If we are to move toward positive change in our communities and culture, we need you at full strength. Do not allow anyone or anything reduce you.
Hard autumn winds don't just blow away leaves; They can also blow away the things in our lives that no longer belong. Listen to find out what else trees can teach us about transformation and healing.
Many times when I start to feel wobbly about current or imagined future circumstances, I look to the trees. In addition to giving off an amazing energy, I’m struck with the reality that many of the trees I encounter have been standing here for centuries. We have changed and challenged their landscapes again and again, and yet, they are still here. As we move into literal Winter, and also a time in our life as a Nation that is likely to be quite challenging, I encourage you to carefully consider the trees...
“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.” George Bernard Shaw... Today is the day when many people in the United States celebrate Thanksgiving. Like many of you, I will be sharing a collaborative meal and what should be some good connection time with some of my family. I am thankful for that. I’ve had quite a few not so stellar holidays in my life. I will tell you though, I do not honor this day as “Thanksgiving...”
The term “Andante” is a musical tempo. An Andante is a moderately slow, gentle pace. If you listen to the beginning of Carl von Weber’s "Andante e Rondo" you can hear what I mean. Notice how it just keeps rolling on, with a lilt here and lilt there? That’s Andante. 14 years ago, a different kind of Andante came into my life in the form of floofy little rescued “accidental” Lhasapoo. Since my daughter and I are both musicians we wanted to give him a musical name. We decided on Andante, and called him Dante for short. He has always just kept rolling on with a little lilt step here and there. That’s our Dante...
Not so long ago, we were all forced into a relationship that took precedence over many of our human relationships, including our relationship with ourselves. This relationship demanded the energy that belonged to other relationships, much like an affair. We all had a kind of forced affair with a pandemic. Just like we do in long term relationships with humans, we made compromises in order to do it well. We let go of things we like to do, the way we dress and spend our leisure time; The things that define and distinguish us. Now that we have broken up with the pandemic, (hopefully for good,) it’s time to reassess the things we’ve given up.
Feeling stressed about the outcome of the 2024 election? What if you could be ok NO MATTER WHAT?
Have you ever thought you had one kind of relationship with someone only to feel burned as you discover they had a totally different understanding of what you were to each other? Let's get up under some of those disconnects and offer a different way forward.
Here’s our third story in the “Story Time” series, “Three Young Eagles.” Let’s see what some discomfort can do for us!
"When we lose everything; When our stability is literally washed away, there is no help that will seem like enough... Trauma and grief are most often entwined. As such, in the aftermath of disasters, most of us do some iterations of Jack Worden's "Four Tasks of Mourning..."
Here’s the second story in the Story Time series, “The Anglerfish and the Squid.” I’ll meet you in the ocean!
Two squirrels and a blue jay help us consider different ways to look at life and community.
It can be a tall order to stay informed about traumatic events like the recent hurricane, determine how we can be helpful, and not become traumatized in the process. Click here to find out more!
"The stories we tell literally make the world. If you want to change the world, you need to change your story. This truth applies both to individuals and institutions.” (Michael Margolis) In the recent “Tell Me a Story” blog series , I mentioned that storytelling...
“We are cured when we no longer have disease. We are healed when we are restored to community.” (Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona ) Cured? Most religious faiths have some sort of tradition around asking their understanding of the Divine to heal people of this or that...
Apologies carry the seeds of intimacy. Depending on how we handle them, we can either flourish or destroy that seed. Click here to find out more!
Psychiatrist, Neurologist and Lakota-Cherokee descendent, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, defines “healing” (as opposed to “cure,”) as being reconciled to community and to self. Storytelling in both Lakota and Cherokee traditions does exactly that. Stories remind us of what is true, support that healthy story of who we are, and remind us that we belong to something greater than just ourselves...
“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” (From Love in...
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” (Maya Angelou) The Power of Story When we as human beings listen to stories, the neurons in our brains light up in a complicated and unique way . We tend to do what...
“To questions of life, chocolate gives an answer articulated in many chunks and flakes.” (Fabrizio Caramagna) Do you like chocolate chip cookies? Scotch tape? Do you like listening to music in your car? From the Ashes Toll House Cookies and their chocolate chips were invented...
“We can ignore the consequences of gravity, but remember, the consequences of gravity will not ignore us.” (Anonymous) The Anti-Hangover There's a new product on the market I keep hearing about on the radio. I won’t name it here because I don’t have the bandwidth...
“Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.” (Peter Levine) Trauma Steals Imagination ME: Do you feel like drawing today? KID: Ok. ME: What do you want to draw? KID: I dunno. What should I draw? ME:...
“The first thing you should know about me is that I’m not you. A lot more will make sense after that.” (From a meme spotted on social media) From the Preamble of the American Counseling Association’s Code of Ethics: Professional values are an important way...
“I was here before I came and after I go, I will still be here.” (Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, October 4, 1942 - July 16, 2024. Activist, cultural historian, artist.) I was a young teenager the first time I heard Sweet Honey in the Rock...
“If Freud saw my therapy practice? He’d need a therapist.” (Anonymous) A Well-Reasoned Decision To clarify, this is part two of a three-part series designed to help people candidly consider whether therapy might be useful for them at this time. If this is a decision...
“Steve” By Tiffany Sankofa pieces of my soul scattered weekly on your couch; You hand them back to me, one at a time, helping me decide what stays, where it goes, what i release, and what never belonged to begin with. This Isn’t For You...
An Honest 4th of July “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” (Ida B. Wells-Barnett) Many of you know that I don't celebrate Independence Day. It’s not because I am not patriotic, or because I don't believe in...
“When your intentions are pure, you don’t lose anybody; They lose you.” (Nipsey Hussle) Feelings 101 I haven’t reviewed this in this space for some time, so it bears repeating: Emotions are the chemical firings that occur in our bodies as a result of the...
“Discontent breeds lifelong change.” (Sarah Ban Breathnach) Not So Much Midlife, Not So Much Crisis “I think I’m having a Midlife Crisis!” I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve heard clients speak those words since I first started in clinical practice in...
"What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal." (Albert Pine) The Power of a Name I talk and write about “Life Mission” a lot. Enough to annoy people. I’m not going to apologize....
Unboxing Bodyism, Part Three “God help you if you are a phoenix And you dare to rise up from the ash A thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy While you are just flying past, “So squint your eyes and look a bit closer I'm not...
“I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it was within. It is there all the time.” (Anna Freud) Judgment Have you ever made a decision that wasn’t in your best interests, out of fear of being judged by others? Most of...
“What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?” (George Eliot) Customer NonSupport I’ve had countless conversations about how “customer support” has dramatically deteriorated in the last four years. It’s maddening. While it was not uncommon to find ourselves...
