Life Transitions Articles

As humans in an uncertain world, we seek certainty in a variety of ways. We ask questions that are fundamentally unanswerable. We ruminate and obsess on a single thought (otherwise known as intrusive thoughts). We Google and text and seek reassurance in a variety of increasingly technologically oriented ways. When I see someone falling into these common mental habits, the first questio I encourage them to ask themselves is, “What are these thoughts/actions protecting me from feeling?”

We hear a lot about the importance of loving ourselves these days, and how we can’t love someone else until we truly love ourselves. While I don’t entirely agree with that statement (adult attachment theory shows that it’s through secure attachment to loving others that we feel loved and, therefore, learn to love ourselves), I do know that loving ourselves is a key component to wellness. Yet what does it mean to love ourselves?

We hear a lot about the power of fear these days, and the way we culturally/psychologically talk about it speaks to our beliefs that there are forces “out there” that are dark or evil that we need to overpower. In the early days of my work, I also spoke of fear in these terms, but over the years I’ve softened my perspective and have come to see fear as an inner bully that doesn’t need our aggression as much as our loving attention. When fear takes over, especially in the form of debilitating anxiety, it’s easy to feel like fear is the aggressor and you’re the victim.

One of the essential spokes of the growth and healing wheel is being willing to see our parents clearly. As children, we almost have no choice but to see our parents as infallible heroes and gods, and many people continue to carry these fantasies into adulthood. But if we’re to know ourselves, which is essential to healing ourselves, we need to know where we come from. We need to be able to trace at least some of the lines of our negative patterns back to their origin.

In the waves of change there is an undertow that can pull you down. Unless you are consciously participating with the flow of the waters these days, you can lose yourself in one of life’s most debilitating obstacles to liberation – fear of change. It’s not to be taken lightly. The subconscious mind has a vast database under the topic of “change”. Ego judges these countless experiences with change as good or bad, and the latter creates a litany of reasons not to allo

You’re a high performer. You excel at new endeavors and you thrive on the recognition that comes with exceeding expectations. You are incredibly driven and when you set a goal for yourself, you very rarely veer off it until you have achieved exactly what it is you have set out to do. Rings a bell? Because you are such a high performer, you have incredible self-awareness so you know that behind every single one of those strengths, a dark side is lurking. Here are responses f

There are times in our lives when the world seems to buck us off and knock the wind out of us. Things happen that blindside us and leave us gasping for breath. Even if we know a change is coming or a major transition must happen, it is easy to become overwhelmed and to feel defeated. Sometimes, we face situations that force us to re-evaluate everything we believe in and test our commitment to ourselves and our dreams. This is the proverbial “where the rubber hits the road” or “where the horseshoes hit the trail” – you know that place.

Just as there are no rules for life, there are no rules for relationships. That statement can be triggering for the ego, the part of us that insatiably demands definite answers and craves formulas. “Tell me how to live and how to love and then I’ll know that I’ll be okay!” the ego thinks, then pushes us to perseverate on an unanswerable question in its attempt to gain a foothold into the ever-shifting landscape of a life where there are no guarantees. For those struggling with relationship anxiety, these questions sound like: “How do I know if I’m in love?”

This actually happened to me. I was applying for a call-center position as a Technical Service Representative in one of the local business process outsourcing companies. I have already gone thru the earlier stages: preliminary phone interview; English grammar, syntax, and words familiarity tests; typing speed evaluation; and customer satisfaction assessment. As last part of the online examination, the proctor told us to write an essay within 15-minute time allotment, "Who I would like to meet in hell, and why."

“What I really need is to set goals for myself“ I told my coach at the start of our call “if I knew what I was working towards, I would be able to take action”, I continued. Within thirty minutes on this call, I was in tears, admitting both to my coach and to myself that what I really needed was the exact opposite of goal-setting. I needed to take time out. I needed to stop thinking. I needed to make space. I was craving direction and was desperate for anything or any

I started out my professional life as something else other than a Writer. I was actually a Chemical Engineer for more than enough years to qualify for a pension, and I may probably rightfully boast of having been a good one, having risen from humble baseline positions to managerial posts, especially in Quality Control and in Research and Development.

