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Browse published articles attributed to Margaret Paul, with full-archive search.
Our imagination is a great gift - a connection with our Divine Source - when we use it from an inwardly connected loving Adult to create the life we want.
There is one choice you can make that will heal many of your relationship problems. This is the choice of kindness – to both yourself and to others. This may sound simple, yet for many people, there is one choice far more important to them than kindness. This is the choice to attempt to ...
Are you one of those people who secretly wish you believed in God? Or are you one of those people who believe in God in an abstract way rather than a personal way? Are you actually doing everything you can to never have an experience of God, while denying that this is what you are doing? Now you ...
"The modern tradition of equating death with an ensuing nothingness can be abandoned. For there is no reason to believe that human death severs the quality of the oneness in the universe." - Larry Dossey, MD Kenny, a client of mine, told me that his mother had a stroke and has been left totally ...
Is your relationship stuck in a pattern of blame where you both feel like victims of the other person?
We are attracted to each other at our common level of woundedness and our common level of health. What does this mean? For example, Jackson, a very attractive man in his early 50s, had been married three times and had been in many relationships. He consulted with me because he was tired of ...
A jou alist interviewed me regarding intimacy in relationships. One of her questions was, “What are some of the easy ways in which husband and wife can bond - without candles and wine and expensive lingerie?” Easy ways? Well, it depends on what you mean by easy! Bonding has ...
"This force [that keeps us always wanting] is known in several Buddhist traditions as the Wanting Mind. The Wanting Mind is always craving an experience different from the one it currently has."n--Brent Kessel, It's Not About the Money There is nothing wrong with wanting - wanting more time, ...
As a counselor, I often work with people who are unhappy in their relationship and thinking of leaving. They believe that they are unhappy because of their partner, but the real reason is that they are not taking responsibility for their own feelings within the relationship. For example, when ...
Is your marriage in trouble? The first question you need to ask yourself is: "Do I want to save this marriage or do I want to leave it?" If the answer is that you want to save it, then this article is for you. Following are 7 rules or choices that you can make to completely change the course ...
I often have the experience of someone showing up at one of my 5-day Inner Bonding Intensives and presenting themselves as "all together", or "fine." "I'm not sure why I'm here," they state. "I really don't know what to work on. I've been through years of therapy and to a ton of workshops and ...
Myrna, 38 and a successful physician, sought my help because she often felt inadequate. While she really valued herself as a doctor, she did not value herself in her important relationships with friends and family. In addition, she said she wanted to be in a loving relationship but she took no ...
We are all geniuses. Are you ready to find your genius? “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” ~ Albert Einstein
Insomnia is quite common in our society. While there many different reasons for sleep problems - such as poor diet, too much sugar and refined carbohydrates, too much caffeine, or lack of exercise - I want to share two major causes and the solutions to these. Ironically, one of the major causes ...
If you are a junk food junkie or you often don't eat well and are unconce ed with health and nutrition, why is this? Everyday we read about or see on TV how sugar, soft drinks, many kinds of fats, fried foods, factory farmed foods, devitalized, packaged and processed food, pesticide laden food, ...
Emotional infidelity occurs when you or your partner become emotionally connected with someone outside your relationship, either in person or on the Internet. How dangerous to a marriage or committed relationship is emotional infidelity? One way of looking at emotional infidelity is that it is ...
Guilt is the feeling that results when you tell yourself that you have done something wrong. Healthy Guilt Healthy guilt is the feeling that occurs when you have actually done something wrong - such as deliberately harming someone. This is an important feeling, which results from having ...
Brent started to work with me after his wife, Carla, suddenly decided to leave the marriage. They had been married five years and Brent thought everything was fine. Then Brent became ill and Carla withdrew. And then she was gone. Brent was devastated. He loved Carla and wanted her back. ...
Are you constantly reading self-help and motivational books yet nothing changes? Have you tried many different forms of therapy yet still feel unhappy, anxious, depressed and alone? Do you often have the answers for others but not for yourself? The problem may be that you are intent on ...
