Posts by admin

Insomnia

Posted by on Jun 1, 2010 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Generally I am a sound sleeper. I found myself the other night, however, wide-awake, and I could not go back to sleep. I started to get frustrated- thinking of the day to come, how much I had to do, and how tired I was going to be if I didn’t fall back asleep.  This of course, was not helpful.  It was, however, an interesting time to observe my mind.  Lying in bed at 4:00am there was nothing else to do.  I was struck by how my mind’s tendency to jump to the future (the next day and how I would feel) was creating stress and anxiety in my body, which in turn was keeping me awake. The Mind and the Future When the mind creates a stressful version of the future,...

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Forgiveness

Posted by on Apr 28, 2010 in Uncategorized | 1 comment

Jane’s Story: I was recently talking to a client of mine, Jane, (not her real name) who had gone to visit her father.  They had been estranged on and off over the past 25 years, beginning when he had moved out and stopped talking to her when she was 13. “I thought I had forgiven him,” she said.  “I thought I had moved on from all the anger, grief, and feelings of abandonment.”  In reality, however, the visit had brought up all of those old feelings with a vengeance, resulting in a huge fight with her partner, and she and her father, once again, parting ways not speaking. What is forgiveness? We tend to think of forgiveness as something we...

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Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Posted by on Mar 3, 2010 in Uncategorized | 3 comments

A Class Divided In 1968, Jane Elliot, a 3rd grade teacher in Iowa, conducted an experiment in her classroom to teach her students about racism.  She divided the class into 2 groups- those with blue eyes and those with brown eyes.  On the first day of the experiment, the blue-eyed children were told they were better than the brown-eyed children.  They got special privileges such as extra time at recess and permission to use the drinking fountain.  In addition, they were praised all day long and told how smart they were.  The brown eyed children were told they were less intelligent than the blue eyed children and had to wear collars identifying themselves as a...

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Complex Inferiority

Posted by on Jan 25, 2010 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

The Wisdom of Eleanor “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt I recently was talking to a client about a situation she is dealing with at work.  She described it like this: “My boss is so condescending and talks down to me.  She treats me like I’m stupid and I get so angry!  Then I get really afraid that I’m going to make a mistake or do something wrong, and it will just confirm her beliefs about me.  If I let the fear pick up momentum, I then worry that I’ll get fired, I won’t have enough money to pay my bills, and that my partner will then want to leave me.” Does some version of this...

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But, I’m Right!

Posted by on Nov 25, 2009 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” ~ Rumi “Being right is highly overrated. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.” ~ Author Unknown Recently I had a disagreement with a friend of mine who hadn’t responded to my email about getting together.  My feelings were hurt, and I decided to talk to her about it.  I felt the facts were clear- I had the email correspondence, including the last email that she had not replied to, still in my in box- a paper trail of proof that  I was “right.”  So, when the conversation started to take a defensive turn and she suggested that I had...

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