The Work of Being Human

This week, we dive into the process of transformation from pain to pleasurable outcome. What fills the middle? The process, yet this is the part of growth so many of us struggle with. The pain can be easy to identify. We want out of it. The outcome, when it comes, is sweet. But the process is where we meet ourselves: our strengths, our weaknesses, our desire, our perseverance, and everything insid...

Liz Sanfilippo joins us this week for a deep dive into holistic nutrition. She's a nutritional therapy practitioner (NTP), a holistic nutritional therapy master, a certified gluten-free practitioner, a member of the National Association of Nutrition Professionals. And did I mention she's also certified to teach yoga? Yeah. Liz is a healer. Listen this week for life-changing information, not just o...

The first mirror is dated to around 4000 BC, and today our society is flooded with "selfies," images of the self. For thousands of years, humans have been obsessed with their own image. Our greatest artists - poets and painters - gave us works of art that centered around their faces, perspectives, desires, and flaws. We all seem to be looking at ourselves and then sharing what we see. So how do we...

Setting goals and pursuing growth is healthy and normal. We all need to be aware of our growth areas, and making a plan to address them and grow is part of being a dynamic human being. In this week's episode, I address two paths we can take: the Harsh Path and the Gentle Path. They may both direct us to the same goal, but the process and the experience are going to be a lot different. As we settle...

The source of our relational pain is not disagreement; it's disconnection. This week we dive into the dynamics of connection. We'll learn to improve how we communicate so that when we do, we are getting the connection we seek. We explore different ways we can communicate with greater efficiency and effectiveness. We are all trying to get connected and stay connected, but we need to know how. Share...

Happy New Year! This week we tackle how to bring what we want into our lives. How can we expand our minds and hearts to allow in that which will bring us further down the road of mental and emotional growth? Whether it's more beauty, more truth, more courage, more peace, more love, or more friendship, we have the power to expand our lives to allow it in. We need to know what we want, and we need t...

This week, we explore our own energy and how we interact with others' energy. We need to learn if our relationships are a drain or a source of replenishment and renewal. This means we need to feel our feelings and come out of denial. Once we're committed to living in reality and not denying our feelings, we'll know which relationships are sucking the life out of us and which bring us back to life....

We hear a lot of talk about doing "the work," but what does that really mean? This week, we explore what it means to do our work inwardly and outwardly in our every day lives. Inner work requires patience, time, and self-examination. Outer work is the result of our inner work.

It's that time of year again - time to start reflecting on 2021, take some inventory, and noticing where we are in our lives and in our growth process. As the old saying goes, "If you shoot for nothing, you hit it every time." Taking an inventory gives us an opportunity to stop and check in with ourselves. What were our goals for this year? What was our desired path of growth? What did we accompli...

This week, we explore the pros and cons of doing our work. What will it cost me to pursue mental and emotional health? What are the benefits? Does one outweigh the other? We answer four questions: should I go to therapy, do I have to process trauma/revisit my childhood, do I have to feel my feelings, and do I have to take responsibility for myself. Sometimes, we need information about why we are d...

This week, we take a dive into the very nature of love itself. Love IS a feeling, but it's much more than that. Love is a way of relating to others in which we see them for who they are, not for what they do for us. When we see people this way, we can accept them, and this acceptance is love. The flip side of accepting people for exactly who they are means accepting that sometimes, they won't meet...

Couples fight about the same things: kids, money, time, religion, sex, families/in-laws, and jealousy. What makes some couples successful and others break down in smoldering ruin? It can't be what we're fighting about. We're always fighting about the same things. It's something else... In this week's episode, we take a deeper look at the real reason we fight and why our fights separate us as they...

This week, we take a break from our usual format to address questions that you, my listeners and clients, have asked. Here are the questions: "How do I know if I'm growing?", "What is your favorite book on mental health?", "Which is your favorite episode of the podcast?", "How can I heal my relationship with my adult child?", "How can I get my spouse to go to therapy?", "How can I develop self-est...

Core beliefs are the deep down, sometimes hidden, beliefs we have about ourselves. They are literally driving every decision we make in our lives because they form the basis for how we feel about ourselves, how we perceive ourselves in relation to others, and how we perceive ourselves in the world. Underneath every action and every reality we claim to live in are our core beliefs. Positive core be...

It took time for us to develop our coping mechanisms and turn them into habits. It took time for us to figure out how to hide ourselves from the world and still function in plain sight. It took time to create false belief systems that would protect us from the pain of others' abandonment, neglect, or cruelty. All of this took time. And it takes time to undo it. This week, we explore the time it ta...

Mirroring - the act of reflecting back another person - begins in infancy and lasts throughout the life span. We need accurate, loving mirroring as long as we're alive. This week we look at the various mirrors in our lives, starting in childhood. How did our parents mirror us? Was their reflection of who we are accurate? Like a house of mirrors in a carnival or funhouse, some reflections of us are...

Are you exhausted? Do you feel disrespected? Disempowered? Do you consistently give more than you get in your relationships? Do they feel out of balance? If the answer to any of these questions is "yes," it's time to look at our boundaries. Boundaries are the relational tool we use to identify, preserve, and maintain our individuality and unique self. Boundaries are how we say yes and no in relati...

This week, we take a deeper look at the False Self, the Authentic Self, and the True Self. Authenticity is the path from False Self to True. Authenticity is what gives value to our relationships, but we are conditioned to act in ways that value appearance over substance. We are often content to appear as something rather than do the work to be the thing. The effect on our mental and emotional heal...

THIS. IS. YOUR. LIFE. Today we explore what it means to live a vitalized life and why we numb out. It all comes down to how we process our own pain. If we cannot or will not feel our pain, we are easily controlled and manipulated by those who promise to take our pain away. Living vitalized means we are feeling all emotion, thinking critically, and actively engaged in the direction of our own lives...

When we aren't in denial, our eyes are open and we can see the signs all around us. Our attention to these signs - physical and relational - helps us to direct our lives with intention and care. Ignoring the signs usually means we learn lessons the hard way. In today's podcast, we examine everything from the signs we are in a codependent relationship to the signs that we are truly loved. You'll fi...

In this episode, we explore the most foundational and fundamental piece of your mental health: the health, protection, and resilience of your heart. We'll discuss what happens when you lose your heart, why you lost it, when you lost it, how we function without our hearts, how to get them back, and how to live with your heart again. Share this episode with someone who's had a broken heart, someone...

This is our second week of facing 10 Unavoidable Truths. This week we look at the following:  #6: You are the the only one who can create the space necessary to hold all that you are. #7: Therapy is not a magic bullet. Some people don't grow. They just talk. #8 You cannot have control over another person unless you plan on abusing them. #9: Certain behaviors will drive people away. These are...

We avoid pain. We mostly avoid the uncomfortable, disorienting truths about life because they cause cognitive dissonance, and we don't like that feeling. We don't want to experience the discomfort and pain of realizing that what we thought was true isn't. We'd rather just avoid the whole affair, but the acceptance of these truths is where we actually grow, mature, and acquire wisdom. It is through...

Welcome to the final week in our series called "Waking Up," the process by which we become aware of our conditioning and begin to make conscious choices about who we are and how we live. Acceptance is the final stage of this work. This is when and where we stop resisting what is and learn the all-important skill of surrender. We admit we are powerless, and instead of that fact frightening us, we s...

Welcome to week four in our series called "Waking Up," the process by which we become aware of our conditioning and begin to make conscious choices about who we are and how we live. Sadness is one of the the hardest stages of this work. This is when and where we come into direct contact with our pain. Our work is to learn one of the most essential processes of life: how to grieve. We must learn it...