How-to & step-by-step

If healing trauma were easy, we would live in a vastly different, healthier, trauma-free world. We don’t. Because healing trauma is hard. Firstly, you must come out of denial that the trauma even exists. Then you must identify the trauma. You must want to heal it badly enough to endure the pain. Finally, you can […]

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven R. Covey writes: “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” If most people don’t listen to understand, is it possible they also don’t speak to communicate? Listen to understand Some years ago, I had the privilege […]

I’ve likened generational trauma to the white spaces on old maps marked ‘Here be dragons’. We suspect something’s out there but we’re not exactly sure what. My experience is that when you consciously understand a trauma it can no longer remain unconscious. It must surface for healing—for the simple reason that you’ve brought it into consciousness. This […]

There’s only one way to effect powerful, permanent healing in the human psyche: penetrate the unconscious and release the pain it contains. This is not something we choose to do. It’s something we do when all other options have failed. There’s only one way to effect powerful, permanent healing in the human psyche: penetrate the […]

The great difficulty in personal development is that we shift from conscious to unconscious mental control without being aware of it. In How to develop your ‘inner observer’ I wrote how one of the keys to change is developing the ability to observe our own repressed, self-defeating and destructive actions: Our Observer is that part […]

How do you identify family skeletons, i.e. generational trauma, in your family? Your family tree is the obvious place to start—as are the emotional symptoms you’re observing, in your life or those of family members, which make you question if you’re dealing with generational trauma. A lot of this section is basic genealogical research advice—with […]

You probably don’t need me to tell you that right now fear is on the rise. The fear of coronavirus, of food shortages, of economic failure… the fear of running out of toilet paper. I recently saw a post from someone who was more afraid of running out of toilet paper than of the virus: […]

As we approach the time for making New Year’s resolutions, here’s an awkward question: are you exploring or avoiding the inner world of your psychology and sexuality? We’ve all heard the statistics on how many New Year’s resolutions have been abandoned by the end of January—all those great intentions to lose weight, to go vegan, […]

Find your life path. Four simple little words, yet among the hardest things we can do in our lives. I remember my last year at high school very well. While most of my friends had clear-cut ambitions, I felt utterly lost. Fast forward 40 years and I still felt utterly lost, like I had accidentally […]

When the urge to surf for porn comes over us, it often reaches a point where we can’t help but give in, no matter how much we want to break our porn habit. And as soon as we see that first porn image and get that first sexual high—boom—we’re gone on the merry-go-round of rapidly […]