Graduation Madness: Celebrating As a Competitive Sport
I talked with three moms this week, each of whom has a child graduating, two from college and one from high school. Each described themselves as cracking up from the demands of properly celebrating their graduates. While from different parts of the country, each mom was down the same rabbit hole, caught in the frenzied madness of […]
I Did It “For You”: Navigating the Martyr
The dynamics and consequences of relationships based on self-sacrifice. Source: Karolina Grabowska/Unsplash Has someone ever told you that they did something that they didn’t want to do, something that prevented them from getting what they needed, but did it so that you could get what you needed? It’s a common and often celebrated claim, sacrificing one’s own wants and […]
What Stories Are You Telling Yourself Inside Your Head?
What’s the story you’re telling yourself inside your head—the story of your life, and about yourself? Have you ever noticed that your mind is busy creating a narrative version of your life from the moment you get up in the morning to the moment you go to sleep—creating a thread-line between events, a cause and […]
When Worry Keeps You Up at Night
Do you ever catch yourself thinking in the middle of the night, ruminating about situations that are unresolved or unclear and, basically, not how you’d like them to be? We do this kind of ruminating during the day as well, for sure, but it’s particularly prevalent at times when we’re trying to rest. We obsess […]
How to Stay Calm in Worrying Times
Because the world seems scary, doesn’t mean we have to live in fear. We’re living in anxious times. Many people are concerned and frightened about what’s happening in our country and the world, not to mention the climate, human rights, technology, and everything else. It feels like so much of what we once relied on […]
How to Stop Proving You’re Right (Even When You Are) – Part 2
Using the need to be right to change and grow. As I discussed in the first part of this series, we’re raised to believe there’s one reality, one right version of what is, while in fact, there are 8.2 billion realities, different versions of what happened, what is, being lived simultaneously on this one planet. None of which […]
Are You Living the Menu Not the Meal?
Telling ourselves about our life is not the same as living it. I was on a jeep tour through the desert dunes in a foreign land. There were four of us in the vehicle. It was a magnificent morning, with the sun just coming up. The landscape was vast and also foreign, totally unknown. It […]
The Fight to Be Right: What Are You Fighting For?
Understanding why you need to be right is the beginning of letting it go. This is the first post in a series. Every week, couples want me to play referee in their relationships. Their hope is that I will decide which one of them is “right,” to make the official call on whose version of […]
How to Unstick Your Mind From Negative Thoughts – Part 2
Source: Igor Omilaev/Unsplash This part 2 of a two-part post. Click here to read part 1. Have you ever noticed that you’re caught in a thought loop, ruminating on something you’ve ruminated on a thousand times before? And yet, even knowing that you’re caught, you still can’t get out—you can’t stop thinking the same thoughts? Just […]
Unsticking Your Mind From Negative Thought Loops
Most people have some negative self-story lurking in the shadows of their consciousness, something they believe or fear is true about themselves—something bad. Usually, these negative self-stories start in childhood, when we were told this or that about ourselves by a parent, religion, coach, or some other trusted “caretaker.” It might be that you’re lazy, selfish, unlovable, or just plain bad, with […]