By: Logan Cohen, Professional Therapist & Online Life Coach - Balanced Man Plan - Online Life Coaching for Men
Men in their prime are currently facing a healthcare epidemic like no other in recent history. In higher rates than ever before, we are getting taken out YOUNG from complications of what is essentially ongoing self-neglect. I’m not talking about cardiovascular disease or diabetes, however each of these are made worse by this – Depression symptoms.
Whether we are talking about Depression symptoms that are actually from the disease of Depression – or if we are talking about some symptoms that set in for us men we allow ourselves to go unfulfilled as we protect and provide for our Loved Ones.
It is easy for easy for us men to get stuck in these modes of provide and protect, while avoiding asking for help as much as possible.
When we stay in these lanes for long periods of time that do not sufficiently meet our integrity (professional lives, relationships, family life) and we continue to find it difficult to ask for our needs to be met, it is common for us to seek other ways of finding pleasure or even escaping – whether this is alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, or even workaholism.
Some men can balance these methods of self-medication or escapism in a way that does not cause harm to themselves and their most important personal relationships.
With this being said, I have often found as a professional therapist that even when people believe they can “handle it” at first, it usually gets out of control at some point, or at the least keeps us from figuring our more Healthy and sustainable ways to establish a natural Balance between competing forces in our Lives.
Since it can be so hard to ask for help, the Balanced Man Plan offers online life coaching for men in a curriculum of self-guided coaching plans created by professional therapist Logan Cohen for you to access in the privacy and comfort of your own Home. It can be a miserable experience to struggle with Depression symptoms and if you haven’t been here or had a Loved One who has, it can be hard to imagine.
Our online life coaching for men is designed to support clients in confronting their depression symptoms head on with practical and natural methods in the following ways.
7 Ways Online Life Coaching for Men Can Help Depression Symptoms
#1 Way Online Life Coaching for Men Can Help Depression Symptoms- psychoeducational information
First and foremost, knowledge is power. The more we know, the more we can do to impact our current situation – if we so choose.
This is usually a strong suit for us Men. Regardless of where we grow up – in the city, the country, in times of war, sitting in the classroom or on the worksite - Men are socialized to be problem solving machines. And the more we know, the more we can have an opportunity to effectively gain mastery over our environment.
Online Life Coaching is not considered an effective “medical treatment” in and of itself for the treatment of Depression in the community of Western Medicine.
This means that in the Medical community, it is not yet supported that life coaching can resolve Depression into remission. With this being said, there are so many practical solutions to treating Depression in the privacy and comfort of Home that the medical community is only beginning to understand itself – however long these methods of holistic healing have been used by natural healers since the beginning of time (yoga, runners, acupuncture, chiropractors, etc).
Even with the medical community’s relative ignorance around the effectiveness of natural holistic healing, research has shown that moderate exercise, adequate sleep cycles, and appropriate nutrition do wonders for Depression symptoms. Surprised to hear this?
Most aren’t, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to important and practical information that can be easily accessed from online life coaching for men offered by the Balanced Man Plan.
Our online life coaching and self-guided coaching plans cover the essential pieces of information required to strategically navigate Life safely and happily by pursuing a natural Balance.
#2 Way Online Life Coaching for Men Can Help Depression Symptoms- confirmation bias creates learned helplessness
When it comes from breaking free from the mind-numbing stuckness that is Depression, practical skills are just one component of getting symptom relief with Balanced Man Plan’s Online Life Coaching.
If you or a Loved One has struggled with Depression – male or female – you can attest to the sense of helplessness and hopeless characteristic to this type of issue. Would you like to know why?
Basically, Depression feels like it sucks – the - life - out of us. For instance, one of the tell-tale symptoms of Depression is lack of energy and chronic fatigue, even to the degree where activities that we once enjoyed are no longer pleasurable.
Think about this for a moment…How many spaces of our busy Lives allow us space to follow our own innate passions? If you are like most Americans – that is very few of us ad particularly after we get about 10 years deep into our daily grind.
If in those very few spaces that we still completely lose ourselves in the pure bliss of our own existence – if we lose that – it can be hard to stay excited about the rest of Life sustainably.
Over time, we continue to feel less and less authentically energized by our environment, the fatigue sets in even more heavily, until we start believing that this is all we are capable of.
As a professional therapist and online life coach, I have seen People become SO PARALYZED by their own self-limiting stories for themselves. This is literally called “learned helplessness.”
