Sven Erlandson’s Badass Counseling Insights & Reflections

Sven Erlandson Sven Erlandson

"He Told The Story" -- Eulogy of an American

He told the story of standing next to his father, who was talking to their new country pastor, saying, “Pastor, if I'm teaming up my horses in 50-below weather, I expect more than a 30-minute sermon,” proud of the fact that it was he and his brother who had helped their dad feed and yoke the horses that morning, in the dark.

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Grandma Charlotte's Parenting Wisdom: Heard Not Fixed

The long term effect of constantly trying to direct your child is that the teen/young adult is then forever looking for external sources of guidance -- parent, spouse, boss, friend -- rather than trusting his or her own inner voice. The effect is that other people wield an enormous amount of influence over the young person, even as they progress further into adulthood. That sense of dependency not only grows, but an inner weakness grows with it.

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Sven Erlandson Sven Erlandson

Emotional Incest: Parent-as-Friend and the Very Real Problem of Parental Over-sharing

Far too common nowadays is the parental practice of befriending the child. It is a total “friends with benefits” situation, not sexually, but soul-wise/emotionally. So many parents nowadays LONG FOR a parental-child friendship, because they long for someone who gives a sh*t about them, the parent.  The effect of mom's ACTIONS, regardless of what other words of support are coming out of mom's mouth, is that the child grows up believing he/she doesn't matter, because something else or someone else matters more. And there is no message more guaranteed to bring long term damage than that one. By engaging in parental-oversharing, which is the natural by-product of parent-child friendships, the parent is effectively raping the child's soul, and the world is clapping.

 

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Long-Distance Relationships, Control, and Fear (Part 1): The Truth Behind Cheating; An Article for Men

The very thing the man was most trying to avoid - his girlfriend cheating - by having his girlfriend spend less time around other men and her friends is the very thing that he basically creates by cutting her off from her sources of joy. By reducing her positive sources of happiness he drives his girlfriend to find maladaptive, non-constructive sources of happiness. 

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Suicide, Robin Williams, and What's Underneath

...of course, the wonder of it all and the endless tedium of those who drone on and on about ‘untreated depression’, “I’ll be there for you if you’re considering suicide”, and all the other overwrought blather.

Suicide.

I mean, we’ve all thought about it, at one time or another...

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Sven Erlandson Sven Erlandson

A Sadly Funny Word & Life's Ugliest Truth

It is one of life’s ugliest, yet most beautiful paradoxes: creation and destruction are forever inextricably dancing; pain and joy live in the same breath; blessings and curses can never be extricated from their mad embrace. We, it seems, need only have the eyes to see, and the courage to look into the eye of the beast that afflicts us at any given moment or period of life.

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Love Cell, Loathe People?

Ask yourself one basic question. It’s not the cure-all question, but it gets us in the ballpark. What do you do when you’re at Starbucks, after you’ve ordered, and waiting for your drink? Or, for church-going folk, perhaps while you’re standing in line to exit the sanctuary at the end of service? Or, when you’re standing on the platform waiting for the subway? Or any line anywhere, or anytime people are around? Why?

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"Sven, I feel so foolish for opening my heart and then being rejected."

The real success is in sticking your heart out there and loving and choosing to NOT live in fear. For, again, all of life, every decision boils down to that fundamental choice: fear versus trust. It's not even fear versus love, really. We all feel love and want to express it; it's our natural state. But what keeps us hamstrung, what keeps us from expressing that love is that we fear getting hurt. We fear that we won't be okay, that the pain will be too great, and that we just explode or die from the pain.

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