How Can You Be Vulnerable As An Adult When You Were Never Safe As A Child?
It’s no wonder why being vulnerable is so hard for so many. You learn to feel safe in the families you grow up in. If you were lucky you saw two fairly healthy parents who supported each other’s strengths, who had compassion for one another during their inevitable struggles, and who...
166 SelfWork: Finding Your Way Back to Love
Valentines can hold as much angst for people as the holiday season. And if you have conflict or estrangement or alienation within your relationship, then that pain can become more distinct. Today we’re going to focus on what can cause these kinds of problems. But as usual, we’re also focusing on...
Four Skills To Keep Long Distance Relationships Thriving
When people think of long distance relationships, the images first conjured up are usually those of romantic partners living far apart from each other. However, long distance relationships can take many forms.
165 SelfWork: The Deep Mourning of Sudden Death: When Time Will Not Stop
Kobe Bryant’s family is only one of the many families who have to face an extremely harsh tragedy – the traumatic death of someone they love. There is a difference in this kind of grief from others, because it’s traumatic in the most pure sense. One second your world was safe,...
What is the Best Valentines Gift You Can Give Yourself?
In the second grade, I was elected “Valentine Queen” of my class. I wore a glittery paper crown all day long and dreamed of future ascensions. Miss Pine Bluff. Miss Arkansas. Miss America. I remember the surprising happiness that seeped inside of me, wondering finally (after all of...
164 SelfWork: Coping with the Fear of Depression’s Return
I’ve had several people write to me lately and explain that they are just pulling out of a slump or even worse, clinical depression. And they’re scared. Is there a time frame for what’s supposed to happen after a major depression has struck? How do you deal with some of the destructive choices you...
Five Ways to Keep Fairy Tale Relationships From Becoming Nightmares
After a bad break-up or a divorce and your relationship is over, you often look back and wonder, “What was I thinking? How did I not see this coming? How did I ever think this was going to work out well?” It’s true, of course, that hindsight is 20-20. But what causes you to miss...
163 SelfWork: Emotional Growth: An Exercise In Self-Compassion
In today’s SelfWork, we’re going to be talking about how to enrich your emotional life through self-compassion. So many people tell me that they don’t know how to begin to risk feelings that have been suppressed for years. But when you do, you expand the emotions available to you, and enrich your...
Perfectly Hidden Depression And The Power of Loneliness
The famous shower scene in Psycho can leave any of us feeling a bit dubious into stepping in. But when you’re lonely — when you’re hiding pain from the world, sometimes the shower is the only place where what you’re keeping secret is allowed to emerge. And you’re...
162 SelfWork: Is Healthy Narcissism Real?
Today we’re talking about the difference between narcissism and healthy narcissism. There are big differences and since the word “narcissistic” is being thrown around so much these days, I thought I’d do my part to keep things clear. I’m quoting three experts — Dr. Dale Archer,...
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