ANOTHER SCAM? NO THANK YOU, MA'AM!

RYLIE AT THE MALL

SINAY AT THE MALL

I was “hired” to be mystery shopper, knowing that my first assignment likely would be to evaluate a money transfer service, like Western Union. I received a cheque with instructions to deposit it in a personal bank account, which I did not. 

It seemed too good to be true.  I simply applied online and received a cheque.  And so thinking there wasn’t even a background check on my credentials, I figured the cheque sent was a fake.  More than a few times I tried calling the phone number listed on the cheque but there was never any answer.  I knew that I, being the person who would deposit the cheque and eventually withdraw some of the funds, would be the one responsible for paying back the funds to my bank. 

Note to self and to everyone else:  It is NEVER a good idea to deposit a cheque from an unknown source and then debit that money in any regard.  This cheque represents the commonly referred to, MYSTERY SHOPPER SCAM.

SCAM CHEQUES SENT TO ME

But this isn’t the only scam in town.  Oft times it seems that everyone wants in on some kind of popular action, whether or not they are qualified to deliver whatever-is-the-latest-craze to keep people investing in their money-grab.  Even some of my colleagues in the counselling industry are purportedly offering miracle therapy results.  In this particular blog entry, I am going to touch upon certain band wagons and their promoted healing value to their potential clients who are more than willing to march in their almost comical parades. 

My topics today include Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), the Ketogenic Diet, and CrossFit Training.  And not-so-strangely I will retract and/or dispel any notions that I am stating these particular practices are scams – THEY ARE NOT.  I should also mention that I am not an outspoken opponent to any of these practices – I am simply a public critic of their purported miracle outcomes.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) has been the rage this last decade and even longer.  Rather than being focused on the feelings, CBT, instead, emphasizes how to change the engrained patterns of thoughts and behaviours that seem to causing the client’s problems. For certain CBT can be used to alter difficult behaviours, certain addictions and phobias, and can also help address conditions such as depression and anxiety.

Cognitive Behavioural therapists believe that clients can change their feelings by changing their thoughts and actions.  CBT therapists believe there is thoughtful/intellectual/reflective component concurrently serving alongside action for positive behavioural changes. For example, a client may have patterns of distorted thinking, such as excessive self-criticism ("I always mess up" or "I'll never get this right"), or attributing untoward motives to others ("everyone dislikes me").

CBT teaches clients to recognize these patterns as they emerge and alter them. During CBT, the therapist may ask their clients to judge the truth behind these statements, to work to transform such automatic thoughts, and to recognize events that are beyond their control. The "behaviour" part refers to learning more productive reactions toward these inflated distressing circumstances and feelings.  CBT promotes client such responses as relaxing and breathing deeply, instead of hyperventilating and over reacting when caught in an anxiety-provoking situations.

This sounds all good.  My particular quarrel with this notion is that it does not appeal to all addicts, especially those having illicit drug issues, whose cognitive capacity for reflection are compromised because of their addictions, directly limiting their mental awareness for such.  And I’ve also a particular quarrel and abhorrence for those faux-theorists who, in addlepated fashion, slam other theories in order to promote their practice.

Now my rant about the latest fads in diet:
Because the Ketogenic Diet has such a high fat requirement, followers must eat fat at each meal. In a daily 2,000-calorie diet, that might look like 165 grams of fat, 40 grams of carbs, and 75 grams of protein. However, the exact ratio depends on the consumer’s particular needs.

Some healthy unsaturated fats are allowed on the ketogenic diet (almonds, walnuts), seeds, avocados, tofu, and olive oil, but saturated fats from palm and coconut oils, lard, butter, and cocoa butter are encouraged in high amounts.

Protein is part of the ketogenic diet, but it doesn't typically discriminate between lean protein foods and protein sources high in saturated fat such as beef, pork, and bacon.  (I am not a fan of any diet that promotes bacon!)

However, the ketogenic diet works!  A neighbour and friend of 

mine lost approximately 80 pounds in Jared – Subway fashion, by 

eating a triple meat Italian Star sandwich every day for a year.   

Now that he’s lost all that weight, he looks awesome.   

