“Do what I say or I will have feels!” We’ve all been in this conversation before. Either it’s the emotional blackmail of being told not to do something because if you do it will hurt them and the crushing nature of that sadness/despair/agony will destroy everything! Absolutely EVERYTHING! Or its the don’t do or be…
You know that phrase “You hear what you expect to hear?” It goes along with the seeing what you want to see but it’s a little different. In one aspect it’s really helpful. Language has patterns. Both in how it’s formed and how it expresses things, ie. context. So if you miss a couple of…
People ask me if Native American’s have a tradition of doing cleanses. The simple answer: Nope. The complete answer: native people’s didn’t have a notion of 3 square meals a day plus snacks. Food was what you cultivated, harvested, or hunted and then prepared. There would be days where there was less or none. Plains…
No one wants to feel bad. Not only is it not fun, but our bodies are hard wired to avoid it because feeling bad causes us to be vulnerable which means the huge saber tooth tiger will sneak up on us and we won’t be able to heft that spear to defend ourselves….really, that’s what…
We do an amazing amount of damage to ourselves in order to avoid painful emotions. We sacrifice decades of our lives, our ability to achieve our dreams, our core identities so we can avoid a pain that may or may not ever occur. People in painful, stressful, emotion churning situations often start by denying that…
People tend to have this impression that once they are healed or adult or get their shit together or magically make it out of whatever situation they are working through, the fog will clear, they will magically perceive everything “normally” and they’ll no longer have any connection to where they came from or what they’ve…
Sometimes people come to me with specific questions or issues. They want to know about why a one time event happened, about this physical ailment they’re experiencing, or about this one relationship and what it means. Often it’s very specific and while they are giving me the details of what occurred, what they think it…
Most of us have heard of that old argument between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. I mean it starts way back in school when you hear someone yell “Yeah, but that’s not what she meant!!!” Ah, the teachable moments when kids figure out how to manipulate the system. Good…
You know when someone is tearing the house apart trying to find something, just desperate, they can’t do one more thing without finding….and you ask what they are looking for and it’s their glasses. Then you point out the glasses are on their head? Funny and problem solved right? Endearing unless it’s the 112th time…
Personal time or “The life we’re doing all this for” has become a catchall term for whatever we’re doing that isn’t work or sleeping. It includes all the household chores and maintenance, errands (household chores that need to be done outside the home), exercise for the purpose of maintaining health and body weight, connecting with…