Healing & Growth

We make meaning out of tragedy. But the tragedy is still tragic.

Pain comes in many forms, and the key to healing is finding the right remedy for what you are experiencing. This post attempts to diagram all the kinds of psychological, emotional, and spiritual wounding I know of and the best remedies I have found for each.

Emily, my partner, my love, took her own life on Wednesday, July 31st, 2013. Below my letter is Emily’s good-bye note. I’m writing

Our limbic system is our body’s emotional-relational system. Some places it shows up: when you feel awkward when you don’t like someone

Today I was given the exercise to write “Things I wish my Mom had said to me”, and then say them to

These days I’m working on untangling a core pattern that goes like this: My life has meaning only if I’m helping people.

It’s one of the jobs of a parent to instill a child with a sense of their own worth. This happens naturally

There are creations only you can bring into the world. There is a purpose for your life–one that nobody else can fulfill.

I just discovered these terms used in animal training. From the blog Eileen and Dogs: Splitting is to look for and reinforce small

When you are triggered, your autonomic nervous system is reacting to messages from your brain that you are in danger. Our body’s

Regret is one of the hardest emotions we can feel. It can be a relief to realize that regret is a secondary emotion, and by addressing the primary feelings regret can be released.

Self-discipline is tricky. In the movies, there is always a big motivating factor, and then a montage of activity toward a goal,

Start where you are. It is enough.

Those who grow up in an environment that is not safe (whether physically or emotionally) develop a heightened sense of threat. They

Like her earlier book Organizing from the Inside Out, Julie Morgenstern takes an inner approach to working with clutter. Instead of  tough-love

To live with grace, we have to trust grace to show up for us if we let go. 

As a self-proclaimed self-help junkie, I can attest that it can get confusing. Am I becoming happier or learning more ways to

To actively defuse a trigger (instead of just letting it wear itself out), you must stay aware during the process that you

We all have triggers: situations that bring up old feelings that are out of proportion to the current experience. There are two