“ I'll never try to give my life meaning By demeaning you But let me just say for the record I did everything that I could do I'm not saying that I am a saint I just don't want to live that way I will...
“God help you if you are a big girl, But too skinny is also your doom, Cuz everyone harbors a secret hatred, For the skinniest girl in the room; “So squint your eyes and look a bit closer I'm not between you and your ambition,...
“In a world obsessed with status, let our compassion and empathy define us.” ( Henry Johnson Jr.) All the Splains Mansplaining . Whitesplaining . Straightsplaining . Thinsplaining . ‘Splaining ‘splaining ‘splaining. Our culture appears to be obsessed with positional jousting. We are drowning in hierarchical...
“Forever is composed of ‘nows.’” (Emily Dickinson) As mentioned previously, I am working on a course designed to help people achieve their goals based on how human beings actually think and act, in contrast to how we seem to think we act. We seem to...
“The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness.” (Robin Wall Kimmerer) Spring Above Here in Maryland, we are a little strange when it comes to Spring. We are very excited when it warms up and then curse the universe when...
“Even the invisible leave footprints.” (Wayne Gerard Trotman) Using Discontent Well Dr.’s John Gottman and Judy Schwartz Gottman, (co-founders of the Gottman Institute,) can predict whether couples will divorce with 94% accuracy. The number one factor that determines this outcome? Contempt. I’ve found over the...
“Don’t be afraid of your fears. They’re not there to scare you. They’re there to let you know that something is worth it.” (C. JoyBell C.) A Message from “the Gods” In my reading the other day, I stumbled onto a short piece about the...
“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.” ( Anne Lamott) A Room with a Desk When I...
“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.” (Henry Winkler) Simple, But Not Easy As mentioned in this space previously, I’ve been doing some beading lately. I love how easy it is to make something beautiful with beads. The patterns look so complicated. It’s an illusion. Beading...
“She’s ketchable, but not fetchable.” (The last law enforcement officer to try to arrest moonshiner Mahala Mullins) Talking to Dead People After my mother passed away in 2014 and I started learning more about our hidden family origins, I became a lot more comfortable talking...
“Good communication is the bridge between confusion and clarity.” (Nat Turner) Zillennial Gifts I completed the educational part of my counselor training in 1999. The landscape of mental health looked notably different at that time. My daughter’s micro-generation, the “Zillennials” , had just been born....
“If you never go out on the branch, you’re never going to get the best fruit.” (Sarah Parish) New Year, New Word While I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, ( see why here ,) I do pick a word for each year. This word is...
Humans are pattern-seeking story-telling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns, whether they exist or not.” (Michael Shermer) Weird Maryland As a child growing up in Maryland, I remember thinking that the Maryland state flag was really weird looking. It seemed...
“You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.” (Navajo Proverb) I’ve been hearing and reading an awful lot of people lately expressing surprise over how messed up things seem to be right now. Costs are going up, customer service has become a...
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars and change the world.” (Harriet Tubman) We Can Do Better I’m grateful that a lot of people have abandoned the...
“Santa had the right idea: Visit people once a year.” (Victor Borge) Holiday Lights December is a month filled with holidays of all kinds. Some are religiously oriented, some culturally oriented, and some exist just because we want some fun! I’ve noticed that a whole...
“ We must use money to heal where people are hurting and to stop more hurt from happening.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, Oakland, CA )...
“We need to put all our money where our values are.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, Oakland, CA ) How Much Can You Invest? Bearing in...
“We must build whole new decision-making tables, rather than setting token places at the colonial tables as an afterthought.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, Oakland, CA...
“We need space to share our whole selves with each other and understand we don’t have to agree in order to respect each other.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021,...
“We must acknowledge the wisdom of those excluded from and exploited by the system, who possess exactly the perspective and wisdom needed to fix it.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, 2nd edition, ©...
“We must apologize for the hurts we’ve caused.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, Oakland, CA ) Today we look at step two of Edgar Villanueva’s “Seven...
“We have to stop and feel the hurts we’ve endured.” (From “ Seven Steps to Healing” by Edgar Villanueva in Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides, second edition, copyright 2021, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, Oakland, CA ) As promised, this blog is the first installment...
“Mutual respect is the foundation of genuine harmony.” (the 14th Dalai Lama) I Went to a Conference and a Book Broke Out So there I was, watching the replay of a trauma summit segment, and this guy, Edgar Villanueva, started saying all of these things...
“The only thing you have to fear is an elephant in your kitchen.” (Riley Eaton… my 8th grade Civics teacher) Just In Case… Fear protects us, but by nature, it overestimates threat. As such, fear cannot help but to create collateral damage. Fear is an...
“Play is the mediator of the visible and the invisible.” (Dora M. Kalff, Jungian Psychologist) Finding Fun Those of you who listen to my blogs on SoundCloud know that I end each recorded blog by saying, “Take care of yourself, care well for others, and...
“When we don’t know who we are, we act like someone else.” (Tiffany Sankofa) Recap In last week’s blog I mentioned that we humanfolk tend to get caught up in striving for importance . I stated that we are all sacred regardless of our performance....
“There are no un-sacred places; There are no un-sacred people. There’s only **sacredness And our inability to understand it.” (Anonymous) ** Not Religious (Please let me start by clarifying that I’m not talking about religion. When I write about “sacredness,” I’m referring to the intrinsic...
“ Without lines, spaces have no definition.” (Anonymous) The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein arrived on the earth two years before I did. It was a popular book to read to young people as I was growing up. My memory of those readings is dusty...
"In every curving beach, in every grain of sand, there is a story of the Earth." (Rachel Carson) Stubborn Stuff Ever notice how sand finds ways to carry itself home from the beach with you? You might find yourself puzzling over sand in your dryer...
“Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.” (Robert Heinlein) You’re Not Listening! One of the more common wounds we human folk tend to carry into adulthood wraps around not feeling valued or heard. It can leave...
One of the most common repeated themes I’ve come across in a quarter century as a therapist is the childhood-instilled belief that we are Not Good Enough. In the limited scope of a child’s experience, the child assumes that the “big nostril people” know more...
“I will be here, you can cry on my shoulder, When the mirror tells us we’re older, I will hold you.” (Steven Curtis Chapman) Aaawwwwww I’ve always had a thing for those older couples you see walking down the way together, hand in hand. It’s...
"We had hoped that the white men would not be willing to travel beyond the mountains. Now that hope is gone. They have passed the mountains and have settled upon Tsalagi (Cherokee) land. They wish to have that usurpation sanctioned by treaty. When that is...
