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Attention is of central importance for navigating a chaotic world. It is also of central importance for practicing meditation and mindfulness. In meditation, paying attention to the breath is often taught as a starting point as beginners are encouraged to bring their attention back to the breath each time their mind wanders. Over and overContinue reading “Receptive Awareness”

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” – Carl Jung Self-awareness involves the ability to be conscious of a range of experiences, including our emotions, thoughts, motivations, and behaviors. Our degree of self-awareness and the capacity to engage in self-reflection can have a significant impactContinue reading “Self-Awareness”

Sometimes you hear a voice through the door calling you, as fish out of water hear the waves, or a hunting falcon hears the drum’s Come back. Come back. This turning toward what you deeply love saves you. -Rumi We are often most able to find peace and calm when we are in touch with whatContinue reading “Your Deepest Aspiration”

Loving ourselves is a process. Generally, self-love evolves as love might evolve between two people. It requires taking time to cultivate our inner relationships and learn to understand ourselves better. It also requires respect and patience as well as acceptance as we admit mistakes and accept parts of ourselves that are sometimes difficult. Self-forgiveness isContinue reading “Self-Love”

“There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection.”  – Carl Jung The shadow is a psychological term from Jungian analytical psychology that refers to the things we cannot see in ourselves. The shadow is unconscious and generally viewed as the “dark side” of our personality because it consists of negative characteristics,Continue reading “Understanding Our Shadow”

People sometimes have the impression that the primary goal of therapy is to eliminate negative emotions or distress. Although there is often a focus on symptom reduction early in therapy, we generally have much broader goals. Likewise, people sometimes navigate daily life in an effort to minimize discomfort or distress. This is fairly reasonable asContinue reading “Accumulating Positive Emotion”

Ease is defined as the absence of difficulty or effort. To ease is also defined as to make something less serious or severe, soften, and to move carefully and gradually.   Living with ease is different from being relaxed. Specifically, relaxation has more to do with lessening our feelings of tension and reducing stress. Ease hasContinue reading “Living with Ease”

The other morning I felt a bit overwhelmed. I am in the process of a major job transition and found myself feeling sad about leaving my current colleagues and patients, while also excited about new professional opportunities and a new chapter in my career. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that two oppositesContinue reading “The Dialectical Nature of Life”

Transitions are often filled with mixed emotions. Sometimes transitions are by choice, but many times we are not given a choice. People handle transitions and change in all kinds of ways. Depending on the nature of the transition, you may feel anxious and experience self-doubt or feel angry and confused. In some cases, you mayContinue reading “Always Arriving”

We all face challenges and must find ways of dealing with difficult emotional states such as envy, dislike, anxiety, fear, and general distress. Coping effectively allows for us to move through distress with greater ease. Below are several useful contemplations and practices that can be helpful in expanding our capacity to cope with greater ease.  Continue reading “Skillful Ways of Being”