The Making of a Corporate Athlete
What skills are necessary for professional greatness? What makes someone able to perform successfully under high stress and constant change and to keep doing it over time without breaking down? As it turns out, we have lots of answers to this question, and most focus on the rewards necessary for greatness, the kind of culture […]
Negative Thinking: A Most Dangerous Addiction
Have you ever noticed how much time you spend thinking about negative or painful situations, ruminating and replaying what’s not working in your life? It’s not just you. The last statistic I read claimed 80 percent of our thoughts are negative, and 95 percent repetitive. Strangely, the more negative an experience, the more we return to it. Like […]
Choice Includes Loss: Why “Having It All” Is a Big Fat Lie
“I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now.” These were the words of a television jingle I heard this weekend, just as I was contemplating a piece on the pressure we (both women and men) face to have it all. Working with Jane, a mom/physician, I […]
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 […]
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 […]
Why You Can’t “Figure Out” Your Way to Happiness
We spend our early years learning how to do stuff; we learn to walk, talk, read, play sports, have conversations and everything in between. Early on, we’re indoctrinated into the belief that knowing things holds weight and is important for our happiness and even survival. Knowing makes us valid, valuable, powerful, sought after, and many other positive things. Knowing makes […]
How to Accept What We Really Don’t Want to Accept
Right now there’s something going on in my life that’s very difficult, something that I definitely don’t want as part of my life. I don’t want this to be my reality and yet it’s clear that all of my wishing it weren’t so has done nothing to make it not true. As is always the case: […]
Why Paying Attention to This Moment Creates Your Best Future
Living in the present moment — it’s the practice at the heart of all mindfulness teachings, and the essence of well-being. But what is it, this thing we call being present? I’m not sure we all share the same answers for what it means, or if it even matters that we do. What does matter, however, is […]
Living In The Question: When Not Knowing Is The Answer
We are obsessed with knowing. We demand answers to all our questions and confusions, answers to even the as-yet unanswerable. And, we demand that we find answers quickly, to save us from having to sit in the unknown. We’re taught from the earliest age that not knowing is bad, we’re bad, or at least not as good if we don’t […]
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 […]