Posts Tagged ‘compassion’
Sharing the Road: how driving keeps us emotionally distant from one another
When I was 14 ½ I signed up for driver’s ed, just barely old enough to take the class. The day I turned 15 I passed my permit test. The week I turned 16 I took my behind-the-wheel test. Anxious to get in the beat-down old hunk of steel my older brother so generously handed…
A Couples Therapist watches TV — Parenthood
Like many others, my wife and I are eagerly looking forward to tonight’s premiere of the new season of Parenthood, though with considerable wistfulness that it’s the final season. With our kids off to college, we forsook our basic cable last year for a streaming box. Not only are we saving nearly $100 a month,…
Encouraging Discipline – Discipline that Helps Kids Grow
Left to my own devices, I am terribly afraid of making a mistake. Also, of getting it wrong, not knowing, and having to ask any question. A free-floating fear of punishment used to guide much of my decision-making. In fact, it took a lot of therapy for me to learn to keep those kinds of fears…
Sharing the Shame
Mortified: connecting with others to find relief from shame When I was 15, I wrote some pretty silly things in my diary (because I was 15). When I was 17, I went back through those entries and edited them, leaving critical comments about my intelligence and maturity as a 15 year old. Actually, a big chunk…
Self-compassion in five words
Self-compassion is at the heart of my personal and professional life, and when people ask me how it got there, I usually say that it was through my meditation practice. It’s true that sitting for years on a consistent basis (when I’m tired, anxious, joyful, frustrated and everything else) showed me a lot about the…
Self-Compassion and Love – Agents of Change
When I hear the saying, “Treat others as you would like to be treated” I can’t help but think we should also say, “Treat yourself as you would like others to treat you.” I witness over and over again in the therapy office how unkind we can be to ourselves and how this lack of…
No One Was Smiling Today: San Francisco Feeling The Boston Marathon Tragedy
“[In response to the Boston Marathon tragedy]… Whatever ‘ism’ is yours you may be lulled by it shortly- seduced to exclude parts of yourself or your community. Your biological drive to fend off mortality by clamoring for what you can get control over may take root and compassion will get thrown out the window.” -Traci…
“Hear me!”: Some Thoughts on Listening and the Longing to be Heard
Here’s what I think: There is a serious lack of listening going on in our world. Would you agree? I’m pretty confident that if humans were listening more, we wouldn’t still be using bombs and guns to try to solve our conflicts. I’m pretty sure that if we were listening more, we wouldn’t be spending…