RSS
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
Pinterest
The Choice
Posted on Sunday, May 5th, 2013 at 1:31 pm .I’ve been avoiding writing this piece. Why? Because I have a lot of thoughts and a lot of feelings that I haven’t been ready to delve into. There is a pair of mallard ducks that come and hang out in our pool for a few months every year. The female is a mottled brown and Read more...
Overwhelm
Posted on Monday, April 1st, 2013 at 2:54 pm .Maybe you could call it a creative block, but what it really feels like is that I’m caught between these different and enormous landscapes, like being in the middle of moving worlds and everything is changing and I don’t know yet where I am standing. On the mundane level, I can tell you exactly what Read more...
What I wish for Jyoti Singh Pandey
Posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2013 at 2:02 pm .Yesterday I first learned her name and saw her picture. She was smiling with warm brown eyes and long dark hair. She looked petite, young and sweet. I was glad to learn her name. I was glad to see her picture. I was glad to get to know her a tiny bit in this way. Read more...
Emotional Detoxification
Posted on Saturday, January 12th, 2013 at 1:58 pm .I read the an article about health recently and was struck by this paragraph: We are in a constant exchange with our environment, which is governed by the laws of osmosis. If mercury is in the fish we eat, over time we have mercury in our system. We cannot keep our system pristine and clean, Read more...
Standing In Your Shoes
Posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2012 at 6:47 pm .(Names and details have been changed.) I was recently talking to Cathy, a friend of mine. She and her girlfriend Sammy were having a tough time in their relationship and had just gotten into a fight. She explained what had happened. They were decorating the house for the holidays together, but Sammy got upset and Read more...
We Are Big Beings
Posted on Friday, November 2nd, 2012 at 10:10 am .Last Thursday I went to my Dr’s again. I still haven’t kicked whatever is making me ill. While in the Dr’s office, a man was there getting vitamin C intravenously. He had cancer. I told him that I ‘wanted to kill’ whatever was making me sick – the bacteria or virus that were in my Read more...
Enough
Posted on Sunday, September 30th, 2012 at 7:32 pm .I was outside. It was night. Someone was behind me: his hands on the small of my back propelling me dangerously forward with enormous force. I was scared. I tried to decompress the uncomfortable arch in my back but the force was too great. I tried to steer myself towards a large overweigh man, Read more...
What is Compassion?
Posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2012 at 2:15 pm .Sometimes we confuse compassion with rescuing someone else. Compassion is not rescuing. It is feeling the other person’s pain. Compassion does not mean that you agree with how they see reality. But it is understanding and caring about their reality. I’ve always been a compassionate person. I have always had empathy for those people, animals Read more...
Innovations in Couples Therapy
Posted on Tuesday, August 7th, 2012 at 1:35 pm .(reposted from WeConcile.com – original post August 17 2011) A while back I spent a week at a training workshop for therapists on Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples. While I have been working with couples for years, there is always more to learn; I believe that this is the best couples methodology available today. Currently Read more...
Inside and Out
Posted on Monday, August 6th, 2012 at 1:01 pm .Some of the big shifts in my life occurred when I started to look at the difference between inside and out. Examining this difference allows you to discriminate between what you think you want (ego perspective) and what your life wants of you (spiritual perspective). Sometimes these are the same things – but not always. Read more...
Family
Posted on Thursday, July 5th, 2012 at 12:28 pm .This past Saturday Mike and I were married. Our wedding was beautiful and felt blessed. We were surrounded by love and support. We shared our inner feelings about each other in a visible ceremony of commitment. A wedding is such a powerful ritual because it symbolizes family, commitment, love, and connection. It symbolizes a new Read more...
Accepting Life’s Challenges
Posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2012 at 6:20 pm .I am in a chapter of my life where I am sifting, sorting and reorganizing who I am. Sometimes I see the more expansive parts of myself – the parts that can hold a goal over along period of time and work towards them without much coming back in return, or the parts that have Read more...
