If the person sitting in front of you was your Beloved, how would you treat them? I suspect it would be with kindness and love. You would focus on their strengths and good points and ignore what you perceive to be the less-so. (After all,...
Making an agreement to talk about everything creates a safe ambiance, strengthening the climate of trust in your relationship so that you won’t ever have to worry that your partner is keeping something from you. To agree to talk about everything means you know you...
We’re taught from an early age not to speak our truth. We’ll get in trouble if we do, or we’ll be spanked, shamed, or isolated. We learn to sit quietly and behave. Of course, it’s good not to let children run around screaming in restaurants...
Talk, talk … no talking … talk … talk … what happened? With all the conversations going on, it seems like we must be relating – aren’t we? Our results -- with more than half of all relationships calling it quits, with nations and tribes...
We all say things we wish we hadn't. Maybe we're a little more curt or not as kind as we would like to be. Perhaps we realize we’ve just been sarcastic or cutting. Sometimes we don’t realize our part until later when we’re wondering how...
“Rock the Boat” was the name of a world-wide disco hit back in the 70s. its infectious chorus repeated “rock the boat, don’t rock the boat, baby” over and over. It’s said that every minute of the day that song is playing somewhere in the...
Throughout my 20s I was on fire for enlightenment. I was convinced it took much effort and strain, and that it required many actions I was not going to be able to take: meditate hours a day, isolate, forfeit love and sex, give up being...
I'm applying for a doctoral program and they require an Autobiographical Statement. Here's my life organized as a progression toward a PhD: Perhaps being born into an all-American dysfunctional family is an auspicious beginning for a future psychotherapist. It took the next fifty years to overcome...
The following is a questionnaire I developed for a matchmaking firm. How do you score? Is someone dreaming of you as their Perfect Beloved? Physical Are you still wearing clothes from 5-10 years ago? Are you wearing old-people clothes? Do you have an up-to-date haircut? Are...
To become a free human being, it’s essential to examine conventional beliefs and expectations and discard those that don’t fit the world you want to create. Take some time and think through these commonly held “truths,” and consider if you want to keep believing them...