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 […]
Your Truest Friend Resides Within Your Own Heart
As we age it seems that fighting with friends becomes less necessary or even possible. There are fewer matters worth fighting about and even fewer worth risking the friendship over. That said, I recently had a real fight with a dear friend. The fight arose because my friend had decided that I had done something […]
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 Look Out for Yourself
There are times in life when things fall apart, when we lose something deeply important, something that made us feel connected, grounded or safe. Sometimes a lot of things fall apart at the same time. There are times in life, for everyone, when it feels like all our safety nets get cut, and we are […]
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 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 […]
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 […]