You Are Only As Sick As Your Secrets
Posted on Wednesday, March 28th, 2012 at 12:48 pm .I tend to reveal a lot about myself in my writing. Even though as a therapist, showing oneself is tricky, I made a conscious choice to do this because I knew that is how we remove stigma and heal shame. If I reveal an experience that someone else identifies with and has shame around, they Read more...
Choosing Gratitude
Posted on Friday, February 3rd, 2012 at 2:59 pm .I had a session with one of my favorite healers, Ellen Kaufman Dosick (www.soulmemorydiscovery.com) the other day – mainly because I wanted to ‘drop’ an aspect of myself that was dragging me down and step into a more empowered place. I was finding myself getting upset about some events and situations that were obviously not Read more...
2012 – Creating Our New World
Posted on Saturday, December 31st, 2011 at 4:58 pm .We are stepping forward into 2012. I know for me, right now I am acutely aware of all of my ‘flaws’ – all of the parts of me that I wish were more evolved, more capable of being completely unafraid, less neurotic, more generous and more able to experience gratitude and joy. It is as Read more...
Accountability and Character
Posted on Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 at 6:49 pm .I remember years ago how my father and the four of us children would go walking up the hill into the woods to look for a Christmas tree. It was a somewhat magical time – one of those special times when we had fun with our father. The trees would be beautiful, brown branches, dark Read more...
The Gift of Dialogue
Posted on Friday, October 28th, 2011 at 2:14 pm .One of the memories that has been indelibly etched within me is a fight I had with my father. I had come home from college and found our old family cat Sissy with a huge abscess on her stomach. She was clearly very sick and going down hill fast. I talked my mom into taking Read more...
Portrait of an Affair
Posted on Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 11:27 am .I have a good friend who I deeply admire. She is kind, thoughtful, considerate and sensitive. She cares about the world and is involved in her community. She is the kind of person any of us would want for a parent, a friend or a partner. She had one of the few long-term marriages that Read more...
Markers of Change
Posted on Sunday, July 31st, 2011 at 1:47 pm .At approximately 4 PM on July 28th, my cat Hank was put to sleep. Over the next two days, I was at a wedding with two ceremonies. The first was a ritualized Hindu wedding for the groom’s family and the second was the traditional American white wedding for the bride’s family. To go from death Read more...
Letting Go
Posted on Saturday, July 2nd, 2011 at 1:17 pm .The other night I was in pieces. Waves of intense grief and emotional pain were coursing through me. For the past week or so, my 14-year-old cat Hank has not been feeling well, and not eating much. Hank is a small grey tabby that I got from the pound when he was 6 weeks old. Read more...
Growing Yourself, Growing Your Relationship, Growing Your Life
Posted on Monday, May 9th, 2011 at 12:03 pm .A friend once told me that she was not creative. I remember the moment clearly, because I did a double take and started to try to convince her of her error in perception immediately. How could she believe that about herself? And recently, with a client, I had some ‘soul collage cards’ that I had Read more...
Announcing WeConcile™
Posted on Sunday, March 20th, 2011 at 12:10 pm .Architecting Your Own Intimacy – Repairing, Rebuilding & Creating Love I have been deep in writing a new web-based and interactive program to help couples (or any two people) connect more fully and resolve conflicts, bringing harmony and peace to their relationship. This is something that I have been working on for nearly two years Read more...
When to Hold and When to Fold
Posted on Saturday, January 15th, 2011 at 6:52 pm .Recently I have had both clients and friends asking the question: “How do you know when it is time to leave a relationship?” It’s a great question, but one that is hard to answer. It is one that I have struggled to answer at various points in my own life for both friends and myself. Read more...
Default Places
Posted on Sunday, December 5th, 2010 at 4:22 pm .I had a hard few days, which in this case for me means that I was in workaholic mode, feeling frustrated and somewhat overwhelmed and being unrealistic about what I could and could not get done. I was pushing myself around ‘doing’ and not accepting the ‘being’ aspect of life. Luckily, a friend stopped over Read more...
