Seriously pushy people are called bullies. You can probably imagine the tough kid on the playground, literally pushing people around. Most pushy people we interact with are boundary-pushers—people-pushers in the figurative sense. They are trespassers who do not recognize or do not respect …
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is something we do for ourselves. Forgiving ourselves, first of all, and then others if we choose to, allows us to set aside the weight of hurt, anger, resentment and shame that weighs us down when we have felt hurt or wronged in some way. We can even build up resentment by not taking …
Resentment
Just as life often holds scrapes, breaks, strains, and accidents which affect our bodies, so our emotional lives and relationships often hit bumps. Sometimes cracks appear, which need to be mended. Sometimes walls are erected which keep us from communicating and furthering a relationship. Sometimes …
Group Problem Solving
If you are in a situation where several people need to decide something or come up with a plan, there’s a strategy that can help things flow smoothly while giving everyone a voice. It works like this: Use a notebook to record the details and …
Relationship Skills
Relationships can be enjoyable and helpful, or stressful, and are almost always some combination of both. Relationships take work. Being more skillful is like sharpening a cutting edge – the work is easier, and we are not working as hard to get the results we want. Being skillful in our …
Getting Personal with Coping Skills
Introducing some personal, close-to-home coping skills into our lives has serious advantages. With ourselves, we are operating in our sphere of influence. We can waste a lot of time trying to control others and be none the better for it. Even if we hope to contribute to world peace, the only …
Boundaries
Good boundaries make other coping skills more effective. But what is so important about boundaries? How do boundaries apply to life skills? Our bodies, the natural world around us, our culture and civilization, and our “higher” or “inner” beings (what you might think of as soul, spirit, …
More Coping Skills
Several weeks ago, we took a jump up to the 30,000-ft level for an overview of coping skills. We discussed how thinking, emotions, and behavior all affect each other. Then we examined some specific thinking skills, emotion regulation skills, and behaviors, and how we can use them. Now it’s time to …
E.I. Concepts
Awareness of emotions and emotion regulation brings us back to the subject of Emotional Intelligence, which we wrote about in an earlier post. Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of the 1995 New York Times bestseller Emotional Intelligence, views Emotional Intelligence as “a profile of specific …
Codependence
Codependence, or co-dependency, as it’s also called, involves the opposite of emotional development and emotional regulation. Co-dependent people have learned to suppress and avoid emotions and disregard their own emotional needs. Mental Health America offers this description of …
Labeling
Labeling is a form of negative over-generalization used for people. We take a single event, behavior, or characteristic and use a label to generalize it to the whole person. We can label ourselves, or others. This is also called global labeling or mislabeling. The problem with this kind of labeling …
Black and White Thinking
Black and white thinking, also called polarized thinking, is a way of viewing situations that fails to acknowledge the nuances that exist between two extremes. With black and white thinking, situations, problems, outcomes, and even people are seen in extremes. Accompanied by our tendency to …
Stop, Look, and Listen!
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. - George Bernard Shaw Children are encouraged to “Stop, look and listen” before crossing railroad tracks or streets. Why? Because being unaware can be life-threatening. Have you ever considered the consequences …