The Lesson of Space
I did something I’ve actually never done before (unless it came after birthing a baby). I took 6 whole weeks off. Last March I had the sense that I needed to take a chunk of time off this summer to write and create space in my life. I bounced the idea around in my […]
The Trap of Hedonistic Adaptation & Ways to Access More Regular Happiness
You win the award, get the promotion, hit the bestseller list, marry the person of your dreams, move into the house of your dreams. 18 months. This is about the max amount of time we get to feel the euphoria of something great happening in our lives, and typically it’s even less time than that. […]
Righting the Negativity Bias
I’ve taken on an extra job of taxi driver this Spring carting kids every night to soccer, flag football, cello, golf, or running club. I’ve felt irritable and a bit crazed by the extra activities and my mind has focused solely on the downsides of these choices. It helped me this week when I ran […]
Trust The Process
TTP. These 3 letters changed my life. My professor Dr Clay wrote them on a chalkboard 20 years ago in a graduate school class I was taking. TRUST THE PROCESS he taught us fledgling counselors filled with self-doubt on the cusp of seeing “real patients”. Whenever we are learning something new, or facing the prospect […]
Practicing Open Heartedness
I’ve been making Valentine’s with my daughter Gretta who is obsessed with hearts. She is drawn to anything with hearts: heart socks, heart cereal, heart stickers, heart hair clips. Gretta might be one of the most open-hearted and loving people I know, so her affinity to hearts isn’t shocking. What does being open hearted mean? […]
Decluttering & Making Space
Three days after Christmas I found myself crossed legged in my kid’s toyroom surrounded by piles of army men, legos, Barbies, stacks of coloring books, and board games trying to create organization in the chaos and find space for the new gifts that Santa just brought. I felt overwhelmed and irritable that this was how I […]
Transforming the Eye Sore Into Art
Today is a new moon. I always get wistful at the new moon as it represents a fresh start. Time to let things go, clean house, purge, make space for something else to come in. This past month has been rough, not only for me personally, but also for our nation. We have all been […]
Empowered Pregnancy Summit
While many woman love being pregnant, it was a struggle for me. The changes in my body, the rush of hormones, the intense emotions, the fears….it was all so intense! Despite diligently preparing for each birth, none of them went the way I imagined, requiring me to work with disappointment and ultimately acceptance. I […]
The Point of Therapy
Elizabeth Lesser writes so beautifully about therapy and why it can be useful. She is having a conversation with her sister, Maggie, who has been recently diagnosed with cancer, about why they should go to therapy together to work through past challenges between them and to prepare them for an upcoming bone marrow transplant where […]
Gita Guidance for these Tumultuous Times
I’m in the throes of deeply studying the Bhagavad Gita for the upcoming training I teach this weekend. The Gita’s message is timely as it is a book about conflict and we have all just experienced one of the most conflicted, gory and exhausting election seasons yet. Arjuna, the main character of this epic text, […]
