Mindful Speech: Using Your Words to Help Not Harm
When we want our kids to express themselves in ways other than tantrumming or throwing peas at the dog, we say “Use your words.” But I often wonder, do adults really know how to use our words skillfully, in ways that help and don’t harm? This morning I was on a train listening to a mother […]
Choosing Love Over Fear: Responding From Love Not Reacting From Fear
Reject fear, choose love. This is a popular refrain and wonderful advice. Many believe that there are only two primal emotions in the human being, love and fear, and that we cannot feel both at once. And, that in the same way that light removes darkness, love can remove fear. The choice to reject fear and choose love can feel like […]
The One Decision That Will Radically Improve Your Family Life
If you’re a mom then I’m certain you know the experience of telling your child to do something and getting no response, and then telling your child to do it again and getting no response, and then telling your child once again and getting no response, and then becoming frustrated and possibly raising your voice, and […]
How Long Should I Wait For My Partner to Commit?
Commitment is a topic that brings a lot of couples into therapy. While it has a single definition, it holds infinite meanings. For many women and men, commitment includes an emotional acknowledgment of a we, in that we are with each other and choosing to be part of the couple. And on a practical level, the possibility then […]
The Key to Intimacy is Radical Listening
The key to deep intimacy in relationship is listening, but listening in a radically new way. Most of us, when listening, are doing one of two things and sometimes both. First, we are scanning for danger: is there something that our partner is expressing that conflicts with what we experience or believe. If so, then […]
How to Overcome Feeling Insecure in Your Relationship
Most of us feel insecure in relationship from time to time. But for some, it’s a chronic condition that never subsides. Insecurity in a relationship prevents us from speaking our truth, being genuine and honest with our partner and ourselves, and expressing what we really need and want. When we don’t trust the relationship, we […]
What to Do About the People Who Blame You for Everything
My recent post: “When You’re In Relationship With A Blamer,” inspired overwhelming feedback, both from people who feel they receive blame and those who think they’re blamers. (Encouragingly, many blamers expressed the desire to change their blaming habits.) The questions I raised included: How do we proceed when someone that matters to us assigns us negative intentions that […]
When Someone We Love Believes Something We Hate
A dear friend believes something that I think is absurd — unimaginable in fact. That he could think what he thinks is not just absurd and unimaginable to me, but also distasteful, and profoundly difficult to respect. Complicating the matter in this case is that what he believes is something that I “should” do, that […]
The #1 Most Important Relationship Skill
I received an outpouring of feedback on my recent blog, “What We Really Want and Almost Never Get,” about the profound importance of listening in relationships. The comments confirm that what men and women alike most desire in our relationships is to be heard without judgment and understood where we are. So many have poignantly […]
Are You An Enabler? (Part 1)
I am an aware person–and–I was an enabler. My path to becoming an enabler started out as most do, as someone trying to help, and thinking that I could. A dear friend who is also a relative came to me in trouble, having lost her job, about to lose her health insurance and unable to […]