Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Pendulum of Life Ecclesiastes 3 (from the Hebrew Bible) 1    There is a time for everything,    and a season for every activity under the heavens: 2     a time to be born and a time to die,    a time to plant and a time to uproot,3     a time to kill and a time to heal,    a time to tear down and a timeContinue reading “January 14, 2021”

­­Fulfillment Three authors with well-earned popularity come from different perspectives to make a point about fulfillment in your life. David Keirsey says that fulfillment and satisfaction look different for people of different temperaments.  People look for experiences that suit their own values. (Please Understand Me II) Zalman Schacter-Shalomi says that as we age, it isContinue reading “January 7, 2021”

Skills for Emotional Well-Being In a recently published paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison introduced a new framework for emotional well-being. It focuses on specific skills that can be learned. The framework is based on scientific evidence that suggests well-being can be cultivated through practiceContinue reading “December 31, 2020”

Good Will In the second chapter of Luke, the Biblical Christmas story mentions two elements that seem particularly scarce in our own era.  One is in verse 10: And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. (KJV)  In verse 14: GloryContinue reading “December 24, 2020”

Christmas Mindset The Christmas season is a tapestry of feelings, memories, and reactions.  It has been woven over your lifetime.  It comes out of its storage place each year and wraps you round, ready or not. One strand is the atmosphere created in your family of origin. As a child, it was simply there –Continue reading “December 17, 2020”

STILLNESS Newspaper columnist Charles Blow wrote about the experience of attending his older brother’s funeral in Louisiana.  He was moved by the sensitivity of friends who came to comfort his mother.  One relative came to drop off food, but didn’t want to stay long and crowd the immediate family. As she put it, “We’ll beContinue reading “December 10, 2020”

Emotional Inflammation Ideas from the book Emotional Inflammation: Discover Your Triggers and Reclaim Your Equilibrium During Anxious Times (2020), by Lise Van Susteren and Stacey Colino. These days it’s common to feel anxious, outraged, stressed out, fearful about the future, hyper-reactive, agitated, or otherwise on edge. It’s a state that Dr. Lise Van Susteren, a psychiatrist inContinue reading “December 3, 2020”

INTUITIVE VALUES The 2020 election confirms that there are profound differences of opinion about multiple issues.  The book by Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion is a serious attempt by a social psychologist to identify the values that are expressed in political and religious affiliation. He identifiesContinue reading “November 19, 2020”

Ideology and Loneliness Ideology is described as a coherent system of ideas that relies on a few basic assumptions about reality that may or may not have any factual basis. Through this system, ideas become coherent repeated patterns through the subjective ongoing choices that people make. These ideas serve as the seed from which further thought grows. Believers in ideologyContinue reading “November 5, 2020”

Making Good Friends Authors: Lawrence Robinson, Anne Artley, Melinda Smith, M.A., and Jeanne Segal, Ph.D. Last updated: June 2019. Why are friends so important? Our society tends to place an emphasis on romantic relationships. We think that just finding that right person will make us happy and fulfilled. But some research shows that friends mayContinue reading “October 29, 2020”