I know this sounds counterintuitive, but the neuroscience is unambiguous, and once you understand it, the pattern of self-sabotage that has followed you your entire life will finally make complete sense. The first reason is that your brain’s primary drive is not achievement, it is prediction. Your brain needs to know what comes next in…
If you have ADHD or some sort of neurodivergent profile, your brain, when it becomes stressed, is probably starved for one of these 5 things, and no, it’s not more caffeine or supplements, but a lot easier than that. First up is “Unstructured Play.” I’m not talking about a side hustle or a productive hobby,…
What to Expect in Midlife Perimenopause symptoms that signal the beginning of the menopause transition for women happen a lot earlier than many of us expect and not the way we often anticipate. The average age of menopause (the day after a woman has gone a full year without her period) is 51. Everyday after…
They trudged into my therapy office, slumped down at opposite ends of my sofa, and glared at each other. This professional couple in their 50s had yet another fight on the way to their appointment. In theory, it was a continuation of something that started last night, but the truth was they had variations of…
Emotional disconnection can subtly happen over time in a relationship.Learn to recognize the signs so that you can reconnect and rebuild your relationship. Lack of Emotional Connection in Relationships: Signs of Emotional Disconnection You may find yourself yearning for that deep emotional connection that once felt so natural. Perhaps you’ve sensed a growing distance with your partner or felt unheard…
Modern relationships are cauldrons of contradictory longings: safety and excitement, grounding and transcendence, the comfort of love and the heat of passion. We want it all and, in long-term monogamous relationships, we want it with one person. Reconciling the domestic and the erotic is a delicate balancing act that we achieve intermittently at best. It requires knowing…
To whom do you owe an apology? Before you read on, take a moment. Say their name aloud. Now, answer the question: why do you feel the need to apologize? A strong, meaningful apology goes a long way in repairing major and minor rifts in any relationship. Intellectually, we know this. Apologizing is one of the first relationship…
Love, Light, and Truth: The Non-Fragmenting Principle Across spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions, certain words appear again and again: Love.Light.Truth. They are often used poetically.Sometimes vaguely.Occasionally dogmatically. But within a transpersonal clinical context, these are not ideals to aspire to—they are indicators of something structurally real. They point to that which does not fragment. What…
In most forms of therapy, the goal is to strengthen the self. To build identity.To stabilize narrative.To create continuity across time. This is necessary—up to a point. But there is a threshold beyond which further strengthening of the self does not resolve suffering. It refines it. Because the self, no matter how well constructed, remains…
There are moments in psychological work when the illusion does not simply veil reality—it fractures. In these states, the individual is no longer identified with a single, coherent narrative self, but appears to be inhabited by competing structures. Thoughts feel inserted. Emotions feel alien. The body itself can become a stage upon which conflicting impulses…