When Is It Time to Stop Trying to Fix Ourselves?
Are you a self-help junkie? Even if you don’t have a stack of books on your bedside table detailing the newest ways to fix yourself, you still might be. And it wouldn’t be your fault if you were. Our conditioning from a very young age is to believe that we need to become better, new and improved versions of ourselves, even […]
Are You A Blamer? How to Break the Blaming Habit.
This is the third blog in a series on the topic of blame. The first two blogs were written to help those who feel consistently blamed while this installment in for those who do the blaming. It was not my original intention to write a piece for blamers, but I was inundated with (and inspired […]
How to Live in the Real World (Minus One Troubling Word)
Of all the words that exist in our language, “should” may be the one that creates the most suffering. Every aspect of our life is affected and infiltrated by it: I “should” be, he/she “should” be, my life “should” be, this moment “should” be… Sometimes we utter our “shoulds” out loud, sometimes we think them consciously, […]
Loving Yourself on Valentine’s Day
With Valentine’s Day coming, love is the topic of the moment. When we think about love, we generally think in terms of who loves us and whom we love, both of which refer to others. But what if Valentine’s Day were really about falling in love with ourselves, cherishing ourselves, and knowing ourselves as manifestations […]
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 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 […]
How to Stop Judging Our Own Desires
So many of us judge the worthiness of our activities based on the nature of the activity itself rather than the intention/opportunity for growth behind it. We decide that we want to study jewelry making, folk guitar, pottery, balloon-twisting, baking, or anything else. Soon after, we ask “What’s the purpose of doing that?” “Aren’t I […]