Dr. Gary Bell's Absurd Psychology

You feel attraction to someone who’s a hard nut to crack. They exude vibes of mystery and aloofness you can’t get close to. And you can’t help but keep trying to conquer their attention. Or, you seem to have found your soulmate. You both feel emotional and sexual chemistry. And you both see a clear perspective of starting a relationship. But they always avoid talking about their feelings and retract right before the important step. Can you relate to any of these stories? We’ve shared them not to blame or shame you. Many of us draw to emotionally unavailable people and favor them over those who are caring, vulnerable, and easy to get close with. However, this pattern often brings up painful emotions you’re probably familiar with. It can take a toll on your well-being, self-worth, and ability to nurture healthy, lasting relationships in the long run. Meanwhile, building a deep bond based on mutual intimacy and closeness offers many more ways to enrich our lives and make us happy. If you

Let’s start with the numbers and get that out of the way. Divorce is common, really common—in fact, according to the CDC, 2.9 out of every 1,000 people get divorced (as of 2017). In case that number seems lower than you thought, here’s some perspective, compare it to 6.9 per 1,000 people who get married. A little silver lining is that while it’s clear that divorce rates increased from 1990 through 2008, particularly for women over the age of 35; the rate is now declining. In other words, young married couples are more likely to stay married than their Baby Boomer counterparts. Tune in and learn how to work through and move on from divorce!

All bitterness starts out as hurt. And your emotional pain may well relate to viewing whoever (or whatever) provoked this hurt as having malicious intent: As committing a grave injustice toward you; as gratuitously wronging you and causing you grief. Anger—and resentment—is what we’re all likely to experience whenever we conclude that another has seriously abused us. Left to fester, that righteous anger eventually becomes the corrosive ulcer that is bitterness. Bitterness is a chronic and pervasive state of smoldering resentment, and regards it is one of the most destructive and toxic of human emotions. If we repeatedly ruminate over how we’ve been victimized, “nursing” wrongs may eventually come to define some essential part of who we are. Take hold of our very personality. We’ll end up becoming victims not so much of anyone else but of ourselves. Tune in and learn how to overcome this emotion destroying your relationships!

Trauma is a person’s emotional response to a distressing experience. Few people can go through life without encountering some kind of trauma. Unlike ordinary hardships, traumatic events tend to be sudden and unpredictable, involve a serious threat to life—like bodily injury or death—and feel beyond a person’s control. Most important, events are traumatic to the degree that they undermine a person's sense of safety in the world and create a sense that catastrophe could strike at any time. Parental loss in childhood, auto accidents, physical violence, sexual assault, military combat experiences, the unexpected loss of a loved one are commonly traumatic events. Tune in and learn how to recognize trauma and work through it!

Every couple’s situation and circumstances are different. So, too, are the reasons they drifted apart, ranging from a lack of communication to cheating. Still, there are certain exercises you can do as a couple and individual, plus small steps you can take with your partner now to increase love, trust, and intimacy in the hopes of keeping you together. When you think you may be on the brink of divorce, you may still have a glimmer of hope that you can save your marriage. You want to stay together. And by putting in the effort, you can do it. Tune in and learn how to do all you can to restore your marriage from a ma's perspective!

Our inner child is a part of ourselves that’s been present ever since we were conceived, through utero and all the developing years after where we were young and developing into tender selves: baby, infant, toddler, young child and middle school year. The inner child can often recall good experiences as well as childhood fears, traumas, neglect or significant loss. It can be hard to pinpoint the exact event that is tugging at us, but we can start to notice our internal patterns that have left us a subconscious “bread crumb trails” when we start to explore our inner world. Each one of us has an “inner child” living inside. You have an inner child. I have an inner child. We all do. Your “inner child” is a part of your subconscious that has been picking up messages way before it was able to fully process what was going on (mentally and emotionally). It holds emotions, memories and beliefs from the past as well as hopes and dreams for the future. Tune in and learn how to identify and forge a relationship with this critical and sometimes self-destructive part of you!

We are becoming a nation of narcissists. We are so focused on superficial personal identity that it makes us obsessed with race, ethnicity, sex, and political ideology. Tattoos, body piercing ornaments, and body enhancement surgery have not been enough to satisfy our self-obsession. Like the legendary Narcissus seeing his reflection in a pool, we see and applaud ourselves because of our superficial external appearance. What matters most to narcissists and society at large, is their personal character, what they do and have achieved, and how they contribute to society. Tune in and learn how to identify narcissism , see it in the world around you and learn to respond!

