Communicating
COMMUNICATING: Communication skills will bend the arc of our lives, which way depends on how well we communicate. Too often our lives bend under the pressure of feeling judged, blamed, controlled and conflicted. Some of the pressure comes from other people, some comes from within ourselves. All this pressure can be relieved by learning to talk and listen in a different way. In our community we practice something called Perception Language, which bends the arc of our lives toward curiosity, openness, acceptance and love.
John Weir: Forgotten Pioneer in the Human Potential Movement
Throughout the past fifty years, the name of psychologist John Weir remains rather obscure compared to Maslow, Rogers and others. However, if you were to look at the January 13, 1958 issue of Life Magazine, in an article titled, Citizens Give Ideas In Crisis, you’ll...
We All Have A Personal Narrative —— Is Yours Healthy? (Part II)
When you learn to create an integrated narrative you will be more congruent and experience less anxiety in your life. You will have more compassion and empathy. You will be better able to regulate your moods. You will have healthier, more intimate and more sustainable...
Discover Your Personal Narrative — (Part I)
We can be a historian of our own lives or a novelist Within every one of us there is an invisible force that guides us through our lives. It is our personal story—our narrative. We’re largely unconscious of our narrative, but shouldn’t be, because if we have an...
The Secret To Great Relationships
Today, Hannah and I fought. Maybe I exaggerate a bit, but for us, it was a fight. It lasted about ten minutes. We were walking around in our partially constructed new home, and the scene went more or less like this: Jake, “I’m frustrating myself with people who join...
Owning Myself, Not Editing Myself
One of my talents and ways of making a living is being an editor and it’s work I love to do—I love words and working with languages. But there is another kind of editing I do that I don’t like—editing myself, holding myself back, not being fully myself....
The Answer To Life’s Problems
Are you ready for a New Year? How different will it be from last year? Will you be far less anxious? Will you have much greater clarity about your life purpose? Will you free yourself of your negative self-talk? Will you love your partner as well as you’d like to—or...
The Emotional Olympics
What are the Emotional Olympics? They are contests we all participate in every day. There’s the 100-meter dash in which our tempers flare up and we’re crossing the finish line before we even know it. There’s the 800-meter run in which some dysfunctional dynamic goes...
Law of Acceptable Dishonesty
Long before we go to school we are trained to be dishonest, often by well-meaning, good people. Our parents, neighbors, friends, coaches and teachers all do it. We are all taught that white lies, omissions, minimizations and exaggerations are acceptable, especially if...
Grow Your Brain
Would you like to grow your brain—learn how to use more of your brain? What if you could go from using 15% to 20%? Imagine the changes that would occur. The 2014 movie “Lucy,” explores this subject by dramatizing what happens when the main character gains access to...
How To Live The Good Life
Who should read this article? Not everyone. This is written for people who are truly curious about the process of personal growth and development, and for people who want to live the good life, an abundant life—a life that is, as my friend Dada says, “an...
Lasting Change Is Possible
What is the key to making real, lasting change in our lives? As a therapist I used to look to create therapeutic home runs. Some of these felt to the client like a 4×4 across the forehead and others came in the form of a wave of love that produced satori—sudden...
New Year Resolutions
Happy New Year! Okay . . . a brand new year. If you read our articles you know that we think one of the most profound things in life is our ability to “redo” ourselves. What’s a redo? A redo is a chance to exercise our free will, so as soon as...
Forgiveness Revisited
A few weeks ago I wrote about Forgiveness. I shared my belief that, at times, forgiveness only happens as a result of something else happening first—forgiveness happens because an apology comes first. Is forgiveness always best? I was challenging the popular idea that...
Forgiveness Is Not An Option
Please forgive me. I am sorry if anyone offends themselves, but I’m going to be controversial. Most everything I read these days says that forgiveness of those who have harmed or offended us is something we must do. I don’t agree, not if they haven’t apologized. A...
Judging or Asking?
Hmmmm . . . So many people are concerned about being judged or being judgmental. But, as a result, are we becoming overly sensitive about expressing ourselves? Are we becoming too politically correct? Can I tell you what I think without you feeling judged? Can...
