We enter psychotherapy because we are suffering. Suffering can take many forms: may it be feeling low, reoccurring headaches, or overwhelming anxiety to name a few examples. The suffering, however strange this may sound, is a perfect manifestation of what is going on,  a clue to the past, and a doorway to the future. How […]

Coping with pain or suffering is often a process beyond our conscious thought. We often, especially at the beginning of our healing journey, don’t know exactly how we are behaving and how that came to be. Yes, there are many coping strategies out there that we can use to soothe or help ourselves; here I

Since I was pregnant, I’m suffering from an injury in my hip. I’m trying to sort it out with help from a physiotherapist and during my first visit she asked me to explain how the pain feels. Like many times before I’m struck by how arbitrary it is to describe pain: “It feels like lightning

There is so much information out there on all matters possible; some information is based on good-quality research and some on opinions and feelings and everything in between. In this era of information, I, and I believe many with me, sometimes get stuck in wanting to know what “the right” information is. I want an

I often attend intensive meditation retreats. The word “retreat” however is quite misleading. Not wrong, but does not tell the whole story. The word “retreat” makes me think about retreating from something, as I would be hiding or protecting myself from enemy forces. But when retreating, where have you wound up?  A meditation retreat in

I’m sure we have all experienced some bad news being delivered to us and immediately an emotional reaction takes place and we lash out: “How can this be?!”, “This can’t be right!”, “What the h*ll are you saying?!”. We want to yell at the news deliverer, let her/him know the depths of our fury, disapproval

We humans like to think about things in categories of good or bad, or right and wrong. To put things into categories so we can more easily understand and get some sort of control over things. If I think I know something, it becomes less threatening. If I think I master something, it becomes less

Right now I’m feeling left out. Some friends of mine planned something and I didn’t get included. My name wasn’t mentioned when it came to setting a time to get together, etc. It hurts, feeling left out, and that’s ok. Me denying that it hurts won’t make it less painful. Now, reading into things here

Yet another day passes where I hope I can just decide to change the way I am in the hope to become someone more aligned with what I think would make my life easier and better: if I wasn’t so scared, if I was more spontaneous, less annoyed, less tired… the list goes on. This

…that is all that we can do. Practice to see what we and the world are really up to. Bearing witness and perhaps taking action if necessary. Be kind. You are learning, it takes time, and the practice of life is just that – for life. Hang in there. Originally posted on the 29th of