The Male Therapist Perspective: Recent Episodes
Daniel Galarza, LCSW
The goal is healthy relationships. This podcast is hosted by licensed clinician Daniel Galarza, LCSW. The podcast addresses all topics related to creating a healthy relationship with yourself and the people in you life. Daniel provides a perspective as a male therapist and husband of 19 years.
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Whe know what we should be doing to improve our lives. But why don't we just do it? And why don't other people just do what they should be doing.
It's not that difficult, right?
Listen and find out why it is so difficult to create real change. It can be a useful episode to start the New Year.
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Relationship problems are normal, right? Yes and No.
It's true that most relationships require that couples work out issues. It's part of growing and building a healthy relationship. However, too much conflict creates tension. This episode focuses on the different types of conflicts that come up in relationships. The fact is that not all conflicts are created equal. Listen to learn about the conflict that you might be experiencing in your relationships.
One of the most important aspects of a healthy relationship is learning how to get yourself out of the way. We don't realize how much we get in the way of our relationships.
This episode explores the value of not making it about you and the different reasons we tend to get in our own way. You might be doing it right now to a loved one, or someone is doing it to you.
You might be in a relationship with a selfish person and not even know it. Or maybe you did know it but didn't know how to describe their type of selfish.
This episode helps identify 3 types of selfish people.
When we are able to identify a selfish person we can learn to protect ourselves by setting firm boundaries.
Is fairness in a relationship 50/50? How are we supposed to determine what is fair in a relationship?
This episode explores the concept of fairness and how to break down barriers that get in the way. I believe that fairness is possible. But it would first have to take a complete breakdown of old gender rules that are getting in the way.
I believe that being decent is too low of a standard for men. The bar is too low when we aim for decency. Let's be good men.
Being a good man is not about how much we provide or protect. It is about how good we are to our partners and family.
There is one significant feature in men that get in the way of becoming good men. This episode breaks down what we need to do as men to go from being decent to being good men.
There is a difference between a relatinoship that is thriving and one that is surviving. I believe that a couple could be more in love 20 years later than the day the got married. Happily ever after is possible when we learn to thrive in a relationship.
Are we being our true selves? How would we know? We all feel that we are being authentic, but when we dig deeper we might realize that we are the person others want or need us to be. Ruby and I talk about what it means to be authentic and how to develop your sense of self. Self discovery will come with changes to your life and your relationships. So it takes courage to live your true self.
Some of us don't realize the power of boundaries. Boundaries are vital to creating healthy relationships. In this episode I talk about why boundaries are necessary and how to create boundaries in a healthy relationship.
How do you know if your partner is truly CHANGING or BEHAVING? If you have asked your partner to change aspects of their person that is hurting the relationship, it is good to know if their efforts are real. Most of the time our partner are "Behaving". It is important that we know if our partner truly working on Changing toxic behavior. This episodes provides helpful information about what the differences are between changing and behaving.
It is one of the most common communication barriers that I notice as a therapist. The act of filling in the blanks. When we don't fully know or understand something, we fill in the blanks with our own thoughts. The problem tends to be that we usually get it wrong. It gets in the way of truly understanding the needs of our partner and the relationship. This episodes goes over the reasons we do it and how we can start changing this bad habit.
Gender roles provide an idea of who we need to be in society and in relationships. But do gender roles help or harm relationships? Many people feel that if men and women were better at understanding their roles that couples would be better for it. Others believe that gender roles get in the way. Listen to get my perspective about the affects of gender roles in relationships.
Confronting truth is one of the most difficult things we can do. It can keep us in unhappy relationships. It can slow down our personal progress. We often do not even realize that we have created stories to help us deal with reality. When we are able to confront truth, we allow ourselves to better understand how we affect our relationships and we can better understand our relationship with ourselves.
If you want to have a healthy relationship with the people in your life and with yourself, you must learn to identify the stories that we tell ourselves and confront the truth.
This questions has generally frustrated me. For a very long time I did not agree with people's "secrets to marriage". My wife and I are confident that we have narrowed down one very important aspect to secure a happy relationship. When we understand that the rules for a happy relationship have changed, we become better equipped to to create healthy relationships.
What do you consider a successful relationship? Longevity is not the bet metric for success. Success in a relationship means fulfilling the promises that were made at the start of the relationship. In this episode I review 5 key features to happy relationships.
The goal is to be happier than the day you first made your commitment to your partner. It is possible.