All things start with & happen in mind first, Isn’t it? Our mind is very powerful that can picturise the things which haven’t been or about to happen. Great things, But sometimes it works negatively. Mean to say, sometimes your mind makes you feel worried when it shows a negative picture. And that impact your behavior & life, too. So it’s required to control your negative mindset. In this post, here are few ways, through which you have that positive mindset that motivat

I hear a lot about sex in my work with clients. I hear about their fantasies, their shame, and their shame about their fantasies. I hear about their arousal confusion, their sex anxiety, and their struggle with desire. I hear about the common arc of sexuality in long-term relationships: the high of the early infatuation stage (if there was one at all) that reaches a zenith then plateaus into normal, everyday life. And from there arises the most common statement from women that I hear about sex: I would be fine if I never had sex again.

Life moves along in flows and eddies. The more you attend to your inner world and heal the long-standing and deep-seated pain and trauma that live at the root of intrusive thoughts, the longer the stretches of eddies and the time you’ll stand amongst the reeds, flowing with the small moments of life as they arise, both the poetry and the pain. But we cannot live in the eddies forever, and it’s often when the earth tilts and its relationship to the sun shifts – in the crack between two seasons – that the next layer of grief bubbles up to the surface.

The New Year means different things to different people. For some, it inspires change for the better, for others it’s just another year, and the rest of us fall somewhere in between. For the inspired, great successes will ensue. For the pseudo-inspired, great intentions will ensue for about 30 days instead of 365. Nevertheless, they TRIED and that counts for something, right? Sometimes our resolution passion masks our tendency to procrastinate. When you couldn’t button yo

On a daily basis, my assistant and I receive the following email: “Can you recommend a therapist in my area who is familiar with your work?” Sadly, I don’t have a database of like-minded therapists, and, even more sadly, I know that many therapists fall into the “doubt means don’t” mindset and end up creating more anxiety for their already anxious clients. As such, I can understand the reluctance to start therapy with someone who could very well tell you to walk away from your loving, honest, trustworthy, like-minded partner as soon as you hint at doubt.

Most people would admit that they would like to be wealthy but did you know your relationship with money will determine whether you will become wealthy or not. Our beliefs and perceptions about money can help us or hold us back, for instance look at these two meanings. Money is the root of all evil or Money makes the world go round. What meaning you attach to money will either move you towards it or away from it.

When I converse with young college alums, we often discuss the life between their parent’s home and their own. Whether the transition is from their parent’s home or from college to the workplace, our talks about handling the angst in transitioning are engaging. Most of them were told to go to college, major in something they like, and then get the job they would love. Some of them said they fell for it hook, line, and sinker without being prepared for the seeds of discont

Life is full of changes and transitioning from one stage or position to another is a natural part of daily living. Unfortunately, some of those changes -- like divorce, job loss, or the death of someone close to you- are imposed on you most often by circumstances beyond your control. What more such imposed changes often happen in the blink of an eye.nnOne minute you're securely employed, and the next minute you're packing up your desk because the company's been sold. One minu

One of the most common questions I receive in my work is: How do I know the difference between fear that’s coming from anxiety and fear that’s coming from intuition alerting me to a real problem?r

Our era has been called the Information Age, the Technology Age, and the Digital Age. But it could also easily be called The Age of Anxiety, for anxiety is rampant and can manifest in so many ways: social anxiety, test anxiety, work anxiety, relationship anxiety, sleep anxiety, fertility anxiety – just to name a few.

If you’re familiar with relationship anxiety, you know that it doesn’t take much for a flyaway thought to send you into a tailspin of anxiety that then leads you to question if you’re with the right person. This thought could be, “I’m not feeling in love” or “My partner always irritates me” or “I’m not attracted right now.” Because we’re not properly educated both about how to work with thoughts and how relationships actually unfold in the real world (as opposed to the media world), it’s a quick jump from the normal thought to the assumption: “I’m with the wrong partner.

One of the most common questions I’m asked is, “How come other people don’t suffer in this way?” It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about relationship anxiety, friendship anxiety, social anxiety, or any other hook that anxiety hangs its hat on, when you’re the one suffering it feels like you’re the only one suffering. As I recently shared on Instagram, one of the reasons why we struggle with so much shame around anxiety is that we’re disconnected from the real fabric of humanity, the village where friends meet at the well or in the field and talk about their places of struggle.

