Yes, self-love is important.

And yet, we learn that originally from others.  We learn how to love ourselves from the mirroring that we get from loving parents.

We see ourselves reflected in their eyes.  Ideally, this is an unconditional love, so that we can be on our own side, no matter how we produce, what honors we achieve, what goals we reach.

But frequently, our parents don’t know how to do this themselves.

They criticize us because they love us, they want us to be safe.

Or they criticize us because we threaten them in some way – seeing us go after our own dreams makes them jealous, and sad.

Sometimes, we need to seek out others,

to show us how to love ourselves.

Sometimes, that is a friend, or a therapist,

or a teacher or a mentor.

What doesn’t help is when we beat ourselves

up, because we haven’t mastered this yet.

Yay, us, for recognizing that

there is work to be done!

Yay, us!  Let’s go get some

assistance, and stop thinking

we have to do it all on our own!

The post Learning to Love Ourselves appeared first on Hope Goss.

We can become paralyzed by ruminating over injustices and stupidities, becoming angry or depressed.

And yet, when we focus on positive things people are up to, we can be filled with hope and energy.

It is not Pollyana to focus on the positive.  The dean of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, has done research on how writing in a gratitude journal daily can assist us in shifting our perspective.  I have written of this elsewhere, and have found this practice to assist myself and my clients in staying positive and effective.

Which is not to say that grieving is not important and valuable.  We just cannot allow it to define us and take over our lives completely.

Grieving is about identifying what is important to us, and learning to let go.

Grieving the “what is” of the planetary condition is also about embracing a spirituality that can help us be effective and survive.  There may be a reason beyond us for why things are the way that they are.  There may be a spiritual lesson for us to learn.

People who are happy for no particular reason (i.e., they didn’t just win the lottery) have found that by making the decision that the universe supports them, they are able to move forward.  Could it be that we can grieve the current condition of the world, then shake it off (in the immortal words of Taylor Swift) and then focus on our sphere of influence?

What can you do, TODAY, to make the world a better place?

What can you do, TODAY, to begin with being kind to yourself?

Make it a practice to see beautiful things, and expose yourself to inspiring people.

Find a kind way to move your body.

Fill yourself with nourishing food.  Enjoy it, and feel the blessings of it.

Healing begins at home.

As Gandhi said, “Be the change you that you wish to see in the world.”

The post Embracing the Challenges of Living in an Imperfect World appeared first on Hope Goss.

Naturally, getting enough sleep, eating appropriate quantities of healthy food, drinking sufficient water, exercising regularly – all of these are goals we should aspire to.

But what else is balance?

One cannot always live life perfectly.  In fact, perfection itself is not balance.  Occasionally rebelling and staying up late or sleeping in and skipping that walk can actually assist in maintaining balance over the long haul.  If you tell yourself that you are hence forth going to be a purist and never have an ounce of chocolate again in your life, chances are you will rebound into crazy binging.  However, eating it slowly and with enjoyment and mindfulness is a different matter.  Life is a marathon, not a sprint.

How about interactions with others?

Yes, ideally one would always be polite and patient.  And yet, there are times when the (appropriately assertively) squeaky wheel gets the grease.

There are times when we need to let others know that they have gotten on our last nerve, and we need a break.

There are times when we need to hibernate for a while, recognizing that our energy is not always up and perky, but that sometimes we need to go dormant to replenish our energy or allow the seed of something new to germinate.

We need to socialize, and we need alone time.  And what is balanced for you might not be balanced for me.

In fact, some of us need assistance with rebalancing brain chemistry.  If you notice that you are ALWAYS irritable or down, you might want to discuss it with your doctor.  It could be something as simple as a Vitamin D or B-Complex deficiency.  A book that discusses this subject is The Way Up from Down by Priscilla Slagle, MD.

Or maybe those feelings of discontent are signaling that it’s time to change some of the things in your life that aren’t working for you.

For everything, there is a season.  A time to cry and a time to laugh.  Only saying yes and never saying no will not lead to balance, nor will only accumulating and not de-cluttering.

