Karen Restivo
In Other Words....
Final - now there’s a word that has a serious connotation: culmination, conclusion, finale, climax, end or terminal.
It’s safe to say there’s no more exits.
When it comes to life, there’s no advance warning system of impending death or expiration date printed on our bottom at birth.
During childhood and teen years, the adjective final follows us through academia as a signal to our caregivers just how we’re coming along.
It’s during adulthood that custody is turned over to each of us.
We have human custody of ourselves. Wait, what?
Psychotherapist and author Joe Nucci takes the ambiguous out of that revelation, and in place of it brings it down to the nitty-gritty:
“If you wanted a single, brutally distilled psychological survival kit - something forged from thousands of studies and the deepest ideas from Freud to Frankl, Jung to Kahneman, Nietzsche to contemporary behavioral science - here are five truths you must understand about your own mind or risk being sabotaged by it:
Your Brain Lies to You - Constantly.
You are not a passive observer of reality; you are a narrator.
Your brain invents stories that feel true - but are often built on cognitive biases, emotional residue, and past wounds. (*Knowing this lets you question your reactions instead of obeying them.)
What You Avoid Controls You.
Avoidance feels like relief in the short term. But every time you dodge discomfort, you strengthen fear, shame, procrastination, or resentment. (*Healing, growth, success - all require learning to lean into discomfort on purpose.)
You Are Not Who You Think You Are.
Identity isn’t fixed. It’s a feedback loop of habits, roles, beliefs, and repeated stories.
You shape who you are by what you do over and over, not what you wish were true.
(*If you want to change your life, start with what you repeat.)
You are Wired for Emotion but Built to Regulate It.
Feeling your emotions is not enough. Mental health comes from being able to name, hold and use your emotions - not be hijacked by them. (*The unregulated feel stuck. The regulated move forward, even when it’s hard.)
You Will Suffer Either Way - So Suffer for Something Worthwhile.
There is no life without pain.
But there is a difference between meaningless pain and meaningful sacrifice. Purpose doesn’t remove suffering. It gives it a reason.
(*Avoiding suffering is a dead end. Choosing it wisely is the path to power.)”
Nucci did not hold back.
Truthfully, where was this guy four or five decades ago when we really could have used this ultimate rulebook on self-regulation?
There is no ‘Metamucil’ per se to guide us through the unknown expanse of life regulation.
(Yes, it was time to lighten up this conversation and bring us back from the edge over these shocking revelations.)
In other words, Life is serious.
There will be a report card reflecting the final examination on our human self-custody.
If we don’t learn to love and accept ourselves, we won’t learn to love others.
Karenrestivo57@gmail.com