We’re stay-at-home people now, seesawing in this historic upheaval between feeling strong and feeling weak. Many of us don’t trust that we have what it takes to be brave and heroic. As if on a ventilator, we struggle for the oxygen of resilience, unable to feel a solid bottom in … [Read more...] about Inner Conflict Ripens in the Hothouse of Pandemic
inner conflict
The Joy of Militant Ignorance
Human beings are highly resistant to acquiring self-knowledge. Our ego, the turtle shell of our mind, readily embraces willful, even militant, ignorance as self-protection against the humbling reality of how we instigate and then cover-up our participation in self-defeating … [Read more...] about The Joy of Militant Ignorance
Breaking the Chains of Self-Imposed Oppression
There are two main forms of oppression, and we’re candidates for unnecessary suffering if we can’t distinguish between them. Oppression when imposed on others is obviously cruel and harmful. Yet there exists another kind of oppression, a torment we unconsciously place on … [Read more...] about Breaking the Chains of Self-Imposed Oppression
Get Rid of Guilt with Deeper Insight (II)
“I have never smuggled anything in my life,” the great novelist John Steinbeck wrote in Travels With Charley. “Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?” Steinbeck’s guilt was irrational because, as he said, he had nothing to hide. So where … [Read more...] about Get Rid of Guilt with Deeper Insight (II)
Notes to Psychotherapists on Addressing Inner Passivity
Earlier this month I received an email from a young psychotherapist, in practice for just a few years, who was struggling to understand how, despite his best efforts, a client of his had committed suicide. He wrote, in part: I recently experienced a therapist’s worst nightmare … [Read more...] about Notes to Psychotherapists on Addressing Inner Passivity