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Familiar Habits that Make You Depressed
No one feels good all the time. But, depressed people’s joy is significantly compromised. There is a sense of emotional unease even when life is going well. They don’t necessarily express sadness. Instead, their emotions may externalize as anger, pessimism, or apathy. Depressed people often have a short range of emotions. For example, if happiness…
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Why Talented People Fail
Sometimes, no matter how gifted you are, only working hard will get you what you want. Talented people don’t learn to work hard when accustomed to effortless success. A gifted person uses few mental resources to accomplish the same task that the average person finds difficult. Because gifted people exert less effort, they can focus…
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Why Accepting Feedback is Difficult
Self-love, self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-efficacy are areas of research that give a clear message. Positive feelings and expectations of self are essential.They are so important that our minds will misperceive information about others and the world to maintain positive feelings of self. Although many people profess to be their worst critic, research shows us that’s…
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Live Better than Pain-Free
The most straightforward task is a challenge for a cluttered mind. Try sitting still in silence and counting backward from 100 to 1. It should take about a minute and a half, but the mind experiences time much slower when stillness is not an established routine. Silently counting is a mindless task unappreciated by the…
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How long does healing take
How long does healing take? It takes as long as it takes. Some parts occur instantaneously. Other parts require repetition of practice. Paying attention to the present moment gives you the most momentum. Pay attention is the command from all gurus. But, paying attention is a practice that you grow into. It’s not a solution…
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How to Ask for What You Want
I hear frequent complaints from people who need help getting what they want. They believe their boss doesn’t appreciate them, feel taken for granted by their spouse, or that friends don’t care about them. They express a victim mentality in their relationships by clinging to patterned responses that keep them frustrated. They always see the other…
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Lies and Half-Truths You Tell Yourself
As a child, my father would not allow me to talk on the phone for more than 10 minutes. I grew up in the 70s when phones could accommodate one call at a time. A new caller would receive a busy signal. I understood that phone use was reserved for essential calls.However, my father was…
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Mastering Relationships
How we manage our relationships can enhance our lives. Healthy relationships protect against depression, loneliness, and even aging. On the flip side, mismanaging relationships can hurt our emotional and physical health. Relationships are often the biggest challenge in people’s lives. The absence of close relationships, frequent uncoupling, or high conflict can cause emotional distress. Finding…
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How to Rebound Back
Life hurts sometimes. No amount of money can bypass life’s tribulations. Storms will come. So, we should learn to weatherproof our lives. Divorce, job loss, grief, scandal, or illness can torment your mind indefinitely. Even minor problems can throw people off their game, such as an argument with a friend, not earning the highest score,…
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The Purpose of Joy
The world lost a great human last week, Stephen tWitch Boss. The news brought me great sadness. Yet, I have nothing to say about the loss of the great dancer and entertainer who died by suicide. Rather than pondering why anyone makes a fatal decision about life, I want to raise issues about how the…
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More than Self-Care
Your life won’t get substantially better by scheduling weekly massages and taking more days off from work. The stress you think you feel from the outside world is coming from within. The world is not responsible for your emotional distress. It’s showing you what you have inside. Your emotional distress is always operating in the…
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Can I Blame My Mother for My Failed Relationships
For a long time, mothers have been the brunt of psychology jokes. Most notably, “Mommy Issues” pokes fun at the long-term effects of the problematic relationship between mother and child. Adults who struggle to develop or maintain healthy relationships are teased about their relationships with their mothers. Meanwhile, the divorce rate is higher than 50%,…
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The Hard Life of High Achievers
Fear, envy, regret, or greed can keep you in the perpetual pursuit of success that does not bring personal fulfillment. Basic needs and emotional well-being are often compromised for wealth or recognition that yields temporary satisfaction at best. Pursuing external success without inner well-being leads to emotional fatigue, burnout, and life dissatisfaction. Here’s why. Successful…
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Reconsidering Professional Help
Once upon a time, the world was simpler. People lived robotic lives with cultural scripts. There were few decisions to make about how you live your life because enduring emotional pain in silence was a significant part of the script. Now, the scripts are being rewritten. Living with unaddressed emotional pain is optional. Professional or…
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Are You Still Trying To Find Your Why?
What do you want, and why do you want it? These two questions are complementary. Many people don’t get what they want because what they want does not align with why they want it. One person wants to lose ten pounds to feel better about themselves. Another person wants to lose 20 pounds to be…
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Can High-Income Women Find Love?
The heart yearns for love, no doubt. But the heart also yearns for chocolate chip cookies at midnight, sleeping in until noon on weekdays, and luxury travel. The heart is notorious for wanting things that are inaccessible, unhealthy, or fleeting desires. Love is another one of those things. Love is not a lost object to…
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How to Control Your Emotions
Chances are, you have had a disturbing emotion within the past week, maybe even the past day. You could be a person who experiences emotional discomfort most of the time. Not everyone lives in a state of peace and joy. On the contrary, many people constantly struggle with their emotions and never enter a state…
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How Trauma Distracts from Purpose
Childhood is a precious time of being when people who love you cater to your every whim. You get to make as many mistakes as you need to learn how to become your best self. People constantly remind you how cute, intelligent, and important you are. They protect your environment so that you believe it…
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Is It Really Love
Defining love is as complex as getting a single drop of water from the faucet. The water molecules are too cohesive to deliver a single drop from a pressure system. So it is with love. Love includes molecules of attachment, self-expression, familiarity, kinship, survival, and obligation. Their cohesion makes defining love impossible, especially when pressure…
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When Home Breaks the Heart
Home is where the heart is, even when home breaks your heart. Millions of adults spend decades living with the illusion of a happy home. They live their lives tiptoeing around people who hurt them deeply during childhood. While adults who were mistreated as children struggle to understand what love with responsibility looks like, family…
