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NY Post Matt Prager Dating Article

        

Since blogs automatically put the most recent entry first, if you'd like to listen to the Daniel podcasts in order, they start with this one: Daniel Podcast - First Session (out of sixteen)

        

How you end relationships tells you something about who you are in relationships.  Do you duck out of parties without saying goodbye?  Do you get choked up when packing up an old apartment?  Are you confrontational in breakups or do you nod a lot and jam out of there?  If you've fired someone, were you cold?  Panicked?  Endings define a phase of your life - have you ever gotten a little misty when a favorite TV show went off the air?  The end of your relationship with that TV show served as a chapter-end for a piece of your life.

Endings are a choice, and how we explicate that choice tells us something about our boundaries.  Regardless of who starts the ending - whether you're the dumper or dumpee for example - each party deals with the end in his or her own way.  Endings often mean transition, like if you've ever outgrown a friend and had to redefine your relationship, you've ended one relationship and started another, though with the same person.  Children of nasty divorces or parental abandonment often struggle with endings because of how their parents ended things with them.  Fear of endings often defines who you are at the beginning - ever know anyone who's become someone else once they started dating someone?  It's the fear of the end that defines who they are.

However, endings, to me, are always opportunity, because they give you a chance to look at who you've been and think about what you want to do next.

Download | Duration: 00:14:14

        

The key component of depression that makes it so difficult to get out of depression is the belief that nothing you do will make any difference - so why even bother trying.  Fighting depression really means doing SOMETHING, anything, even though you "know" it won't help, like there are two of you at the bottom of a well, neither of whom believes anything will change, but one of whom keeps throwing a grappling hook to the top anyway.  The act of throwing that grappling hook, even if it catches on nothing and keeps sliding back down to the bottom, is the act of believing in yourself - and that is what ultimately pulls you out.

Download | Duration: 00:11:10

        

One of the most difficult aspects of personal growth is that the process of change often feels like you're sitting still.  This is because we often look for change in the world around us and, if the outside world seems exactly the same, we feel as if we've gone nowhere.  In this sense, change is a lot like dieting, where you just have to plug forward even though you don't really see the pounds coming off.  And, much like staying on a diet is change, so is sitting in the stagnation change because, if nothing else, you're not giving up on yourself.

Download | Duration: 00:13:14

        

The more you dodge a painful or fearful situation, the more you reinforce for yourself the notion that you somehow can't handle that situation, which creates a vicious cycle of avoidance.  The only way out is through, and stepping into your pain - the very thing you desperately don't want to do  - is the surest way to leave it behind you.

Download | Duration: 00:13:30

        

We often confuse "being in control" with "controlling everyone around us."  When you find yourself getting deeply frustrated with what someone isn't doing, won't say, etc., it's time to stop looking at them and start sorting out for yourself why you're trying to control them in lieu of controlling you.

Download | Duration: 00:12:58

        

One of the keys to moving forward in your life - and, frankly, one of the obstacles - is to question your motives for everything.  If you've ever spent time with a 5-year-old who's asking "why" every 10 seconds, you'll know how exhausting this can be.  However, when trying to get what you truly want, it's critical to ask "why am I doing what I'm doing?"

Download | Duration: 00:11:26

        

You know that thing where a friend wants to get in shape and decides to go hire a trainer?  Then they blow off the gym and wind up paying the trainer for nothing?  Well, beating yourself up is exactly the same.  Punishing yourself for your "bad" behavior instead of working to change it is the same as paying the trainer instead of going to the gym.  The punishment lets you off the hook for having to actually do something.  This podcast is about the value of acknowledging yourself when you've actually made it to the gym, no matter how bad you think you look in your metaphorical lycra.

Download | Duration: 00:12:33

        

We often treat others with more kindness, understanding, and respect than we treat ourselves, though this can often be difficult to see when we're doing it.  So one way to understand how we don't take care of ourselves is to examine how we do take of others and then turn that other-care into self-care.

Download | Duration: 00:12:38