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, ‘I’ll try again tomorrow.’” (Mary Ann Radamacher) Rough Terrain My husband and I are both self-employed. While there is a lot of wonderfulness that goes along with...
“Since we live in the heads of those who remember us, we lose control of our lives and become who they want us to be.” ― David M. Eagleman Record Scratch I got tired of beating my head against the Canva program to produce my...
“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.” (Anne Lamott) The Dark I have always been a daydreamer....
“Don’t fear mistakes.There are none.” (Miles Davis) What We Tell Ourselves Does this sound familiar? “I really want to ____>fill in the blank with the change point of your choice.< I’m sick and tired of _____ >the opposite behavior and choice< This time I’m really...
“If you can't understand what your intuition is conveying to you, the key is to pay attention and listen to your body. It tells you everything that you need to know.” (Robin S. Baker) Respecting Emotional Data I frequently focus on self-regulation in my practice....
It is the best of times; It is the worst of times. (What Charles Dickens might have written if he had been alive in 2023.) Watch Out, Fingers Many of life's gifts come wrapped in barbed wire. I wrote about the barbed wire-wrapped gift of...
“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill or betray it, in relative opacity.” (Frantz Fanon) Coming of Age My clients and those who follow me digitally range in generational identity from The Silent Generation down to Generation Alpha. Personally, I am an early Gen X....
"I don't measure myself by others' expectations or let others define my worth." (Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor) Numbers Numbers Numbers The temperature numbers are going up and clothes are getting thinner. This time of year puts a whole lot of people face to face...
"You cain't always git whachu want, You cain't always git whachu want, But if you try sometime, you might find Ya git what you neeeeeeed." (Mick Jagger & Keith Richards -- see link HERE) Batter Up It's baseball season. Watch out for curveballs! Ok, ok,...
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Genuine empowerment is threatened by nothing. Narcissism, Toddlers and Adolescents In last week’s blog , I wrote about narcissism as a developmental arrest in the ego-development stage of life. But what if an entire culture functioned like a Narcissist? What if...
“A fragile ego is too consumed with survival to celebrate others.” Read With Caution I noticed the other day that I don’t often talk about narcissism in this space. It comes up often in counseling, but unlike most frequent flyers, I don’t usually blog about...
None of us are free None of us are free None of us are free; when one of us is chained, None of us are free. (Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Brenda Russell) NOTE: When a Person of Privilege celebrates the accomplishments of People of Color...
Is It Love? Or Luuuuuuuurrrrrvvveee? Please take a moment and consider these actual song lyrics. (If you aren’t familiar and want to hear the songs, there is a hyperlink for each, which also includes song credits.) “You are everything/ and everything is you….” “Can’t live/...
“‘No’ is a complete sentence.” (Anne Lamott) A Good Thing, and a Differently Good Thing I was in my office doing some contemplative writing the other day when my husband slipped in to give me a nice hug and a gentle kiss. He lingered there...
“Everyone is a good example of… something.” (Dr. Robert O. Burdette) Fear Makes Us Fragile Last week we looked at the challenge of fear with in-the-moment decisions. When we carry fear and fearful thoughts about the world around us over time, it can be a...
Our problem is not fear. Our problem is that we misuse fear. Haunted Mansion In the movie, Haunted Mansion, the children of one of the main characters appear with a pair of ghosts who have told the story of the Mansion and why they, (the...
When asked how much money enough, early billionaire John D. Rockefeller is said to have replied, “Just a little bit more.” Out of Balance At the end of 2022, I did a series of blogs called Against the Grain . In it, I stated that...
Last week I gave you an exercise using music to help you make better informed choices about your intentions for the coming year. This week, Music Therapist, Jazmyne Craig, LPMT, MT-BC, will tell us more about how all of that works, and how Music Therapy...
“When we don’t know who we are, we act like someone else.” (Tiffany Sankofa) It’s Social Media’s Fault I was trying to wake up this morning and started scrolling social media. Someone close to my age had a 1980’s “mixtape” challenge, ( youngheads click here...
“Expectations are …” (Yah, you know the drill by now. Thanks, Anne LaMott!) The Grains, the Fruits, the Critters… In the previous blogs in this series, we covered the way our culture has us going against the grain with seasons, with time, and with sleep....
“Expectations are (YUP… STILL) resentments waiting to happen.” (Yup… still Anne Lamott) Time Doesn’t Fit in Bottles In last week’s blog Against the Grain Part 2 , we covered how going against the grain of our seasons can foster Seasonal Affective Disorder. This week let’s...
“Expectations are (still) resentments waiting to happen.” (Still Anne Lamott ) Remember Myrtle? Remember our friend the crepe myrtle from last week’s blog ? She has some important seasonal wisdom for us. If we go into Autumn expecting to have the same energy and outlook...
“Expectations are resentments waiting to happen.” (Anne Lamott) Follow the Trees Imagine for a moment that you have never seen a crepe myrtle. (See this link if you really haven’t, or if you’re unsure.) Someone tells you that crepe myrtles are these beautiful, graceful, low...
The Grinch That Didn’t Steal Thanksgiving “We are all one child spinning through Mother Sky.” (Shawnee Saying) Full Disclosure: I Am the Thanksgiving Grinch I offer you 8 points of evidence: I hate turkey. (The bird – I have nothing against the country that sits...
“Don’t try to comprehend with your minds; Minds are very limited. Use your intuition.” (Madeleine L’Engle in A Wind at the Door ) “Identified Client” In therapy, the “Identified Client” is most often the person in a family system that was dragged or pushed into...
“We’re all ‘crazy.’ ‘Sane’ just means you figured out how to make your particular crazy work for you and not against you, at least most of the time.” (Robert Davenport, one of my grad school mentors) All Things in a Circle As mentioned in this...
“If we aim at nothing, we are sure to hit it.” No More Therapists I got some interesting feedback when I ended a blog the other week with the idea that increased community empathy would likely lead to a greatly reduced need for therapists, and...
“Life is like an ice cream cone; You hafta lick it one day at a time.” (Charles Schultz as Charlie Brown) The Story in Our Heads I was having a conversation the other day with someone who is hard-struggling financially. We were talking about creative...
“A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.” (James Keller) Two weeks ago, I wrote about Individual Empathy and how to use it well without burning out. Last week I covered Collective Empathy . This week, let’s broaden that circle one more time and consider...
“All Creation is one. What we do to one, we do to the entire web of Life.” (Chief Seattle, of the Suquamish and Duwamish) Collective Empathy Last week I wrote about empathy on the individual level . This week we will look at the collective...
