Here’s a phrase I hear frequently: “I can’t afford that.” How often do you say or think this? When I dig a little deeper, I often find that “I can’t afford that” is code for “That’s not a priority.” “I can’t afford that” often isn’t even true. But we believe it because we haven’t…
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When you get into an argument or conflict, do you try to win? Do you think that you are right, and the other person is wrong, and if only you could convince them of that, all would be well? I call this the win-lose mentality, where we want to win and the other person…
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Communication is so much more than what we say. In fact, most of our communication is nonverbal. When interacting with others, we respond to tone, body language, facial expressions, and volume far more than the actual words that are being said. On the other side, our own body language and expressions say far more about what…
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Triggers are a hot topic these days. Maybe you have become aware you experience unpleasant emotions when you’re exposed to certain behaviors, topics, or words. You might notice you get agitated and reactive and tend to blame the other person for this. “You triggered me!” You then might get controlling and want the other…
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Communication might be the single most important skill we can develop to improve our relationships. However, most of us struggle to communicate in a way that helps us be understood by others. This happens for any number of reasons. It helps if we know why we’re communicating. Are we talking without any point or…
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I’ve been a therapist for over 30 years, and there’s one topic I hear about far more than any other: Relationships! It reminds me of that part in Eat, Pray, Love when Elizabeth Gilbert had a friend who worked in a refugee camp, and all that friend wanted to talk about was relationships. Not the horrors…
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A lot of us don’t acknowledge that we have a relationship with self. I think of this as the invisible relationship, because who’s relating to who? We tend to have the cruelest relationship with ourselves. We often say things to ourselves that we wouldn’t say to anyone else. “Why did I say that?!” “I’m…
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Many of us want to be more spiritual, but we might not know where to start on our spiritual journey. I find it helps to start with the basics. I like to teach my students about the basic spiritual principles from which all spiritual practices stem. It’s just like learning any other subject. You don’t…
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Most spiritual traditions name love as the highest spiritual value. This kind of love is a practice. It is a practice of acceptance, compassion, and wanting the best for the other. When most of us speak of love we are referring about something different. We think of it as an emotion. We think of…
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We hear about mindfulness a lot, but with so many things competing for our attention, we struggle to maintain it. The fact is that few of us practice it regularly. Mindfulness is about being in the moment, and it’s one of the most basic spiritual skills to practice. Mindfulness is a shift from being in…
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