Author: Joel

To and Fro (In Relationships)

December 2, 2014

At each moment, we are making a decision to either be in relationship or not. This could be called “turning toward” or “turning away”. Even if we make a decision to be in solitude, we can do so with deeper connection in mind, or to avoid connection and truly be alone. Furthermore, even if we choose to be near others, this does not necessarily mean we do so with deeper connection in mind. Sometimes, we choose to be with others in a way that breeds loneliness. In that case, ...  Keep reading

Avoidance

November 27, 2014

There are so many things we anxiously avoid because we do not really want to know. We do not want to know the answers to our questions, so we do not ask, we do not search, we do not try. When we do search, we many times find that what we were fearing is not real. Other times, we find that our fears are well-founded and then the job is to overcome the fear by facing it. Either way, we must move toward the stress, toward the details, toward that which evokes anxiety. We must figure it out, see it, ...  Keep reading

Being Here and There

November 18, 2014

As we become adults, most of us gain the ability to have self-awareness – being able to look at ourselves from the outside, the equivalent of seeing ourselves from another’s perspective. And many of us know that when you do this sort of self-analysis ad infinitum, you can get lost inside yourself. This is partly because when you are doing your own self-analysis, you don’t need the perspective of others. It causes a serious drag on our processing, though, and it fatigues us from ...  Keep reading

Grieving

November 11, 2014

In order to love and accept our life and those around us as they are, we must learn to grieve what we thought they would be. Without doing that, we will always love our ideals more than we love the actual thing. This does not mean we have to stop wishing for things, for hope is a good thing. In fact, if we do not do this sort of grieving, we will not be able to hope. We will only have depression – the kind that follows when we do not get what we thought we should have. Everyone goes through ...  Keep reading