Connection
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Race and Self Esteem
I just read a wonderful piece in this month’s National Geographic’s Special Issue: Black and White, April 2018. At least one piece, “Skin Deep” by Elizabeth Kolbert, indirectly brings us to the notion of self-esteem and personal development. From a rather simple scientific premise Kolbert hypnotically leads us to a more solid acceptance of ourselves…
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What To Expect
We built a new website. The old one, good, but dated, was begging us to update. “Too many words” it kept saying. The new one is much more streamlined. In one central space, our builder asked us to provide a picture of “what to expect”, suggesting a picture of one of our offices. Okay, that’s…
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Expressing Feelings II: Practice
This is the second in a series of Expressing Feelings, the first installment being on theory, this one on the practice. In brief review, Expressing Feelings I: Theory we discussed: –There are four basic feelings: o Joy, when I have something I love; sadness when I lose it o Fear when I fear losing something…
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Expressing Feelings I: Theory
This is the first of four blogs on expressing feelings. This one is on theory; Expressing Feelings II will be on how practice expressing feelings; Feelings III will be on how to hear other people’s feelings, and Feelings IV will be on when not to express feelings. Let’s get started.
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Happiness II: Pleasure and Joy
This is the second of two blogs on happiness, the first being on “Wanting and Liking.” Here I want to discuss the experiences of pleasure and joy. Know, however, that all four of these words (wanting, liking, pleasure, joy), and probably many more, are approximate ways of understanding this feeling of happiness. We know a…
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The Other S Word
You already know the bad “S” word. But there is a much worse “S” word: stupid. When this really bad “S” word gets into people’s vocabulary, they are in real trouble. This really bad “S” word begins to dominate how people think of the world…and themselves. I do my best to rid my patients of…
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Regrets of Youth
We all have regrets. If we don’t have them, we should have them. They are an important part of life, especially as we get older and look back at life. I have been doing a bit of regretting recently. The older I get, the more I notice the many regrets I have acquired over my…
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The Other F word
Family. That is the other F word. And it can be much worse than the curse word. We can dismiss the curse word when we hear it. We can use the curse word with impunity as many people do. It’s just a word. But we can’t do the same with the other F word: family.…
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Men’s Greatest Fear
I just finished an hour with a patient I have been seeing for some time. Andy (let’s call him Andy) has what I call the “typical male disease.” He is afraid of female disapproval. We spent much of the hour dealing with how he can honorably and gracefully deal with the disapproval he regularly gets…
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Grandma’s dress
July 31, 1013 – Grandma’s dress Green! Now that’s a real summer green, I thought. Kind of turtle green. Hmmm, not the typical contemporary mix of hues, just a real solid, mid to dark green. It was a print but I didn’t take notice of the print, just the color and the simplicity of the…