I want to tell you a story about healthy marriages, told through a Venn diagram. Notice, this won't be a story about happy marriages. That's because sometimes we are going to be unhappy in our lives, and in our relationships, and the sooner we accept it, the healthier we will all be. I'm not presenting the only formula for a healthy marriage or intimate relationship. It's a broad picture. Something to think about and maybe discuss with friends or your therapist. Here's the pi

In the first blog post, we asserted that your most important asset was your attention . Not your money, your time, or even your energy. Nothing is more important than your attention. In that post, we discussed why it matters, how attention has evolved over time, and how the modern world and our modern culture create obstacles to harnessing it well, and what that means for our emotions and our experience. Today I want to go deeper and explain how to develop a flexible attentio

The Feeling of What Happens She asked, “Was she cute?” The question hit hard. Why would she ask that? The conversation escalated quickly. They hung up almost at the same time, something they had never done before. A tight, hot pressure filled his chest. He called his brother and cursed his wife for what felt like several minutes though it probably wan't more than thirty seconds. Screaming didn’t help. He realized his brother couldn’t fix this problem and ended the call. In th

Your greatest asset is your attention. Specifically, what you pay your attention to, and how you pay it. I know this sounds like overreach but I don't think it is. When it comes to a good life, I believe it's more valuable than time or money. When it comes to psychological health, I've found it's greater than your reason, emotion, or memory. This is because without attention you can never know your experience, at least not meaningfully. For this reason alone, it's at least ne

I can't stress this enough. Our senses are a very important piece to the greater puzzle of our overall psychological wellbeing. They are the means through which we interact within the world around us. And modern culture often conspires to drown out our contact with our senses. And so doing, remove us from "reality." When we look at a screen, listen to a song, or write on a computer like I'm doing know, we are thinning our native connections to the deepest channel of our lifes

As we discussed in the previous article, Coming Back to Our Senses , it’s important to reconnect with our senses whenever we can. Human beings evolved to survive by staying connected to what they could see, hear, and feel. The world our ancestors lived in was far less complex and far less distracting, even if it was more dangerous. Present-moment-awareness was not a luxury. It was a necessity. Our nervous systems still work this way. When we’re in contact with our senses, som

I hear it in the first few sessions with nearly every new client: “I want to be more present.” The need is real. And it’s natural. “Presence” begins in sensation. When we attend to what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell, we are present. There are other ways we can be present, including how we relate to our emotions. We’ll come to those. For now, it helps to start where presence usually begins: with the senses. There are often good reasons we disconnect from our senses. St

There might be as many coping skills as there are stars in the sky. But I think you only need one or two. Because when it comes to helping your nervous system settle down, remember: quality over quantity. To that end, I would like to introduce you to my favorite coping skill. It's called the Vagal Brake. It's my favorite because it's easy to do, builds intention, and helps us not to lose our minds. Most of all, it works for most of us, and I'll explain why at the end. Here's

A good therapist is capable of helping you in ways that are hard to find anywhere else. Where else are you able to enter a room with an educated and experienced professional whose sole purpose is to focus their heart and mind on you? Your priest, maybe, and that’s about it. It’s a very special relationship, and one that can change your life for the better. It should also be said that choosing the wrong therapist can be life-changing as well, for the worse. More on that below,