self-awareness
Are people good?
Sometimes clients wait until the very last minute of their sessions to ask impossibly complex, even if brilliant, questions. In the last blog post, “What are your ‘givens’?”, I noted Diane asked me, “what is the meaning of life” quite literally as she was walking out the door. To find my answer (yes, I actually…
Read MoreWhat are your givens?
What’s a “given?” It’s a thing about yourself that you just know, in your bones, to be true about yourself. It is just a given.
Read MoreOther people, our moral mirrors: Part 1, Negotiating needs
I recently published a blog post about “Social Anxiety,” concluding that excessive (beyond normal) social anxiety has nothing to do with other people—it is created by our own way of seeing ourselves which we then project onto the way we think others see us. Today, I feel dissatisfied with rendering other people such an insignificant…
Read MoreSocial Anxiety
The problem of social anxiety is caused by a significant difference between how you think you are and how you perceive others think you should be.
Read MoreRacism
“Racism…” he thinks, with a long, drawn-out sigh, filled with dread, despair, confusion, anger, sadness, pain, hopelessness. I am not talking about some hypothetical Man of Color. I am talking about me, when I think about racism, which is often, but probably not often enough. Now that I’ve narrowed it down for you, I will…
Read MoreThe benefits of limited self-doubt
Self-doubt is one of the most confusing and yet constant feelings we experience. It is everywhere, in nearly everything we do, big and small. Self-doubt is that little voice that says, “are you sure you should…? [have whole milk in your latte], or [text an old romantic partner who’s sent you a seemingly harmless text],…
Read MoreIntrospection Part 12, Ideals for self-discovery
Some time ago, before writing the last couple of Blog posts on introspection, I had decided that there would be exactly twelve posts in this series. Twelve is such a nice, complete number. There are twelve months in a year. In the Bible, there are the twelve tribes of Israel and Twelve Apostles (okay, now…
Read MoreIntrospection Part 11, Ambivalence and balance
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself; (I am large, I contain multitudes.) Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass Having the capacity to hold and experience two opposing or contradictory feelings, thoughts and desires at the same time is human, very human. It is both a blessing and a…
Read MoreIntrospection Part 10, Avoiding Narcissism
Having spent the last several months writing about “going inside yourself” (introspection), it occurs to me that I should take a breather and answer the question, “is there such a thing as too much introspection?” I want to say “no” because introspection is so much a part of my life as a therapist and a…
Read MoreIntrospection Part 9, Being interesting
In the last blog post, I described the difference between existence (you as you are right now) and being (you in the process of becoming what you want to be). Being is preferable. Being means frequently asking yourself where you are headed in your life, your head, your values and morality. Being isn’t just about goals, although…
Read MoreIntrospection Part 8, Self-awareness and being
“Skynet… becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th.” From the Movie, Terminator II, 1991 I was on a bus at the age of 14, headed toward work. I was looking down at my hands. I was probably bored, and maybe high on something. I started to move my fingers, watching my…
Read MoreIntrospection Part 7, Intersubjectivity
There’s this scene in the movie The Elephant Man that was transformative for me. I saw the movie in my late teens. In the movie, the main guy has a disease which disfigures his whole body, including his face. In this particular scene, he is running from reporters. I think he’s in a hospital. At…
Read MoreIntrospection Part 6, Self-acceptance
Introspection Part 6, self-acceptance I recently said the following to a client struggling with shame: “The opposite of shame is not pride. The opposite of shame is self-acceptance.” Moving toward self-acceptance requires self-knowledge, which in turn requires introspection. In Part 2 of this series of blog posts on introspection, I attempted to lay out the…
Read MoreIntrospection Part 5, Your inner narrative
Now that you have some tools for accessing your inner self (See the previous blog post, Introspection Part 4), what are you supposed to do once you are “in there” (looking around within yourself)? Answer: find your “inner narrative”—the story you tell yourself about you and your world. That’s really it. Sounds simple, and it…
Read MoreIntrospection Part 4, Tools for self-discovery
It occurs to me that in addition to all the negative reasons one might not engage in self-exploration I noted in Part 3 of this series on introspection (fear of emotional pain, family or gender negative messages, avoiding responsibility), some of us do not engage in self-exploration because we just don’t really know how to do…
Read MoreIntrospection Part 3, Why do we avoid our inner lives
I hope I made a convincing case in Part 2 of this discussion on introspection—that exploring your inner life has some very tangible (and intrinsic) benefits, including predictability and flexibility (in how you interact with others). I hope I also made it clear that, without introspection, there is really no way for a person to…
Read MoreIntrospection Part 2, the value of self-discovery
Every once in a while I run into a person who tells me they think introspection and self-awareness are a waste of time. I have even on occasion been told that introspection encourages negative feelings about ourselves, by causing us to dwell on difficult issues. I am almost universally so surprised by these ways of…
Read MoreIntrospection Part 1, What is introspection?
