Are You Addicted To Your Ex? To Love? Or Are You Still Grieving?
I never considered getting back with either of my ex’s. Not that they were chomping at the bit to be with me again, either; there was far too much water under the bridge. Yet saying good-bye to love, or what you defined as love, can be a lot more difficult than you anticipate. And you can...
229 SelfWork: Careers That Kill: Could Your Vet Be At Risk?
Dr. Kristina Keifer reached out to me recently. Her email was simple and to the point. “I’m in vet med and veterinarians are in trouble.” I was intrigued and looked up some statistics on my own. Nearly 400 veterinarians died by suicide between 1979 and 2015, according to a CDC...
228 SelfWork: What’s Up with Your Gut and Depression?
Today we’re going to focus on your gut – and how recent research is finding that it may have more to do with depression and anxiety than realized in the past. Believe it or not, there’s a second independent nervous system in your body called the enteric nervous system, located in your gut. And it...
How To Deal With The Fear Of Judgment: The Gifts of Vulnerability
When I first moved back to Arkansas, there were facts about my life I didn’t want others to know. I’d grown up in a small town in southern Arkansas, where everybody knew everything about everybody; I wasn’t relishing moving from Dallas, where there was a certain amount of...
What’s A Nervous Breakdown? Answers to Common Misconceptions About Depression
No one welcomes depression. The brilliant writer Andrew Solomon describes his own severe depressive episode. “All I wanted was for “it” to stop; I could not have managed even to be so specific as to say what “it” was.” He quotes Emily Dickinson’s poem, the...
227 SelfWork: Good Stuffing. Bad Stuffing. What’s the Difference?
Compartmentalization (sometimes called stuffing away feelings) is a healthy skill much of the time. And you can tell when people don’t have that skill. Their emotions govern their lives and their choices. Something unpleasant or unwelcome ruins their day or causes them to have to leave their job...
SelfWork YGTG: How Many Types of Narcissism Are There?
Today’s “You Get the Gist” explains the four different types of narcissism. All of them share the major features of a constant need for admiration, an unrealistic sense of self-importance, a lack of empathy, and great difficulty forming meaningful relationships. What are they and...
What Pushes Your Buttons? How To Manage Your Insecurity
From the first to about the eighth grade, while the other kids were socializing at lunch, my mom picked me up so I could go home and rest. I had a neurological problem that made it dangerous for me to be too physically active or get too hot, I hated it. Walking back onto campus was awful; I fought...
226 SelfWork: 10 Things About Being A Good Therapist I Learned… From Being In Therapy
As many of you know, I was a professional singer before I began my journey to become a therapist and a psychologist. The only thing I knew about therapy was that I’d had lots of it and had never laid down on a couch. And that it had been extremely helpful many times. My decision was made in 1984...
Three Ways to Stop Body Bashing and Fight Self-Criticism
At thirteen years old, I decided I was going to shave my legs, all the way up to mid-thigh. I felt quite adult and dangerously risqué. My mother was mortified and told me, “You’ll regret it forever.” At the time, I took her comment quite superficially. “You’re trying...
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