MysteryShrink for the Short Attention Span

Own Your Emotional Reactivity MysteryShrink for the Short Attention Span is about what you can do right now to make a difference in your experience inside your head and with other people. We humans are predictable. We can use this information for good. For starters, open a folder and log …

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Have you ever said “yes” when you meant “no”?

Practical Psychology: What Works and What’s Nuts Have you ever been in a relationship in which you felt ‘who you are’ was slip-slipping away? Maybe you stopped seeing your friends or family as often. Or you changed the way you dressed or the way you ordered from a menu. Not …

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Me Change? You’re Kidding, Right?

Practical Psychology: What Works and What’s Nuts …I have fired only one client. Mrs. X. Mrs. X, a fifty-one-year-old divorcee, came to see me because she’d heard that I work from a theory of family systems and she had a family problem. Or, at least her daughter and her husband …

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Complaining is Bad for Your Health: “Eat it the Way It Is!”

Complaining is Bad for Your Health: “Eat it the Way It Is!” Back in graduate school I had a course in behavior modification design. The first assignment was to set up a plan to alter a self-destructive behavior of our own. Of course, the instructor did not recognize that, just …

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Three Things the Other Person Does Better Than You

“Paying Attention to What You’re Paying Attention To” Series Three Things the Other Person Does Better ***To make sense of this post, first read: “How Orange Jell-O Changed My Life” The habit of talking about ‘the other people’ in the family when leaving a family event is a fairly common …

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Paying Attention: How Orange Jello Changed My Life

Paying Attention to What You’re Paying Attention To: The Orange Jello Incident My in-laws lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is about a nine-hour drive from Austin. Why do I mention the length of the trip? Because, nine hours is a long time for a husband to listen to his wife …

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