Becoming conscious of your racial identity is a process that cannot be explored in darkness and isolation. In our experience, the process of challenging the myths of white superiority (whiteness) and Black inferiority (Blackness) has tremendous healing effects and the potential to create social equality. A few weeks ago, Paula and I facilitated our first in-person Getting the…
Thomas Merton once wrote, “Love is, in fact, an intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness, a wholeness of life.” We use the word “love” so often these days. In many ways, it has become a tongue-in-cheek expression of endearment rather than a genuine characteristic of a healthy society. This is not the case for every one…
I want to thank you—for all the support and belief you’ve shown me this year. It has meant the world to me and I deeply appreciate you. I am feeling extraordinarily grateful to be able to share my thoughts, fears, successes, confusion and other exciting experiences with you. It’s been a hard year! We’ve seen hearts…
We adults reenact traumatic episodes from our past just like children reenact them in play therapy. Instead of using dolls and sand trays to re-create the family dramas that harmed us, we use ourselves, our partners/spouses, and our children. The reenactment dramas that we create are unconscious efforts to communicate our hurts, and express buried grief.…
Many of us struggle with Validation and/or Validating others because we have a “Fear of Difference.” The fear comes from: The belief that there is a RIGHT way of seeing, describing, understanding, and valuing everything – i.e what is going on. The limited capacity to be aware that others are different, or to respect, appreciate, or…
Do you know what keeps conflict and the power struggle in place? Yep! Criticism. Criticism kills love. Criticism can kill a marriage. There is no such thing as constructive criticism in intimate relationships. When we criticize others we hurt them and we hurt ourselves. When we criticize our partner we freeze them in the very…
My husband and I have been married for 20 years. For years I chose to work nights so I could stay at home and raise our two girls. Somehow through it all my husband and I have grown so far apart… I want counseling to help us better communicate. He says “no counseling”… I feel…
My boyfriend and I have been living together for 4 years and it is truly a great relationship. I would like the commitment of marriage, but he does not. This difference of opinion has raised the question of what really is a committed relationship? I believe that he and I both have different expectations of…
I recently married a wonderful man. I have two problems that are really interfering in my marriage. Jealousy and anger. I cringe every time he mentions a female’s name and the thing is I trust him entirely but I don’t trust the women. I was engaged to a different man many years ago and he…
The “shadow” is a psychological term for everything we cannot see in ourselves. The shadow side are essential aspects of our personality that we have learned to hide or suppress in order to protect ourselves. I understood how important knowing my shadow was when I began my journey in 12-step recovery and again in my clinical…