Is Your Relationship Evolving or Devolving?
Viv, a composite client, has been married for 25 years. For the past 10 years, she and her husband Alan have experienced intense conflict and emotional turbulence. Neither partner, however, has been willing to leave the marriage, and there are increasing signs that the relationship may indeed find its way back to goodness and peace. And yet, despite glimmers of […]
When It’s Always Someone Else’s Fault
Bill came to see me because his wife “never takes ownership of her own behavior.” Bill is married to a blamer. No matter what difficulty she experiences, there’s always someone or something else to blame for it, but not her. As he put it (with exasperation), “She is never, ever, ever, but I mean ever the […]
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 […]
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 […]
FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real: When Our Thoughts Scare Us
I took a deep dive into fear this month. Over this past year, someone I lovedearly, a close family member, has been experiencing a physical symptom. We’ve been unable to get to the bottom of it; the doctors have not been particularly concerned and so we’ve resorted to just managing the symptom best we can. I haven’t been particularly worried, assuming it was just one of […]