(Mind you, my neighbour friend, while dining on his daily 

sandwich also lifted weights every day. He looks awesome 

because as he shredded the fat he became ripped with muscle.)

And speaking of weight training, now I'll comment on CrossFit training.  CrossFit is a fitness regimen based upon his notion of constantly varied fundamental movements performed at high intensity. All CrossFit workouts involve functional movements (bending, squatting, lunging, and other core exercises), and these big movements reflecting the best and basic aspects of gymnastics, weightlifting, running, rowing and other sports.

In the last few years CrossFit exercise studios have opened on every corner in my city.  (Mind you, so have several other types of gyms opened on every corner of my city in the last five years.  It just that CrossFit has the catchiest and therefore the most noticeable title in our catalogue of corporate fitness opportunities, never mind the even having a special section in the running shoe area of our sporting clothes stores.)

Of course CrossFit training works!  How could it not work with all the commitment to a regimen of exercising your basic body parts intensively and continuously.  Note to everyone: When one is lackadaisical and in the doldrums any kind of exercise will lift one’s mood.  And the secret to any successful exercise program:  KEEP MOVING! 

My personal and professional preference, in contrast to any and all of the above are Hypnotherapy (for personal counselling), the Mediterranean Diet (for food), and Running (for physical exercise).  Admittedly, dear reader, any deep(er) understanding of anything I promote is based upon my long and personal history of actually loving my experiences with these aforementioned and ever-mentioned theories.   

And you must know that I write with such bluster!  I write as if I really know something! I am a pseudo - (fill in the blank)!  As I stated, my preferences for anything are based upon my experiences.  Really, I do not abdicate anyone willing to express anything provided it's with rich debate.  Rather, anyone promoting products at the expense of other products usually prompts my ranting criticisms.

I have professionally practised several theories of counselling over the years.  It’s just that in the last few years I’ve come to make hypnotherapy my only preference.

Also over the years, I have practised more than a few formal and recognized exercise routines.  It’s just that I’ve most of my muscular success (my personal joke) from a regular Olympic weight lifting program which abides by the push-pull principles in combination with the overload system.  As for my running creds -- I wrote my Master's Thesis on long-distance running!

Living right in downtown Regina, I am very familiar with all of the restaurants and the ones that serve the best cuisine.  I am not a foodie, but I certainly watch my diet.  I prefer the Mediterranean diet probably because I love all of the beaches I’ve ever been to while travelling near the Mediterranean Sea. 

For me it’s a simple formula, and unabashedly I shall state:

If I am familiar with (whatever) and have had only positive experiences and successes with (whatever), then I trend (pun intended) to love and promote (whatever).   

THE DILEMMA OF THE EXISTENTIAL THERAPIST: TO BE OR NOT TO BE

CRAIG, OWNER/MANAGER OF B-SHARP

The basic tenet of existentialism is that life has absolutely no meaning.  Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. Existentialism is the view we define our own meanings in life, attempting to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe.

Hmmm …

I get that life might not have much meaning.  I mean, really, we could just simply be mammal minions who by chance are positioned atop the food chain with our sole purpose being to continue the species.

I do not get that life might not have value.  If we really believed life had no value, then all existentialists would be suicidal.   

Yikes … maybe we are.  I will clarify.  If we really believed life had no value, then all existentialists would succeed in an individually tailored suicide.  This notion is too morbid even for my standards, but I digress.

The definition of meaning: what is meant by a word, text, concept, or action.

The definition of value: the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.

The connotation of meaning:  the technical descriptor of something.

The connotation of value:  the emotional worth of something.

I shall endeavour to offer my existential spin on the value of my life and my practice.  I shall offer these thoughts only from my present perspective, as a 67-year-old with an established career, as a 67-year-old with his kids grown and gone to homes of their own.

My continual joke is that in my next lifetime I will not have kids.  (A life with kids is a life of compromise and accountability.)  To qualify this remark, I must emphasize that I love my children and that my children have certainly enhanced my life.  This of remark of mine is oft followed by that in my next lifetime I will not marry. (A life with a romantic partner is a life of compromise and accountability.)  And to qualify this remark, I must, too, mention that I love my wife and that my wife has most certainly enhanced my life.