“Never turn a single drowning into a double drowning.” (First Rule of Lifeguarding) Mirroring As infants, we lack the neural circuitry to regulate emotions for ourselves. We rely on the adults who care for us to scoop us up when we are in distress so...
“Life is a journey/ Not a destination/ There are no mistakes/ Just chances we've taken/ Lay down your regrets/ ‘cause all we have is now.” (India.Arie) Great Ideas Many of my fellow ADHD tribe members know what it’s like to be driving, or in a...
“Humans are pattern-seeking story-telling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns, whether they exist or not.” (Michael Shermer) Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet? It’s very common in therapy for people to become frustrated with...
“There’s a voice that doesn’t use words.” (Anonymous) Cranial Hierarchy Traditionally, we have a strong bias against emotional and intuitive logic in the US. “Don’t trust your feelings,” is a phrase that I’ve heard more times than I can count. Many like to believe that...
“Trust yourself; You know more than you think you do.” (Anonymous) Seeing and Not Seeing As I mentioned in my last blog, ( “Why We Vacate” ) I recently spent some time at a very special cabin in the woods, ( Moonridge Cabin .) One...
“Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) As I mentioned in the People Are Not Mushrooms blog, we human folk rely on patterns to stay alive. As I also...
“We co-create our reality with others in unseen ways.” (Doug Dillon) Mountainous Perspective I’m a fan of mountains. I don’t love them quite as much as I love the ocean, but they do take my breath away. I’m told that I have not even seen...
“I don’t know why you say goodbye/ I say hello.” (Paul McCartney) Each Goodbye is Hello When we graduate from a school it’s called a “commencement.” By definition a “commencement” is a beginning. I don’t know about you, but when I go to a “commencement”...
“How do you get a ‘bikini body?’ You get a bikini. And put it on your body.” The People in Our Heads We all have “people in our heads.” Some like to call this self-talk, our inner children, the mean parents within; They are pieces...
Quordlers I am one of those people that plays Wordle and Quordle every day. (Fortunately for my social media friends, I’m not one of those people who posts their score every day. To each, their own.) I use the games to jumpstart my brain. Today,...
“Grace” is that thing that happens when we don’t expect ourselves or others to be anything but our stumbling, bumbling human selves, all full of mess and magic, doing the best we can as we learn forward. Lazy? Sometimes I'm only motivated enough to admit...
“Listen to the wind; It talks. Listen to the silence; It speaks. Listen to your heart; It knows.” (Native American Proverb) “Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf.” (Anonymous) Letting Go of Linus’ Blanket As more and more painful and difficult things happen in...
Being reactive and screaming might feel cathartic in the moment, but sustainable change is born out of centered responsiveness. Inde-WHAT-ence Day? It’s interesting to me that we are about to celebrate another “Independence Day,” right on the heels of a Supreme Court decision that goes...
“Adolescence is just one big walking pimple.” (Carol Burnett) Woohoo Middle School. Friend, what was your middle school, (or if you’re old like me, “Jr. High School”) experience like? Have you ever asked someone that and had them say, “Oh it was great! I loved...
“Love involves a peculiar, unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.” (Diane Arbus) This Is Us Let me start by saying that I am one of those people; The ones who cried every week at the TV show, This Is Us , and are feeling ridiculous...
On June 11, 1967, I was seven and a half months old. On June 11, 1967, my husband, Amari, was six and a half years old. On June 11, 1967, “interracial marriage” was illegal in the Commonwealth of Virginia and 20 other states. If Amari...
I have a cousin who is a school-based Social Worker and Peaceful Parenting Coach, (>shameless plug< ** Confluence Parenting, LLC.) He’s married to a dedicated, creative, tenacious public school Math teacher. They are also parents to two totally awesome young boys. As hard as the...
“Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.” (Karen Casey) Expectations It’s often said, in various forms, that “expectations are resentments waiting to happen.” A lot of people I’ve shared that with, hate it. When I probe deeper it almost inevitably turns out that the naysayer has...
“Would it surprise you to hear that a man’s unhappiness is due in large measure to the way he is seeking after happiness?” (from The Seven Paths pub. by the Anasazi Foundation) I recently read, (ok, listened to,) the Kent Nerburn book, Neither Wolf, Nor...
“Take what you need. Give what you have. Live in harmony; Not competition.” (A saying found among many different Native American peoples.) Pearls of …well, something. If you have any age on you to speak of, you likely hear one or more of your parents’...
“Mothers are the Mt. Everest of Relationships.” (Tiffany Sankofa) Not That Kind of Blog So, before you go assuming that I had some wonderful relationship with my mother, we were best friends, blah blah blah… Please know this isn’t that kind of post. Neither is...
Who’s Driving Your Bus? “ Fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that leads others to join you.” (Ruth Bader Ginsberg) Déjà Vu All Over Again Why do we deteriorate in conflict with people that really matter to us?...
Have you ever noticed that large, rigid trees get uprooted or snapped during hurricanes? It’s the palm trees that survive: They can flex their heads all the way to the dirt and snap back up every time. It’s the water inside of them that makes...
“If you're in the middle of the ocean with no flippers and no life preserver and you hear a helicopter, this is music. You have to adjust to your needs at the moment.” (Tom Waits) Weird I went into the vet’s office the other day....
“Listening is a lost art that can be gracefully recovered in silence and solitude.” (Robert J. Wicks) Balance I usually pick a word to focus on each year. My word for 2022 is “balance.” I used to think of opposites as being at odds with...
As you might have guessed from the title, I’m going to give you another “About Last Thursday Tale” this week. (See last week’s blog for an explanation.) I want to mention that when I write these stories, I have to write them in the voicing...
“Give me knowledge that I might have compassion for all.” (Anonymous) An Un-Blog After spending several days going around in circles in my head over what to write this week, I’m going to take a different approach. As some of you know, I serve as...
** For those of you who are not “Dog People,” I promise… this blog is only secondarily about dogs. These are my “buddhas.” You have your own. My Life in Dogs I have shared my life with dogs for about 50 of my 55 years...
“…You can’t save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.” (from the Tao of Pooh, by Benjamin Hoff) That Russian Guy… and Us Ok, show of hands? How many people are contending with more anxiety now than they...
“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” (Margaret Wheatley) Ukraine This isn’t about politics; This is about people. In October of 1949, Wasyl and Marie Pawluczkowycz gathered up their first three children and left their homeland, Ukraine....
Skunk… tell me the story, So I will know it well. Of how to attract And how to repel. (Jamie Sams) R-E-S-P-E-C-T Thank you, Aretha! And thank you, skunk. Jamie Sams, author of the above poem, is the co-author of a series of animal cards...
"Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, the human race cannot survive." (The Dalai Lama) My husband, Amari, likes to do this thing he calls, “Turning the cube.” Whether it’s a news story, something he just read in his ravenous study of history...
