If there’s one skill we all need in this unpredictable world, it’s resilience. Try as we might, and however hard we work, life will not always go our way. Some people respond to challenges and setbacks by bouncing back even higher, like a superball. Other people are more likely to land like a lead weight. […]

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 […]

Is it better for your happiness and health to belong to an organized religion or to be more generically “spiritual”? Does it matter? Being religious generally refers to believing in a specific deity (or group of deities) and the regulations of a particular religion and tends to take place in a relatively formal, organized context. […]

As the New Year approaches, you may be evaluating what has transpired this year, and what you’d like to experience in the year to come. The following questions may help you to constructively and compassionately consider where you’ve progressed during this year, where possibly you’ve taken some unexpected or unhelpful detours, and where you’d like […]

In a world where our obligations to our family, friends, job, and community can seem overwhelming, tending to our own needs often falls by the wayside. We may feel guilty about taking time for ourselves, yet we neglect self-care at our peril. Reasons why self-care is important: 1) Self-care demonstrates that you know your personal […]

Many of us find that once we have everything we thought would make us happy, we still have a nagging sense that something is missing – yet we don’t quite know what. Or maybe we still haven’t achieved certain important milestones, are still struggling to do so, yet find ourselves blocked against moving forward. In […]

How can you tell when you meet a truly happy person? What signs do you look for? What indicates to you that someone is truly content with their life and themselves? Genuinely happy people: Feel gratitude. Happy people appreciate all of the good things in their lives, rather than focusing on what they perceive they lack. […]

For many of us, there comes a time when it becomes clear to us that our pursuit of happiness through amassing material wealth and power does not do the trick. Whether or not we’ve attained some level of external security, that inner peace and contentment we’ve sought feels tenuous and overly reliance on situations that […]

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. […]

It’s been said that we are human beings, not human doings. Reminding ourselves of this concept can help us to keep things in perspective. Busyness can masquerade as “getting things done”, which may temporarily bolster our self-esteem, at least on the surface. However, putting excessive focus on staying occupied can alienate us from ourselves as […]