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is a disruptive behavior disorder that emerges during childhood or adolescence and is characterized by persistent angry or irritable mood, unruly and argumentative behavior, and vindictiveness. It frequently manifests in hostility toward authority figures. All children display defiant behavior at some point, especially when tired or stressed. Oppositional behavior is in fact normal in toddlers and in early adolescents. The behavior of a child with ODD is much more extreme and disruptive than normal, however, and occurs much more frequently than the type of childhood stubbornness and rebellion that children may display over the course of development. The oppositional behavior of ODD is not only persistent but occurs across a wide array of situations and interferes with children’s social, family, and educational life. Give yourself a break and tune in and learn how to identify and manage Oppositional Defiance Disorder!

Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress. Though it’s most often caused by problems at work, it can also appear in other areas of life, such as parenting, caretaking, or romantic relationships. Burnout is not simply a result of working long hours or juggling too many tasks, though those both play a role. The cynicism, depression, and lethargy that are characteristic of burnout most often occur when a person is not in control of how a job is carried out, at work or at home, or is asked to complete tasks that conflict with their sense of self. Equally pressing is working toward a goal that doesn't resonate, or when a person lacks support. If a person doesn’t tailor responsibilities to match a true calling, or at least take a break once in a while, they could face burnout—as well as the mountain of mental and physical health problems that often come along with it, including headaches, fatigue, heartburn, and other gastrointestinal symptoms, as well as increased potential for alcohol, drug, or food misuse. Tune in and learn how burn out can stop your life in it's tracks and how to heal!

What does it mean to be Spiritual Beings having a human experience and how does it relate to our everyday lives? We are not human beings striving to be Spiritual; we are already Spiritual Beings. Meaning, we existed in spiritual form before we were born into this physical world. First and foremost, we are eternal Souls. In the very quiet moments of our busy lives, we can re-connect with this knowledge. Our Soul, that part of us that observes quietly behind what we do, think, believe, and feel, existed before this human life and will continue to exist after our present physical life transitions. Tune in and learn how life changing it can be to acknowledge and make room for your soul in your life!

Forgiveness is the release of resentment or anger. Forgiveness doesn’t mean reconciliation. One doesn't have to return to the same relationship or accept the same harmful behaviors from an offender. Forgiveness is vitally important for the mental health of those who have been victimized. It propels people forward rather than keeping them emotionally engaged in an injustice or trauma. Forgiveness has been shown to elevate mood, enhance optimism, and guard against anger, stress, anxiety, and depression. However, there are scenarios in which forgiveness is not the best course for a particular person. Sometimes a victim of sexual abuse becomes more empowered when they give themselves permission not to forgive. Tune in and learn the gifts that forgiveness can bring and how to do. it!

Many of us whine for a minute when things don't go our way. We need a little grief time, a little time to gather ourselves back together again, renegotiate our hopes and dreams more in alignment with reality, and then we're back in the saddle again. The time it takes for us to do that varies with each individual. Many people feel a tad embarrassed when they whine this way because, well, it feels to us as if we are on the pity-pot. And, you know, maybe for a minute we are. But really, don't we all just need to go there sometimes? That temporary state of self-pity, however, is a drop in the bucket compared to what happens when we are dealing with someone with a full-blown victim identity. A person with a victim identity is someone who has identified with whatever crises, traumas, illnesses or other difficulties have occurred in their lives, particularly those that began very early in life. They did this as a survival technique. Better to go ahead and just realize that life is a long fight with City Hall that you always lose, than to get your hopes up that you just might win every now and then. Hopes can be smashed and a person can be devastated by such dashing. So, why not just avoid the whole mess altogether by just being a perpetual victim? Tune in and learn how to identify, heal and deal with people with victim mentality!

What do you think you look like? Body image is the mental representation an individual creates of themselves, but it may or may not bear any relation to how one actually appears. Body image is subject to all kinds of distortions from the attitudes of one's parents, other early experiences, internal elements like emotions or moods, and other factors. The severe form of poor body image is body dysmorphic disorder, where dissatisfaction over a slight or undetectable defect in appearance becomes a severe obsession. Tune in and learn how a person can. work with what they've got, change and heal!

