Self-Coaching Dr. Joe Luciani

In this Self-Coaching episode, I want to help you demystify your thoughts, especially the neurotic, torturous thoughts that lead to emotional struggle. It begins by depersonalizing your insecurity-driven thinking, understanding that these aren’t your thoughts—well, not consciously intended thoughts—they’re nothing more than iterations of the same-old-same-old promptings of your habit of insecurity. Insecurity, not you, is instigating, promoting, and delivering these neurotic thoughts to you. And as long as you remain a passive receiver of these thoughts, you will be affected and you will suffer.







I realize it sounds rather bizarre to suggest that you aren’t feeding yourself neurotic thoughts, but how could this be otherwise when you hear people saying, “I know my thoughts are crazy, but I just can’t stop them,” or “I have everything to live for, I’m so blessed, why do I have these dark thoughts?” The reason is because your habit of insecurity is feeding these thoughts to your conscious mind and you’re reacting to them as if they’re your thoughts. They’re not!

If you tell someone that you’re feeling depressed, they’ll no doubt understand what you’re talking about. Feeling empty, sad, down-in-the-dumps, worthless, or just plain blah is often commonly experienced with depression. The dictionary generically defines depression as a “pressing down,” which is precisely what the emotions associated with depression feel like—a weight on your shoulders, an overwhelming feeling of dread and hopelessness that presses down on you, making life difficult if not impossible. The reason everyone understands what depression feels like is because we’ve all, at one time or another, felt depressed. Feeling depressed is often a normal, albeit difficult, part of being human in a world of struggles, setbacks, and loss. However, the depression we feel when pressed down in response to challenging life circumstances is quite different from what is commonly referred to as clinical or major depression.







In this Self-Coaching episode, I discuss how to differentiate between clinical depression and what I call “circumstantial” depression. Although there can be some confusion when trying to differentiate one from the other, especially when there is an overlap between these depressions, typically, a person suffering from a circumstantial, non-clinical depression (not insecurity-driven) will eventually regain normal functioning as stressful life circumstances abate. The person with clinical depression will sustain a depression because the cause, insecurity, continues to fuel it.

Everyone worries, right? If so, are we, in fact, genetically programmed to “worry” about threatening future events? If so, then by extension, are we doomed, to a greater or lesser degree, to be anxious? The answer is yes. We seem to be programmed to worry, and yes, we seem to be programmed to get anxious. But there is a caveat. Both worrying and anxiety can be either perfectly normal or terribly neurotic.







Completely eliminating anxiety in life isn’t a possibility. We all deal with difficult life circumstances, loss, rejection, separations, and so on, and having a proportionate, anxious reaction to such challenges is clearly an understandable human reaction, however, a disproportionate, ruminative, ongoing struggle with crippling anxiety is not only neurotic, it’s avoidable.  In this Self-Coaching episode, you’ll learn how my dog, Lulu, helped me to develop a common sense approach to minimizing life’s anxieties.   

We are all creatures of habit. Whether it’s brushing your teeth, taking your daily shower, or jogging every day, clearly, not all habits are destructive. However, when habits are driven by insecurity and a need to escape emotional vulnerability, they can become neurotic, even addictive attempts to kick the here-and-now discomfort down the road by escaping it. This is called denial. But how do you know if it’s you or your habits that are controlling your life?







In this Self-Coaching episode, I discuss how to determine whether your habits, however compulsive they may seem, are normal and healthy or neurotically destructive.

If you’re like most people who have tried to understand why your life has become so twisted and tormented, you’ve probably spent most of your time scouring the weeds of your past looking for clues as to “Why?”And you’ve likely come out of those weeds still feeling stuck. You may have tried therapy (formal or self-help bibliotherapy) yet, you’re still struggling. In my estimation, whether it’s formal therapy or your own bibliotherapy, if all your efforts aren’t making sense and translating to everyday real-life experience, then perhaps it’s time to simplify the process of healing.







What if I were to tell you that there are two simple, uncomplicated reasons why you suffer from anxiety and depression? Well, you might think this is an exaggeration. In this Self-Coaching episode let me explain why it’s not an exaggeration.

Typically, we worry when we feel threatened, unsafe, or challenged by life circumstances. Essentially, worry is an anticipation of future chaos—chaos that may or may not actually occur. Since no one can know the future, worry is based on a projection of insecurity--what-if thinking. In this Self-Coaching episode, I discuss the importance of differentiating between emotional, insecurity-driven thinking (a.k.a. neurotic thinking) and rational, factual, mature thinking.







Worry gives the illusion that you’re doing something about your vulnerability. And when you’re feeling out of control and vulnerable, this illusion convinces you that you’re not helpless. Unfortunately, the more you worry to feel less vulnerable, the more unsafe, stressed and insecure you feel. So, why do we do it? Because without a foundation of self-trust, worrying is the only game in town—we try to compensate for our lack of self-trust by reading the tea leaves of an uncertain future. Rather than feeling completely helpless, worrying makes us feel that at least we’re doing something! And this is what keeps us hooked into a neurotic habit of unchecked worrying.







When challenged and feeling vulnerable, it’s okay to be concerned with the facts, but NOT the emotional fictions perpetrated by insecurity. Fictions that we can’t handle what’s coming around the next corner.