Differential healing in relationships Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash Self-help is a funny thing. It both defines and sickens me. While I firmly believe the only healthy growth is the personal kind, I also wish I could leave it alone. Sometimes, I secretly envy the rugged hypermasculine individuals who cry ‘woke’ and…
Tag: anxiety
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Not Taking Things Personally Is the Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Tried to Do
But it may be the most rewarding skill we can learn I’ve been ‘in therapy’ for almost two decades. For about one-third of my life, I have sought help from others to heal my emotional wounds. I’m not weird or special. According to SAMHSA, over 50 million Americans received mental health…
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How Did I Get Here?
In the bottom of this hole Has it been that long? Have you ever gotten a glimpse of reality that disagreed with whatever truth you thought was real? I feel like I have been surrounded by darkness, gaslighting myself into believing it was the weather. The climate. Where I lived….
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The Hyper-Vigilant Perfectionist Mind-Reading Empath
Does this sound like you? This phrase keeps running around in my head: Hyper-Vigilant Perfectionist Mind-Reading Empath It isn’t complete, but it broadly sums up fifteen years of therapy. It describes me, my childhood, and my healing struggle. And I wonder if it describes others as well. That’s the point…
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The Cumulative Stress Hypothesis
Are you aware of the stress in your life? Can you FEEL it when stressors are building up and you think you may pop? Do you ever feel like you’re right on the verge of a meltdown? I think most of us are familiar with these scenarios. We can only take…
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Doesn’t Life Want to Live?
Do you ever think about what life was like for early humans once we had our basic needs met? You know, once we figured out how to procure victuals and maintain a shelter. What was life like? Experts including historians, anthropologists, and scientists seem to disagree. Some say we were…
I Don’t Know
I say it all the time. The three most powerful words in the English language are, “I Don’t Know’. When I worked at a pet store, the boss publicly humiliated me for not being able to say, “I Don’t Know’. I learned quickly that it is not only ok, it…
One Cognitive Distortion You Can Change To Reduce Anxiety
Meditation for your middle-of-the-night worries Do you follow the weather? You know, do you check the forecast to see what it’s going to be like outside? Do you appreciate meteorologists? Or beat up on them? It probably depends on whether the forecasts are accurate. And they are accurate a lot…
The Bully and your DNA: Part 1
Last week I introduced a few examples of the Are vs. Should problem. One of the most obvious examples comes up when we think about our careers. When we’re young people ask us what we want to be when we grow up. As adults, many of us wonder what became…
Changing Your Behavior Changes Your Beliefs
Beliefs are things we see as truisms in our lives and regulate the decisions we make. In this post I talked about old beliefs. These are beliefs we learned as kids that protected us in some way, but no longer serve their purpose in our adult lives. The problem is,…