Articles on 'Emotions & Attitude' ↓

Is anger stopping you from enjoying your relationship?

Does anger management just remind you that you need fixing? Do you feel guilty and defensive at the same time — knowing that you are hurting your spouse, and yet not wanting to own the identity that accompanies that judgment?

Do you feel torn between your anger and your desire to be more loving? If so, then you clearly want to change.

Are you willing to take one small but powerful step? Continue reading →

When you lack motivation to take the action that can provide you with a better life, you have two choices. You can either give up, or you can use whatever you find that passes for motivation, no matter how paltry it seems.

Only one of these choices has a guaranteed outcome. If you quit trying and continue procrastinating, you will certainly end your days with nothing.

As easy as these choices are to speak about though, they are difficult to see, and even harder to take action on. Continue reading →

I am talking about those deep emotional secrets that you keep, even from yourself. Secrets held from long ago, when your ability to cope was no match for the power of your circumstance.

Events that become dark secrets often happen in childhood. As children, we are more vulnerable. We are less able to protect ourselves, or make wise decisions.

They become dark secrets because: you never fully understood what was going on at the time, you were hurt or traumatized somehow, and you felt that you could not ask for help. Continue reading →

Where does the light go when the darkness of depression creeps up around you? How can you see your way out of that darkness when you sense no light within you?

These are questions you ask yourself — if you have the strength to ask — when severe depression strikes.

This is not about feeling blue. Long-term clinical depression can end your life, physically, mentally, or spiritually. It cuts you off at the knees and renders whatever gifts you have powerless. If it is not treated, either professionally or through good self-help, it will increasingly erode your mental health. Continue reading →

A wild animal doesn’t miss much. They are always alert to what is happening within and around them. That attention keeps them healthy, happy, and successful, and we could learn something from them.

A few days ago, I went for a hike in the high dry hills above Lake Okanagan, a beautiful natural area, only minutes from my home.

Despite that fabulous beauty though, after about an hour I found myself physically present in the woods, but consciously absent. I was four decades back in time, reliving fragments of a pivotal memory. Continue reading →

How much of my life is mine to enjoy today and how much belongs to yesterday? I have asked this question of myself many times, and it has taken years to realize that the solution was ever present. And so I ask you…

Are you present in this moment, or are you reliving past emotional troubles, through this moment?

Life is short. When you’re young you feel your life will never end, but as you grow older, the end is palpable; you smell it in the distance.

It doesn’t matter how young or old you are though — your life will end someday — and so you have a limited time to achieve and be satisfied. How will you ever create your tomorrow if you are locked in the past? Your future is 100% dependent on how present you are in your mind and body in this right now moment? Continue reading →

Self concept: the wording would imply that it’s a concept about you, by you.

But that’s not entirely true. Other people define you all the time. That might be fine if they kept it to themselves, but they don’t. People you know unconsciously project their opinions about you, onto you. And just as unconsciously you absorb their feelings, subtly reinforcing or altering your self concept.

What if everyone you work with held a negative opinion about you? Would you not feel that? Over time, wouldn’t their feelings cause you to believe that they may be correct, even if they weren’t?

Why do we create concepts about ourselves, or anyone else for that matter? Continue reading →