________________________________________ Is your partner's messiness driving you crazy? Discover how to resolve this issue in your relationship. ________________________________________ When we meet and fall in love with someone, we often don't think about what might seem like minor differences, which can later turn into major conflicts. One of these differences that frequently occurs with my clients is neatness vs. messiness. Vanessa, in one of our Skype sessions, said:
William grew up with a mother who was depressed much of her life. As the oldest of three children with a father who was not around much, William took on a lot of responsibility for his mother's wellbeing. He grew up as a kind and caring man, believing that he was responsible for another's ...
"Everybody is like a magnet. You attract to yourself reflections of that which you are. If you're friendly, then everybody else seems to be friendly too." --Dr. David Hawkins, Physician and Lecturer Have you ever noticed how true this is? I would change it a bit and say that we attract to ourselves what we choose to be in any given moment.
Think about the last time you had a conflict with someone and you argued - with your partner, your friend, your parent, your child, or someone else in your life. What did you argue about, and why did you spend your energy arguing or fighting? Reasons for Arguing and Fighting Here are some of ...
In a phone session with Gerald, one of my clients, he expressed to me that he was feeling very sad about his son, Luc. Luc, 29 years old, was not doing much with his life, and Gerald was berating himself for how he had parented Luc. “I should have spent more time with him. I should have ...
“A new analysis concludes that spanking fails to alter kids' behavior in the long term. What it does instead is amp up their aggression.” From “Why Spanking Doesn’t Work,” by Bonnie Rochman |@brochman | February 6, 2012 http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/06/why-spanking-doesnt-work/?hpt=hp_t3 What do we mean when we say that spanking doesn’t work? Doesn’t it stop children from doing whatever it is you don’t want them to do? “Want your kid to stop whatever dangerous/annoying/forbidden behavior he’s doing right now? Spanking will probably work — for now.
Helplessness is a very difficult feeling. It can even feel like life or death to those of us who were left to cry for hours as babies, with no one coming to help us. Because we were so helpless over ourselves as babies and small children, it can trigger feelings of panic. It's hard to remember, in these moments when fear is triggered, that as adults, we are not helpless over ourselves. For many of us, the deep fear that got programmed into us as young children can trigger our wounded self's desire to control, when we feel helpless over another's choices.
"Eat more carbohydrates!" "Eat more protein!" "Be a vegetarian!" "Vegetarians are not healthy." "Don't eat grains!" "Eat more grains!" Are you confused about how to eat for excellent health? Even the research is contradictory! Since my early 20s, I have been interested in health and ...
How often have you eaten something that you know is going to put weight on you and you tell yourself that it doesn't count? Do you have any idea how many calories you actually consume in a day, and how many you need to lose weight or to maintain weight? Is it possible that you think you are not ...
As a relationship counselor, I am constantly being asked why so many relationships fail. In the 37 years that I have worked with couples, I have discovered five major relationship killers: CONTROLLING BEHAVIOR Most people enter a relationship with a deep fear of rejection, and this fear ...
"Love has nothing to do with fai ess. Love is Love." --Susan Page, Why Talking is Not Enough "It's not fair!" How often have you heard this from young or adolescent siblings? I grew up as an only child, so I was never indoctrinated with the concept of fai ess. Not growing up with it, I ...
"What's the matter with you?" "How could you do that?" "Explain yourself, young lady/young man." "Why are you dressed like that?" "Why are you late again?" "What did you do to your hair!"
Research into good marriages indicates that the most important choice healthy couples make is to have good will toward each other. This may seems like a simple requirement, yet many couples have anything but good will toward each other. Instead, they make it far more important to: Attempt to ...
Have you ever had an argument with someone - a partner, spouse, close friend, child, parent or other relative, or a business associate - that started small and spiraled into an intense conflict? Have you ever scratched your head, wondering how it got so out of control? Let's take a look at what ...