A Conversation of Love
Life is a conversation Actually many conversations, but they all share one thing in common. Every conversation is either based in fear or love. This is true for the conversations we have with other people, and this is true for the conversations we have with...
How To Liberate Yourself
The ReDo. We launched our new website a week ago and we’ve been inundated with questions about the “ReDo.” So we’ll tell you a bit more about this powerful principle, behavioral tool, and way to liberate yourself. How does a ReDo work, why is a...
Happier World
Can You Redo Yourself? This morning while driving our grandson to school, his mother called him on his iPhone. (I don’t think 12-year-olds should have iPhones, but his father bought it for him and his parents are divorced—and well—you can imagine the rest.) At least...
Apologizing
What if you thought of the act of apologizing— not as admitting that you were wrong—but as a mature choice that you get to make to reconnect with someone you love. Just to be clear—I do know people who are chronically apologetic—that’s not...
The Need To Be Right
“You have your way.I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche Yesterday I drove my mother and father to the VA hospital in Albuquerque for a doctor’s appointment. I had never been to a...
The Last Word You Ever Speak
I recently heard a story about a woman who survived the holocaust. When she and her younger brother were being transported by train to Auschwitz, she got upset with her brother for not packing all the clothes that he would need. She harshly scolded him, telling him...
Smart People Find The Answer to Anxiety
Smart people, not smart people—doesn’t matter—the first question we all ask is: “Am I safe or not?” We may not be conscious of this, but it’s the question that operates in the background—all the time. The oldest part of our brain—the primitive part—relies on...
What’s Your Core Pattern—are you overwhelmed?
What’s Your Core Pattern? I’ve identified four core patterns: Confused Overwhelmed Conflicted Depressed Which one is yours? When I ask about a core pattern, I mean a primary pattern of behavior that we use to cope, but also to limit ourselves. We all learn our...
To Heck With Unconditional Love
Unconditional Love Is Not The Answer “I pursued unconditional love for years and ended up being a single woman with a cat. Only after I created my FOUR CONDITIONS did I attract a healthy partner into my life.” The follow article is...
Why Do We Hold Back?
There are basically three reasons why we hold back . . . We judge something about ourselves as unacceptable so we don’t want others to see it. We believe another person will judge something about us as unacceptable. We withhold as a way to punish the person...
How To Stop Being Defensive
There are two fundamental reasons why we get defensive. If we understand these reasons—with a little bit of effort—we can stop being defensive. Defending ourselves when we really don’t need to is one of the last vestiges of immaturity. #1—We defend ourselves...
Tara Brach Offers A Buddhist Approach To Dealing With Fear
Are you looking to better understand your strategies for dealing with fear—the fight/flight response? If so, I’ll recommend two things, one is an earlier post I wrote, Love or Fear, and the other is an online video by Tara Brach, titled Attend and Befriend. One of the...
The Secret Language Of Buddhism
Here’s the first secret: An ancient Pali language, the language that the Buddha spoke during his lifetime, was a “verbing” language. This way of speaking was unique in that it allowed one to stay in process, not fixing oneself or clinging to a...
Perception Language is a Mindfulness Practice
Perception Language allows you to listen to other people without getting defensive, realize they are only talking about themselves, and stop making compassion-less judgments of others. Perception Language allows you to speak with authority and clarity about...
How To Raise Healthy Kids
In the Live Conscious paradigm we don’t use praise or blame when interacting with other people. And if you want to know how to raise healthy kids, consider giving up the outdated techniques of praise and blame. Generally, people understand why we discourage the use of...
What is Great Therapy?
Have you been or are you currently in therapy? Did you get or are you getting what you want out of therapy? What makes for great therapy? I’ll share my perspective, which I’ve come to after twenty years in private practice. To get the most out of therapy,...
Change the Way You Look at Things and the Things you Look at Change
In Psychology Today, Michael Michalko writes about our perceptions and how they color our experience of the world around us. “People tend to think of perception as a passive process. We see, hear, smell, taste or feel stimuli that impinge upon our senses. We think...
Why Do I Hold Myself Back?
I recently received an email from a client asking, “Why do I hold myself back?” Her precise words were, “I continue to feel myself holding back a small part of me … not wanting to fully engage myself. I recognize that I do this in several areas of my life....
