10 Informative and Interesting First Date Conversation Ideas

Over the moon excited about your first date with that someone who has sparked your keen interest? Ahhhh....you are held up by what on earth to talk  about! 

No worries.

Here are10 date conversation ideas to get to know a person better.  You and your date will find the evening interesting!

1. Childhood memories: Discuss your favorite childhood memories and what you enjoyed doing as a child. This can lead to a deeper understanding of each other's upbringing and values.

2. Travel experiences: Share stories about your favorite travel experiences and the cultures you encountered. This can reveal each other's interests, sense of adventure, and cultural sensitivities.

3. Personal goals: Discuss your personal goals and aspirations, both short-term and long-term. This can give insight into each other's ambitions and priorities.

4. Hobbies and interests: Talk about your hobbies and interests and how they came about. This c

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A Step-By-Step Guide to Telling Your Spouse You Want a Divorce

You have been wrestling with your decision to stay or not to stay for months. You have done every thing you can to arrive at a decision that you are certain you will not one day regret. You know in your heart that you are worthy of love and kindness and are determined to act with self compassion as well as compassion for your partner. Self understanding has resulted in your realization that if you stayed with your partner you would be forced to give up living a fulfilling authentic life. Determining you will pursue a divorce felt challenging but now you must face telling your partner you want a divorce and once again your feel stuck.

Here's a step-by-step guide to telling your spouse you want a divorce that may help:

1. Reflect on your decision: Before you speak with your partner, take some time to reflect on your decision to pursue a divorce. Consider why you have made this decision and what you hope to achieve by

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Some of us believe that the less we ask for, the better. When we worry that we are a burden or are too needy, it is difficult for us to depend on others for help.  Young children need to see their parent as being good in order to feel safe in their care. When the parent is not responsive to the child’s needs, the child  assumes that it is their fault so that they can continue to feel the safety that comes from believing the parent is a good and trustworthy parent. Feelings of being a burden can lead to us as adults avoiding accepting the offerings of others.

If our parents and caregivers failed to acknowledge us and our needs when we were children, we may have developed the need to be self-sufficient and learned to ignore our own needs in order to avoid the shame we felt as a child from not having our needs met. We may come to believe that having needs is a sign of being "too much." The feeling of needing help or support can create anxiety for someone who learned growing up that bei...

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You are hard-wired to be self-connected.  You need only open the inner door to access to the creative part of you. Self-connection is a game changer. To find out more about how I can help you make this essential connection, read more here.

Give yourself

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Your Self-Awareness Journey

A psychoanalytic investigation is a complex and nuanced journey into one's delicate heart.-Galit Atlas, PhD

One reason people come to therapy is to get to know the truth of who they are. A next step is to live from that truth on a daily basis, not only during extraordinary circumstances.

Below are some questions to ask yourself as you continue on your self-awareness journey.

4 Questions to Ask Yourself As You Begin

Your Self-Awareness Journey

How do I handle strong emotions?

Our body signals similar sensations for both anticipation and anxiety, as well as passion and frustration. However, our mindset plays a crucial role in determining how we respond to these sensations. We have the power to generate momentum for positive change or get caught up in a mental loop. It all depends on how we choose to respond. 

Stress arises from many different kinds of situations, both good and bad life events and transitions trigger stress. We can learn a lot about...

The opposite of self-trust is self-doubt.

Biological characteristics that we are born with, such as being prone to anxiety, mix with our significant life experiences to to contribute to determining why we may be more self-doubting than trusting or the reverse!

Examples of significant life experiences that may influence the way we see ourselves and the extent to which we trust or doubt ourselves:
Frequent moving

Parents divorce,

Substance abuse in the family,

Exposure to trauma, such as sexual or physical abuse, growing up with a mentally ill parent, or experiencing homelessness, poverty, or abandonment.

or 
Certain experiences arising in connection with your race, age, economic status, sexual or gender identity, culture, religion, and so forth.

Events need not be dramatic to illicit self doubt.

Your position in a family such as being the only child not to attend college in a family of siblings with graduate degrees or being unpopular with kids at school.

The messages we he...

I'm Sorry is Not A Complete Apology

A sincere apology can contribute to the healing of a ruptured relationship. However, "I'M SORRY" alone won't have the healing power that an apology that shows care and respect would.

If you regret something you did, and we all do things that we later regret and wish we could adequately apologize, take the time to do it right.

 

Step 1: REFLECT ON YOUR ACTIONS

Ask yourself how your actions contributed to an injury or problem. Try to objectively view the role you played even if you were not the sole cause of the hurt or damage.

Step 2: TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

Taking responsibility involves owning up to your actions in addition to saying  “I’m sorry” or another phrase expressing your regret. Make sure you are clear and direct communicating the specific actions you are apologizing for.

Step 3: LISTEN AND IMPROVE

Listening and improving means actively listening. Give the person the opportunity to respond to you witho...

Many of us long for someone who has attained a higher level of insight to lead the way for us. The good news is that the greatest teacher you could ever want is always with you -- that is your life. 

The people and situations we encounter every day have much to teach us when we are open to receiving their wisdom. Often we don’t recognize our teachers because they may not look or act like our idea of a wise person, yet they may embody great wisdom. In addition, some people teach us by showing us what we don’t want to do. All the situations in our lives, from the insignificant to the major, conspire to teach us exactly what we need to be learning at any given time. Patience, compassion, perseverance, honesty, letting go -- all these are covered in the classroom of the teacher that is your life. 

We might take some time each day to consider what our lives are trying to teach us at this time. A difficult pha...

Begin Today to Focus on Shifting Your Patterns of Thinking

Celebrate and love yourself for how far you have come. Celebrate both you and every step you have taken to this point on your journey. Celebrate how much you have learned from the things that did and did not go as planned.

How?

Neuroplasticity

By acknowledging your strengths and victories you rewire your brain to accept your capabilities and successes. Your brain changes with your experiences. It creates new neural pathways that are strengthened every time they are repeated. This is called neuroplasticity. The stronger the pathway, the more it shapes what you believe about what you can and cannot do and your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

With conscious awareness and repetition we strengthen new neural pathways.

You can begin today to focus on shifting your patterns of thinking. You can keep this small promise to yourself to stay mindful of your thinking and aware of what you are reinforcing within yourself as you go...