ANXIETY

There are a number of forms of anxiety, including worry, obsessions and compulsions, post traumatic stress, phobias, and panic disorders. Anxiety is one of the most torturous experiences of humankind. Anxiety is basically the experience of fear, as one would have if a mountain lion jumped out of the woods in pursuit, but without the mountain lion. Everyone experiences anxiety, but people who live with it day in and day out have to work much harder than everyone else to live life.  More...

DEPRESSION

Depression is sometimes referred to as "the common cold of mental health." It is so common, that virtually everyone has experienced some of it. It is normal to feel depressed for a day or a few days at a time infrequently. It can even be your body's way of getting you the emotional and physical rest you need. More...

RELATIONSHIPS ACCORDING TO GOTTMAN

According to John Gottman's research, two thirds of problems in relationships, including happy relationships, are problems that never get resolved. We generally have a media-influenced idea that the right relationship will only have problems that are resolvable. The difference between a happy relationship and an unhappy one is how the couple relates to the perpetual problems. More... 

SHAME

Children can handle some shame, especially with help from their parents, or other significant adults. There is even such a thing as healthy shame, which is necessary to our development.

But when children are repeatedly overwhelmed with shame as they are when they are sexually molested, insulted, beaten, treated with contempt, or ignored and neglected by their families, or even by peers, they develop what I call a "pool of shame." Once developed, any new shaming experience causes the pool to overflow. More... 

PARENTING

The sadest, and most challenging aspect of parenting is that we can only parent as well as the limitations in our personalities allow. It helps to read and learn about parenting, and to use what we didn't like about our parents' parenting to guide us toward improvements. Most educated parents do this. But wherever our vulnerabilities are, whatever ways we were hurt and haven't healed, is where we will hurt our children. More... 

TRAUMA

Trauma is any event that causes such overwhelming feelings that our emotional system cannot handle them all at once, and so has to go into crisis-mode. Usually extreme fear is one of these feelings. More... 

ARE YOU ALWAYS BEHIND?

Perfectionists don't see themselves as perfectionists; they generally see themselves as failures.  That's because when you think unreachable standards are reasonable, you are inevitably setting yourself up for failure, no matter how close to perfect you can get. More...

HAPPINESS 101

ARE YOU ALWAYS BEHIND  happiness 101(For perfectionists) to be happy you will have to accept that you are a humble human like the rest of us, and, like the rest of us, will ALWAYS make mistakes, will never be good at everything, will stumble through life in a messy, non-linear way, will have good and bad things happen to you, and will NEED emotional sustenance from other people.  Having more intelligence and talent than many other people, doesn't change any of that one iota.  You will have to forgive yourself for being human, and have compassion for how hard it is to be human.

25 BARRIERS TO FINDING THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE AND 12 WAYS TO OVERCOME THEM.  Love...