My dear friends, welcome and thank you for joining me today. Years ago as I sat across from an amazing, but very discouraged and frustrated young woman who was just 16 years old, she shared with me how helpless she felt regarding the reputation that she had built over the past few years of school. Through her angry tears, she described how she had struggled with managing her emotions, most particularly her anger. As a result she felt as though people were always blaming and pinning things on her, or even provoking her just so she would blow up, and overreact, as she had done many times. She felt stuck, hopeless, and powerless beneath the weight of this reputation that she had ignorantly and unconsciously laid out before her. I was impressed by her level of awareness and insight, and touched by her sincere desire to move beyond and rise above this trouble that seemed to haunt her wherever she went. In addition to providing her with some tools to respond to her emotions more effectively, her and I created a simple plan to begin changing the people, places and things in her life, so that she could reset, and go forward confidently in the direction of what she ultimately wanted and desired.

When I tell people that I'm a therapist, people will often ask me, "how can you sit and listen to people's problems all day?" This is a legitimate question of course, but I think that people still look at therapy as a negative experience, where we go to dump all of our secrets and problems... and sure, therapy is an incredibly special, even sacred environment, where hopefully people will feel safe and respected enough to work through some really challenging things, but at least for me, therapy is an overwhelmingly positive place, where we don't sit in the sadness, or troubles, or trauma, but where we happily and enthusiastically look to think, plan, and slowly migrate to a more peaceful, optimistic, and successful life. Therapy can be a powerful place to reset, and go forward and upward.

I recall the last Presidential inauguration. And please understand, this is not a political statement or the declaration of a political affiliation, but the event that ensued, with the pomp, the music, the speeches, the poetry that was read, the prayers that were offered, the plea to unify, the promises to heal, the inspirational messages that together, synergistically, our nation may suffer setbacks, but the system that is in place (redundancies, constitution, checks and balances, the senate) ensures that the country returns to democracy, for the people, by the people. I was moved, and I felt some hope raise up inside of me, and motivation began to rise up as well... like a tide right... raising all the ships... and maybe, if you happen to have seen the inauguration, maybe for you it was a complete disaster, and a gigantic conspiracy... i'm not here to argue with what that event meant to you personally... i'm just referring to the overall message and the real power that exists when we give ourselves permission to reset, refocus, and restart... A power that I can... that you can harness in your personal life, at work, in your home, with your fitness, with your goals, with your spirituality. Our errors, can act as such tremendous obstacles to our future successes. We can droop in our misses, in our errors... our failures can create such terror, can damage our fragile egos so much, flatten our pride, create such embarrassment, that we can literally become paralyzed. This specific perspective that I'm offering to you is a much gentler, forgiving, accepting approach, that acknowledges our capacity for error, but more importantly, it emphasizes our capacity to overcome, to work a problem, to utilize our errors, to refocus, and hit it again, wiser, with a stronger back, with a more experienced mind, with an acceptance that it is all preparation, ... does this not sound reasonable to you? Does it not sound like a philosophy that you want to embrace and pass on to your friends, children, and grandchildren? I at least want to connect to you intellectually, for you to psychologically recognize that this approach is superior... it's legitimitate... it's not psychological fluff... it's more effective long-term and short-term. It's emotionally more motivating, more empowering, and more inspiring. It creates the possibility that our errors plow the ground, and potentially plant the seeds of our future success...., if only we can train ourselves to stay with our problems a little longer, a little more patiently... remember Einstein's brilliant quote, "it's not that I'm smarter than other people, I can just stay with a problem longer."

So today, I want to preach to you... I want to persuade you in the most reasonable way that I can... I want to appeal to your emotional self that seeks to be motivated, inspired, and to feel safe... and this specific philosophy that I'm talking about... this belief about the reality of things, will ensure that your efforts, your attempts, your new experiments... in whatever part of your life..., don't spell total doom, total failure, catastrophic collapse, but much like the climber who falls, or the scientist whose experience fails... we are able to be caught by the system of redundancies that we have in place, reset, refocus, and restart... your adoption of these principles will create a psychological safe zone, that allows for mistakes, for errors (personal and from others by the way), and that allows for repairs, fixes, and other attempts to be made, instead of... once you have lost my good favor, it is gone forever (like good ol' Darcy said in Pride and Prejudice). That philosophy turned inward, is disastrous, and could literally paralyze us from ever trying anything, because trying means the potential for ultimate failure, for complete collapse, and ultimate pain.

So your goals are failing? Reset, refocus, and restart. Your relationships are suffering? Reset, refocus, and restart. Your spirituality is dwindling... you connection to God is Poor and distant? Reset, restart, and refocus. Are Your addictive habits or problematic patterns, flaring up and showing up in your life? Reset, refocus, Learn, and restart. Remember it's the direction, and the incremental gains in that direction that we are seeking. It's the vector not the velocity that is the key component... it's the direction we are facing that may ultimately be of the greatest import. So pivot, reset, shift, ask for help, go back to the drawing board, throw it in the trash, start again, ask other people's opinions, and go again. This is my hope for you... quit being so stubborn and punitive with yourself, with others, with your children... don't write their story! They have to write it. Give people time... you needed time... you needed to see a little more, you needed to feel a little more... you needed the personal experience, and now you know better, and you are able to do better, and think better, and ultimately feel better.

During the inauguration, this magnificent young lady Amanda Gorman, wrote a poem... a poem to our nation... I share it here because the words resonated with me... they inspired me to appreciate, to rise with courage, to stand for good:

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
We braved the belly of the beast.
We've learned that quiet isn't always peace, and the norms and notions of what "just" is isn't always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn't mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we'll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.
If we're to live up to our own time, then victory won't lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we've made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.
It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It's the past we step into and how we repair it.
We've seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour.
But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain.
If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children's birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the golden hills of the West.
We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked South.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it.
If only we're brave enough to be it.

I hope you enjoyed the poetry reading. I thought it was significant enough to read it and share it with you. I hope it has inspired you, and sparked a desire for you to start from where you are, to use what you have, and to do what you can to forge a new path, a new way of doing and being. Don't be beset or discouraged by the mistakes and disappointments that follow... these are a natural part of progress. Stick with it, and reset my friend, set your sails, and head to a new, better, and brighter shoreline. See you soon.