Every interpersonal encounter with your spouse or partner is an opportunity to be present, open, non-judgmental, and vulnerable or not. Ask yourself how frequently during these encounters you are dissociated, ruminating about something, focusing on yourself, recalling...
Who is a true friend worth keeping and who is not? Ask yourself if your “friend” provides an abundant flow of love and never or rarely hurts your feelings. Is this person always or mostly available for you, present with you, trustworthy, and loyal? If the answer is...
Yesterday a client asked me tearfully, “What’s going on in this world with the lack of kindness? I do my best to be kind to everyone I meet, but more often than not I encounter selfishness, indifference or cruelty.” I told my client that, “So...
What do Malcolm Gladwell and Will Ferrell have in common? They are both promoters of diversity. In his new book Revenge of the Tipping Point, Gladwell argues that diversity keeps us safe from fascism while conformity promotes it. He appreciates how a monoculture...
Having done a fair amount of couples counseling I’ve noticed that many couples keep score and react emotionally to being ahead or behind. The score can relate to positive contributions such as grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, folding laundry, watching the...
A client of mine just went on vacation to Hawaii. She reported tremendous enjoyment from floating in the ocean. She also noticed feeling disconnected from the world around her. I assured her this was a good thing to happen in the context of a vacation. I wondered if...
I have a client whose parents were hypercritical, rude, insulting, and discouraging toward him as he grew up. Both parents were unhappy, angry substance addicts. Understandably, this client developed a highly negative self-image. He saw himself as a weird guy who...
There is no greater journey in life than discovering and creating oneself in tandem without the influence of people who think they know who you are and use their influence to make you fit their definition.
An anxious attachment style is when a person has experienced sufficient painful rejections to lack trust that friendships/romances will last and fears rejection to the point where it’s hard for her to fully commit to a relationship. Such a person is...
Before I say anything critical of the slew of self-improvement books one can find at bookstores or on Amazon.com let me acknowledge that in my early 20s, I was a voracious consumer of them who could never get enough. I markedly decreased my reliance of them once I...
