Put your outstretched right and left in front of you, with one hand parallel to the other, palms faced downward. The top hand represents how much good you can handle and the bottom hand represents how much negative you can handle. The space between the two hands is called your comfort zone. We set up […]

Many years ago, took a week’s workshop with Jack Canfield. My son came home from Camp, so I missed a day, and it was my turn to share the day I returned to the seminar. My talk was filmed. I gave it my all, everyone clapped and cheered, and Jack asked me how I felt […]

Many years ago, my partner, Peggy Bielen and I got into trouble for putting “A feeling isn’t right or wrong, it just is!” into our self-esteem program. Our point was that feelings exist, and it is what you do with a feeling that matters. You may heal, ignore and change negative feelings. Every person has […]

My dear mother was always worried about what the neighbors think. She would ask my son what he was thinking when he hung his swimsuit in the open window of her two story Avalon home. “Drying my swimsuit,” is the obvious answer, and the hidden pitfall was what would people think? I overheard a conversation […]

Every single one of us has a small child inside. At 81 years of age, it ranges between two and four year old. It represents the best and least of me. It is the part that makes judgments, holds grudges, lies, withholds, feels guilty, compares, focuses on the “what ifs” and keeps me from being […]

Along with the extensive use of media technology come several relationship challenges. People don’t feel heard. Part of that problem occurs because we are all becoming numb to violence and the ability to empathize is diminishing in both adults and children. We need to slow down and connect! Carl Roger’s Conflict Resolution techniques are my […]

The late Dorothy Corkille Briggs taught me to choose FREEDOM WORDS (wish, want, choose to, prefer, desire) over PRISON WORDS (should, ought, must, have to, everybody.) Prison words tend to put another person on the defensive. Defensiveness is magnified as most of us were raised by parents who used prison words in their daily communication: […]

If you haven’t watched Ted Lasso on Apple TV, you haven’t seen his demonstration of always finding the positive side of literally everything. Everyone loves that show because it is funny and because Ted is modeling how to find a positive in every negative. Do you know what the happiest animal on earth is? A […]

The broken record is great to use with children, and can be used with adults as well. Do you, by any chance, have someone in your life who rants at you about something you do or don’t do? Not to call someone a pig, my favorite bumper sticker was given to me from my daughter, […]