Help Others More Effectively

Do you have someone in your family who just can’t seem to get their life together?  You might have family members who won’t engage in healthy behaviors, are depressed, and are often addicts.

Do you find yourself worrying about them so much that it is taking away from your enjoyment of life?   Do you feel compelled to help, yet frustrated, hopeless and helpless about the situation?

If so, you are not alone.  I regularly talk with anxious caretakers who want me to help their loved ones.   Some realize that they would be more effective as caretakers if

Read More

How to Get From Conflict to Understanding

When we get frustrated with others, we can get mired in our stories and locked into repeating patterns of behavior. It’s easy to get stuck in the blaming game.

I went to a workshop with dementia care expert, Teepa Snow, this week. She gave a perfect example of why so many of us can get stuck in frustration mode with members of our family.

The biggest mistake we make in relationships is this:

Read More

What Makes Men Violent?

When I heard about the last mass shooting in Vegas, I felt physically ill.  If the shooter was a Muslim or anything other than White, the media and politicians would label him as a terrorist.

If the shooter is White, they say that he has mental health issues.

But what has been the common denominator in 88 out of the last 91 shootings?  It is that the shooter is a male.

While most men are not violent, most of the violence is committed by men.   In fact, 90% of homicides are by men.   And it is time that we as a country start to address the underlying causes before more lives are lost!

So what makes men violent?

Read More

My Response to “That Won’t Work”

I was couch surfing in Portland, and stayed with *Stella who had in her words, “a very naughty cat. *Frankie was only a year old, had tons of kitten energy, but would regularly stalk her, lash out and scratch the couch.   She told me that Frankie was vengeful and would regularly “get back at her” when she tried to discipline him.

Having taken classes on cat behavior, I had strong doubts about her interpretation of her cat’s behavior.   As an expert on cat behavior, Jackson Galaxy says,

Read More

A Powerful Strategy to Become the Best You

As I child I was told early on that I asked too many questions and had too many needs.   My father was constantly angry, and he told me it was my responsibility to not make him so.   So my response was to belittle my needs, and try to be less demanding.

Recently, I found myself in a similar pattern in a project I was working on, where I felt like I was walking on eggshells to fulfill the needs of someone else. I dismissed my own needs in favor of theirs and began getting resentful.

Yet I am a firm believer that we need to stand up for our rights and what we believe in, and that if we stay silent, we will lose our voice and our power.

I realized that I am caught in this conflict of not knowing, when is it OK to speak up, and when is it better to shut up?

I’ve recently noticed the pattern that people with healthier relationships do speak up. They feel more entitled to being treated well than I do, and there is even research to support this.

I was in the midst of pondering this conundrum, when I showed up for my yoga class. The teacher talked about setting an intention for our practice, but said that to face our current times, we need something deeper, something more long lasting, we need to concept of the sankalpa.

What is the sankalpa?

Read More

Five Mindset Shifts To Go With The Flow

I was taught early in life that hard work was the key to success. If we didn’t get a perfect report card, we were told that it was because we weren’t working hard enough. Because I had a learning disability and didn’t get the support I needed, I learned that I’d have to struggle to get what I wanted.

So that set me on the early course of constantly striving to be better, subconsciously hoping that I could some day gain the acceptance I so desperately craved.

While I now work hard for other reasons, I still find that the harder I push myself, the less tolerant I become when things don’t go my way.

So people who are ambitious and work hard, but are also to go with the flow really impress me.   My friend Peter Feysa is a great example of this.   We took a badly needed break and went hiking and swimming in the alpine lakes.   Every time he set out to swim, my friend’s dog Irene felt the need to herd him in.  He took it well, and even seemed to be enjoying it, even though she would circle him and  get in the way.   After several laps, I noticed he had scratches all over his back from Irene, but he never mentioned it until I brought it up.   When I did, he shrugged them off!  I know I wouldn’t have taken it that well!

So how do people like Peter balance the stress and still so gracefully handle all the bumps along the way?

Here are some mindset shifts that help such people go with the flow:

Read More