We started our relationship with alcohol be­cause it made us less likely to starve to death. Over time we gained the ability to stand upright and, eventually, invent Netftix. Some­where along that timeline we also started getting drunk from al­cohol, and not just fat. Today, alcohol is the most widely consumed intoxicant on earth. We spend well over a trillion dollars a year worldwide to get our buzz on, and for more sacred purposes than mere drunkenness; Christian churches across the world use wine to represent the blood of their god.The ancient Greeks and Romans took the opposite tack, and turned their alcohol into a god, Dionysus. There's absolutely no drug on earth that our species has carried further or invested more creativity into than alcohol. Tune in and learn how to change your relationship with alcohol!

The most important and possibly universal quality for a “good man” is maturity. So many otherwise decent guys never seem to grow up. Maturity is not boring, btw; it basically means someone who is not emotionally stunted, childishly self-centered, or financially reckless. Other aspects of someone’s personality can be important and interesting and charming and irresistible, but maturity is the basis of an adult and long-term relationship. Women are desperately struggling to find a good man. This show will help you discover what is going on, what you need to adjust and how to make it happen!

Though more rare, rage can also be expressed inwards; and instead of external destruction, people who internalise their rage destroy themselves. It can lead to hate and self harm. Eventually though, this too will bubble up and be expressed externally in some way. It is never healthy to keep emotions bottled up; particularly one as extreme as anger and rage. Rage is extreme and scary when experienced from others; but we are all quite capable of it. For many people, they have likely experienced this and felt completely out of control afterwards. Some have described it as “seeing red” where conscious decision making goes out the window, and actions are no longer in your own control. So it is scary even when we experience rage ourselves. What exactly triggers rage is so specific to the individual there’s no way to list down anything specific. Each person has a trigger that can lead to anger and rage; and it is entirely up to them to try to figure themselves out. Maybe you’ve experienced excessive anger and rage. Did you understand why and did you know how to deal with it? Tune in and learn all about rage and how to deal with angry people and manage it yourself!

We have suffered quite a bit over the past few years. Some people in this world, sadly, have suffered more than their fair share, and our hearts should go out to those folks. The unfortunate truth of life is that it is not fair. While I'm not a Buddhist, there is much to be appreciated and learned about how to deal with suffering from Buddhist philosophy and psychology. Tune in and learn all about how important suffering is to our commitments in life!

No couple wants their marriage to be dysfunctional, and yet, many couples live in perpetual dysfunction. They operate like two blind people learning to dance with each other…they keep stepping on each other’s toes! It doesn’t have to stay that way. If you’re one of the millions facing constant struggles in your marriage, your first step is to change your habits. If you’ve taken on any of these 5 common habits below, work to stop them and replace them with more productive practices. Don’t lose hope! Every marriage goes through struggles. You can get through this. Tune in and learn how to turn your marriage around!

Those in a relationship with an emotionally unavailable partner often find themselves in conflict with the partner, or at the very least frustrated or confused. However, few understand what causes such emotional unavailability, much less how to reach out to connect. The person who is emotionally unavailable rarely realises the pain and confusion caused to the very person they want to hurt the least. But they see their emotions as negative or unnecessary and internalize them to the extent that they become unaware of their own feelings or needs beyond the physical. When this occurs it becomes impossible for them to understand or empathize with what another person is feeling, hence they are emotionally unavailable to those around them. Not surprisingly, emotionally unavailable people can be more interested in the act of sex than sexual intimacy, which in turn can make their partner feel like an object. Tune in and learn all about emotionally unavailable people, how to identify and how to deal with them!

Parental messaging in childhood, even without qualifying as a disorder, can strongly impact feelings of inadequacy, leaving in their wake the message of “never being enough.” This is especially true if one or both parents were on the spectrum of narcissisticattitudes and behaviors. Parents with narcissistic traits often cannot adequately provide empathy, unconditional love, and acceptance to their children. Healthy attachment and secure separation and individuation are based on experiencing these same qualities unconditional of the child’s performance. An image-oriented world view based on how things look, especially to others, does not tolerate authenticity and imperfection. It also is intolerant of people associated with these characteristics. Learning, growing, developing children are particularly vulnerable to the fear, shame, and feelings of abandonment of “not measuring up.” A legacy of unmet emotional and developmental needs is often expressed behaviourally by trying to please, looking to others for cues on how to be “good enough,” accepted, and loved, without which the foundation for self-esteem and self-reliance is severely compromised. Tune in and learn how to create the life you want!