Our Online Life Coaching for men is designed to support clients who struggle with depression symptoms to gain better perspective about how they can set themselves up for success, rather than believing self-limiting stories informed by their own Depressed confirmation bias.
#3 Way Online Life Coaching for Men Can Help Depression Symptoms -Motivation equation
Would you believe me if I told you that there is a simple equation for motivation?
There is – and it is really straightforward no matter how low the current level of motivation might be. In fact, building motivation – also referred to as “behavioral momentum” – is something that online life coaching for men can address directly. Check out this equation below:
Motivation = Level of Personal Importance (# 1-10) X (multiplied by) Expectation of Achievement
In case you would prefer a description with words – here it is...our level of motivation is a basic function of how important this goal/expectation is. You can rate this on a scale of 1-10 and if you are like most people and are frustrated enough with not attaining this yet that it is resulting in depression symptoms, THEN IT’S PROBABLY PRETTY CLOSE TO A “10” –
Next, take that number of 1-10 reflecting the “level of personal importance” and set it aside. This number is going to be multiplied by the number that reflects our expectation that we can actually complete the task we are attempting successfully.
What is that number? Once we have that number (also on a scale of 1-10), we multiply this number by the first one to get our numerical representation 0-100 of level of personal motivation that we bring to a particular goal.
Feel free to check out this short video about The Motivation Equation below:
If you are one of those People who tells yourself that you will keep off the 20% of your body weight that you plan to lose in the next 3 months – or that after spring break, I won’t drink alcohol until summertime – you probably are not 100% convinced that you can actually achieve that goal.
It is SO big relative to where you are currently and is SO easy to stay intimidated by. When we are grinding away on our daily goals – sweating, bleeding, and crying with our Tribe – we have to know that we can achieve the baby steps that we have committed to.
We do not stumble over mountains, rather it is pebbles that cause us to stumble. It is when we pass all of the pebbles in our path successfully, we will look back and see Mountains behind us.
With this being said, you might want to lose weight, manage your drinking, or improve your sleep habits to a level that sustains a natural Balance for your Health and Happiness most optimally. If this is part of your agenda,
The Balanced Man Plan offers online life coaching for men created by Logan Cohen, a male professional therapist to meet you where you are at in order to help you develop realistic goals for Health and Happiness in your own Life, as well as that of Loved Ones.
#4 Way Online Life Coaching for Men Can Help Depression Symptoms – access a full range of emotional experiences
Another mind-numbingly tortuous aspect of Depression to experience firsthand is clinically described in the community of professional therapists and counselors as “flat affect”.
As the phrase would suggest, this means that our “affect” - or range of emotional expression, becomes “flattened out” – or otherwise limited. If you don’t think it looks like very much fun to be in their shoes, then YOU ARE CORRECT.
This subjective experience is MISERABLE. Many People assume that Depression means People should look sad. People struggling with Depression sit in my office at New Leaf Counseling Group in Charlotte, NC would LOVE to feel SAD.
Those of us who have struggled with Depression know that this oftentimes isn’t the case. It would be GREAT to feel ANYTHING – even SADNESS. BRING IT ON!
Check out the video below to see a musical representation of Depression for a better understanding
Research shows this is especially the case for men, who are 40% less likely to be diagnosed with Depression when we present to a healthcare provider because we do not usually look sad and mopey.
We most often look PISSED and are diagnosed with an externalizing disorder, such as a personality disorder or substance abuse issue.
First, our online life coaching is designed to support clients in exploring a full range of their own emotional experiences because this is a direct road back to our personal integrity. Once we learn how to operate from a position of our own fundamental integrity through daily Life, we can move to the other, albeit equally important space for your integrity to reinforce your Balance – to be discussed next…
#5 Way Online Life Coaching for Men Can Help Depression Symptoms - Reconnect with Important Loved Ones
Another unfortunate result of Depression symptoms – whether it’s more of a “chicken or egg” (cause or effect) – is that Loved Ones usually experience us as shells of who we once were.
We look like us, but when everyone else is “lighting up” as they encounter each other and they eventually turn to us, we have already withdrawn – either literally physically or just emotionally – and are not even there to be encountered.
I have learned over time as a professional family therapist that even while this is obvious to Loved Ones, those of us that are actually struggling with Depression see a totally different scenario in their own perception. Oftentimes, a Person struggling with Depression symptoms will think they have actually been excluded or isolated by the “in group” somehow – or that we are unworthy of being truly accepted and appreciated for who we fundamentally are.
