Are Healthy Relationships Possible After Growing Up in Emotional Chaos?
When we grow up in emotionally chaotic households, we face challenges in establishing healthy adult relationships. When chaos is the norm, we get accustomed to living with what feels bad and scary. We learn to silence our experience because it feels too dangerous to speak up for ourselves or call anyone out on their behavior. As children, […]
Freedom: Taking Ownership of Your Own Happiness
“Lily doesn’t listen,” had been Shelly’s refrain about her partner for years. She had complained many times to me about this issue, and yet somehow her wife’s behavior didn’t change, and Shelly’s anger and frustration about it also didn’t change. Lily’s inability to listen had created tremendous conflict in the family. A conversation would happen over dinner, […]
How to Make Every Day Matter
“Oh! It’s today. My favorite day,” Winnie the Pooh once said. 29,200 days. That’s how many days we’ll get if we’re lucky enough to live to 80. I think about that a lot, not to be morbid or frighten myself, but to remind myself of the importance of each day I get to be alive. The knowledge of […]
How to Protect Yourself From Passive Aggression
Mary told her husband (respectfully) that his comment felt hurtful. She suggested that he could have spoken to her differently and offered a response that would have felt supportive and kind. Her husband erupted with anger. Who was she to be judge and jury of him? He wasn’t interested in being controlled by her with […]
Do You Have the Courage to Stop Doing?
From human doing to human being…how a little stillness can go a long way… Our basic state of wellbeing is obscured because of the essential paradigm (or misunderstanding) we live by, namely, that we are human doings, not human beings. We see ourselves, our value, as being the sum total of our experiences and accomplishments—what […]
“Just Let It Go” But What Does That Mean and How Do You Do It?
What does let it go mean? I’ve always wondered. I’ve also always had a slight aversion to anyone telling me or anyone else to do it. Truth is, I don’t completely understand what letting it go actually is or what it entails. I spent some time with a couple of friends this weekend and one was sharing something deeply upsetting […]
FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real: When Our Thoughts Scare Us
I took a deep dive into fear this month. Over this past year, someone I lovedearly, a close family member, has been experiencing a physical symptom. We’ve been unable to get to the bottom of it; the doctors have not been particularly concerned and so we’ve resorted to just managing the symptom best we can. I haven’t been particularly worried, assuming it was just one of […]
When Feeling Guilty is Your Natural State
Do you ever feel like you’re inclined to accept the blame when things go wrong? The truth is, some of us are more prone to feeling guilty, as if a background sense of guilt is just wired into our system. Even if we don’t know specifically what we did wrong, we’re convinced that we did something we shouldn’t have, […]
Can I Let My Child Be Bored?
Perhaps the most common question I get in all my talks to parents and families around the country is What should I do when my kid says he’s bored and I don’t want to give him the device? Just this week, a mom told me that her son is always asking her What’s next? I’m bored, what should I […]
Can a Relationship Recover From Resentment?
As a relationship-oriented therapist, I am often asked “What’s the biggest problem couples face?” The easy answers are money and sex, but neither would be exactly true or at least not what has walked into my office or my life. The most common problem I see in intimate partnerships is what I call, t Paula […]