Ready to Get Started?
Getting started is easy:
1. Pick a date and time to schedule a free phone consultation.
2. We'll connect to see if we're a good fit to work together.
3. We'll start working toward making your life conscious again.
Why choose us for a therapist in Cincinnati?
We know how hard it is to juggle a relationship or marriage, a family, and a career. We know how hard it can be to maintain a healthy, close relationship. We understand what it's like to feel as though you are just "coasting" through life and are "playing it safe". We can help teach you tools that will give you greater confidence, better skills for emotional closeness and intimacy, and feel more engaged in a life that you enjoy.
Life Made Conscious offers counseling for men and couples in Cincinnati, OH. We also serve Pleasant Ridge, Hyde Park, Oakley, Indian Hill, and the surrounding communities.
Why Men's Counseling?
When we make a decision to start the individual counseling process, we aren’t doing it because things are “great”. There is something going on in our lives that we can feel isn’t “right”. The longer we ignore it, the more it eats as us. The thing about committing to the counseling process is that it’s not an easy decision. For men, it can be an even harder decision. Many men have never been encouraged to be able to freely express or be in touch with their emotional selves. This isn’t your fault. You only know what you know. You don’t know what you don’t know. But you do know that the way you’re doing life isn’t working for you. So here you are facing the realization that you have to do something but honestly, the thought of going to counseling to get help is a really hard step for many men. I get it.
Men are like women in that they need to know that they can be understood and heard, that they are loved and accepted, and they want to know they have a purpose in their lives. That what they do matters for themselves and others. So how do we get these needs met if we’ve never really been taught or shown how to ask for help or to pursue our emotional needs?
Many men are realizing they need to be more emotionally fluent for themselves and their families. And while this understanding is important, it’s also important to know that when you come into counseling you don’t have to know how to make these changes and shifts. You just need to be open to learning. And you just need to give yourself room to learn how to understand yourself better. There’s more to you than you probably think. Men’s counseling can help you explore and learn more about yourself. Discovering more of the “tools” you didn’t know you had and learning the ability to put these attributes and skills in action.
What is Going on With Me?
Many men deal with what is called “covert depression”. Covert depression isn’t that kind of depression you might think of when you are “sad” or can’t get out of bed in the morning. While that is certainly part of depression at times, it’s not the only kind. Covert depression is usually seen in men who are high functioning, have good jobs, a good family, and probably think they “should” be happy but can’t figure out why they aren’t. Everything points to why you should be “ok” but you can’t seem to be able to maintain a consistent level of feeling “ok”. It's common for men to need "depression help".
Where does this start or where does it come from? Most of what we know comes from what we consider “reality”. We get this sense of reality at an early age and experience it through growing up in our family lives. We see how mom and dad express and communicate to us. We see how they relate with one another. We learn ways of dealing with our lives in and around keeping ourselves happy and safe. We might know the “best” ways to make sure mom and dad are ok and not angry with us. We might learn how to make dad happy or make sure he doesn’t yell at us. We can learn that excelling in school or athletics is a good way of getting approval. All of this is normal to the extent that as children we are beings who just want the best for our parents and family life but sometimes at the cost of ourselves. We actually take on our parents anger or frustration or rage. Maybe we learned that the best way to feel ok was to not have mom guilt us. As kids we are flexible sponges in that we are constantly adapting to control our environment to keep it stable. The problem is that we then learn how to suppress our own needs and emotions. We learn that we have to “do” or “not do” certain things to get the love and acceptance we need.
This all can manifest as covert depression. We’ve actually been taught to suppress our emotions, or to be defensive and walled off, or to yell and get angry to get what we need. If dad was closed off, or even depressed, we take on these emotions from him because as children we naturally take things personally. We actually absorb our parents’ emotions. This depression, or covert depression, then is passed down or taken on by us. We simply don’t know any other way to be.
The thing is that we just don’t know any other way of being. It’s engrained in us. This covert depression is at a deep level in our subconscious. Millions of men learn to be covertly depressed. Sacrificing our innate sense of worthiness and happiness in learning that our sense of self is based on our achievements, attainments, and physical possessions and attributes. Or maybe we’ve been taught that the only way we can get the love and approval we seek is by making sure others are happy. We’ve learned to function, and be successful, in life at a low simmering level of dissatisfaction not knowing that we are capable of so much more.
The Mid-Life Crisis
We’ve all heard of this concept. This phase of life where we see grey haired aging men plunder into their 40’s and beyond looking for more purpose, meaning, and fun in their lives. Do all men go through this and is this a real thing? If so, what causes this and how do you deal with the mid-life crisis?
Dealing with our "mid-life phase" in life is important for our mental health. The fact is that we all get older. We all go through changes. But why do men go through a mid-life crisis? Many men will go through college, enter their careers, find a spouse, buy a house, and have kids. It’s like the expected regimen that men are supposed to enter into through adulthood. Much of this is based on what see as an obligation or a rite of passage. There’s a lot of sacrifice involved in being an adult. A parent. A spouse. We give a lot. It’s too easy to get caught up in a daily routine and regimen. Day in, day out. Get up in the morning. Go to work. Pay the bills. Attend to family. Rinse and repeat. But what happens when we aren’t happy anymore or we feel anxiety about this or empty or unfulfilled? What happens to us emotionally when we see mom and dad get older or even pass away? How do we feel when the things that we used to do to find pleasure are no longer things we can do? How do we feel as we watch our bodies change and grow older?
The phases of our life are meant to give us information and insight. They are experiences. Learning points. Are we in resistance to them? Do we fight the inevitable? Do we wish to lean into these uncomfortable realizations or are we apt to self-medicate through drinking or big purchases or endless hours of work and routine? Getting older doesn’t have to be a struggle. It can be a time to listen to our emotions, our feelings, our bodies, and listen to what is being said. While getting older and seeing the change in our lives can be hard, it can also be an invitation into an awakening of a greater sense of purpose and living life. Men’s counseling or life counseling can help with this as you have someone who can help you explore these changes in your life.
Ready to Get Started?
Getting started is easy:
1. Click the "Get Started" link and schedule a free phone consultation.
2. We'll connect to see if we're a good fit to work together.
3. We'll start working toward making your life conscious again.
I promise to be a real person with you. I promise to get my hands dirty with you, and to help you see your own strengths.