Discovering Your Wounded Idealist Dear Neil: I seem to have developed a jaded, cynical and sarcastic way about me, and I have been told by others that I come across negatively. I can see this behavior in myself. For some reason I have become judgmental and critical—of other people and of myself—and I have developed […]
Meeting Life’s Challenges
How do you handle adversity and disappointment? Adversity can take a lot of forms: a life threatening illness; being fired; divorce; the death of a loved one; losing someone or something you cherished; an injury; a betrayal, or even just having your illusions shattered. Recovering from such events requires great reserves of inner strength, mastery […]
Mistakes As Teachers
Dear Neil: Could you talk about why I keep thinking about various mistakes I’ve made over the years? Sometimes I think of mistakes that I made years ago that I still feel embarrassed—and even shame over. What can I do about this? Embarrassed in Colorado Dear Embarrassed: View your mistakes as valuable teachers. If you […]
Self-Love Requires Being On Your Side
Note: This is the second of a two-part series. Click here for part one When you love and value yourself, you start taking care of your health; your body; your psyche; your relationships with others; and your sense of vitality, optimism, and overall well-being. Here are some of the things you can do to better love, respect […]
How Do I Become Self-Loving?
Note: This is the first of a two-part series. Click here for part two Dear Neil: I’m 54, and have had to face aloneness, fear and memories of childhood rape and emotional abuse. How do I become self-loving? Trying to Heal in Wellington, New Zealand Dear Trying: You don’t have control over how you grew up, […]
Healing Inner Shame
Dear Neil: I was very interested to read your column about the rage-shame connection. My husband suffers from this to a degree that it affects every day of his life. How do you heal shame? Trying to Overcome Wellington, New Zealand Dear Trying to Overcome: The rejection of self is central to feeling toxic shame. […]
Inner Shame Prohibits Intimacy
Dear Neil: You’ve recently written about shame. Can you address why some of us feel an inner sense of shame no matter what we say or do? I’m not talking about feeling ashamed when I do something I know to be wrong. That’s having a conscience. I’m talking about feeling unworthy, inadequate, unlovable or not […]
Being Less Defensive and Reactive
Dear Neil: I seem to get defensive a lot—whenever someone at work criticizes me or suggests how I could have done better, whenever my husband makes a request of me that implies that I’m not doing a good enough job as a wife, whenever my daughter says something that hurts me. Then I get angry, […]
Are You A Mensch?
Are you a mensch? A mensch is a person of integrity and honor. A good person. Honorable. Trustworthy. Reliable. Someone who does the right thing the vast majority of the time. Someone whose word you can hang your hat on. Kind. Compassionate. Gentlemanly or gentlewomanly. Someone who treats people right. So, are you a mensch? […]
How “Noisy” is It Inside Your Head?
Dear Neil: You have recently written about our “inner critic” and how we handle our mistakes. I seem to be forever plagued by emotionally wrenching emotions. I am pregnant, and I am extremely torn about what to do. On the one hand, I would love to have a child. On the other hand, I’m not […]