“An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.” (James Baldwin) Recap In Step One , you tuned into your gut brain and realistically assessed where you were in the Cycle of Readiness for...
“Changes begets change as much as repetition begets repetition.” (Bill Drayton) Mini Review Ok! Look at you! You listened to all three brains and started to understand all the ways you feel about the change you want to make in Step One . Then you...
Hard changes are made up of a gazillion small, easy decisions. As mentioned in the introduction to this blog series, we need different strategies for different parts of our movements toward lasting change. In step one , I noted that we need to listen to...
“Your body is like the quiet talker with the most important thing to say.” (Anonymous) As I mentioned in last week’s blog, making up the mind in between our ears just isn’t enough “juice” to get us to real and lasting change. I also mentioned...
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” (Socrates) But how?? Say you want to make a big change in your life. You want to lose weight, exercise more, stop smoking, step...
If a flamingo can achieve balance standing there on one leg for hours, maybe I can too. Balance I was doing my morning meditation just now. I reached over to the wall to grab my dry erase board. I didn’t want to forget my focus...
Most People are “Expecting” this Holiday Season! “Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.” (Brandon Sanderson) While some of you are expecting babies… that isn’t what I’m talking about today. The rest of us are...
What people think in their hearts gets out, no matter how hard they try to hide it. (Munshi Premchand) Undercover Panic Attacks Have you ever watched reasonable enough, generally sane people turn into utter control freaks in a crisis? How about this one: You are...
"Holidays have this way of pushing us to do an inventory on whether our lives and relationships are what we want them to be or others are telling us they 'should' be, especially when people or dreams have died, when relationships reveal themselves as unhealthy, when people disappoint us or leave us or blow up our goals and dreams, when we feel like we are not measuring up to what and who we 'should' be? We are going to feel some very un-holiday-like feelings. "In other words, the field is ripe for both depression and grief. "Depression and grief are these obnoxious doppelgänger emotions. They can look so much alike on the surface, but they have opposite needs. It’s sort of like 'Starve a fever, feed a cold.' But fevers are obvious. Depression and grief? Not so much..."
The only thing you have control over at times is perspective. ~ Chris Pine What the heck is that?!?!?! That is an AFGO for Tiffany. That’s my car. And what I believe is ceiling paint. Yay me. Lemme explain. Cars and Life My current car...
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.” Helen Keller How We Traumatize We humanfolk think we are SO smart! And yet, that very thinking gets in our way and makes things worse all the time! When people go...
“Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful parts of us.” (David Richo) Therapy As Weapon My name has apparently become a threat. As in, “Does Tiffany Sankofa know you act like this??” “Keep it up! I’m going to tell Tiffany...
It's time for this week's Mental Health Minute: Here's some happy. (You can find more Mental Health Minutes here: https://tiffanysankofa.com/cat.../vlog/mental-health-minute/ ) #growth #personalempowerment #MentalHealthMinute #SankofaCounselingMD https://youtu.be/HlUt0QEvEOk
It's time for this week's Mental Health Minute: My mother was good for more than just funky 60s 70s music… (You can find more Mental Health Minutes here: https://tiffanysankofa.com/cat.../vlog/mental-health-minute/ ) #growth #personalempowerment #MentalHealthMinute #SankofaCounselingMD https://youtu.be/DdoNyBRut10
THOSE People, Case 2: Non-Binary v. Binary Gender Assumptions Joseph and Ren Meet today’s diametrically opposed duad: Ren and Joseph. Like last week, our brave participants were taught the principles and format of healthy conflict conversations as demonstrated for us by George and Rana. (See...
It's time for this week's Mental Health Minute: Do you have empathy? Learn more here: https://youtu.be/E-Y6UpoonyM You can find more Mental Health Minutes here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLrY0cDEeXW0XaOUgiVnN6w #growth #personalempowerment #MentalHealthMinute #SankofaCounselingMD
Ok friends, as a reminder, the 4 key elements we need in our difficult conversations, (as mentioned in the last blog,) are: Self regulation A commitment to a common goal, (and with it, a shift toward “ me and you against the problem ”) Grace...
It's time for this week's Mental Health Minute: Do ya trust me? [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of3IcQXxmTk[/embed] #growth #personalempowerment #MentalHealthMinute #SankofaCounselingMD
Understanding the conflicts in your life and their purpose. The gifts that conflict brings. View more Mental Health Minutes: https://tiffanysankofa.com/cat.../vlog/mental-health-minute/ #growth #personalempowerment #MentalHealthMinute #SankofaCounselingMD [embed]https://youtu.be/5vDZCVtJY3c[/embed]
Busting the myth of anger as a “negative” emotion! #emotions #anger #MentalHealthMinute #SankofaCounselingMD [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEfkgQl_9Bo&feature=youtu.be[/embed]
“Sometimes a problem isn’t really a problem, but the solution in disguise.” (Richelle E. Goodrich) Well that went south fast… I found our heroes, George and Rana, back in the fitting room of relationships, yelling at each other, hurling accusations and “Well YOU’s” like light...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPpBrC-A-PY Mind your Gap! Are you who you think you are? Here's one way to find out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3aqjcDORA0&t=11s Many people grapple over making the right choices in their lives. What if there is no wrong choice?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUT7B8HWPiQ "Forever is made of NOWs" (Emily Dickinson)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi9uoCNMnI4 I had every intention of talking to you about the myth of scarcity today.SOMEBODY had other ideas!
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v224Jn4QNFQ&t=15s[/embed] Nice is often very UN-nice! We can do better...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVX5fiRbxBw Sorry, Janet Jackson -- "Control" is an anxiety-provoking illusion. (But, still one of the best music drops of 1986 ;-) ) This video answers the question: What do "control freaks" really want!
What would you do if it were impossible to fail? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z1uci-6rs0
“Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.” ― Khalil Gibran The Right Tool Hard conversations like the one George and Rana are having might, at times, make someone want to pick up a...
The Fitting Room of Relationships, part two “Learning to stand in somebody else’s shoes, to see through their eyes, that’s how peace begins… Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.” (Barack Obama) George and Rana to the Fitting Room, Please… When...
We dress differently, think differently, strive differently, each of us unique, and yet uniquely connected to the entire human family. The Skin We Are In It’s easy sometimes to imagine that all of the other humans have the same experience of humanness that we do....
“Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.” (Roy...
Everyone wants to be seen. Everyone wants to be heard. Everyone wants to be recognized as the person that they are and not a stereotype or an image. (Loretta Lynch) Power Many spaces in the United States continue to operate in a way that thinks...
