Blog
The Boundaries That Protect Healthy Intimacy
I’m reading a great book about boundaries, Anne Katherine’s Where To Draw The Line, with my partner Jeff. The whole book is great, but I just wanted to share with you all some of the Cliff Notes of what I really appreciated, which is a check list of helpful “Do’s” and...
On Being “PC,” Right Use Of Power & Language, & Why We Need To Work Harder & Also Extend Just A Wee Bit Of Grace
Lately, I’ve heard a lot of relatively privileged people expressing distress about the way diverse groups of people behave together since the world fundamentally changed in 2020. Yes, it’s harder and there’s more pressure to be “PC,” which is challenging, because what...
12 Differences Between Real Love & “Love Bombing”
In a recent post, I told a very personal story about my one painful experience with polyamory and how I mistook “love bombing” for actual love in a narcissistic abuse situation. After writing it over the holiday weekend and reading it to my co-teacher in our Memoir As...
Did The Qigong Master Really Materialize Herbs That Cure Cancer From The Palms Of Her Hands? (And Other Unpublished Sacred Medicine Excerpts)
Some of what I thought I witnessed and experienced during ten years of researching my book Sacred Medicine was so out there, “woo,” and mysterious- and some of the healers I worked with turned out to be so corrupt- that I wound up cutting huge swaths of my original...
17 Tips for Getting Your Memoir Started
Since 2016, I’ve been teaching memoir writing as a therapeutic process for healing trauma and improving disease outcomes- “Memoir As Medicine,” as my first writing teacher Nancy Aronie calls it. Morning pages or extemporaneous journal writing can be therapeutic enough...
Healing From Narcissistic Abuse (Ruthless Lessons, Part 3)
In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series of “ruthless lessons” in understanding the playbook of how perpetrators of narcissistic abuse operate and how survivors can heal, I shared notes I’ve been taking from the podcast Navigating Narcissism with Dr. Ramini. I’ve been...
Taking Off The Rose Colored Glasses: Ruthless Lessons Part 2
My therapist gave me “ruthless lessons” as part of my treatment, because I was so naïve, lacked street smarts, and couldn’t spot a cunning, manipulative, exploitative individual because my rose colored glasses and trauma-informed compassion gave everyone the benefit...
Taking Off The Rose Colored Glasses
Ruthless Lessons Part 1 Some of us relate to others through the eyes of young, innocent parts with a naïve, idealized, optimistic tendency to see the best in others, give them the benefit of the doubt, assume good intentions of others, and extend a great deal of...
The Anatomy of Trust
We Can’t Protect Ourselves Without Understanding Trust Since I’m preparing curriculum for my upcoming class Becoming Unf*ckwithable, I was noodling what it actually takes to be both vulnerable and protected from those who might wish to mess with us- and any time I...