Emotional Release Guided Meditation
Posted on Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 at 3:15 pm .Guided Meditation (Audio) to accompany “Emotions and Emotional Release“. Subscribe to the Healing Tips Podcast with iTunes The podcast for this blog posting is on the bottom of the previous blog post Emotions and Emotional Release.
Emotions and Emotional Release
Posted on Friday, November 5th, 2010 at 7:18 pm .Emotions are intense. They rock us. We have to deal with them. Someone says something the wrong way, or we are in a difficult situation and all of a sudden we might find ourselves in a fury, or in deep grief, or perhaps an awful sense of embarrassment and shame as if we are ‘bad’. Read more...
The Three Interdependent Dimensions of Our Relationships
Posted on Sunday, October 17th, 2010 at 6:40 pm .(The material in this article comes from understanding gained by training in Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples) 1) The dimension of attachment: attachment is a framework that underlies all intimate connection even if we are not aware of it. Most of us aren’t. It is a term more used by psychologists, therapists and people working Read more...
Setting Boundaries
Posted on Friday, October 8th, 2010 at 11:30 am .Can you set a boundary (say no) to somebody when you are not angry? Often, we can set a boundary if we are angry, but cannot if we are not angry. We use anger to assist us because saying no isn’t so easy (for some of us). Saying no when we are so mad we Read more...
Relationships: The New Challenge in Self Mastery
Posted on Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 3:36 pm .One of the things I enjoy doing is reading a book with new perspectives and then applying those ideas to my own field. I just finished reading Daniel Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. It’s one of those books that allow us to see the world differently. Of the many ideas Read more...
Respond-Ability
Posted on Monday, August 16th, 2010 at 11:07 am .This past week, some very specific events brought up a lot of pain and grief for me. The first event was when I read an article about a 17month old boy who was beaten to death. The perpetrator stated “I didn’t hit him that hard.” Later in the week, I saw the Time magazine cover Read more...
Shouldn’t-Be Careful
Posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 11:33 am .Sometimes we stand at the foot of a task and get stuck because we are telling ourselves that we shouldn’t have to do this thing. The task is there. There is no way around it. We have a choice. Our choice is to sit there, stuck, or to tackle the task. This is a choice Read more...
Navigating Dreams of Love
Posted on Sunday, July 18th, 2010 at 10:54 am .I watched Alice in Wonderland recently. As Alice was questioning the social customs and values of her time, she was advised to “follow the path,” to which she replied, “I make the path.” Alice spoke to the importance of knowing ourselves, of holding onto our dreams and fighting our demons in the process. Dreams are Read more...
A Radical Change In Perspective
Posted on Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 11:58 am .The other day, I heard enlightenment defined as a radical change in perspective. What is enlightenment? Why would we want it? Is it not to gain deep revelation or insight into the meaning and purpose of things, to be removed from our everyday perspectives that cause us so much angst and pain? I not only Read more...
I trust the universe. I trust your universe. Do you?
Posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 10:07 pm .I was having a conversation the other day about one of my fears. My friend told me that he not only trusted the universe, but that he also trusted MY universe. I felt myself relax immediately. How often do we think about the big picture? How often do we trust that we are doing enough, Read more...
Sometimes Our Potential Lies in Our Wounds.
Posted on Sunday, June 20th, 2010 at 7:22 pm .This week I was reading some old writing I had done and ran across a piece I had written 14 years ago in 1996. This was shortly before I went back to school to become a therapist and it made me aware of the evolution of my thinking and growth as a human being. “I Read more...
Why I wrote “How to talk about what we need to talk about but can’t talk about.”
Posted on Sunday, May 9th, 2010 at 7:28 pm .I wrote this article because this is an area where I can get scared. When I am in the state of needing to talk about something, and the other person gets triggered, I can feel myself tense up. My own history of not feeling heard emerges. I had to learn how to not keep trying Read more...
