Year: 2013

Unhook and Let Go

Unhook and Let Go

It’s no secret. I hawk freedom for living. My “theory of change” revolves around the idea that we are stuck in habituated ways of being that are no longer serving our best selves.

Awareness

Awareness

There’s a joke in yoga that asks, “If you had to hide something that was the most valuable thing you had, where would you hide it?” The answer is: “in the present moment.” Ouch. Very funny, yoga. We all know the best humor has more than…

My Body, My Friend

My Body, My Friend

Just read a short article over lunch. The writer is a recovered bulimic who suffered with negative body image since a child. She talks about making peace with her body and spending some good one-on-one time together, as she would in getting acquainted with someone.…

The Ratio of Emotion

The Ratio of Emotion

The beauty of the 3-to-1 positivity ratio is that it’s large enough to encompass the full range of human emotions. That’s the good news.

How to Cultivate Wisdom and Compassion

How to Cultivate Wisdom and Compassion

Loving-kindness meditation is a technique used to condition one’s habitual responses, emotions and mind states toward greater warmth and caring for self and others. What we feed grows. By increasing our daily diet of love, compassion, and other positive emotions we nourish character development and psychological growth.

Our Human Folly

Our Human Folly

Therapy is a unique profession in that one of its purposes is to help search for new meaning to old problems. Recently, I started playing with the idea of therapy as a practice toward personal wisdom. For some, the practice is more of cultivation while for others it’s more excavation. For the bulk of us, it’s somewhere in between.

In Pursuit of Happiness

In Pursuit of Happiness

It’s fair to say Americans are conflicted about positivity. Our Declaration of Independence guarantees “the pursuit of happiness” as one our core rights. Yet messages abound that our happiness is located everywhere but our core.

Waking Up to What Is

Waking Up to What Is

The cultivation of positivity is a practice and, at times, may seem too simplistic to be true. Rest assured this is not a “fake it till you make it” practice. It requires effort, but it will be worth your while. Try it out. Be your own experiment/experimenter.

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Positivity is not about putting on a happy face. It’s about resilience. Positivity consists of a range of emotions from appreciation to love, amusement to joy, hope to gratitude, and then some.

How To Fuel Anxiety

How To Fuel Anxiety

Here are some of the most common anxiety-fueled thought patterns, plus some specific ways you can recognize and dispute them. If some of these sound familiar to you, put them in your mental tool kit so you can take them out when you need them.