“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
― Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude

Friendship is one of life's most important components.

We long for closeness and connection.

Our longing is part of what it means to be human and to be social creatures.

Having a few close friends translates into better physical and mental health, greater well being, and living longer.  Satisfaction with our friends is a better predictor of life satisfaction than number of friends and contact with adult children. Friendship quality ...

Embrace the Shadow Aspects of Self for Transformational Healing

To live fully we must commit to truly knowing ourselves. It's not difficult to remain aware of the parts of ourselves we feel good about but that results in knowing a mere fraction of ourselves. Truly knowing ourselves follows our willingness to come to know the parts of ourselves we have stowed deeply away and our commitment to reintegrating those shadow parts into the conscience Self. 

Harnessing our Wholeness

Integrating and accepting our shadow parts into the self is a powerful step toward harnessing our wholeness, an essential stepping stone toward self love and transformational healing.

Deeper self-awareness arises when we shine a light upon our shadow self and courageously observe and account for what and who we find within our depths. 

What Are Our Shadow Qualities?

Shadow qualities are characteristics of ourselves or behaviors that we have come to disown or reject.

 

How do aspects of ourselves become

...

Therapeutic Coaching

What is therapeutic coaching?

Therapeutic coaching integrates two models for healing:

1. Traditional psychotherapy
2. Solution-focused coaching

In Therapeutic Coaching we learn how to heal the wounds from our past, how to live in the present, and also how to create the future that we want.

What can be missing from psychotherapy?

Traditional psycho-therapeutic approaches may primarily focus on our history without giving us the tools to help us live well in the present or create changes to facilitate a bright future.

What is missing from traditional coaching?

Coaching can be very focused on your future without understanding or accounting for the traumas and the impacts of the past. Coaching may emphasize mindfulness without understanding part of what holds us back from being present and mindful are impacts of the past. 

Therapeutic coaching includes bringing together the best of psychotherapy and solution focused coaching  in a well-clinically-tested app...

Heart-Focused Breathing Technique

Physiological Coherence and Psychophysiological Coherence

When the heart, mind and emotions are in energetic alignment and cooperation we are experiencing physiological coherence. We can actually influence moving into this state of coherence by using our emotions. When we use our emotions to bring the heart, mind, and emotions into energetic alignment and cooperation the resulting state is called Psychophysiological Coherence.

One way to use our emotions to enter a state of psychophysiological coherence is to engage in a heart focused breathing technique.

The Heart-Focused Breathing Technique is easy to do and yet very powerful. Using this technique can help you to relax, feel more balanced or feel more energized.  Practicing heart focused breathing can elevate your energy and emotions. It can help you to feel more fully alive. It helps you to connect with your own heart and in so doing brings receptivity to connecting with the hearts of ...

What did your soul tell you about who you are meant to be?

I was seven years old, it was a lazy afternoon in June and I was walking around the mall with my grandfather and grandmother. I was visiting them in Hollywood, California from my home with my mother and step-father in Dallas, Pennsylvania. I was away from home and yet felt at home.

I felt more at home at my grandparent's 16th floor Hollywood condo than I did at the home where I lived in Pennsylvania. I was in second grade and yet felt like such an important person to my grandma and grandpa. They arranged and scheduled my visits.The visit would be too short for the three of us, and not long enough for my mother and step-father who were relieved to have me out of their home. When I arrived at the Miami Airport and saw them waiting for me I knew they had been truly waiting for me to appear since my last departure the year before. Time with me mattered to them and time with them was precious to me.

The qualities of feeling ...

When I share that I am a psychologist, I sometimes receive looks comparable to the looks I receive when I declare that I live in Arizona and it is the middle of August. What registers is the heat.

"How are you always so upbeat?"

Always? None of us are always anything, and especially not always upbeat.

Being human means experiencing the full spectrum of experiences and emotions. It is wading in that variability and the return to center that is a sign of well-being.

I am asked how I clear the stories and angst that others share with me.

How do I protect myself from the rage, outrage, and heartbreak that others experience and share with me?

Could I possibly really feel the sun softly settling upon my shoulders as I walk to my car after a long day parsing through darkness?

 
First, it is not all darkness that is shared in my office.

My clients process love and learning.

They share miracles of reunion and of finding peace.

They capture trust for new love and sometimes overflow with...

Do you need to look a certain way to be loved by others?

To be loved by yourself?

"Our Purpose is to love and be loved. It is not to prove to others that we are lovable." Megan Watterson

What conditions do others require you meet in order to feel loved?

Did these conditions become the conditions you require you meet in order to feel loved?

 

Do you need to look a certain way to be loved by others? To be loved by yourself?

Must you deny the number of years you have lived in this world?

Must you prove yourself young and innocent?

Is it more attractive to be naive than wise?

Do you need to feel certain emotions to be loved? Will they wrap their arms around the happy girl and ignore the resentful one?

What are the ugly moods? Can feeling them keep you from being loved? By yourself? By others?

What do your children, your job, your neighborhood tell others about how much you deserve love?

Must the landscape of your life be a garden, a field, an industry? 

Does your level of

...

 Recalling The  Abandoned Self

This article is about reclaiming

the fragments of energy,

the pieces of our souls, 

we have left, lost or abandoned.

Reclaiming Our Energy

Claiming or reclaiming our energy is a contrasting practice to clearing energy that often gets lost in the urgency to clear, cleanse and detox. This article is about recalling the parts of self we have left behind.  I believe reclaiming will be helpful for all to consider and beneficial for some of you to practice, as I will be doing.

Calling Back Your Energy: Is it Spiritual Hygiene or Soul Healing?

The practice of calling back your energy can be both, a daily spiritual hygiene practice and a meaningful soul healing practice.

There are different reasons why we leave our energy in places we have physically departed.

• We deposit or leave energy in places where we want others to see us a certain way or accept us.
• We leave our energy in places where we feel the need for a sense of control or
...