We are addicted to our stories. The thoughts come in and take us away on their magic carpet promise of arriving in a land of certainty, where the vulnerability and pain of life can’t touch us. We learn early to climb aboard this carpet because, as young people, we usually don’t know how to manage the big feelings of life. Big feelings coursing through a little body are only manageable when that body is being held in the arms of a loving, solid caregiver who can transmit the message, “You’re okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you. It’s a big feeling but it won’t hurt you. Let it come. Be loud.

I’m standing on the edge of my life, as if on the shores of a cold but beautiful lake. I want to dive in but I’m scared, only the fear doesn’t sound like fear as much as doubt, anxiety, uncertainty, and ambivalence. What if I make a mistake? What if the water is too cold and I can’t breathe? What if there’s a better lake out there: warmer, smoother, less dangerous? I’m here but I do not move, too scared to fail, too scared to risk, too scared to live.

“I very much feel like an impostor. I I feel like I don’t know who I am but people have been supporting me because they remember me to be this great person. I think I still have remnants of that but I also feel incredibly drained and I don't have energy to to do as much good as I could in the past.” One of my wonderful friends offered me these candid words when I interviewed her about her transition and asked her to tell me the biggest difference between who she was bef

The topic of world and eco-anxiety seems to make the rounds in my practice every few months, and last week was one of those times. Between longterm clients, new clients, and course members, the theme was flooding the room. I’d like to break it down for you using the principles of my work to see if I can offer some ease.

I could have titled this post with any of the phrases I hear every day from my clients and course members: - "I wish she was thinner." - "I wish he was more successful." - "I wish she had better skin." - "I wish he was more assertive."

We live in uncertain times, and that statement alone can send an anxious-sensitive personality type into a tailspin. But the truth is that we’ve always lived in uncertain times. Because death exists, our lives hang in the balance on this precious and precarious planet. The threats change faces – where once we feared our babies getting eaten by a wild hyena or dying of tuberculosis now we fear terrorist attacks and school bombings – but the threat is more or less the same as it’s always been.

Fear is a part of life. Sometimes we can keep it at bay, but eventually, with certainty, it will creep in like a red tide on an otherwise calm beach. We try to run, but it's faster than we are. We try to hide but it discovers all of our hiding places.

I am not a medical doctor, nor do I play one on television! I am someone who has lived with chronic pain all of my adult life. My pain can manifest itself physically, emotionally and spiritually. Whatever way it chooses to manifest itself, it can be extremely debilitating. Over the many, many years, I have gone to one medical professional after another and another. Each one prescribed something different that dulled the pain temporarily. I was even told that it was all in my head and promptly sent off to see a therapist. Fine, but I was still in pain.

Last week, I had the blessed opportunity of having a closure session in person with a beautiful woman with whom I’ve worked for almost six years. As we sat face-t0-face (as opposed to screen-to-screen) and the session’s minutes clicked toward the end of our hour together, I told her that I wanted to make sure we had ample time to talk about our work and reflect on her growth over these past six years. She immediately dropped into her heart and, through tears, expressed her gratitude.

When the same thought, image, dream, or motif shows up across cultures and crosses all of our lines of classification (age, gender, geography, race, religion), we call it an archetype. For example, the dreams where you show up at school without your pants on or have forgotten to study for a test are archetypal dreams. The character of the wicked witch or the evil stepmother are archetypal symbols.

People often ask me why they’re struggling with relationship anxiety or social anxiety or any other kind of anxiety when other people seem to glide through life more effortlessly. The subtext embedded in the question is, “Is there something wrong with me?” or “Why am I being singled out or punished?” In our culture that is dominated by the pursuit of the happy face and the false correlation of vulnerability with weakness, these questions and assumptions are understandable.

Tell me what feelings come to mind when you hear the words, "Job Fair" or "Networking Event"? I'd be willing to bet for many of you the feelings aren't in the category of "optimistic or enthusiastic." Instead -- my experience of many people who find themselves chronically unemployed, under-employed, or unhappily-employed DREAD the idea of another employment-related event. Why?

