A colleague once introduced a parenting class in the following way: “All parents make mistakes. It’s just that some make bigger mistakes than others.” Here are seven serious mistakes that parents make that hurt their children. Fighting in front of your children There can be nothing more destructive to a …
On Tolerance
Recently, a very secular well-known, high powered lawyer asked me point blank, “Since you’re a religious person, do you think you have the truth?” I was a bit stunned as I fumbled for an appropriate response. “Truth” is a very complex philosophic and linguistic idea. What I said was, “Actually, …
The Story of Your Life
Joanie, a 30 year old single woman and a survivor of childhood trauma, talked to me about how hopeless and helpless she feels about making anything meaningful out of her life. The more she shared her story of futility, the more overwhelmed I felt by the intensity of her despair …
Becoming Our Best Self
Everyone wants to become their best self. Here are seven ways to insure that you are on the path towards becoming your very best self. Be Self-understanding. To become our best self, we must know ourselves. One of the most powerful ways to achieve self-understanding is to listen to and …
Self-Esteem
It is extremely important to understand that the emotional experience of low self-esteem is the experience of shame. Shame is the feeling that is generated when we evaluate or judge ourselves or some aspect of ourselves as defective, inferior, or bad. People with low self-esteem believe they are bad in …
Self-Transcendence Part 2
Are you a kind person? A kind person is someone who consciously chooses to give people pleasure and avoid causing them pain. Kind people are givers and live in a self-transcending way. People who are not kind are takers and live lives of self-absorption. Takers view life as an opportunity …
Self-Transcendence part 1
I cannot think of a more enlivening and pleasurable experience than self-transcendence and no greater pain than self-absorption. Self-transcendence is perhaps the greatest need of a human being. We transcend the self by connecting to something greater than ourselves. A life of self-absorption; focusing on my success, my happiness, my …
Am I Alive?
I am most fully alive when I am most fully me. I cannot think of a more important psychological principle than this. The more I am living in harmony with my unique feelings, needs, perceptions, and creativity, the more alive I feel. As Henry Thoreau put it, “Most people live …
Am I Alive–part 2
To feel alive, we must know what we want and need. As simple as it sounds, there is a multitude of people for whom this is not simple at all; those who live with constant confusion and uncertainty about who they are, what they want, desire, and need. Recently, I …
Are You Free?
Most of us believe we are free. We live in a free country and generally feel free. But are we truly free? Consider this rabbinic saying from the times of the Talmud: “The only person who is truly free is the one who is seriously involved in the study of …