In The Name of Love.

By |2017-05-21T16:06:03-07:00October 31st, 2011|General|

There’s an acronym in addiction treatment that people use to prevent relapse, but I think it’s an acronym everyone should know. HALT. It stands for Hungry Angry Lonely Tired. And it’s used as a self check-in when one is dealing with an urge or a craving to drink or use. The point is to ask oneself at that moment, “What am I really feeling? And what major need is not being met right now?” If we address and tend to this need, it’s almost certain that the craving will go away, and we will also [...]

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All Puffed Up.

By |2017-05-21T16:06:03-07:00October 25th, 2011|General|

This weekend I’m going to be giving a short speech, and I was asked by the event coordinator to provide her with a short bio about me to be read in my introduction. Now I felt a little funny writing about myself and the things I’ve done to get to where I’m at in my life and career until this point. I don’t know, maybe it’s because of the Scandinavian value of humility that’s been drilled into me since childhood, but whatever the reason, it felt weird so I reached out and asked a good [...]

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Gambling Problem.

By |2017-05-21T16:06:03-07:00October 17th, 2011|General|

Is there ever any point in avoiding an uncomfortable situation or conversation in the hope that it will just turn out the way we want it to? Or are we merely just kidding ourselves into simply prolonging the inevitable? I’m a bit stuck on this one. I just had a conversation with a woman who has been getting hot and cold messages from a love interest. This has been going on for several months now without resolve either way. It is causing her a great deal of confusion, and albeit some frustration, but what are [...]

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Stacked Team.

By |2017-05-21T16:06:03-07:00October 10th, 2011|General|

It seems so easy to focus on what we lack (in skill, ability, material possessions, intelligence, relationship status, etc.) – in fact most of us might consider ourselves experts in the practice. Why are we so good at dwelling on the shortcomings and at the same time sometimes struggle to see the goodness? Is it just human nature? Social conditioning? Parental modeling? Mass media marketing? Whatever the reason, most of us are darn near experts in the art of the ‘if only.’ In order to tip the balance a bit the other way, we have [...]

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Happily Ever After?

By |2017-05-21T16:06:03-07:00October 3rd, 2011|General|

The myth of romantic love as propagated by our culture is that we are destined to meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after with the one. This illusion first starts to take shape when were we children reading and watching fairy tales of beautiful princesses meeting and falling in love with their handsome princes. I think as adults all of us secretly hope or hoped that when we meet or met the right person, we would live happily ever after in perfect union and harmony, and since the match is perfect, we would [...]

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