This is a season of retrenchment for many of us.  The economy is allowing us time to reflect upon what truly matters the most – our time, our energy, our ability to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of others – or slavishly following habitual ways of being that deplete us and fray tempers.

Arrange to take a day for yourself.  Do something that you ordinarily would not allow yourself to do (staying within the bounds of legality and common sense).  Or just nap.  Recharge, rebalance, and then reconnect with life.  You’ll be surprised at how rejuvenating this is.

The post Ingredients of a Balanced Life appeared first on Hope Goss.

Then along came the 21^st century.  You no longer have to follow in mom’s and dad’s footsteps.  All the traditional roles have gone out the window.  The good news is that you are free.  The bad news is that you are free.  You get to figure out how to do your life in a way that fits you.  AND, you have a lot of leftover tribal programming in your head that informs you what you can and cannot do.  You may not be aware of this programming.  You might not understand what it is that is holding you back and causing you unhappiness.

The rules have been thrown out.  Just imagine – women did not have the vote until 1920 in this country.  To put this in perspective, my mother was born in 1925.  Her mother was born in a world where women didn’t count.

The affects of this societal change on men and women have been huge.  We have gone through a sexual revolution since the advent of the oral contraceptives.  Then it turned out that sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS, were a huge issue.  And women who felt sexually liberated did not count on the oxytocin that is released upon orgasm which bound them to recreational sexual partners that they might not have chosen for life.

Legally sanctioned or not, many of us are in committed relationships that would not have existed in times past.  Perhaps we are with same sex partners.  Perhaps we are living with boyfriends or girlfriends.  Perhaps we are raising our grandchildren, or dealing with adult children who have come home to roost.

Men and women don’t quite know how to be in relationship with each other.  What worked for our fathers and mothers frequently doesn’t work for us today.  They might have been content to have an economic partnership, and we might want something more.  Or perhaps our parents wanted something more and divorced, leaving us with no clear role model to follow of a happy, healthy relationship.

Our parents expected to be taken care of by corporations for all of their lives if they gave them their loyalty.  This appears to be an unlikely expectation to those employed today.

In fact, many of us are unemployed or underemployed, given today’s economic situation.

Many of us are in free fall.  We frequently need assistance in connecting with our inner truth.  It can be challenging to figure out ways of being and living that will assist us in obtaining what we want.  We don’t know how to proceed in ways that will work best for us and our loved ones.  Therapy is a place to explore these issues.  You can find out what others have discovered, and see if this assists you in finding your own truth.

Therapy is about personal empowerment , especially in an age of uncertainty.

Therapy is about working your way through all of the confusions that beset you, and coming to a place of personal peace in the midst of the craziness around us.

The post It’s Not Just You! Our Culture Is in Transition appeared first on Hope Goss.

We need to take the time to grieve our losses, feel our anger, and let these emotions flow through us.  If we don’t, we get blocked – stuck in depression or chronic anger.

What if, when we received a blow, we grieved it appropriately?  What if we allowed ourselves to be angry with God and with our fellow man?  What if we learned how to deal with anger in an appropriate way, not acting out destructively?

What if then we were able to take the wound and to reframe it, as a blessing?  What if we were able to sort through the pile of manure and find the gold nugget at the bottom?

What if we were able to see the pain as an initiation, much like that which is inflicted intentionally by a shaman upon young people in indigenous cultures, preparing them for adulthood?  What if the pain were to signal a mini death of one phase of our lives, opening us up to what comes next?  What if the journey of anguish were allowed to lead us into the next level of our empowerment and growth?

Imagine if we could live in a world where we could truly embrace the idea that there are no mistakes, simply opportunities for growth?

What if we could come out the other side of our dark night of the soul, and be grateful for the journey and the transition into greater wholeness and wisdom?

How would that change everything?

What if we could find a way to benefit from the betrayal of a lover, the loss of a marriage, the loss of a job?   What if we could change from victim to hero in our own personal life drama?  It is through the cracks in our hearts that the light shines.  After all, a life well lived is the best revenge.

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