Overcoming a Dysfunctional Litter
…and not enough in your heart. Thinking about my relatives at my mother’s funeral got me thinking about intellectualizing and what a huge coping skill/defense mechanism it is for so many people. I think in the modern world, a world where faith in science has largely replaced faith in God (even amongst many who consider [...]
The great Woody Allen movie Zelig (1983) is about a man whose desire for approval is so strong that he can change form to fit into whatever social groups he finds himself in. People are fascinated by him, and he has gained international fame as the “human chameleon.” The story is told as a “mockumentary,” [...]
Awhile back, I got in an online discussion with my friend CZ over at The Narcissistic Continuum about one of her posts called My Big Fat Opinion: The Secret. The Secret is a self-help/new age spirituality book that was wildly popular a few years back. It describes how people can put The Law of Attraction [...]
What you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say. — Emerson. In the AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings I went to, we had a saying: “You might be the only example of the Big Book someone will ever see.” In other words, if you want to help a drunk get sober, you should [...]
The healthiest people are age-androgynous.–Robert J. Ackerman Age-androgynous. What does this mean, and why is it healthy? Being age-androgynous means that you are able to act and feel any age up to and including your current chronological age. And it is healthy because it indicates that you’re “comfortable in your own skin,” as the 12 [...]
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.–John F. Kennedy All of us are, at times, functioning at less than our optimum capacity. When we’re tired, stressed, overworked, worried, or angry, our “psychic immune system” is not at its best, and we see the world as [...]
When you were little, you were probably taught that when someone gives you a compliment, the appropriate response, regardless of how you feel about it, is “Thank you!” and not “Oh, this old thing?” If you downplay the thing being complimented, you are also denigrating the opinion of the person giving the compliment, which is [...]
Anytime you think the problem is out there, that thought is the problem.–Stephen Covey Some people just never seem settled in their lives. They never seem to be on an even keel, always flailing around for some stability and normalcy. Or sometimes they seem settled in one or two areas of their lives but unable [...]
Compromise: a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands.–from Dictionary.com In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.–Ayn Rand First off, this is not an article about politics. But politics offers a great [...]
I think the last post I’m going to do about A Guide for the Perplexed is going to be about art. I have never really “understood” art very well, although aside from watching some episodes of Sister Wendy I’ve never really tried. I’ve always intuited, though, that it wasn’t just about pleasing the senses, that [...]