These remarks I find extremely humorous (if I don’t say so myself).  First off, as an existentialist, I know that I’ll not get a next lifetime.  As an existentialist I know that I’ve only a one-way ticket for just one ride.

Secondly, I am also a firm believer in projective psychology.  Ironically then, I am hoping, I guess, for another lifetime, perhaps to redeem myself?  From my failings in my present lifetime?

The skinny of this is simple, simple.  People with curly hair desire straight hair and people with straight hair secretly want curly hair; people with kids imagine their lives (positively) without kids, and people without kids imagine their lives (positively) with kids.  This is the human condition:  To desire what we don’t have.

As a 67-year old I know that to date I’ve accomplished nothing, at least nothing that is beyond the ordinary.  I shall articulate this with an example or two.  People with faith believe in God.  And believers in God know that He can create life and that He can grant everlasting life.

Hmmm … any living thing, it seems, can create life.  Creating life, continuing the species is a talent and function of all life forms.  (Any dummy can create life – being the biological father of three, I’m living proof of that.)  However, those fraught with faith who are willing to gives tithes in church, are unlikely to buy into my sexual argument.

It is the ability to grant everlasting life that sends existentialists down a different road from the believers.  Existentialists believe that when you’re dead, you’re dead.  In high school Physics classes, we learned that energy is a constant and because so, never leaves the universe.  With little stretch, this notion of energy aligns with the Hindi concept of reincarnation.  And with a little more stretch, anyone creating life, anyone having offspring, has created an everlasting life of sorts (if you can accept energy as being synonymous with life.) 

Reincarnation, the major tenet of Hinduism, is when the soul, which is seen as eternal and part of a spiritual realm, returns to the physical realm in a new body.  Reincarnation is a cycle that goes forever.  And so, even to the existentialist, even the dead offer a residual energy to help develop another living thing, be it plant or animal, fungi or bacteria.  For me this comparison of physics with reincarnation makes for an easy fit, and a philosophical one at that.

Just because I am an existentialist does not mean that I toss caution to the wind.  Carl Jung understood archetypes as universal, archaic patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart of instinct. As an existentialist I believe that for the most part, we humans really just want to get along with one another.  And to get along with one another most of us agree to certain sets of rules and norms that have been accepted and modified throughout the ages of our documented time on the earth. 

I’m a Carl Jung fan mainly because of his literary interpretations of dreams.  My first degree was in English Literature and the style of Jung’s writings have always academically appealed to me.  In my Psychology graduate studies, his notions of archetypes, too, like his notions of dreams, resonated with me.

I value my being a parent and a husband.  Even as a 67-year old, both roles still provide me with many very attached emotional adventures.

My value of my career is based upon my love of literature and my love of psychology.  (To me, English Literature and Psychology are the very same subjects, both being explanations of the nature of humans.  Though one purports to be mainly fiction, whereas the other purports to be mainly non-fiction, to me they are one and the same.)  I love stories and I love listening to people tell their stories.  As a hypnotherapist, I could not have imagined a better pay-station in life.

My value of my hobbies (obsessions) is based upon my creativity and my love to connect with others.  My passion for busking is my most perfect example.  I love to strum guitar in a public space, and I love that people are willing to toss coin into my guitar case in appreciation for my tunes.  These past few years I’ve come to love portrait busking.  There is sort of sophisticated joy drawing people’s faces on the street.  Comparing guitar busking to portrait busking, strumming is ho-hum; whereas, drawing is high brow (puns intended).

I think that the faithful and the faithless have at least one common goal – pleasure.  Factoid:  I believe we are all archetypal pleasure-mongers, always seeking the path offering the most pleasure with the least amount of pain.

My existential lyric on life:  Each of us is delivered a cappella.  We arrive au naturel with only a song in our lungs.  As we age we gather our instruments and accoutrements.

To close, I’ll compare Existential dread (that anxiety related to the belief that life has no meaning other than what people choose) to Evangelical enthusiasm (that intense and eager enjoyment teaching the Christian gospel).  It is a matter of accepting the present reality compared to the dreaming of a better beyond. 

To what end would you rather discover Jesus rather than discover yourself …

To be, or not to be, that is the question.

FOLK NIGHT AT BUSHWAKKER (L-R TRENT, NATHAN, SELF)