Recently, an old friend told me, “I’m not usually a fan of the self-help, positive stuff.” I laughed, but I knew exactly what he meant. Positive thinking self-help gurus are everywhere, like cockroaches. Sometimes they’re uplifting. Other times they do real harm. How is that possible? Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of learned optimism, which helps you cultivate an openness to life. While it’s important to be … Continue reading The Dark Side of Positive Thinking
It’s one thing to be criticized by others. It’s quite another to do it to ourselves. Is it always a bad thing? I had a client who told me she was a bumbling, stumbling klutz. She constantly tripped over her own feet, walked into furniture, and knocked statues over. “You’re a clumsy idiot!” she’d berate herself. “Don’t ever try dancing. You’ll look like a complete fool.” In a New York Times review … Continue reading Self-Criticism: Who’s your worst enemy?
We all hate when someone expresses their displeasure with our appearance, behavior, or something we’ve produced. We usually jump to our defense. But learning to use criticism to our benefit is one of the most important things we can learn in life. It’s hard to hear that our story, picture, new jacket, or haircut is not quite right, according to someone else. But it’s always useful. Always? Even if the person … Continue reading Criticism is useful, not insulting
Every kid eventually discovers this trick. We used to call it “reverse psychology.” Psychotherapists call it a “paradoxical intervention.” Mark Twain says it best in the story of Tom Sawyer and the fence that Aunt Polly made him whitewash on a beautiful summer day. We’re all familiar with how the clever Tom lit upon the idea of bamboozling his friends to not only paint the fence for him, but to pay for … Continue reading Whitewashing Tom Sawyer’s Fence
As we travel through life we learn techniques for dealing with other people. We learn those techniques from parents, friends, teachers, characters in books, movies, TV, and experience. Sometimes we make it up and try something new just to see what happens. When I was a young girl I watched a lot of old romantic movies. I saw that when a man was rude to a woman, she would … Continue reading Emotional Blackmail
We think we know how other people see us, but this view is only a projection of our own self-image. It fluctuates over time. Sometimes we think we look hot, sometimes ghastly. We’re proud we sounded so smart, or we want to crawl under an invisibility cloak when we’ve acted like an idiot. As a psychotherapist I spend my time watching and listening to people, deciding what I could say or … Continue reading How do others see us?
A woman came to me for counseling to help her leave her marriage. “What I really want,” she said, “is to leave my 3 kids, my job, and my town, but I’ll start with my husband.” I asked her questions about the simplest areas of her life. Eating habits, exercise, use of medications, drugs, alcohol, and overall general health. She wanted to complain about her 3 overwhelming children and … Continue reading Sleep Deprivation Messes with Your Mind
A friend asked me how I knew when a piece of my writing was good. I told her that when I finish a first draft (or 2nd, 3rd, …) I always think it’s garbage. She looked shocked and asked, “Do you revise it a lot?” I nodded. “But how do you know when you’ve revised it enough and it’s finished?” Accomplished writers will tell you to let the work … Continue reading When to Move On – in Writing and Life
Anxiety is a hum of fear that vibrates underneath your every day experience and blows up into visions that can derail your day and your life. A client told me it was impossible for her to use an elevator because her fear strangled her. She vowed never to step into one. She once had to walk up 20 flights of stairs for an interview. She was sweat-soaked and disheveled and didn’t get the … Continue reading Changing the Horror Movie in your Head
Is it possible to be a romantic and a realist at the same time? I was sitting in the Solo travelers lounge of the Norwegian Epic ship, getting acquainted with the new people who had embarked in Barcelona on the second leg of my Mediterranean cruise. The first leg was over and I was feeling sad that all my new friends had departed. That’s when my eyes met those of a … Continue reading Is Romance just a Chemical?
Rerighting Life 