A Microbial Signature for Suicidal Tendencies
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” –Winston Churchill Shockingly, suicide is the second leading cause of death for people between the ages of 18 and 29 years. For friends and family, it is heartbreaking. These days, we’re highly connected yet lonely, our jobs are being stolen by artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, climate change […]
How I Lost Myself in a Controlling Friendship and What I Know Now
“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” ~Søren Kierkegaard I didn’t lose her all at once. I lost myself first—slowly, quietly, in the way that only happens when someone you trust makes you doubt everything you think and feel. She was magnetic when I met her. Warm, intense, the kind […]
What We Get Wrong About Teaching Kids to Apologize…
As an expert on the topic of interpersonal forgiveness, it is difficult for me to hear of situations when teachers and parents demand children to apologize and forgive immediately after an offense. Those are often viewed as quick behavioral fixes in situations of conflict or when one individual has been hurt by another. This process […]
Weaponized Incompetence Extends Far Beyond Simple Tasks
A relatively newer term, weaponized incompetence has gotten a lot of attention over the past few years. My students love to discuss it, especially in the context of gender, as it most often points to conventions and excuses that keep labor inequitably divided. What is it? Husbands and boyfriends just can’t fold the laundry right. […]
Why Insight Alone Does Not Heal
I have sat with people after a breakthrough, when the tears slow down, and the room gets quiet enough for the truth to finally land. A person sees why they shut down in conflict. A parent recognizes how childhood pain followed them into the way they love. A student realizes that what looked like laziness […]
How Does Forgiveness Benefit People Around the World?
Can forgiving someone today leave you with an improved sense of well-being a year from now? A new study of residents of 22 countries says yes. The caveat, though, is that the size of the impact varies by nation, as does its nature. Researchers with the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social […]
The Powerful Insight That Helped Me Worry Less and Sleep Again
“Surrender is not about giving up. It is about letting go of the illusion of control.” ~Judith Orloff Watching my mother lose her memory while I was losing mine felt like a cruel preview of my future—until I learned that stress, not genetics, was writing my story. It was 3:47 a.m.—again. I’d been awake since […]
Too Needy in Relationships | The Gottman Institute
Have you ever been told, “You’re too needy”? It usually doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s you trying to talk about something that felt off and hearing, “Why are you making this such a big deal?” And suddenly, you’re not talking about the issue anymore. You’re wondering if you’re the problem. Being told you’re “too […]
Why Leadership Traits Don’t Determine a Successful Leader
If we do a google search for leadership traits we will find endless lists: 10 qualities of a leader; 16 leadership characteristics; 12 necessary leadership traits; 6 characteristics of an effective leader; and endless other links providing somewhere between 3 and 101 crucial traits for leaders. So, what do we do with all of that? […]
Why I Gossiped and What I Now Do Instead
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss people.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt I stopped gossiping when life humbled me. I didn’t realize at the time, but what I thought was just innocent girl talk with my friends was really a way to escape my own shame and insecurity. I had this quiet, ongoing sense that I wasn’t […]