Most of us having trouble saying we’re sorry. If some of our nation’s politicians (or the way we react to them) are any indication, apologizing is practically un-American. It runs against the grain of a people who’ve prided themselves on being first place at everything (even though we’re not – pride makes you blind that way).
Whether we’re celebrating Advent, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, the arrival of Saint Nick, or good old-fashioned family-togetherness, it’s only natural that we look forward to this time of year with hope and eagerness in our hearts.
But sometimes all of that hope and eagerness can begin to look an awful lot like expectations. You know, the kind that inevitably lead to disappointment, frustration, or sadness. They seem especially potent around the holidays.
At Change, Inc. St. Louis Counseling & Psychiatry, we’ve gone of out our way to build a superior team of mental health experts. One of the things you may notice about our team is that we are…how do you say it? Fresh-faced? Sprightly? Something like that. This too is a deliberate hiring strategy on my part as the founder and clinical director of Change, Inc. at-large and a 13-year veteran of the mental health industry.
In January of 2012, a man jumped into the back of my best friend’s car and put a gun to my head.
We’d just left a work event and I had parked on a dark side street. My friend had offered to drive me to my car so I’d “be safe,” but before I could get out of her car we were robbed at gunpoint.