You deserve to be here. How sharing your feelings can bring you back from the brink

Don't be a prisoner of negative thinking. Dr. Mark Goulston offers a solution to breaking free from them.

February 12, 2018

Just because you can’t compete, just because the world has no time, interest, patience or need for you if you can’t get it more sooner, just because the world has forgotten about and shunned you, just because you feel like a burden is no reason to kill yourself… or are they?

If you’re out of work, if you don’t have the skills to get work, if you don’t have enough money to retire, if you feel scared, lost and hopeless… what can you do?

More significantly, what can you do, when you feel incapable of doing anything?

And why am I writing this? Am I being insensitive and making your life worse and causing you to feel even more hopeless?

Some of you will say, “Yes, that’s exactly what you’re doing!”

And those “some” may be composed of people feeling the above or are people who are succeeding, who have secure jobs that avoid such people and feel I am being insensitive and cruel.

The reason I am writing this is that:

You aren’t useless.
Your life isn’t pointless.
You aren’t a burden.
AND you aren’t alone.

Just because the world appears to be saying to you that it doesn’t need or want you, doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be on this planet.

Here’s the deal:

Following this article, start sharing your comments about having any of those feelings and then start reaching out to each other and telling each other that you understand and that each of you is worth caring about and do deserve to be on this planet.

What good will that do?

If you’ll pardon the neuroscience, when you’re feeling stressed and distressed by your situation, your cortisol (a hormone secreted by your adrenal glands) goes through the roof to deal with the stress. That cortisol makes it difficult to think, put things in perspective and consider your options. I refer to that as “cortisol blindness and deafness” in that you can’t see or hear anything that breaks through that might give you relief or hope.

The antidote for elevated cortisol is oxytocin, which is another hormone related to bonding, closeness and feeling less alone. When you express your feelings – fears, anger, disappointments, etc. – and feel others genuinely empathizing, caring and showing compassion towards you, your oxytocin goes up and your cortisol goes down.

And when that happens, you begin to feel less alone and then you feel relief, hope and your ability to think and consider options – including learning skills that you didn’t think you could learn – come back.

So, share what you’re feeling, show empathy and compassion towards each other, and together you will all make it through whatever difficult times you’re going through.

Much love to you all.

Join the Conversation: Share your thoughts on Dr. Goulston’s advice on our Facebook page.

Dr. Mark Goulston is an award-winning business psychiatrist, a consultant for Fortune 500 companies and the best-selling author of seven books. His latest, Talking to Crazy: How to Deal with Irrational and Irresponsible People in your Life can be found on Amazon. Catch up on Dr. Goulston’s previous articles here.

Connect with Dr. Goulston through Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. His books are available on Amazon. Check out his videos on YouTube or take advantage of free resources available at www.markgoulston.com.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.