You’d like to be painfully stuck in a habit, addiction, or compulsion? Do you want change that feels like a tenuous, uphill battle? You’re in the right place! I’ve felt stuck in several of my own habits and I’ve talked with thousands of people who say they are stuck in a habit or addiction themselves. […]
Three of Gwen’s immediate family members died, and two of her remaining family members cut off their relationship with her, within a 10-month time span. A month after the third death she asked the not-at-all-rhetorical question, “How do I get over this?” “What do I do? How do I heal myself from the trauma of […]
Your brain is an appliance. A physical apparatus. It’s a little like the Play-Doh Fun Factory (which is modeled after a pasta maker in case you aren’t familiar). You select an extruder plate (an extruder plate is one of those things that looks like a stencil with shapes cut out) to place over the opening. […]
I bet you’ve tried change the hard way. Pretty much everyone has. The hard way is where you fall into one or more of these traps: You consider your habit or unwanted behavior a huge problem; it looks like a personality flaw, a weakness, or maybe even a disease. It hasn’t occurred to you that […]
There is nothing in the world that can’t be worked out by taking things one…moment…at…a…time. There are no unanswerable questions and no unsolvable problems. There is no angst or anxiety. All is ridiculously well when you simply Stay Here and do what occurs to you in this very moment. It doesn’t have to be right […]
Back in the early 1970s there was a psychology experiment done at Stanford. It’s been dubbed “the marshmallow experiment”. Here’s the CliffsNotes version. Kids around the age of 4 were brought into a room and sat at a table. In front of them was a single large, fluffy, delicious marshmallow on a plate. The experimenter […]
I’m at a substance abuse treatment center this week, sharing a deeper understanding of habits, addiction, and mental health with their staff. The unintentional theme of our talks so far has been about our “machinery” (i.e., our brain) versus what’s bigger than the machinery. See, machinery can be a bit wonky. Machinery can be a bit […]
I don’t have enough space here to list all the wonderful things about the book, Whose Mind is it Anyway? by Lisa and Franco Esile. But I’ll list a few: This little book sneaks essential truths about human life into a FUN, quirky, creative package. You’re likely to experience an inner space and quiet–the voices […]
Recovery and change used to look very complicated to me. Binge eating, bulimia, depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, low self-esteem, obsessive thoughts…they were all different in my mind. All very unique, each requiring their own brand of specialized attention. And recovery from any of them was a gamble; a better-get-lucky, roll of the dice. I thought […]
There’s something quite intuitive about the fact that the more attention we pay something the more a part of our experience it becomes. Shower your plants, children, hobbies, or relationships with attention and they not only thrive, they become a bigger part of your life. Stare at–or even just think about–that cut on your leg […]
