Know yourself but not too much.

The idea of joining a group can be so scary. When you are going through a difficult time, it often feels like you need one-on-one help focused solely on your problems and issues. It makes complete sense. You are struggling and not in a place where you are considering other people's problems. That said, we are all very similar.

Here are some truths about the human experience. We need connection with others for survival, more than any other animal species. We learn from our mistakes and we course-correct (which is so incredibly cool)!

It may sound kind of ridiculous, but one of the most profound healing exercises that you can do for yourself is to speak to yourself sweetly. Find a nickname for yourself that is loving and wake up in the AM and use that nickname. Say to yourself: Good morning Sweetie Pie. Doing this exercise and continuing to speak to yourself like this throughout your day has incredible effects!

It is human nature to believe. And, I must admit, this fact bothers me! I grapple with the idea because so much violence has derived from systems of belief and also because, personally, I like evidence. Provide me with data and I feel much more assured than with the silky, elusive, and impermanent feeling of believing.

I’ve always had a strange relationship with the New Year’s holiday. While resolutions for some can be really helpful, for me they always felt like pressure and made me feel bad about myself.

Understanding the soul can seem like something that is exclusively available to those who are spiritual or have a belief system. While it is true that inquiries about the soul are what spirituality is all about, one does not need to be spiritual to connect to the concept of soul.

"How do we heal our relationships with our bodies?" I was asked this question recently. You may be wondering who would be so presumptuous to ask such an enormous question! Fortunately, the person who asked me to consider this immense question heads up an organization that tackles the problem of body dissatisfaction in children and teens and selflessly commits herself to the work. Otherwise, I may have ignored her question and the challenge that it posed.

Being disciplined is important! When you are feeling stuck and want change in your life, discipline can truly help. The topic of discipline, however, can feel like a minefield. You need to be careful how you proceed, and destruction, i.e., failure, feels inevitable! This is why mental health practitioners often stay away from talking about discipline, myself included. It turns out that we have sound reason!

All healing (whether physical, mental, spiritual or relational) begins with a desire for change. It can be experienced as an inner knowing that something feels off and needs shifting. Sometimes that shift needs to be a huge leap and sometimes just a slight movement. Either way, desiring change and healing in an area of your life is a wonderful first step towards healing.

Sometimes in our lives, we can get bogged down by difficult circumstances. Life challenges us in very real ways. And even when our lives feel calm and easy, we can have significant feelings and fears about the world that we live in and we can be in touch with the suffering of others.

Have you ever noticed that in moments that are the busiest or most stressful in life, when you are most needing a sense of spaciousness and intentional, deliberate action, often you feel the most harried and reactive? It is actually quite natural. Our nervous systems react to our busyness and make us believe, on a neurobiochemical level, that we are in danger. It is no wonder, then, that it is in these moments that we lash out or behave out of accordance with our desires and values. 

Have you ever wondered why we have emotions? For so many people, our emotional landscape intimidates us. We fear the pain of our emotions and often navigate our lives in an effort to avoid our emotions.

We can never fully know or understand how we affect others. Like cogs in a machine, each turn or movement that a cog makes affects the whole system. We might say something to one person and it may influence them to show up differently in their family. The ripple effect may spread even further. It is prudent to not question every movement that you make, every conversation that you have, every way that you notice others responding to you. For you don’t really know what will come of your words and your actions.

You are all of your ages, every last one of them. But you are not your old stories. Stories are just that… memories locked in time. When you remember yourself at younger ages, it can be powerful to recall a moment of pride, joy or peace. Often those moments aren’t stored in us as stories. The more painful memories, however, form the stories of our past.

I have been rethinking and reimagining “therapy” these days. Not to worry, I am not throwing away all of the incredible teachings and underpinnings of the counseling profession! I am just considering more of what I feel that my clients and our world needs right now. We need to be encouraged to be true to ourselves.