Over the years, I've learned how important attunement or active emotional engagement is in relationships. I have noticed misconceptions around what attunement is and what it looks like. In my own relationships, I have missed the boat horribly many times when it comes to applying full attention or rest periods.
Often the easy way out is to avoid something hard. We all have moments of weakness when we opt for that path. We also have moments of courage when we move toward a difficult situation or conversation. In my experiences of parenting, marriage, coaching, writing, working within the juvenile justice system and as a special education [...]
The precursor to addiction is dislocation. — Bruce Alexander Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Simon Fraser University. In the quote above, dislocation is taken to mean the loss of psychological, social, and economic integration into family and culture — a sense of exclusion, isolation and powerlessness. In the much quoted book on addiction, "In the Realm [...]
Have you ever felt taken for granted by a partner? Perhaps, it seemed like they only noticed you if you did something for them, or worse, they didn't notice you at all even when you fulfilled all of your duties. I've been there and I definitely did not like the feeling of being used. It felt like [...]
Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash What if we didn't take every darn thing in life so seriously? What if we did not analyze every word and nuance? What if, God forbid, we were not mindful every second of the day? As a person who defaults to living the well-examined life, sometimes I wonder [...]
The wound that many couples never recover from occurs when one of the partners is in distress and the other does not respond or help them. Their partners are not there for them when they need them most. This kind of aloneness, abandonment, rejection or neglect can lead to the wounded person saying to themselves (often [...]
