The Price Paid for Being the Perfect Child
Being considered a “perfect child” by one’s parents feels fantastic. Basking in the glow from parents’ approval and love can feel safe and special, like one is living in a magical world where everyone is happy and satisfied. These feelings are very seductive. The child is usually not aware that they pay a price in order to maintain the parents’ continued extraordinary approval. That price is the giving up of one’s unique sense of self in order to comply and be the child and then the adult that the parents adore. Being kept on a pedestal distracts from being aware that one has wants... Read More
Right after the new year begins, the elections process will ramp up again... bombarding us with news at each and every step, building to a series of feverish pitches. One at each caucus or primary. One when the Republican nominee is selected. One at the Democratic convention. And one on election day.
This is our country. This is going on amidst us. We are part of it, however we respond. Some of us are addicted to the adrenaline rush of the candidates’ activities day-by-day. Some of us are so dismayed and discouraged by the whole process... we don’t even go to the polls. Many of us are... 
For adult children, going home for the holidays may be problematic. While it can be wonderful to see parents, siblings, and extended family, it can also be an occasion that brings up old, unresolved conflicts. One of the most typical unresolved conflicts is related to separation and individuation: while growing up at home, some children found it difficult to develop and assert their unique individual selves in the face of parents who (though usually well-intentioned) were controlling, critical, and/or hurt by their children’s differences from themselves.
When children leave home and are no... 
I am particularly reflective at this time of year, as my youngest son is turning six years old. It was just that many years ago that I experienced the joy of his birth and then the ensuing terrifying abyss with postpartum depression.
I love my little angel boy more than life itself. And I loved him with all my heart and soul when I lost the serotonin in my brain. Two weeks after my sweet 10 pound son was born, the sleep deprivation caught up with me. My baby was hungry, and I was not producing enough breast-milk for my little cherub…I quickly realized I wasn’t getting enough sleep, my hormones... 
“Like father like son”; “Like mother, like daughter”. These sentiments are often expressed with great joy and pride. Parents are delighted and honored when their children seek to emulate them. Boys and girls will follow dad around with their own hammers or bake cookies like mom. As children grow older and think about their choices of “what they want to be when they grow up,” some choose to be in the same occupation as the parent.
When children opt for the same work roles as their parents, they may have the advantage of a role model who can show them the ropes, provide connections... 
Nobody likes pain. It makes sense that we make every attempt to avoid it or make it go away. That’s just part of being human. But why do some humans seem to have less of it than others? There are two types of pain: clean pain and dirty pain. We don’t have a whole lot of choice about our clean pain. But we can create dreadful amounts of dirty pain throughout our lives in reaction to the clean pain.
We start to experience clean pain on the very first day of our lives as we enter a bright, loud, cold, and unfamiliar world. As we develop, our experience of pain expands from physical pain to... 
Grief, a deep feeling of sadness over a loss, is one of the most difficult experiences a person can have. During the grief process, we may feel hopeless, out of control, dead inside, empty, pained, afraid, angry, or just about any other painful emotion one can name.
Just about everyone experiences grief at least a few times in life. The only way to avoid grief is not to care about anyone or anything, or to bury one’s feelings with drugs or other distractions when a loved one leaves or dies, when we have a serious medical condition, when we lose a job or other opportunity, when we fail, or,... 
Mandy nuzzled her 3 month old baby happily as she warmed his bottle. It felt so good to breathe in his sweet baby smell and touch his soft delicate skin, his little body curled in a warm embrace into the curve of her neck. Mandy was starting to feel like she had her “sea-legs' as a new mom and was particularly enamored of the fact that her new baby was sleeping through the night. The rough night-time awakenings were beginning to subside as baby Noah matured and slept for longer periods. She was looking forward to meeting a new mom friend in the park with their babies after she gave Noah a bottle.
Suddenly,... 
Ultra Emotion-athon
