Reflections

Thoughts about Well Being and Therapy
Reflections

Tools for Living

It’s a privilege to meet and work with people who are willing to trust me to hear them and to help them to move through difficult situations or to make peace with painful circumstances. But more »

Reflections

Think less. Feel more.

Cows are among the group of mammals that we call ruminants. Like elk, sheep, giraffes, buffalo, and several other species, they regurgitate and chew on partially digested food so that they can extract every bit more »

Reflections

The Numbers Game

Negative self-evaluation is harmful to our health. That was the conclusion of a study by Strauman, Lemieux, and Coe* in 1993. They touted their work as “the 1st experimental demonstration that negative self-evaluation can alter more »

Reflections

Divided and Undivided

In 1960 R. D. Laing, a psychiatrist highly critical of the available theories of mental illness, wrote one of my favorite books of that era, The Divided Self. In it he challenged earlier explanations of more »

Reflections

Volunteer Benefits

The hospital where my dad is being treated has a host of volunteers. These are mostly white-haired women in green smocks who answer questions at the information desk, greet family members at the surgical waiting more »

Reflections

Do One Thing

I have the unfortunate habit of reading while I walk. I’ve read chapters of textbooks, academic articles, even novels, while walking down office hallways and along city sidewalks. I just caught myself reading the front more »

Reflections

Turning Toward

The Facebook group, Everyone Matters, posted a set of “Happiest Moment” pictures this morning. They are not what you’d expect. The first, for example, is a picture of a man kissing the forehead of a more »

Reflections

Creative Moments

Creative moments I am feeling particularly fortunate today to have a number of friends, some from as long ago as fifth grade, who have built careers around their creative talents.  The work—whether building colorful clay more »

Reflections

What matters?

A friend recently shared with me an article from the February Wall Street Journal reporting that medical doctors tend not to pursue extreme life-saving measures when they are seriously ill. In fact, as a group more »

Reflections

Goals vs. Fears

“Write a goal every day.” This is the advice of authors Ron Rubin and Stuart Avery Gold in their book on the development of the successful California company, The Republic of Tea (Success@Life, published in more »

Reflections

Self-Compassion

You may be surprised to learn that self-compassion has been demonstrated to be even more important than self-esteem when it comes to happiness and life-satisfaction. This is what researchers like Kristin Neff from the University more »