Positive Psychology Tag

I am not happy all the time. Just wanted to set that straight. Seems like my reputation is mythed, as the all-too- common belief is that I am super positive all the time. Ba'sha as my friend Judy would say. Not possible! It's not about being all positive all the time. It's about being flexible about how you think. It's about choosing thoughts in line with your higher self - which is in line with what you want -- not what you need or should -- but what you really, really want. I realize I can come across like a "Rah - Rah" cheerleader...

As one of my childhood friends said on Facebook tonight, Can't help but feel the gloriously luminous supermoon is all for me. Hello Mr. Moon! And why not? Why not think it's all for you? Not in an ego-filled way that taps your hubris, but in a loving way that rocks your self-efficacy: the belief that you can do whatever you want to do in the world. Cause when it's in line with your higher self, it's automatically a win-win. The triple bottom line, baby: people, planet, and profit. As we work on the SOMO Leadership movement in Cleveland, the thought pattern we...

And I drink sometimes, too. Sometimes, I drink too much -- but that seems to be okay on the Mexican rivera, where I just spent a fantastic week in Sayulita, a beach town built into a mountain. Love having both sand and mountain. A little slice of heaven. "I didn't even know I liked tequila" was one of my favorite lines of the trip. And it's true, I didn't. Wonder what else I think I don't like, which I may actually like? Hm. I like love, this I know. Heck, I got a tattoo to that affect (and to my mom's dismay) last...

My Facebook status update read: “Dreams coming true this week” and really, that’s just as I experienced it. I’m still savoring the best week of my life, which I spent in Cleveland, Ohio, starting on Valentine’s Day and ending six days later as I drove back home to New York last Saturday. A long drive on route 80, indeed, but with a big smile on my face and lots of oxytocin running through my body, it was A-Okay. Better than okay. Great! Dare I say, the best week of my life? I was there working on an intervention project called SOMO Leadership which...

Don’t have it all figured out? Join the club. It’s okay. Change is dynamic, not linear. Small steps have big impacts: Change requires thinking about our thinking, which is engrained in our DNA. Thinking affects feeling and feeling affects action. Action is largely habitual, so changing behavior requires a plan. A plan requires a strategy. [“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”] A strategy requires inspiring goals and enabling objectives. Goals and objectives require a mission. A mission is defined by a vision. A vision is guided by values. What do you value? Wonder what your moral purpose may be? What is your “why” here in the world? What if everyone knew...

Today is the highest of the Jewish holy days: Yom Kippur (I love saying that with my gentile accent!). My Facebook status and Twit feed read: Am realizing we don't have to be Jewish to seek forgiveness today. Traditions are good, even when we borrow them. Atoning is about clearing psychological and emotional space, a task that I take quite seriously with myself and my clients. Who will you risk having a conversation with to ask for forgiveness? Don’t forget forgiving yourself! We are often our worst critics. Last week, the Jews celebrated Rosh Hashanah symbolizing the start of a new year...

“Boy, it went fast,” seems to be the sentiment of summer’s end. But is it really over? According to the calendar, we have 20 more days so my vote is strongly in favor of not seeing it as over, just soon to be in transition. So what should we do? Savor now! [Imagine Mr. Costanza’s Seinfeld voice inserted here.] [caption id="attachment_319" align="alignright" width="224" caption="A view from Block Island, RI"][/caption] I am having (notice present tense) an excellent summer. Spent most of August away from home on a beach tour that started (and will end this weekend) in the Hamptons, included a stay...

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. –Albert Einstein People are talking about Inception, a new film by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento) which Warner Brothers describes as a “contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind.” I’ve been describing the film as a mind trip, and since seeing it days ago, I’ve wondered for myself the questions that film poses: What’s really real? What’s created as an illusion of my subconscious mind? Or, better yet, what’s co-created in our collective (un)consciousnesses? The film explores the phenomenon of ideas – where do they start? How are they influenced?...

[caption id="attachment_303" align="alignleft" width="190" caption="circa 1980"][/caption] Picture it: 1978, Pascack Valley Hospital, Westwood, NJ - I was born an unexpected twin, breech, the youngest of four children. “Doctor you have another baby in there,” the nurse said as she was cleaning up after Christine was born. “WHAT?!??! my parents screamed.” I grew up in the suburbs of NYC (not far from the Housewives of NJ), overweight and pseudo-overachieving. I lost my brother Todd to suicide when I was 12. He was 19. Awful, tragic, sad. But I remember where I was standing that day of his death, at the edge of our driveway,...

[caption id="attachment_283" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Rocco always has to sniff for just the right spot."][/caption] It’s all about animal instinct. My one-year old dog, Rocco, has been reminding me of this lately. When I hear him bark at a foreign noise in the stairwell – or when he has to pee atop another dog’s urine, as if to signify, “I am here, I am best.” It reminds me of bullies, those who piss on other people. Bullies are animals. Animals are not always bullies (Rocco is sweet, just like his dad). Bullies exist not just on the playgrounds, but in the workplace too....

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