now to talk about focusing on the things that matter most and not to get caught up in the busyness of life. This does not make it any less important or needed though. It is rare to not meet someone and have them lament how crazy busy they are. It is even expected these days; like being part of a stressed out club. People are looking for relief…while frantically running on their hamster wheel.

    Seth Godin was really on point when he said that it is not about “making time” for things that matter; we need to make the things we want to do not optional and put them on the inside of the circle of our time and life. “Inside of the circle” is such a great way to put it. Viktor Frankl once said that it is not the size of the circle of our life that matters, but how well we fill it in. Both are pretty much saying the same thing: fill your day/life with what matters most.

    Like practicing meditation, this may be a simple concept, but not necessarily easy to keep up. It is really just about making a choice when faced with our daily options. Seth noted that we only have to choose once. Only need to decide once that Thursdays at 1 pm is time for lunch with our friend (instead of sitting at our desk) or Mondays at 6 pm is the time to walk (instead of just going home to “do what I always do”). Once this is scheduled, treat it as sacredly as you would a doctor’s appointment or a staff meeting. Inform the people that matter in your life that you are doing it (and possibly to leave you alone while you do “your thing”) and it gets easier after that.

    Living this way is not only less stressful, it is also far more meaningful. It is less stressful, because when the important things are taken care of, the other stuff just seems to matter less. It is more meaningful, because, just like happiness, meaning is a by product of doing the things that matter most to us.

    All sorts of good things happen when we live in ways that create more meaning for ourselves. Research points to things like improved physical and mental health, but because we are focusing on the “big rocks” we will find we move forward in our life more quickly. The point of this is not about “getting ahead” (that route is climbing back on the hamster wheel), it is that when we really focus in on doing what matters to us most – and adding it to inside of the circle of our attention and scheduled life – we become more of who we want to be.

    Think about that the next time you find yourself 30 min deep in scrolling Facebook posts or deciding to watch the next Netflix episode or not….

  • Perfectionism as Laziness

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    Someone mentioned in a podcast I was listening to this morning that perfectionism can be reframed as laziness. As in I am too lazy to do the hard work involved to get something done.

    Very interesting idea. Perfectionism is often touted as a martyr-ific explanation for how much we care about something. Looking at it as lazy really pops that balloon and, at least for me, makes me realize how selfish it is to live in the constant cycle of processing and never completing.

    There is much more I can give to the world and satisfaction gained by getting things done. Improvement can be made in the next round or project. As Seth Godin puts it, I need to just “ship it”.