Abuse is not always easy to identify. Many people may be in an abusive relatioship and not even know it. Society has a way of normalizing abusive relationships. It is important to know if you may be in an abusive relationship since it can give you a fair opportunity to do something about it.
It can be difficult to identify an abusive relationship since they can be highly manipulative. This episodes provides perspective on the spectrum of abuse and how to spot abuse in a relationship.
Leaving a relationship can be a very difficult thing to do. This episode focuses on better understanding when to leave a relationship. There is a difference between working on a relationship and surviving in a relationship.
We owe it to ourselves to have the best opportunity to be happy with our partner. When we understand ourselves and take accountability for our happiness, we are put in a position that may require a series of courageous decisions.
As therapists my wife and I frequently encounter unhealthy views about sex in a relationship. This episode addresses important myths about sex in relationships. It's important to distinguish the difference between intimacy and sex. We tend to have many misconceptions about how much sex couples should be having and about men's need to have sex.
When a couple can figure out how to improve true intimacy, their relationship with sex naturally improves.
Self-esteem is more than just a feeling. A person can have high self-esteem and be insecure at the same time. It's because of how we define self-esteem. Getting to know your true self is the key to sustainable self-esteem. It takes time to create a sustainable sense of self. Listen to understand the difference between superficial self-esteem and genuine self-esteem.
https://www.viacharacter.org/
Consent is a very important aspect of a relationship. Consent means that we respect each other's boundaries. However there are many situations in which consent is not respected. In this podcast episode I discuss the value of men's ability to respect consent that has been granted and consent that was not given. We all benefit when men are able to manage their impulses and take no for an answer.
As men we spend our lives being taught that expressing emotions is a sign of weakness. In this episode I talk about the consequences of reinforcing unhealthy messages about men and their emotions. The better we get at understanding and expressing emotions, the better our relationships feel.
Is fairness in a relationship even possible? Yes, it's definitely possible. Fair relationships are not about scorekeeping. A relatioship is fair when each person feels a sense of balance in the relationship.
In this episode my wife and I discuss the concept of fairness in relationships. We discuss the primary mistakes that couples make when trying to establish fairness. We also provide valuable feedback on healthy ways to create a relationship that feels fair and balanced.
Maturity does not come with age.
To be truly mature you will need to know what it means to be emotinally mature. A person that can self-regulate, respond and not react, and knows their values is a mature person. Listen and learn about what immature people do and how to work on yourself. It may be the difference between living your life and repeating the same mistakes.
How do you know if your family is healthy or unhealthy? Many people don't realize that they grew up in an unhealthy family. We tend to look at our upbringing as normal since it's what we were accustomed to.
In this episode I go over the possible consequences growing up in a fundamentally unhealthy family.
Understanding the effects of our upbringing can set us up to do better with the next generation.
Arguments are a part of most relationships. Arguments can be a tool to fine tune the relationship. Sometimes we might need to have an argument for the sake of repairing or improving the relationship.
When we know how to argue more effectively we can avoid unnecessary pain and damage to the relationship. In this episode you will learn how to hold yourself into account and how to reduce the intensity and amount of arguments.
Long lasting happy relationships are hard to come by. It seems like most people don't really know how to create a healthy relationship with their partner. Some people dedicate years and invest their lives to creating a good relationship. But unfortunately too many relationships fall apart. In this episode I talk about four significant factors that contribute to unhealthy relationships. Listen and assess your role in your relationship.
Parenting can be tricky. It would be nice if each child came with their own instruction manual. We try to avoid some of the mistakes that we feel our parents made. However, avoiding a repeat of our experience is not always the best way to raise our children. This podcast will go over things to consider when raising children with different needs. That way we can increase the likelihood that we are raising well rounded and secure children.
When you have a conflict, how do you normally handle it? Do you attack, avoid, or accommodate. In this episode I talk about different tendencies that we have when confronted with conflicting situations. It would be good to understand your tendencies. It can make a difference in how you are perceived in your relationships.
How should we deal with unreasonable or difficulty people? And what if the difficult person is a loved one? My wife Ruby and I discuss important concepts and strategies about how to better navigate people in your life that take up a lot of your energy, from the cashier at the market to you own parent.
Communication in relationships can get complicated. This episode goes over some important tips for the person delivering a message and the person receiving a message. When we practice these basic skills we can reduce the damage we tend to cause with the people we value. More importantly it sets you on a path on how to better understand your loved ones.
This episode focuses on understanding more effective approaches to understanding why you might be struggling in understandin your partner. Listen and find out what we can do to start improving conflicts in relationships. Find out what might be getting in the way.