I am Curious About Myself

How Are You Spending Your Life?

TIME AND ENERGY Life is really no more than a certain limited amount of time and energy. We make choices – every second – about how we spend that time and energy. To have a better life we must make better choices about how we use our time and energy. WHERE...

How Happy Couples Stay That Way

Here is my personal list of the traits I admire most in couples. I’ve arranged them from “most necessary” on down. [Thanks to my two major “teachers” on this topic: Janet, my wife, and the couples I’ve met through therapy.]  TIME...

How To Have A Lousy Sex Life!

THE THERAPIST’S WARPED VIEW Therapists may not know much more than the average person about how to have a good sex life, but we sure do know a lot about how to have a lousy one! We’ve heard every bad idea in the book. Here, then, are the best bad ideas...

How To Talk About Feelings

How can we talk about our feelings? How much is too much? How much is not enough? THREE DECISIONS Whenever we talk to anyone, we make three quick decisions. Whether To SAY What We Feel. Whether To EXPRESS The Feelings. Whether To WORK AT PROBLEM SOLVING. We usually...

Knowing #1: How Do You Know?

What do you know? How do you know it? How sure can you be of what you know? DIFFERENT WAYS OF KNOWING We’ll be looking at these four ways knowing: Logic based on observation. Logic based on belief. Emotions alone. Emotions based on observation and belief. LOGIC...

Knowing #2: How Smart Are You?

How smart are you? How dumb are you? How do you know? DIFFERENT KINDS OF INTELLIGENCE Here are five ways to evaluate intelligence: I.Q. – Intelligence Quotient E.Q. – Emotional Quotient Speed of Comprehension Retention Usable Intelligence I.Q. –...

Knowing #3: Your Core Beliefs

If you’ve read the first two topics on “knowing,” you can see that there are many things we don’t know and never will know. And yet we survive. How do we do that? We do it by adopting a few core beliefs that we use to explain all the things we...

Knowing #4: Making Educated Guesses

I’ve been trained in psychology by some of the best. But one of the most helpful things I ever learned came from an undergraduate statistics course. It was about estimating probabilities. But please don’t run away screaming, “I hate math!”...

Life’s “Craziest” Beliefs

A QUICK MENTAL HEALTH TEST Ask yourself if you believe any of these three statements: “The world is a scary place.” “I am only alive to please other people.” “I cannot change.” If you find that you do believe any of these...

Loneliness

We are all lonely sometimes. One of the best things we can do for ourselves is to arrange our lives to be sure it doesn’t happen regularly. Everyone needs regular doses of attention every day. DAILY LONELINESS Daily loneliness comes from ignoring our natural...

Making Decisions

We are all indecisive sometimes. It happens whenever there are two things we want almost equally but we can only have one of them. This topic will help you decide with confidence when you think you can’t decide. We’ll look at seven ways we get confused....

Mistakes Every Good Parent Makes

“DRIVERS” “Drivers” are phrases most parents say to their children very, very often – at least once most days. They can be stated kindly or callously, quietly or loudly, but the message is always the same: “If you want to please me...

Motivation

BASIC ASSUMPTION Every physically healthy person has plenty of energy, so every physically healthy person has plenty of motivation. Nobody is lazy. We are all just motivated toward different things. Calling someone lazy is like calling them any other nasty name. It...

My Wishes For Real People

I get irritated about media hype, especially around the holidays. You’d think we are all perfectly happy people, from white-bread, socially-appropriate, “intact” families, with perfectly happy kids who are continually thrilled-to-pieces about how...

Natural Anger

WHAT ANGER IS Anger is a natural emotion or feeling. We feel anger whenever we are BLOCKED from getting something we want. It is good for us because it protects us from threat, it reminds us that we have power to overcome obstacles, and it gives us a measure of how...

Peace On Earth

This is a holiday present for you and for those who love you. If it’s not an declared holiday as your read this, declare one for yourself and read it anyway! PEACE ON EARTH We hear the phrase “Peace On Earth” often during the holidays. We probably...

Perfectionism

BRAGGING OR COMPLAINING Have you noticed that someone who says they have a problem with perfectionism usually says it with a sheepish smile on their face? Have you also noticed that their smile is a strangely complicated one which includes both pride and shame? The...

Personal Freedom

In the United States we constantly brag about how free we are… “The Land of the Free” and all that. But therapists know that many people, maybe even most people, are enslaved. Some of us are slaves to other people, especially spouses and employers. Others...

Powerful Ideas #1

A good therapist provides many “permissions.” A permission is a statement which helps you feel “allowed” to do well. The statements below are some of the many permissions I’ve sent your way in these topics. If you are looking for some...

Problems With Anger

PROBLEMS WITH NATURAL ANGER If we work and live around other people, we get angry about twenty times every day. And yet many people would swear they seldom get angry at all. We tend to be so afraid of our anger that, as a culture, we pretend it isn’t there....