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When is an illusion healthy?
I remember years ago reading a book by a cognitive psychologist, who said, “It is the goal of every good therapist to dispel his patient’s illusions.” I was horrified: I love illusions and fantasy, believing they make our lives richer, more creative, and somehow...
WHERE DO YOU KEEP YOUR SAVED TIME?
I notice more and more that as everything seems to speed up, people are concerned more about saving time. I like to ask them this: “Where do you keep it? Under the mattress, in a bank shaped like a pig, in a safety deposit box?” They generally look at me blankly. What...
WHO DO YOU TRUST?
Trust is the gold coin of relationships both personal and professional. Without it, no successful transaction, interpersonal or business, can take place. So, what do you look for when you need to trust in order to connect and interact with another? Do you have a list...
If I’m Pure Energy, Why am I So Exhausted All the Time?
I’m hearing it from everyone around me: “I’m so exhausted. I spent my day off just sleeping.” “I feel as if I were moving with lead weights on my feet.” And they tell me they are too tired to plan or make good decisions, but somehow, they must move on. Science now...
Your Story Is Not Your Life
A few days ago, I woke up with the face of John Nettles (star of Midsomer Murders) hanging in the air six inches from my face. He was saying, “Your story is not your life.” Now I had always suspected that, if a Guardian Spirit showed up, it would be luminous, clad in...
Urgency Is Contagious
You may have carefully set up an agenda, taking account of the critical path you need to follow in order to reach your goal, when something or someone comes along to derail your careful plan. Someone was visiting my home recently and noticed that my bathroom faucet...
Gratitude and The Honeymoon Effect ….
Gratitude and its companion, appreciation, are not just healthy emotions to practice. They are the gateway to what we all want in life: joy, enthusiasm, and even love. Thanksgiving weekend is a great time to start noticing not a few things, but all of the things for...
Reconnecting After Social Distancing
Reconnecting after social distancing is a little like being a hibernating animal, emerging sleepy-eyed from the den, to discover a new Spring. Except that, instead of slumbering, we have been experiencing loss after loss: of work, of meeting with others, of familiar...
How Do You Unring a Bell?
In these troubled times, people, overwhelmed by the chaos, are saying or hearing hurtful things that have long term consequences. When a statement is uttered in emotional circumstances, it will reverberate in the ears of the listener for a long time, perhaps for all...
Impatience: The Entry to High Stress
I am told that when I was a toddler and someone irritated me, I would point at the person and say sternly, “Go way. Be late.” I not only wanted the offender banished from my presence, but I also wanted them to be late getting to that place of exile. At age three, I...
BELONGINGNESS IN A TIME OF SOCIAL DISTANCING
We are living in a time when everything conspires to make us feel separate from one another. Instead of that comfortable feeling of knowing who we are, and being in an environment where our authentic selves are accepted, we are a nation of strangers: moving frequently...
The Leaky Faucet of Your Energy
Your energy may be leaking all day long without your realizing it. Oh, you recognize the big ones: the sudden change that makes you feel as if the rug had been pulled out from under you, the conflict that leaves you a little shaken, the near miss from an irresponsible...
The Power of Yet
The Power of Yet is one of the most powerful tools in my resilience program. An incident a few years ago gave me a suitable name for a process I had been pursuing for years. A doctor told me that a recent blood test revealed that I had a factor in my blood that made...
Growing Resilient While Going Blind
How do you bounce back when there’s no place to bounce back to? That’s the dilemma we are all facing, in various ways, as the COVID-19 pandemic winds – or does not wind – down. The landscape has changed, and we have changed. There we were happily, or at least...
The Frequency of Love
The frequency of love? Did you know that love can be measured? Yes, it has. It has been measured at 0.1 Hz and it is being broadcast right now by you – or not. Maybe you’re looking for love in the wrong places. First, you need to understand that the heart and the...
The Pandemic of Loneliness and the Science of Connection
The Covid 19 pandemic has spawned another offshoot: loneliness. It wasn’t that we were not, as a nation, lonely before the virus struck. In 2017, former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called loneliness a public health “epidemic.” According to a 2018 report by the...
Stress on Steroids
Anger seems to be everywhere these days, leaking out of normally friendly and placid people. It can be seen in their impatience: with a driver who slows down, in looking for directions, or with another person whose misunderstood request is judged to be stupid and not...
Quiet Charisma
Is charisma always highly-charged behavior that draws immediate attention, or is there another way to achieve that special “glow” that draws people, warrants admiration, and results in a tribe of loyal supporters? Quiet people everywhere, who often feel they are...
Elastic Boundaries in the Midst of Turmoil
Elastic boundaries in the midst of turmoil? It has occurred to me in the last week that we all need to make our boundaries more elastic in these turbulent times, or perhaps for all times. Covid 19, with all its isolation and fear, has left us brain-fogged and...
Fake News From Your Brain
Our brains are fine and wonderful organs; they accumulate experiences and help us to organize them in a way that makes our lives more efficient. Touch a hot stove when you’re a toddler, and “bingo,” you learn instantly not to do that again. No need for lots of...
Humility
Humility is one of the top traits of successful CEOs, according to the CEO Genome Study of 2018. What does humility look like, as practiced by a top leader? I pondered this as I interviewed a new coaching client. A mid-level leader in his organization, he had applied...