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” (Maya Angelou) Acclimation I’ve been telling you all for some time that everything in us seeks patterns and familiarity. Sometimes we get so used to certain patterns (habits) that they...
“Even in times of trauma, we try to maintain a sense of normality until we no longer can. That, my friends, is called surviving. Not healing. We never become whole again - we are survivors. If you are here today, you are a survivor. But...
“I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure... Loving someone leaves us emotionally exposed. Yes, it's scary, and yes, we're open to being hurt, but can you imagine your life without loving or being loved?” (Brené Brown) A-Ha! I've been talking a lot about...
Where the ant sees a tree, the giraffe (barely) sees a twig. Cinder Ella Grace, and Family Cinder Ella Grace is a 16-year-old whose mother passed away when she was born. Her father, Ferdinand Grace, married the Widow Rocks when Cinder was 12 bringing her...
“Is not the whole world an illusion? And yet it fools everybody.” (Angela Carter) Who?? My mother was a big Dr. Who fan. My daughter is also a Whovian. Me? Not so much. However, having spent so much time surrounded by Whovians and Who references,...
"The court of human relationships does not pivot on justice; it pivots on connection." Politics are like gravity I have a lot of political opinions. It was a bit unavoidable. I grew up in and around DC, where the federal government is simultaneously everywhere, and...
“Security is mostly superstition.” (Helen Keller) Gone to the dogs, totally Last week we talked about not channeling our inner Zenifred. (You can catch up here .) Today I’ll pick on Andante. …Oh, don’t you start too! I tried to say something about Dante’s post-surgery...
“Inner stillness is the key to outer strength.” (Jared Brock) Many people reading this blog have had the pleasure of my assistant, Dr. Dante D. Dawg’s company. He is a gentle, quiet soul. He was never formally trained as a therapy dog. He seemed to...
“The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides.” (Artur Schnabel) I wrote about the Alchemy of Words the other week. Today, I’d like to talk about the Alchemy of Silence....
Music does not exist without tension. However, too much tension quickly deteriorates into chaos. (Anonymous) >Someone< very near to this computer right now, **** might **** have recently learned that it is possible to destroy a guitar string by over winding it >coughcoughcoughmeculpacoughcoughcough.< That person...
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” (Lewis B. Smedes) Nice idea That’s a nice idea, isn’t it? It’s right up there with the quote attributed to St. Augustine, “Harboring resentment is like drinking poison and waiting...
Al·che·my / ˈ alk ə mē/ noun 1. The medieval forerunner of chemistry, based on the supposed transformation of matter. It was concerned particularly with attempts to convert base metals into gold or to find a universal elixir. Similar: Chemistry , magic , sorcery ,...
“’No,’ is a compete sentence.” (Anne LaMott) If nothing else, the past 13 or 14 months has taught us the power of thinking outside of the box and challenging what has “always” been expected of us. My Stepfather, Charles, taught me something amazing about this...
“None are so empty as those who are full of themselves.” (Benjamin Whichcoat) The butter battle Imagine that you go to the grocery store. On the shelf, you see two packages of butter. The package on the left is in pristine condition, shiny and bright....
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” (Albert Einstein) No Therapist, you may NOT have a life. I met Tiffany Sankofa seven years ago...
“Gray is the queen of colors because she makes everyone else look good.” Helen vanWyk The Bone Moon In the Cherokee understanding of the world, we are currently under Nv-da Ko-la; the Bone Moon. This is a gray time when food can be so scarce...
"When I won the Oscar, I thought it was a fluke. I thought everybody would find out, and they’d take it back. They’d come to my house, knocking on the door, 'Excuse me, we meant to give that… to Meryl Streep.'” (Jodie Foster) Goody Two...
Sometimes we get so used to words that we look right through them. Have you ever really thought about the word, “’belonging?” We long to be. Just, to be; To be who we are, and still find ourselves connected to others. Isn’t that the dream? Belonging. Are you longing to be? To be seen? To be valued? To be joined? To be embraced? Some people are longing to be left alone, feeling crowded out by people who are nearby, but not safe-enough people to just “be” with. Our places of belonging hold up a mirror to show us who we are, what gifts we bring, and how we fit into something bigger than ourselves. Belonging shapes our sense of purpose and our sense of identity.
"Chaos does not mean total disorder. Chaos means a multiplicity of possibilities. Chaos is from the ancient Greek words that means a thing that is birthed from the void. And it was about that which is possible, not about disorder." (Jok Church) Therapist/Blogger M.I.A. Those...
“Purposefulness is one of our most potent antidepressants.” (Tiffany Sankofa) When you think you’re walking in one direction, and then… Retirement was a year away. I started seeing Tiffany to help me transition to what I called a “life-giving retirement.” To tell the truth, I...
Although the world is full of pain, it is also full of overcoming it. (Helen Keller) And then… So this has been a fun week… Regardless of where one’s politics land, the Capitol building being breached, two people killed and four others dead is just...
“Grief always comes bearing gifts. Unfortunately, they are sometimes wrapped in barbed wire.” Seeing clearly Welp… To be fair, I really did believe that 2020 was going to be a year of focus and clarity. I wasn’t wrong. I really wish it had been delivered...
“You find peace, not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.” (Eckhart Tolle) There’s that internal locus of control again Well thank you, Eckhart Tolle. Frankly, there are an awful lot of circumstances of our...
“Before you heal someone, ask him if he’s willing to give up what made him sick.” (Hippcrates) Holiday challenges and New Year’s resolutions Given that most of us are now officially in one iteration or another of “the holiday season,” I thought it might be...
“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” (Loren Eiseley) Maryland I grew up in semi-urban neighborhoods inside the DC Beltway. One of the things that I appreciate most about Maryland is that nearly anywhere you go, even in urban spaces,...
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” (Chief Seattle, 1854) COVID marathon number six… I don’t know about you...
“People can’t hear what you don’t say. Thinking isn’t communicating.” ( Frank Sonnenberg) Asking and guessing My 23-year-old daughter explained the concept of “Ask v. Guess Culture” to me the other day. Apparently it’s been “a thing” for a while, but I missed it. The...
“It is necessary, and even vital, to set standards for your life and the people you allow in it.” (Mandy Hale) Jockeying for space I have three older brothers, one of whom I am close to, one of whom I always wanted to be close...
“When we don’t know who we are, we act like someone else” (Tiffany Sankofa) Yes, I am STILL on that… If you’ve worked with me or read my blogs, you know that this is a frequent and repeated theme for me. I want to revisit...
“Have a great day… No matter what.” Why suffer? I have been known to close texts and email exchanges with, “Have a great day… no matter what.” It seems that many people think I’m trying to be cute. I’m actually supporting a much, much more...
