Overcoming Your Fear of Feelings
I recently attended a panel discussion on the topic of happiness. Early on in the dialogue, one of the panelists addressed what he considered the mistaken way that most people think about happiness, namely, as a state that is free from pain or difficulty. He explained that we need to view happiness as a state […]
How to Love a Narcissist Without Losing Yourself
My 10-year-old was invited to a party this weekend, a camp reunion sleepover, given by one of her closest friends. Unfortunately, this same weekend, she has an event that she can’t and doesn’t want to miss, a competition for which she has trained diligently and for many months. The other little girl is very […]
Has Your Ego Slipped Inside Your Witness?
Orange was the new black. Now mindfulness has trumped orange and is indeed, the newest black. Talk in social media is that everyone is practicing it, “doing” mindfulness, becoming spiritual. Sounds good! Becoming aware and conscious of what is happening in the present moment, both inside and outside our body, is a powerful and life […]
How to Be IN the Present Moment When We Don’t Like the Present Moment
I always giggle when I see the photograph that accompanies blogs or articles on “being present.” The image is, nine times out of ten, from behind a person (usually a woman) who is sitting cross-legged on the beach, looking out at an ocean or other body of water, with the sun setting or rising in […]
Is Anyone Worth Turning Off Your Phone?
A client of mine is separating from her husband because he cannot separate from his iPhone. These days, when couples go out to eat together, the first thing they do is pull out their devices, if they are not already in their clutches, and place them on the table between each other. There is nothing […]
Is Technology Worsening Our Basic Restlessness?
The information age is to the human mind what the age of debauchery was to the human id. Our mind, jacked up on information, images, games, communication and all the other stuff that technology provides, is becoming an impulsive beast that has to be fed continuously. Previous to this explosion in technology, we, the larger […]
Has Technology Killed Down-Time?
A woman I know is afraid to go to bed at night. She’s not afraid of the dark or of having a nightmare. She’s not afraid of someone breaking into her apartment or of dying in her sleep. What she’s afraid of is open time with herself, the down time/unfocused space that bedtime brings, when […]
Are You Feeding On Your Pain… Past Its Expiration Date?
Intimate relationships include pain, at least every intimate relationship I have ever been in or witnessed. And most, if we’re lucky, include pleasure too. We cannot change the fact that pain is included in intimacy, but how much pain we endure is, in part, up to us. As a therapist and a wife, I think […]
Loving A Narcissist Without Losing Yourself
My 10-year-old was invited to a party this weekend, a camp reunion sleepover, given by one of her closest friends. Unfortunately, this same weekend, she has an event that she can’t and doesn’t want to miss, a competition for which she has trained diligently and for many months. The other little girl is very angry […]
How to Practice Mindfulness With No Special Skills
Mindfulness is hot, and like all hot topics, it comes with a lot of truths and a lot of falsehoods. Teaching mindfulness, I hear the same questions arising time and again, misunderstandings really about what mindfulness is and what it means as a practice or way of life. Indeed, most of the obstacles that we […]