Why do I keep getting attracted to the wrong person?
Authentic Living
It's a question that gets asked every day. And it seems to be all about bad luck. Or maybe I'm just "screwed up." Or maybe I'll never be good enough to attract someone with whom I can really have a long-term healthy relationship. Well, if its any of those things it seems that it will just always have to be this way. But what if it doesn't? What if it's not just about being attracted to the wrong person, but about being stuck in the same pattern based on old unresolved issues? Resolving those issues then, might just mean that we can develop that relationship we have always wanted. Tune in to...
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Are You Really Who You Think You Are?
Authentic Living
It is very hard for us to compute, but it is possible to live out an identity--which we might even call a personality--that is not who we really are as a Self. That Self--with a capital S--is different from the self--with a lowercase s. The self is who we believe that we are as a personality, which often turns out to only be an identity. The Self is the deepest essence of who we really are. So, today, we are talking about the various identities, how they are formed, how they live out their introjections, how they interact with others and how they might start the pathway to the more authentic...
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Are You Being Emotionally Blackmailed?
Authentic Living
We tend to think of blackmail with regard only to its legal ramifications. And, of course, we know that blackmail is illegal, because it is a form of extortion. From a legal prespective, blackmail means prison time and/or fines because it attempts to coerce or force someone into doing something by threatening them in some way. Emotional blackmail is the same because it carries with it an emotional threat. But in the case of emotional blackmail, it is not so much the blackmailer that is imprisoned, but rather the person being emotionally blackmailed. Today we are discussing emotional blackmail...
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Healing the Wounds of Childhood
Authentic Living
Today we are talking to Dr. Don St. John, author of the book “Healing the Wounds of Childhood,” as this is one of the most important of all of the subjects we could discuss. Very often it is these wounds that keep us trapped, even as we are striving to get past them in some kind of way. WE simply do not realize how our past is invading our present. Or, if we do, we believe that those wounds somehow define us. How can we grow into our full potential while these wounds remain yet unhealed? How do we increase our ability to receive and absorb love, enjoy more life-giving love connections,...
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Andrew Solomon on loving difference
Authentic Living
From our 2015 talk with Andrew Solomon, writer and lecturer on psychology, politics, and the arts and winner of the National Book Award for "The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression." He is an activist in LGBTQ+ rights, mental health, and the arts. His NY Times bestselling book, and the subject of our interview today, entitled "Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity," is also the winner of several awards, including being chosen at among the NY Times Ten Best Books of 2012. It has been called “A bold and unambiguous call to redefine how we view difference… A...
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Toxic Psychological Bargains
Authentic Living
It’s natural for us to want to get what we want. Unfortunately, we often use bargaining as a way to get what we want and to seek a sense of safety--that might not actually be safe. When we are trying to get to acceptance of any difficult reality, we might reach the stage in which we bargain. So, if I'm dying of cancer, I might bargain with life by saying "I'll never do that again if you just let me live." And this is natural, for we really want to live. However, bargaining can become toxic, in that it may keep us stuck in a ever shrinking loop of "IF I... THEN he'll...". We...
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Karma: Is It REALLY What We Think It Is?
Authentic Living
Did I just hear that “Dun-Dun” that goes off whenever “Law and Order” comes on? We do get the two mixed up quite a bit—Karma and law and order. What’s been passed down to us is a definition of Karma that means that what goes around comes around. So, we can always say to that—expletives deleted—ex-husband or wife, “Yeah, well what goes around comes around!” believing with all of our hearts that they are going to get theirs. Right? And we can say to those selfish, close-minded whatever, whatever politicians that they are going to get theirs too. Then we can wash our hands of...
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Is the Term "EGO" Being Maligned by Spiritual Leaders?
Authentic Living
You cannot read a paragraph of modern day spiritual books or hear any spiritual speaker on the topic of the EGO without being informed that the Ego is a bad thing. From this perspective the Ego is thought to be the enemy. It is that part of us that wants us to fail, that wants us to be unloving, unkind and inconsiderate, to be afraid and to live inauthentically. In that way that old Ego sounds a whole lot like that old devil, Beelzebub, Iblis, Shaitan, the Dragon, the Serpent, Abaddon, Belial, the father of this world, the god of all lies, Lucifer, etc. This idea of the Ego has us believing...
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Clarissa Pinkola Estés and the Dangerous Old Woman
Authentic Living
We are excited that Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD comes this week to tell us about the unveiling of her long awaited audio work and online series called “The Dangerous Old Woman, Myths and Stories of the Wise Woman Archetype.” World renowned author of “Women Who Run With the Wolves,” which was on the NY Times bestseller list for 145 weeks, she is an internationally acclaimed poet, Diplomat Jungian psychoanalyst, post-trauma specialist, award-winning social activist and writer, as well as a cantadora, (keeper of the old stories in the Latina tradition). Dr. E, as she is affectionately...
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Mark Nepo and Authenticity
Authentic Living
Mark Nepo is an author, poet, philosopher, beloved teacher and cancer survivor who has, for thirty years, been exploring how we can stay awake and authentic when our wounds make us numb and hidden; how we can minimize what stands between us and our experience of life; how we can create a practice that wears down what thickens around our hearts and minds. And today we are going to talk to him about those very things, as we explore together the meanings and messages of his books, The Endless Practice and Reduced to Joy. The Endless Practice explores how the soul works in the world, and how by...
info_outlineFrom our 2015 talk with Andrew Solomon, writer and lecturer on psychology, politics, and the arts and winner of the National Book Award for "The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression." He is an activist in LGBTQ+ rights, mental health, and the arts. His NY Times bestselling book, and the subject of our interview today, entitled "Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity," is also the winner of several awards, including being chosen at among the NY Times Ten Best Books of 2012. It has been called “A bold and unambiguous call to redefine how we view difference… A stunning work of scholarship and compassion" (Carmela Ciuraru, USA Today) distinguished similarly by many other notables for its exceptional profundity, compassion and insight. Today we are going to take an intimate look at this entire concept of loving differentness. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to gain insight into the power of love.
Andrew Solomon is an award-winning writer and lecturer specializing in psychology, politics and culture known for his books on depression, such as the National Book Award-winning The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression and identity, such as the National Book Critics Circle Award-Winning Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity. He is a professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University, a former president of PEN America, and a prominent activist for LGBTQ+rights and mental health. His work is published in numerous languages, and he has written extensively for major publications like The New Yorker and The New York Times.