Personal Growth Through Revealing
I have been thinking lately about how much I grow myself by revealing myself and being witnessed in a Live Conscious Retreat. Revealing is a powerful personal growth tool. By nature I am an introvert. I sometimes shy myself in groups. But the more I reveal myself in...
How We Become Whole
I’d like to acknowledge my gratitude toward John and Joyce Weir, our mentors and founders of Percept language, which we now refer to as Perception Language. John passed away in 2006. A few days ago, I was considering what it was exactly, that made John so...
How To Stop Arguing
I’m a Gunsmoke enthusiast. The TV show aired from 1955 to 1975, and provided mentoring in honesty, integrity, accountability, kindness, and grit. Those of us who grew up paying attention to Matt Dillon learned valuable lessons. Recently watching a rerun, I thought to...
Conscious Parenting
Written by guest blogger: L.C.—Seattle My experience at the Live Conscious Retreat was truly life changing on multiple levels. I have attended many personal growth seminars in the last 20 years, and though I’ve always enjoyed doing weekend workshops, this one was by...
Life After Death: The Great Mystery / Wake Up!
Nicholas Kardaras in Psychology Today asks the existential question: “What happens to us after we die?…Do we fade into the nothingness of nonexistence or do we wake as a newly born crying infant in a karmic cycle of reincarnation? Or maybe there’s...
A Buddhist Approach to Recovery: Step Four – Searching and Fearless, Kevin Griffin, Huffington Post
In his recent article in the Huffington Post: A Buddhist Approach to Recovery: Step Four – Searching and Fearless, author Kevin Griffin writes about how “defensiveness makes any personal growth highly unlikely.” He asks the reader, “How are you going to change if you...
Why Can’t I Find A Good Man?
In my private counseling practice I work with a lot of women who ask the question, “Why can’t I find a good man?” I often point out the good news, which is that you’re only looking for one. Today, I had a casual conversation with a woman who...
Five Ways to Kick the Jealousy Habit: Psychology Today
In Psychology Today, Craig Malkin, Ph.D. has written a very helpful article, “Five Ways to Kick the Jealousy Habit.” I recommend it for both the jealousee and the jealouser. In addition to suggesting five things you can do to help yourself deal with...
The Importance Of Sadness: Susan Piver, The Huffington Post
Susan Piver writes in The Huffington Post that allowing yourself to feel sad when you are sad could change the world. “When you look out at this world, what you see will make you very, very sad. This is good. You are seeing clearly. Genuine sadness gives rise,...
How Couples Recover After an Argument Stems From Their Infant Relationships: ScienceDaily
The ScienceDaily staff wrote a short article, adapted from materials provided by the Association for Psychological Science, with the title, “How couples recover after an argument stems from their infant relationships.” We think this contains some valuable...
A conversation—What is kindness?
We recently had a gathering at our home and a group of us watched the movie Crash. One part of the story includes two brothers and their mother. The elder son is a detective and the younger son a petty criminal. The mother believes her younger son thoughtfully stocked...
Spiritual Breakthrough and Awakening
Spiritual breakthrough and awakening is readily available to us through the use of Live Conscious. Many people interested in personal growth and development seek to experience spiritual breakthrough—or awakening—the ultimate reward of personal evolution. Deeply...
A Living Conversation—
That’s what we are—a living conversation, reshaping our relationships and our world with every word we speak… This is a poem I wrote Thanksgiving day—giving thanks for the conversations we have within the Live Conscious community. One line, marked with an...
What is Spirituality?
I think of Live Conscious not only as a psychological practice and a set of communications tools, but as a spiritual practice as well. I hear many people talk about spirituality—of course I live in Santa Fe… but, even elsewhere, I hear many references to...
Do Yourself Over Again
Redo Yourself I love the simplicity of this concept. When you interact with other people and you displease yourself with your own behavior, or a particular result that you create—maybe things get tense, or there’s a misunderstanding, resulting in frustration or...
Isolation only exists in isolation
“Isolation only exists in isolation…” This is a quote from a fictionalized account of the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, in the book When Nietzsche Wept, by Irv Yalom. Yalom goes on to say that “once isolation is shared, it evaporates.” In the Live...