After reading the above section on correcting flawed confirmation bias (see above), it isn’t hard to see how someone can find themselves in this flawed – albeit scary and painful position for such fundamentally social creatures.
Once we learn how to tune in to our own emotional experiences and ascertain our own personal integrity, then it is time to set Ourselves up for further structural support through Balance with trusted Loved Ones.
When we feel enough safe to do this with trusted confidantes, it allows us to develop deeper levels of connection that we can rely on to help us feel safe and strong through our own trials and tribulations – not to mention helping us with assertive communication and self-advocacy in professional workplace settings.
Even though online life coaching is not approved as a sole medical treatment for Depression, online life coaching for men offered by the Balanced Man Plan is designed to support Men in identifying for themselves and then optimizing a full range of emotional expression so we can utilize all of our Hu(Man)ity in overcoming the obstacles in front of us as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Even if we have the perfect medication for a complicated and/or severe case of Depression, there will still be skill-sets that can help us navigate those emotional experiences in a way that works for best for US. THAT is where our online life coaching for men comes into play.
#6 Way Online Life Coaching for Men Can Help Depression Symptoms - Address Issues From The Privacy and Comfort of Home – on your terms
The online life coaching offered by the Balanced Man Plan is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days out of the year.
Our curriculum is created by professional therapist Logan Cohen to support Men in optimizing their Health & Happiness by helping them to create a natural Balance with self-guided coaching plans. These self-guided coaching plans can be accessed wherever – and whenever works for you.
Unfortunately for us Men, most healthcare practitioners are female. It can be really hard to go to a healthcare practitioner who we expect to be female and ask for help, then even worse if this is involves something anxiety provoking – and FUGGHETABOUTIT if we are looking at something potentially SHAMEFUL –
Our online life coaching for men makes it easy for you to get help with personal issues most likely to be faced by us men in our day-to-day Lives in a way that helps us feel as comfortable as possible from the privacy of our own Home.
We are ready to meet you where you are at and help you take it from there. Maybe it is the beginning of a long, rich personal improvement journey – or maybe it is just getting on top of a specific area of your Life that is designed to help you sustain Balance safely and Happily.
Regardless of how you would like the Balanced Man Plan to work for you, we are honored to be a part of your Journey – privately of course.
#7 Way Online Life Coaching for Men Can Help Depression Symptoms - accountability – help us help you
Since our curriculum of online life coaching for men through the Balanced Man Plan can be accessed wherever and whenever – we are always there for you to double-check, or even triple-check what you have made the focus of your attention.
We all know that a little bit of accountability can be helpful. Whether we are working with a personal trainer who helps us push through s few more reps, or a dietitian that reminds us of the healthier alternatives to our favorite comfort foods, it is really helpful to rely on something in our Lives that will help us stay consistent and follow through with what we set out to begin.
Our curriculum of online life coaching for men in the form of self-guided coaching plans makes it easy to pick up where you left off, reference helpful information for the future, or go back to personal explanations given by our Founder Logan Cohen as he explains from of the more dynamic processes step-by-step.
We all need a safe place to keep information from our projects organized and easy to reference. Our online life coaching for men is organized in a way that provides our clients with this asset, as well as access to 24/7 “office hours” by way of rich video content in our self-guided coaching plans.
My name is Logan Cohen and I am a Professional Therapist & Life Coach with over 10 years in the field of Counseling Psychology. I am a Clinical Supervisor for the American Association of Marriage & Family Therapy, as well as the founder of New Leaf Counseling Group, LLC in Charlotte, NC. After spending tens of thousands of clinical hours with my own clients, starting a successful group practice, as well as a beautiful Family, I “picked my head up from the grindstone” to check in on childhood Friends & Loved Ones.
I painfully discovered that more than a few of my childhood Friends passed away at a young age from preventable health conditions and decided that as a Man, Husband, Father, and Friend, I could no longer stand by as People suffered in silence and self-destructed rather than ask for help. It doesn’t have to be like that and the holistic healing methods offered by the Balanced Man Plan is designed to help People “get unstuck” and break free from old patterns that are the barriers between Self & quality of Life.
The Balanced Man Plan is a therapeutic digital experience delivered through Self-Guided Coaching Plans created by a Male Therapist with the common barriers & strengths of Men in mind. The Balanced Man Plan has the goal of introducing a natural Balance back to Life so it is sustainable for the optimal Health & Well-Being of Self and Loved Ones - and ALL from the privacy and comfort of Home. If you have enjoyed what you see so far, check out our Self Guided Coaching Plans!
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