We all want to be understood.  This is a fundamental principle of our being. To feel that someone truly “gets us, knows us, feels what we feel, and can relate to us.” This resonance and simpatico is the strength of relationships. But when it comes to “understanding” problems, discovering our motivations and why the

  “Is it better to breathe in or out?” I asked my client who’d been struggling with devastating health issues after a recent break-up with her fiancé. “Out,” she said, thinking she’d captured some metaphysical wisdom in a metaphor about giving and receiving. It wasn’t her fault, the paradox was in the way I posed

“What am I looking for?”…. ….I asked myself as I stood before the open refrigerator door. My brain was on multi-tasking steroids, running a thousand thoughts of what I had to do, who I had to talk to and I stood there clueless. I had arrived at a place I knew I was meant to

At the Women’s Wisdom Healing Circle that I facilitate every Sunday on InTheRooms.com (please come join us at Noon EST), we like to get deep with our topics. This past Sunday I chose to open up with a brief personal experience of going from shockingly low self-esteem, barely being able to keep a roof over

How can a boundary that’s essentially a barrier enable you to become closer to someone? It’s not a riddle, but an enigmatic truth principle. Avoidance and distance are our natural defense mechanisms built in to eliminate the pain of those who trod on us either emotionally or physically. But what if there were a better

I was 19 when I first came to AA in Manassas, Virginia. It was a total accident. With no direction in my life, I told my one friend that I wanted to die. I had no idea that really I just needed to stop drinking. He said, “I use to go to something called ‘AA

With all the Hollywood buzz about the upcoming Oscars, I began to wonder what if our lives had annual awards. Would we notice our epic wins, our memorable and noteworthy dramas and comedies? Would there be a category for most valuable contribution to humanity? What would our original score be or mean? But what if

“Should I worry my son can’t say things like other children?” a mother asked me. Pretty much all I heard was “Should I worry?” I knew what she meant, but her question was “SHOULD I WORRY?” We think worry is passive, but the truth is worry is like a brush fire with one thought igniting

I popped open the lid of the shower gel and breathed in the scent. Paris, 2004, The George V hotel. It was the scent of money and luxury, definitely pre-2008. It was a shower gel I’d taken as a souvenir from the hotel and now 12 years later, I was instantly teleported to smelling, seeing, hearing,

Raising a teenager can be challenging enough on a good day, let alone when they suffer from mental health and or addiction struggles. We long for our “little girl or boy”, the sweet and compliant child in awe of their parents. But, every parent who has lived through the teen years can tell you about