Last week, Vanessa started our session by saying, “Things never change.” It’s always going to…

Personal acceptance is hugely important in the realm of recovery. Embracing acceptance—or not—can make us…

  Two crumpled receipts:  1 from Costco,1 from Ralph’s, 1 double-sided shopping list, 1 yellow post it note scribbled in blue ink: “Thanks for the loan PT,”  3 pellets of hard dog food & a tablespoonful of sand. This is what I found at the bottom my laundry basket, after I hoisted a heaping double

  “That’s good. That’s Bad.” I recalled this tag line from one of my favorite children’s’ books by that title, as I watched nature unfold while on safari in Africa. A lion was in hot pursuit of an antelope. “Oh, that’s Bad.” The antelope, away from the protection of its herd, leaped into the water

    My client called me the day after it happened… “I went to the emergency room, she said.  “I thought I was having a heart attack. I guess I’m really anxious about this speech.” Her tone was heavy with shame and self-recrimination. “Well, it’s better to die of embarrassment than a heart attack,” I said,

“I want winning!” the three-year old seethed as he plucked the dreaded peppermint candy card from the pile.  He was so close to the castle, the finish line, the grand ending where he could declare himself the winner, but instead he boomeranged back to the beginning only to watch others race to the finish. Candy

    My dentist peered into my open mouth, “We’ll have to take the bonding off your tooth if we want to do Invisalign.” (Clear braces). As a middle child, I fell into the category of “good enough.” My older sister needed braces, a dermatologist and a counselor. My younger brother needed glasses and an

  We all want to be understood.  This is a fundamental principle of our being. To feel that someone truly “gets us, knows us, feels what we feel, and can relate to us.” This resonance and simpatico is the strength of relationships. But when it comes to “understanding” problems, discovering our motivations and why the

  “Is it better to breathe in or out?” I asked my client who’d been struggling with devastating health issues after a recent break-up with her fiancé. “Out,” she said, thinking she’d captured some metaphysical wisdom in a metaphor about giving and receiving. It wasn’t her fault, the paradox was in the way I posed

“What am I looking for?”…. ….I asked myself as I stood before the open refrigerator door. My brain was on multi-tasking steroids, running a thousand thoughts of what I had to do, who I had to talk to and I stood there clueless. I had arrived at a place I knew I was meant to