Empowering people to make strengthening choices
A sad story in modern life, at least in America, are all of the mass shootings in our public schools. As a psychologist I worked with students and their families who were directly affected by two different shootings. This is a story of how one young man recovered from a high school shooting. A Wonderful […]
We tell ourselves stories every day. Furthermore, these stories are powerful determiners of how we feel and act in everyday life. And today I want to talk about a common story that many people repeat to themselves. I call it the “I’m not okay” story. Unfortunately, it is a story that undercuts the happiness and […]
I recently wrote about a key moment in which I had to make a decision about how to handle a Saturday evening. The choices I made were relatively small in the grand scheme of things but allowed me to experience an enjoyable evening with my wife that could easily have been otherwise. Although small, such […]
I recall a personal experience from when I was a boy. I was about 14 years of age. A group of us were playing basketball in the backyard of our neighbors. Jeff, the neighbor boy, got really mad about something and ran into his house. The game broke up and I walked over to our […]
I’ve written quite a bit, recently and in the past, about managing our negative emotions. Learning to do so is a big part of finding peace, growing in emotional intelligence and creating more enriching relationships. Today, I want to help you understand anger, particularly the positive aspects of anger and why it’s an essential emotion […]
I want to suggest that there is power in a soft answer. By soft answer I mean a soft response to some sort of provocation, or at least what feels to you like a provocation. I don’t mean, necessarily, that someone is deliberately inciting or goading you into reacting. Although it may mean that, I’m […]
Finding balance between exertion and relaxation, work and play, is good for your health. And the good news is that there are lots of ways to bring balance and more self-care into your life if you make it a priority.
People are experiencing higher levels of anxiety, in our society today, than ever before. So I want to offer you a powerful process for managing anxiety by sharing a personal story from early in my career. A Daunting Request I had just graduated from the University of Minnesota with my Ph.D. in counseling psychology and […]