"In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders." - Sheryl Sandberg The Psychology… not the Politics Fair warning: This blog is about the other week’s Vice-Presidential debate, but it’s not about election politics. I thought you should know that...
“Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the...
“I think... we have to really accept that anger is a normal human emotion that can be a positive force for change.” (Koren Zailckas) As many of you know, I’ve been taking a fiercely candid look at anger and rage for the past couple of...
[caption id="attachment_6052" align="alignnone" width="618"] (Illustration by Jazmyne Craig and Tiffany Sankofa) [/caption] “I accept chaos. I’m not sure chaos accepts me.” (Bob Dylan) What month is it? I’m going to share an embarrassing story with you. It’s only fair – people share their embarrassing stories...
"Happiness is not a goal; It’s a biproduct." (Eleanor Roosevelt) Why settle for just happy? I have a number of clients who are either naturally positive people, or who have worked hard to become so. It’s important to them to “look on the bright side,”...
”It has been said that time heals all wounds. The truth is that time does not heal anything. It merely passes. It is what we do during the passing of time that helps or hinders the healing process.” (Jay Marshall) Looking back and looking forward…...
“It is not needful for our dreams to be very grand nor very big. It is only needful for our dreams to be very shiny." (C. JoyBell C.) Reaching for the Shiny I’m finding more and more that we COVID-weary and Social Justice struggle-weary folk...
Moving Forward (When You’re Stuck Behind a Truck) ... I did the best I could with what was in front of me and kept moving forward. The Universe has hilarious timing… In 1990, I earned a B.A. in Broadcasting Arts. I never worked in Broadcasting....
I've been doing trauma work clinically for over 21 years. The arcs of personal trauma and community trauma are, not surprisingly, entirely parallel: There comes a time when we are strong enough, well-enough endowed at every level that we can boldly refuse our Perpetrator's definition...
“Hope begins in the dark.” (Anne Lamott) The eyes of a child… Children have a tendency to be more hopeful than adults as a general rule. Even, (and sometimes especially,) traumatized children can find and cling to what’s good, even when things are so very...
“Anger tells us something needs to change; Rage tells us something needs to heal.” ~ Tiffany Sankofa Afraid of Anger? Are you afraid of anger? I have to say, most people that walk into my counseling office are. You are not alone. However, you are...
Forget about the virus! This is LIFE! The Stoplight Technique Those people in our lives who can respect our boundaries will love our wills, our opinions, our separateness. Those who can't respect our boundaries are telling us that they don't love our no’s. They only...
“Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.” (Roy...
“Expectations are resentments waiting to happen.” (Anne LaMott) But I thought… You are holed up with your family following all of the COVID containment instructions and trying to make the best of it. For a while, things seem to be going ok. You’re finding a...
“Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.” Khalil Gibran “Words are the source of misunderstandings.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince The crucible of captivity In these days where we are together with...
Getting Off of Your Last Nerve "The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: If there is any reaction, both are transformed." ― Carl Gustav Jung Sometimes the chemical combustion of two personalities makes something wonderful. Sometimes it makes something...
Introduction "How can I miss you if you never go away? With the current COVID-19 concerns and directives to avoid public gatherings, a lot of people will be spending a lot more time at home in the weeks to come. If you, like so many...
Easier said than done, I know. However, we DO have the power to manage challenging situations well. First, calm your body and come out of Sympathetic Nervous System dominance so that you have access to your creativity and wisdom. (How? Go to www.TiffanySankofa.com/anxiety and I'll...
I hate snow. I hated snow through much of my childhood, then I hated it in Ohio for a year. By the time I had gotten through three years of living in Chicago? I was through . I've been utterly done with snow since at...
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Do you want quick and effective ways to stop anxiety, panic, angry outbursts or trauma triggers? This is technique can help you take your power and your life back!
We here in the United States have an unhealthy obsession with final results. Just think about most New Year's Resolutions: Stay on my diet and lose (XYZ number of) pounds Make more money than last year. Get married Meditate at least 4 days a week....
"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. " (The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) It is so easy to lose hope, especially when the pressures in our lives seem to be chronic and endless. I encourage you to find...
I've decided that my word for 2019 is " peace ." Except in very limited doses, I am unable to exact peace in our outer world. Factions around the globe have intentionally leveraged fear and an illusion of scarcity to pit people against one another...
As we walk into that time of year when people take stock of their lives and make their plans for the coming year, we would be wise to consider what does and does not work in achieving our goals. Those of you who have worked...
I’ve been working with couples and families for almost 20 years as therapist. One thing that has become abundantly clear that is that when people are in conflict, what they need the other person to understand is incredibly important. How we communicate that truth can...
American cultures bend toward shame. When something bad happens, many of us immediately try to determine if the person responsible for whatever it is a “good” person or a “bad” person. We assign blame as if having an imaginary frame to hold events in gives...
One of the things that first attracts us to others is a sense of shared vision. When we are first getting to know someone who intrigues us, we tend to get enamored with this idea that we have found a person who understands us -...
If you’ve ever had a conflict you know how uncomfortable and difficult it can feel, physically. You might find yourself saying things you don’t mean or having a hard time thinking straight. You thought the conversation was going one place and then you find yourself...
I read a book many years ago titled The Millionaire Mind . In it, Thomas J. Stanley explores the common threads between self-made millionaires in the United States. Interestingly, just about all of the people Stanley interviewed had started a number of businesses. When one...
At the beginning of most relationships we get very excited by how much we have in common. This person seems to see life the same way we do, or at least, compatibly. We see a future together! As time goes by and we’ve had a...
I had a pastor once who aptly identified common misconceptions about love using the contemporary love songs of the day. The songs said things like, “I can’t live without you!” “I am nothing without you!” “You complete me!” “I found myself when I found you!”...
Has your relationship started to feel stale and unsatisfying? Do you find yourself thinking about other people and then getting mad at yourself for it? Are you wondering where the person you fell in love with went? Sarah ban Breathenach wrote, ”Discontent breeds lifelong change.”...
Have you ever wondered if you are making impact on the world around you? Sometimes it can feel like we are doing our very best to be faithful to what we know we need to do in the world, but we don’t see the results....
It’s terrifying to think that love can die. In truth, unless they are well cared for, relationships die. When we first fall in love it’s easy to think it will always be this way. Somewhere down the line while managing whatever stressors life throws at...
A new family moved into the apartment above us. I haven’t met her yet, but among the occupants is a delightful little toddler girl. I’ve heard her padding above, exploring their balcony, which sits directly above our patio. Our patio looks out onto the park...
