Yet another person sitting in my office, trying to explain why his marriage was doomed for failure, and his “new love” was right!

“The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

We hear so often, “Don’t take it personally.” What does this really mean? The answer is NOT simple!

Do you love it when you feel deeply emotionally connected with someone? When you feel seen, understood, valued and cherished? This is what initially draws two people together and leads to falling in love. Then what happens? Why does the connection go away?

Yesterday’s rules prepared us to be passengers on a large ocean liner that promised a smooth voyage. Today we realize that ocean liner turned out to be the Titanic and we need to keep ourselves afloat on a small life raft if we want to survive.

When your mouth gets moving before your brain is engaged, your inner brat is unfettered. There is no filter to prevent you from saying things you might later regret.

When we were growing up, we experienced many life situations that caused us deep heartbreak. Any time we lost someone we loved, or we were yelled at, ridiculed, shamed, ignored, not seen or connected with, physically or sexually abused, or treated in any other unloving ways, our little hearts broke. But we could not manage this intense heartbreak, so we had to learn various addictive ways of managing the feeling.

My definition of emotional freedom is being free from feeling like a victim of and controlled by our emotions. We are emotionally free when we know how to learn from and manage our feelings so that we are not reactive to them and they don’t control us.

What creates your misery? Junk! What kind of junk?
* Junk thoughts
* Junk Food
* Junk drugs

My counseling clients often complain to me about interactions they had with a partner, friend, parents or co-worker. When I asked the question, “Why didn’t you speak up for yourself?” here are the most common answers I receive.