“People don’t know. They see me as normal. I don’t want them to know what I really am…..I’m so lonely…” Yep, there is a correlation. To be known you have to be seen. To be seen you have to actually act as if you are who you really are. You have to be open to…
Trust is a huge issue for lots of us out there, but not the way you might think and usually not the way people talk about it. There are lots of conversations and books and therapists and clergy out in the world telling us that we need to trust others. We need to trust their…
As a writer it’s interesting to me to note the way people talk about things, the words they choose and how they use them. Like when discussing family. The word family almost always means family of origin. When someone is talking about their spouse or their kids, that’s what they call them. They don’t speak…
People ask me some of the best questions ever. What planet do I come from? Was I Cleopatra in a previous life? What special gifts do I have so that I can save the world? The list goes on. On the one hand they make me smile because they are fun questions and there’s a…
“I’ve tried EVERYTHING!” It’s the tried and true refrain that starts most every advertisement for house cleaning products and gadgets. Of course, there’s this one magical product that is the solution to the problem and will magically make life make sense: Amazmaflagicum! Cleans everything while you are out enjoying life. You can have all the…
We are social beings and as such have social “knee jerk reactions” to situations that are common to pretty much all of us. One of these is to hide our emotional vulnerability. Being vulnerable can make us prey to others who are not, can be detrimental to our social status, can open us up to…
If I wanted oblique references to things I’d talk with a politician. If I wanted spin I’d talk to a car salesman. If I wanted to be passively aggressively encouraged to do something, I’d take in more advertising. Mean what you say and say what you mean, not that you have to be mean about…
Ever heard that saying “The Letter of the Law” ? You know, where there is wiggle room for interpreting what something means so the person does the minimum required to fulfill their obligation? Kids do this all the time. Clean up the yard becomes they raked 3 leaves, clean your room means everything on the…
Sometimes what we need is a time out. Not as a punishment, but as a break. We don’t need to be in the now, we don’t need to find something to make us happy, we don’t need to figure out the next thing, we don’t need to examine our feelings, see if we’re meeting expectations,…
There’s an assumption out there that if you haven’t found the answer yet, you aren’t looking hard enough. If you haven’t resolved the problem you’re not working hard enough. This could be true and I’ve run across people who are in that boat, but, like most things, this assumption is not one-size-fits-all and shouldn’t be…