What do you believe about failure? The ego wounded part of ourselves, the left-brain part of ourselves that has been programmed with many false beliefs, often believes that: "If I fail, I am a failure." "If I fail, I am stupid." "If I fail, no one will like me or value me." "If I fail, then ...
In my counseling work, I often work with clients who have a deep fear of commitment. These individuals generally say that they want to be in a loving relationship, yet they keep picking “the wrong people.” Susan, 38, sought my help because she was in two relationships at the same ...
Katie had not been in a relationship in ten years, and she was scared to death. In her last relationship, she had lost herself completely and then felt devastated when her boyfriend of three years left her for another woman. After working on herself emotionally and spiritually for a number of ...
I often hear from my clients that they feel overwhelmed. Generally, feeling overwhelmed means one of three things: - Overwhelmed by their feelings - Overwhelmed by time pressures - Overwhelmed by how to do things 'right' The feeling of overwhelm is generally caused by how we are treating ourselves and what we are telling ourselves. Peter In my Skype session with Peter, he told me at the beginning of the session that he felt overwhelmed.
Many years ago, I became aware of feeling anxious much of the time. Since this feeling had been with me as long as I could remember, it had seemed normal - until it stopped being okay with me. It stopped being okay when I went back to school to become a psychotherapist. I realized then that, normal or not, I didn't want to continue to live my life with this anxiety.
Imagine two big spotlights. One is pointed upward, casting light far into the air. The other is pointed downward and buried into the earth - no light is cast at all. This is like intent. There are only two possible intentions in any given moment: the intent to learn about loving yourself and ...
Have you recently ended a relationship or are you recently divorced? Are you thinking about dating again? Many times, putting yourself back into the dating scene is a good idea. But how can you know when it is time to start a new relationship? Here are some questions to ponder: 1. Are you ...
Failure! What do you feel when you think about failure? Inadequate? Unworthy? Unlovable? It is so sad that you might have learned to link failure to your value as a person. Most people who are successful in their work and their relationships have experienced many failures along their road to ...
Bobbie and Mac sought me out for couples counseling because they were on the verge of divorce - after 25 years of marriage. Both had years of counseling, yet they could not find their way through their relationship problems. Bobbie described her experience of their relationship: "I love Mac ...
Research indicates that, unless there is violence in the home, children are better off being raised by an intact family. Whenever clients who have children call to work with me on their marriage, I always encourage them to do all they can to save their marriage. Leah is a good example of a ...
As social beings, our desire for connection is a deep and powerful force within us. Babies who do not experience connection with a caregiver do not thrive or may even die. Deep connection with another is one of the greatest joys in life. Yet for many people, this deep and joyous connection ...
We all love to feel full inside, which is one of the reasons why eating too much is such a challenge for a lot of people. Yet, as soon as the food digests, many people go back to feeling empty, searching around for more food or something else to fill them up again. Feeling empty feels so awful ...
In my work with individuals and couples for the last 43 years, I've had two very different experiences regarding people who have divorced: - One group of people are happy that they finally left a marriage where they were very unhappy. They feel that they have their life back, and sometimes even their health back. They feel relief and freedom and are proud of themselves that they finally got themselves out of a bad situation.
"Sandra wants to end our marriage," Ted told me in our phone session. "She says that I am not meeting her needs." I often hear this in my counseling practice. How did we get the idea that marriage is about the other person meeting our needs, or about our meeting the other person's needs? How ...
________________________________________ Dating is challenging for many. Here are some tips to turn it into a learning adventure. ________________________________________
"We lift ourselves by our thought. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always everywhere."n--Orison Sweet Marden, 1850-1924, Author and Founder of Success Magazine How do you see yourself in ...
Do love and marriage really go together like a horse and carriage? For some they do but for many they don't. Why not? Why does love seem to die away in so many marriages? At the beginning of most relationships that eventually lead to marriage, the couple falls in love and believes that this ...