How to talk about what we can’t talk about, but need to talk about
Posted on Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 at 2:59 am .Sometimes our wounds collide in such a way that we hit a roadblock. One of us has an intense need to talk about something.The other can’t bear hearing about it. For example: Jane was worried about how her partner took care of everyone in the world except himself, including his health. He seemed weak to Read more...
When Wounds Collide
Posted on Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 at 2:55 am .When wounds collide, we suffer and we don’t feel safe. Our partner becomes somebody we no longer trust. It is one of the most painful aspects of a relationship. When we are scared, we act in ways that do not help our relationships. When we feel safe, our relationships can blossom. Do you remember O’Henry’s Read more...
Looking Inward – Making Sense of Ourselves
Posted on Sunday, March 7th, 2010 at 7:42 pm .I witness a lot of pain in my work. People don’t come to see me because everything in their lives is working. They come to see me because something isn’t working, because they are in pain. When I first sit down with someone, I’m looking for the pain. What is happening that is so difficult? Read more...
Innovations in Couples Therapy
Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 7:44 pm .I recently spent a week at a training workshop for therapists on Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples. While I have been working with couples for years, there is always more to learn; I believe that this is the best couples methodology available today. Currently there are new frontiers opening in brain research, child development, and Read more...
Bringing in the New
Posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 2:19 pm .It is a new year. Many of us have been reflecting upon the past year, and looking forward to a different time. For many, the past year has felt frustrating, frenetic and filled with limitations. Perhaps we will find more awareness, possibility, and peace in 2010. The Sanskrit word yoga has many meanings and is Read more...
Surrender into Support
Posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 at 2:13 pm .“The elders have sent me to you today to tell you that NOW is like a great rushing river. And this great rushing river will be experienced in many ways. There are many who try to hold on to the shore; there is no shore. The shore is crumbling. The instructions are: Push off into Read more...
How to Create a Loving Relationship You Can Sustain – An Introduction
Posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 7:34 pm .Once upon a time there was a princess. She dreamed of her prince charming. She waited and waited. One day, he finally arrived on his white horse. They fell in love and rode off into the sunset, and lived happily ever after. This is pretty much the romantic myth we have grown up with. Trouble Read more...
How Past Trauma Impacts Current Relationships
Posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 7:36 pm .“The more quickly either person goes from disappointment or hurt to anger, defensiveness, or emotional withdrawal and remains stuck there, the less that person is capable of having a relationship and the more the other person will have to walk on eggshells”. Mark Goulston Why do some people have relationships that work and other’s don’t? Read more...
What If I Decided That My Life Was My Friend?
Posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 7:42 pm .As I watch people struggle in their lives (and because it is not my life I often have more perspective then they do), I sometimes see what they need to let go of. Maybe they are getting sick because it is the only way they can begin to relate to their body with real love. Read more...
When Love Stops Working – Getting It Going Again
Posted on Saturday, July 18th, 2009 at 7:45 pm .Almost everyone wants love in his or her life. It is a vital ingredient of our humanness. We are born through the bodies of our mothers, most likely have nursed on her breasts, were held, touched and attended to. We develop in connection to others. Our survival depends on our relationships. We are not designed Read more...
Becoming a Playful Spirit
Posted on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 7:47 pm .Have you ever watched a child play? They have fun and explore within the context of what they know. Before they can walk, they play sitting. With each developmental step, the range of their play increases. As adults, we have the ability to play in bigger and bigger ways. But sometimes we don’t. Instead, sometimes Read more...
How To Stop Those Repetitive Fights
Posted on Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 7:47 pm .George had been very upset about the actions of an ex friend. Susan could feel his pain and asked him if there was anything that she could do to make him feel better. George replied, “I could think of something”. Susan retorted, “I wasn’t talking about sex”. George responded, “So what’s new?” Susan feeling criticized, Read more...
