“Your authenticity is your power.” I heard a clip of Oprah Winfrey saying this recently. The truth is, I’ve often struggled to believe that I could be powerful. Growing up, I repeatedly believed the message that I was too sensitive. I’ve found it difficult to be authentic in arenas where my emotional reality was inconvenient for other people. I learned to hide what I felt and self-abandon. But hiding reinforced the very message of inadequacy I was running from. It was a disempowering ...read more
My Truth?
When important, meaningful words or phrases in counseling/recovery/psychology start to take on twisted pop culture meaning, I can lose it a bit. For those who have spent time in my office, you know how I feel about the use of words like “boundaries” or “narcissist” when spoken flippantly. By repeating cultural lingo, the true power of these words and their meaning is cheapened. The same goes for the phrase “my truth”. “My truth” once meant that I acknowledge that the way I see something ...read more
Everything We Make Up
Something I help clients learn is how to utilize the phrase, “what I make up about that is.....” Much of what we think and say is “made up”. The stories we make up aren’t about lying. Lying has a different intention. The stories we make up are about how we have filled in the blanks. The difficulty is we present these details as fact. They aren’t. They are truly “what we make up”. It can seem reasonable because we are very familiar with a specific historical pattern. So, we make the ...read more
Reconciliation? Part II
What makes a person ready to reconcile? While it largely depends on the person and specifics of the situation, I created a visual about how I imagine this process works. I compare this process to building a doorway or opening in a brick wall. In ancient cities, there traditionally was the main entry point that acted as the key to a city. The walls are designed to protect the city, and the doorway is designed for the city to be selective about who enters it. Stories tell of a particular door ...read more
Reconciliation? Part I
Has someone ever really hurt you? ...Yea, me too. I also know I’ve been the one to do the hurting. Eventually, I became curious about the word, “forgiveness.” I’ve had a difficult time knowing where the step of reconciliation fits in the forgiveness process, or if it fits in at all. I can think of plenty of examples where reconciliation is not possible: when the perpetrator is not remorseful, no longer living, or is unwilling to change the hurtful action. Surely, I thought, reconciliation ...read more
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