She Turned Me Into a Puppet … But Puppets Can’t Love
“She turned me into a puppet, and then wondered why I no longer loved her. The answer is simple—a puppet doesn’t have a heart.” “As men, we share a single purpose: to find that one special female who will kill us just slowly enough that by the time we reach 80, we’re already dead.” To read […]
She Married Her Brother
Not really. Sheri married a man who puts her down just like her brother used to. What I really mean when I say she married her older brother is that she’s married to a pattern that began in childhood. That pattern consists of being zapped with a negative comment—like an accusation—and then reacting to it […]
How to Get Hippos to Eat Their Veggies (Not Easy)
According to Newton’s Laws, any force we exert will result an equal amount of force in the opposite direction. Somehow this principle escapes us when our child refuses to do something. My clients, Sara and Mark, are keen examples. Force hasn’t worked–their efforts are backfiring when it comes to their seven-year-old son, Brendon. “He just doesn’t […]
The Golden Rule in Reverse
“Don’t let other people treat you the way you wouldn’t treat them.” This is what I recently said to Stanley, who never objects to disrespectful treatment from key people in his life. He swallows it … and suffers for it. Kind-hearted by nature, he’s respectful in all his dealings with others. He wouldn’t, COULDN’T, hurt […]
Any time you’re cutting yourself down, you’re wrong.
We should always have an understanding heart toward ourselves. Self-criticism is learned—we don’t come out of the womb with that tendency. I’m talking about the self-esteem-destroying self-talk that buzzes around in one’s head endlessly. Like a virus that invades the brain, it constantly judges and condemns its host. Infection takes hold early in childhood after […]