When I visited my mother several weeks ago, I never imagined that her home and thousands of others would be reduced to ash two days later. It seems unfathomable that entire communities could be decimated so quickly. The horrific wildfires in Los Angeles and their unparalleled destruction hammer home the reality that none of us […]

Having some knowledge about healthy eating habits is generally helpful. Implementing such knowledge is even more helpful – to a point. When a person spends an excessive amount of time thinking about the quality of one’s diet and taking great measures to eat in a “healthy” way, this can be termed orthorexia. Although orthorexia hasn’t […]

Family Systems (IFS) therapy is based on the idea that we all have various parts or sub-personalities. This is perfectly normal and to be expected. Have you ever thought “part of me wants to stay at home, but another part of me wants to go to the party”? Or “part of me admires my best […]

We are with ourselves 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the conversations we have with ourselves constitute the most powerful influence on our feelings, actions, and characters. How would you describe your internal conversations? Are they kind, supportive, honest, and patient? Or are they angry, critical, and discouraging? If the latter’s the […]

Short-term stress is a normal part of life and to be expected. Having bills to pay, challenges at work, relationship issues, and health concerns can all trigger anxiety. Our bodies are equipped to deal with temporary stressors by activating our “fight or flight response”, which causes our heart to beat more quickly, our blood pressure […]

What constitutes trauma or adversity? Essentially anything that causes physical or psychological pain or injury. This includes personal illness or injury, witnessing the same in someone else, natural disasters, enduring abuse, the death of someone close to us, job loss, addiction, financial problems, relationship difficulties, and incarceration. The range and magnitude of trauma is vast. […]

There can often be a big gap between having good intentions and taking the associated steps to transform these intentions into action. We can get tripped up by not feeling like making a healthy breakfast (rather than eating fast food), going to the gym (rather than sleeping in), nor searching for a job (rather than […]

True recovery from an eating disorder, be it anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating, or “garden variety” (but no less damaging) compulsive overeating, requires recovery from perfectionism (which doesn’t have to be “perfect”, by the way). It’s so seductive to believe that once we reach the right weight, eat only organic foods, fit into a […]

Guest Post By Rob Feiner MS, LPCC, PPS “All I’ve ever known was competition, what the $#@$%*! am I going to do now?!”  My old training partner and friend lamented to me after leaving the orthopedic surgeon’s office on a sunny afternoon in the summer of 2006.  My friend had sustained his third ACL tear […]

When we think about the term “acceptance”, many people believe that this means either condoning a situation or behavior. Not so. Acceptance is not an excuse to be passive, to give up our rights in a matter, or resign ourselves to continued abuse. Quite the opposite. Acceptance is actually a proactive stance. Radical Acceptance, one […]