It turns out, doing something hard might be good for your brain. This is the time of year when people tend to try and make and keep resolutions. Are you still looking for one? Try this one out: Do something hard. A group of researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital recently … Read More
Love at First Sight: How Perceptions Impact Love
The old adage, love at first sight, may be more scientific than we originally thought. Author Erik Van Alstine, Automatic Influence, has researched the idea of perceptions impacting love. He argues that love is not a feeling first, it is first a perception. The feeling of love follows. What we … Read More
Good Pictures Bad Pictures
Some researchers are citing the age of 8 – eight years old!! – as the average age of exposure to pornography. And – that’s an average. Meaning that kids also encounter pornography at ages even younger than 8. Prior to the Internet era children typically didn’t discover porn until age … Read More
Couples Therapy: Experience Something New!
If couples are going to change, they are going to need more than knowledge about what they could do differently. They are going to need to risk doing things differently and have new, healing experiences. DH Lawrence wrote, The world fears a new experience more than it fears anything. Because … Read More
The Perfectionist Child
A little perfectionist likes order, rules, and thrives on certainty. Perfectionism can start at an early age and when parents or caregivers give these children the support they need, they will thrive. However, it can be challenging to teach young children how to to deal with the inevitable reality that … Read More
Defense Mechanisms & Coping Skills – Denial – Part 2
One of our most primitive defense mechanisms is denial. Mark Twain perfectly captured the essence of denial when he quipped, Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. In effect, denial is an effort to avoid the pain or discomfort of reality by pretending it doesn’t exist. It is the emotional … Read More
Codependency and How to Care for Yourself
Codependency can simply be described as helping others while harming yourself. Have you ever found yourself in a relationship where you felt as if you were going “crazy?” Have you ever found yourself excessively worried, preoccupied or even obsessed with your partner’s problems? Codependency involves reactions which are unhealthy forms of … Read More
The Gift of Failure
Parenthood sparks a powerful, instinctive drive to protect. But, in reality, we do our kids a disservice when we do not allow them the space and opportunity to make decisions with the potential outcome of failure. Like Clark Kent, we are transformed from mild-mannered, everyday people into Authority Figures, Responsible Parties…Tooth … Read More
Goal-Setting for the Real World
We’ve all got goals and may have an idea in mind of how goal-setting might look in our lives. Our goals may be big and life-changing, or they may be as small as wanting to be more consistent in cleaning your baseboards, but no matter the size, we’ve all got them. I hear … Read More
Sobriety During the Holidays
Eat, Drink, and be Merry! This is a popular holiday slogan that many of us are familiar with. Nevertheless, holidays are often a time that can be a trigger for individuals struggling with addiction and sobriety. Many people think that the holidays are just a time for happiness and time … Read More