A friend recently read my book, Firewalking on Jupiter. He liked it. He thought it was useful in a variety of ways. He thought the book did a pretty good job of explaining how to address different issues you might need to address depending on who you are and what you discover about yourself—things like…
Read MoreRelationship Communication Styles
Communication Styles The way we communicate with each other is usually based on our perceptions of a situation that tell us how we need to express ourselves to get what we want from that situation. Communication “styles” (or approaches) can be broken down into four categories: “passive,” “assertive,” “passive-aggressive,” and “aggressive.” You can see from…
Read MoreHypervigilance
I am always thrilled when a client brings an insight to me that reflects an understanding of their issues at a fairly deep level, especially when they are able to use language they find helpful to explain how they use their insights to address their own difficulties. So, please, if you are either a client…
Read MoreWhen does a healthy feeling become unhealthy?
A client struggles with self-doubt. Don’t we all. Yes. Of course we do. In this case, though, the self-doubts were emotionally devastating for her. She asked, “how do I get rid of it, this self-doubt?” Fair question, in light of her present difficulties with it. I pointed out that, like all feelings, self-doubt is a…
Read MoreMoral Conviction
Where does moral conviction originate? Does it come from within? Is it instilled in us from something external? How does it arise? Do we need to pay attention to it, foster it, grow it, encourage it, for it to gain strength? Or, does it exist of its own accord, making itself known when the time…
Read MoreBeing a victim
When is a victim truly a victim, as opposed to when someone merely thinks they are a victim? Why do we question this? Probably because, often enough, we hear someone claiming “victim” status when they may not actually be a victim at all. Their justification for claiming “victim” status comes through blaming someone or something…
Read MoreObligation
Morality is about other people. If morality is about other people, then our obligations to other people and their obligations to us plays a very central role to morality.
Read MoreCoasting
“You can only coast in one direction.” In case the meaning of this statement doesn’t sink in right away, take a moment and think about it. Imagine you’re on a bicycle. You’ve stopped pedaling. You’re coasting. This won’t last long unless you are going down, only down. Going straight or uphill, you’ll stop coasting pretty…
Read MorePride
People fear pride, which is weird, and a bummer. Pride is good. It even seems a little sad when someone tells me they fear letting themselves feel pride. Pride is simply a way of telling ourselves we have done something worth doing, and maybe we have even done it well. So why do we fear…
Read MoreResponsibility and blame
Desire for personal growth, and the kind of change that comes with it, is usually driven by a recognition that things as they are now are somehow unsatisfactory, problematic, or just more difficult than we want them to be. Somewhere there is a situation that needs changing, a problem to be resolved, a challenge to…
Read MoreThe Location of Morality
I am in the mood to offer a very ambitious thought and then try to explain it, knowing the thought is far too broad and complex to have any hope of an adequate explanation in just a few pages. It is likely that the subject will occupy my thoughts to some degree for the rest…
Read MoreEmpathy
Empathy is a very important part of my role as a therapist. Without it, the therapy relationship would feel and even be, robotic, mechanistic. What makes therapy human, connected, real, interesting and therefore valuable to the client (and me) is my ability and willingness to try to imagine what it would be like to be…
Read MoreGoal-setting by imagining being “there”
Setting goals is something is an important and early part of the therapy process. As part of the goal-setting process, I ask questions like these: “How will you know when you are ready to be done in therapy?” “How will things be different in your life?” “How will you feel about the problems that brought…
Read MoreThe Power of Tenacity
A search for the definition of the word “tenacity” first brings up “stubbornness.” It works for a starter—except we think of stubborn as a mostly negative trait and I want to write about the positive aspect of tenacity. Sometimes, though, there is also strength in stubbornness. While on a walk a few years ago with…
Read MorePersonal Heroes
This is a modified version of a chapter in the book I wrote about my childhood. The book is called, “Twelfth Child.” It is not published, but now and then I use parts of it when I speak and bits and pieces of it have shown up here as part of blogs and in other…
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