Psychotherapist, Author, Estrangement Specialist
Have you ever thought of volunteering in order to feel happier? I’ve definitely heard this idea from clients who are feeling stuck and miserable. “I tried volunteering, but it didn’t make me feel better,” they tell me after the fact. This doesn’t surprise me. You can’t give water from a dry well. We all need to fill the well somehow if we want to be generous and kind to others. Recently I came across an …
Have you had a good cry lately? How about a bad one? Tears can definitely go either way. Sometimes you feel better when you’re done, but other times you just feel drained. Not all tears are healing, it seems. While crying does have some observable physiological benefits, the way you talk to yourself when you’re crying is at least as important as the fact that you’re crying at all. The trick is to cultivate self-compassion. …
Did you ever hear these words when you were a kid? Have you said them yourself? If you were told, “Stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about,” here’s what you learned: 1. The world is a dangerous place. If Mommy or Daddy or Grandma or the babysitter threatens to make you cry, what might a stranger do? Trust is necessary for healthy relationships. Children learn to trust others by experiencing safety with …
If you’ve read any of my other posts categorized under “Constructive Wallowing,” you’ll know how happy and excited I was to read the following post by Tim McAuley. (It was reblogged by Mary Rogers on her blog, Bipolar Lessons, which is how I came across it.) In this post, Tim takes on two pieces of common self-help wisdom, “You just have to be positive” and “Just fake it till you make it.” Tim writes, “Before …