By BILL SHERMAN Staff Writer on May 16, 2013, at 2:26 PM Updated on 5/16 at 2:26 PM
BECAUSE I SAID SO
My son Luke and I took his two boys, Sam and Isaac, to one of my favorite places on planet Earth last month, a small lake ...
Every once in a while a coincidence comes along that is mind-boggling. This just might be one of those times.
Last week, ...
My wife and I just got back from three weeks in a cabin on Lake Superior, part of a legacy she and her three brothers inherited ...
Another marriage counselor weighed in on the blog I ran a couple weeks ago quoting Mort Fertel, adding a valuable insight that I will pass along, because, as they say, the best thing parents can do for their kids is love one another.
Brent Sharpe, licensed marriage and family therapist and licensed professional counselor in Tulsa for three decades, said that he agreed with Fertel on several points, most importantly that the key to restoring marriage relationships is to change behavior.
“Feelings are a byproduct of behavior,” Sharpe wrote. “They are like the fruit on the tree. A healthy tree, healthy loving behavior, will produce good fruit, warmth, closeness, positive feelings etc. ... The good thing is we as humans get to control our behavior so if we change behavior the feelings will change.”
I can remember the exact day I discovered the truth of what both Fertel and Sharpe are saying. It was a long time ago, and it had nothing to do with marriage. I was having a bad day at work at a Wisconsin newspaper because I was feeling wretched inside. As a result, I was treating everyone around me poorly. Then it occurred to me how selfish and unfair of me it was to dump my inner misery on my co-workers, so I made a conscious decision to start treating them right, no matter how bad I felt.
And to my amazement, as soon as I started doing that, my feelings changed completely. My misery disappeared. I felt good again. I had stumbled on a life-altering principle: right behavior produces right feelings, and behavior is a choice.
That was also the day I began to understand that maybe the emotion-led 1960s “if it feels good do it” revolution had some serious flaws.