Intimacy (Into-Me-See): Invite Your Partner For A Visit Into Your World
Posted on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 at 7:48 pm .Most of us want to feel connected, loved and safe in a relationship, but building a relationship that works requires a number of abilities. Building a relationship requires building trust. It requires an attitude of kindness and curiosity towards our partner. It requires looking at our relationship as an adventure, rather than a problem or Read more...
Anatomy of an Emotional Victim: Changing Victim Consciousness to Self-Empowerment
Posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 7:50 pm .Sue and her husband Dave were talking in the morning before leaving for work. Dave mentioned that he had made dinner plans with a friend later that week. Sue immediately bristled. “You never make plans with me, everyone else is always first”, she hissed. Dave sighed. “Here we go again,” he thought to himself. He Read more...
Becoming Psychologically Healthy
Posted on Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 7:52 pm .We sometimes believe that if we are “good” people, good things will happen to us. This is not entirely true. While some people are intrinsically better at certain skills such as making money, having relationships that work, or making art than others, it has nothing to do with their inherent worth. Instead, it has to Read more...
Making Love Last
Posted on Sunday, January 18th, 2009 at 7:53 pm .Making love last is a concern for anybody with a relationship history that has included disappointment, pain and loss. How do we do it differently the next time around? What starts for so many as a blissful connected loving state often turns into sadness riddled with problematic behavior and seemingly un-resolvable conflicts. How can we Read more...
Emotional Courage
Posted on Thursday, December 18th, 2008 at 7:55 pm .How do we change the direction of our lives? Despite our histories, why do some people create fulfilling lives for themselves while others do not? As a therapist, and as a person who has made her life about self-transformation and then later, the transformation of others, this is easy to see. But for many people, Read more...
Getting Unstuck
Posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 7:58 pm .Sometimes we find ourselves stuck in a painful or unsatisfying situation: it could be a relationship, a job, a pattern of behavior, or something else. Maybe I am in love with somebody who is not available, or abusive, but I feel that I need them and I cannot leave. Maybe I am stuck in a Read more...
Safety & Reactivity in Relationships
Posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 8:00 pm .How many times have we begun a relationship, full of hope, only to have it crash and burn, or one party flee? Many of us have relational injuries from the past. This often manifests as a “fear of intimacy.” Beneath this phrase, lurks not feeling safe in relationships. Our fathers may have had tempers, or Read more...
Adversity is an Opportunity
Posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 8:03 pm .I was in a session the other day when my client who had been struggling with some challenges said that he was taught that things had to be easy to be okay. I found myself responding…it is a privilege to struggle and have the opportunity to find out who we are, what we are made Read more...
I Am In The Middle Of My Beautiful Life
Posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 8:04 pm .“I am in the middle of my beautiful life”. I tell myself this on occasion, and it always moves me into gratitude and also opens me up to feeling. It is a way of honoring my life, with all of its complexities, flaws, joys, heartaches etc. Even the parts of me that hurt or are Read more...
Telling The Truth: Creating Authentic Relationships
Posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 8:02 pm .Sometimes it is hard to tell the truth because: * We don’t trust our perceptions. * We are afraid of hurting the other person. * We are afraid we will make them angry or they will abandon us. * We don’t realize that relationships are about relating. * We have been taught to take care Read more...
Changing Your Inner Dialogue
Posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2008 at 8:05 pm .In order to heal depression and anxiety, it is important to look at your inner dialogue. How are you talking to yourself; what messages are you giving yourself? Do you tell yourself that you cannot disappoint others? That you have to be perfect so nobody else gets upset? Do you tell yourself that you are Read more...
RSS
Healing Tips on Facebook
Recent Posts
- The Choice
- Overwhelm
- What I wish for Jyoti Singh Pandey
- Emotional Detoxification
- Standing In Your Shoes
Recent Comments
- Marie Drape on The Choice
- Marie Drape on The Choice
- Marhnelle on The Choice
- Michele Khoury on The Choice
- Patricia on Overwhelm