We all know purchasing your first home is a monumental occasion. But getting to that day isn’t necessarily a walk in the park. House shopping can be stressful enough, and often, people tend to settle because they can’t seem to find what they’re looking for as quickly as they’d like it. These people can sometimes find themselves in a situation that costs them time, effort and a big wad of cash. So how do you know you’re settling? How do first time home buyers know wh

“The final stage of healing is using what happens to you to help other people. That is healing in itself.” – Gloria Steinem “Why me?” people often ask when they’re dragged into the underworld of anxiety in any form. “Why do they have it so easy? Why does it look like everyone else glides through life when I struggle?”

When addressing anxiety effectively, we must attend to all four realms of self: physical, emotional, cognitive, and soul – or body, heart, mind, and soul. Attending only to one of the four realms is helpful, but it won’t help you heal anxiety from the root. By “attend” I mean we need tools to work with all four realms, and the tool I’m going to share today will help you on the cognitive/mind realm.

Dear God,

One of the most challenging elements of relationship anxiety to understand is that, if you’re in a healthy, loving relationship with no red flags, the anxiety is projection. This means that the parade of intrusive thoughts that tortures the anxious mind and sensitive soul are actually pointing to areas inside of you that are crying out for your attention. This is such a reversal of our literal, read-everything-at-face-value culture that it can take a while for the shift of mindset to sink in.

“One of the big traps we have in the West is our intelligence, because we want to know what we know. Freedom allows you to be wise, but you cannot know wisdom. You must be wisdom… The intellect is a beautiful servant, but a terrible master. Intellect is the power tool of our separateness. The intuitive, compassionate heart is the doorway to our unity.” – Ram Dass

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom,” said Kierkegaard as quoted by Mark Nepo, who continues with, “The truth is that every fresh experience has this dizziness of freedom that we have to move through. Every time we reach beyond what is familiar, there is this necessary acclimation to what is new. It is the doorway to all learning. We needn’t be afraid of it or give it too much power. We simply have to keep leaning into what we are learning.”

We hear a lot about the importance of loving ourselves these days, and how we can't love someone else until we truly love ourselves.

Whenever I meet someone new and we talk about how my 15-year old son is a pilot, they look at me sideways and say something like, “You’re a brave mom to let him fly.” As I’ve written about in other posts, allowing him to fly does, indeed, drag me into a regular practice of facing my fears and letting go, but the joy I experience watching his joy far outweighs the fear. His passion is a gift, and I know how rare it is to have such a clear calling so early in life, how passion can be the fire that burns through layers of the fears that want to keep us small.

My yoga teacher has said this phrase dozens of times, but one morning it went in differently and landed in the places where breath meets bone, where sinew aches with loss and the water in the pelvic bowl of my hips shimmered like a moonlit lake.

It’s a thought that arises frequently for those struggling with relationship anxiety: “I have to be single in order to heal.” Offshoots and extrapolations of this thought sound like: • “I have to backpack by myself across Europe.” • “I have to live in a loft in New York.” • “I haven’t dated enough.” • “I have to leave my partner in order to find myself.”

Oh, the list of thoughts that try to prevent us from taking the risk of loving wholeheartedly is quite long, but there are a few that always top the list, buzzing and darting in and around your ears like mosquitos in summer. I recently wrote about the “I wish he was taller” thought, and I’ve written extensively about the “I’m not attracted” thought. This week’s thought that topped the charts of my sessions was “I wish he was funnier.” Here’s an excerpt from a client (published with permission):

Anxious people aren’t typically the most easy-going people on the planet. Because our high sensitivity wires us for hypervigilance, which then causes us to scan the horizon for danger, we’re physiologically primed to have a more tightly-wound nervous system. Unless you received guidance as a child for how to work with this propensity to worry, all of those worry-strands continued to coalesce and gather strength in your body and psyche over the years, forming a tightly wound ball of twine until it reached a breaking point.

“Whatever we have taken from them, the founding story of our lives, imposed on us by a mother and father who in turn inherited a faulty script from their own parents, isn’t even ours.” – Derren Brown in Happy

The connection question is one of the most common spikes that darts across the screen of my clients and readers’ consciousness when they’re struggling with relationship anxiety. Do we connect enough? Do we talk enough? What if I feel bored sometimes? Is there a meeting of the minds? Do we have enough chemistry? What is chemistry? What, oh what, is this elusive thing called connection that everyone keeps talking about and how do I know if we have enough of it?