What Pushes Your Buttons? How To Manage Your Insecurity
During my years in elementary school and well into junior high, while the other kids were in gym class or at lunch, I had to go home. I had a neurological problem that made it dangerous for me to be too physically active or get too hot, and so my mom picked me up in the middle of the day to rest....
116 SelfWork: Do You Have Perfectly Hidden or High Functioning Depression? And Why Does It Matter?
What’s the difference, or is there one, between Perfectly Hidden Depression and what’s called high-functioning depression? I’m particularly motivated – in fact very sadly motivated – to talk about it because of an email I received this week from a woman whose husband killed himself. He...
4 Ways To Create Kindness With Your Partner – Before Your Words Lead To Divorce.
Your reality is created with your words. “I can’t take much more of this.” “I can’t believe I ever married you.” “I’ve had it with you.” These words may be said in jest, or in a heated moment, or perhaps they’re repeated in exasperation....
115 SelfWork: The Awesome, Frustrating, Complicated Job of Step-Parenting and How to Avoid Common Mistakes
Step-parenting may be one of the hardest jobs on earth, second only to parenting. It’s complicated, awesome, frustrating and sometimes downright irritating. Blending families successfully takes much more time than people want to think. There can be lots of personalities involved, old wounds...
Why Women And Men Who Are Being Abused Don’t Leave. An Exercise for Understanding.
How did a jingle singer become a therapist? It took me years. I began by volunteering at the Battered Women’s Shelter in Dallas. I was singing jazz at the Fairmont Hotel bar; my night would end at 1:00 in the morning, and the shelter needed someone for the 2:00 – 6:00 am crisis intervention line...
114 SelfWork: How to Find and Interview A Potential Therapist
How do you find a therapist? What are the pros and cons if you get a referral from a friend? What questions is it okay to ask before you start working with them? All of these questions will be answered today. Finding a therapist that you believe understands and tunes into you is a vital part of...
How To Build Self-Acceptance When You’re Fighting Depression
What does depression feel like? Andrew Solomon, a journalist and author who has suffered with severe depression wrote, “The opposite of depression isn’t happiness, but vitality.” The self you’ve known yourself to be has either vanished suddenly, due to some kind of horrific...
113 SelfWork: When You Feel Like A Fake: Ten Ways to Challenge Imposter Syndrome
If you’re successful but you walk around feeling like a fake, you could be experiencing what’s called imposter syndrome – the fear that you aren’t what you appear to be. That you haven’t truly earned your place. That any day now, someone is going to discover that you’re a phony or a...
Taming Your Inner Demons. The Role Of Shame In Perfectly Hidden Depression and One Question That Helps
I was in therapy a good deal in my twenties and early thirties, and most of the work had to do with shame. A therapist once suggested I read a short, little book called,”Taming Your Gremlins.” It’s a book about learning to recognize the pesky, persistent and very damaging inner...
112 SelfWork: One Way to Confront Your Fear of Aging — No Matter How Old You Are
Let’s face it. With each new birthday, with every new decade, you can become more afraid of the future. No matter what your age, you can worry and dread aging. How do you keep on growing a sense of purpose and positivity in the face of these inevitable changes? You can tuck, and plank, and...
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