There is a colony of 47,000 Quaking Aspen trees located in Fishlake National Forest, in Utah that have been gauged to be around 80,000 years old. 80 ---- > THOUSAND years! (See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree ) for more information and pictures. It's beautiful!) These trees have been...
For most people, improving their head-to-toe health doesn’t have to involve massive life changes. Sure, there are exceptions to this, but the majority of people can be served by employing some small, simple, health-boosting strategies in their everyday life. Here are some things you can...
I have worked with sexual abuse and rape survivors throughout my nearly 20 year career as a psychotherapist. I am currently working with a number of survivors who are being triggered by the latest Catholic church abuse revelations and the vitriol public fury fest over...
Let’s start with the numbers . One in every six Americans is dealing with mental illness. Women are more likely to be affected than men. In any group of 100 women, 21 of them are fighting for their mental health. But the stigma we place...
About those Hallmark holidays... My Mom hated them. She saw the game for what it is - Hallmark and other retail businesses exploiting some important piece of our lives for profit, manipulating us to try to make us feel bad if we don't fork over...
In the process of writing my wedding vows this morning, I started reviewing the last five years of my relationship with my fiancé and how we’ve grown together. It occurs to me that one of the biggest catalysts for growth and positive relationship together has...
In today's installment of "Relationships 101: A Primer for Healthy Enough Relationships" we will talk about patience and forgiveness and how they play into building strong, satisfying relationships.
In this installment of "Relationships 101: A Primer for Healthy Enough Relationships!" we will cover some building blocks of good conflicts including Humility, Pride, Fault and Blame.
Here is the first installment of our series, "Relationships 101: A Primer for Healthy Enough Relationships!" In today's installment, I will talk about the importance of conflicts and lay some groundwork for doing them well.
We're kicking off our new series, "Relationships 101: A Primer for Healthy Enough Relationships!" Here's what you can expect in the weeks to come...
It's so easy for the clutter of our lives and our ambitions to create chaos and stress. We want to do and accomplish and change the world for good, but it just never seems like there's enough time for it all. I wanted to share...
Mother’s Day is complicated for an awful lot of people. This isn’t exactly surprising considering that mother issues tend to be equally complicated. Mother’s Day brings all of that unresolved muck rushing to the forefront as the culture around us screams out demands that we...
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kelB_djUPYY[/embed] Once you have shifted your body chemistry, changing your thoughts can give you relief from anxiety.
Hearts are amazing things. When they break, it feels as though we can never be whole again. What we previously knew as love gets dashed on the rocks, shattered into a millions fragments and scattered all over the landscape of our lives. It feels at...
You can use your five senses to stop the chemical flow that creates anxiety.
This exercise will help to stop the chemical flow of cortisol that we experience as anxiety.
Here's a quick and easy way to stop anxiety in its tracks using your peripheral vision!
In “Holiday Grief, part two: Sneaky Grief” we will look at some unusual presentations of grief that might just surprise you. Holidays have a way of amplifying our challenging emotions. Understanding what’s going on inside can often be the first step in managing things more...
We can be the caring, savvy, thoughtful, patient person in the lives of those around us, but only up until we hit *that* wall. Then it’s all teeth, claws and craziness. I’ll own that. In owning this reality, we have the opportunity to do something...
Managing grief is always a challenge, but at the holidays, the difficulties seem to be magnified. Understanding what’s going on and making strategies for your wellbeing can really help! Click The Link Above To View A Video
Visiting with family after a contentious election can feel like walking on hot coals. Let’s get you prepared now! Click The Link Above To View A Video
Managing Anxiety and Panic is a two-step process. First, we control the body chemistry; then we control the thoughts that trigger the body chemistry. This blog explains what’s actually happening inside our bodies when we feel anxiety.
To understand what anxiety is and how to manage it, we have to understand where emotions come from. This video is a crash course in the nature of emotions and how you can use that knowledge to stop anxiety in its tracks!
This video contains the first of 5 techniques I will teach you to help stop anxiety and panic in their tracks!
You can take a break from anxiety by using the "Brain Vacation" technique.
People come into my office all the time feeling guilty about procrastinating on important goals. “I’m just lazy,” they say. Let me just put this out there on the table: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LAZINESS. Labeling ourselves as “lazy” is a shame-based trap...
If you’re reading this, I already know that one of your goals is to be a good parent. Kudos! On behalf of all of us who will share this orb with your children in their lifetimes, thank you! One of the single most important things...
Have you given up on your New Year’s Resolutions yet? (Doesn’t that sound horribly pessimistic?) The raw reality is that New Year’s Resolutions set us up for failure, not success. New Year’s resolutions imagine that we are actually ready for the change we want, and...
It is officially gift-giving season around these parts. For some, it is an Olympic sport. Joey gave something THIS big to Veronica, so now Veronica has to give something even bigger to Joey. So then Joey feels compelled to give even more to Veronica, even...
Happy happy happy! Joyful joyful joyful! ‘Tis the season to … …Be depressed out of your mind because it seems as though the whole planet is spending their time with magical, loving, warm families engaged in holiday traditions, while you are carrying an oppressive lump...
No one on earth has more power to infuriate us than our own child. Why do you suppose? Are they psychically imprinted with some manual to the circuitry of our emotional centers? Is this all some diabolical scheme to drive all of the grown ups...
Click here for an exceptional article on how to help those who are grieving, written by Megan Devine: How to Help a Grieving Friend: 11 Things to Do When You’re Not Sure What to Do
What are you worth? How do you estimate that? Most people that I encounter believe, (in theory,) that human beings are priceless. However, when it comes to self-assessment, those same people will try to gauge their worth in terms of what they produce, how much...
Where do feelings come from? Do they simply drop out of the sky and invade our minds? Is there some rampant toddler storming through our minds picking emotions off of a shelf and throwing them into play in our lives? Feelings often seem to be...
“But I’m a Mom! I HAVE to worry!!” I have a number of clients, friends and colleagues who come from cultures where parents, and especially mothers, are tacitly trained to believe that worrying about their kids is required, as it validates how deeply they care...
Growing up, I often heard the phrase, “Don’t trust your feelings!” as if feelings were some alien invader intent on destroying our lives. In truth, feelings are simply the chemical firings in our bodies that correlate with our assessments of situations. In a way, they...
Fear has the ability to derail us like few other emotions. It sneaks in and infiltrates our thinking without our awareness at times. We feel, “passionate” about an issue; convinced of a cause. When we peek behind the curtain, however, we find Fear quietly pulling...
I’m glad you’re here. I will be using this space to share bits of encouragement, helpful tools for managing challenging situations, and sometimes just sharing interesting things I’ve learned along the way in almost half a century of living, and more than 15 years of...