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Every week, Dr. Justin Altschuler writes a post that provides new insight and perspective into the familiar parts of life, helping readers live a healthy, happy, meaningful life.
Doc’s Thoughts Think about the last time someone started a sentence to you (or you started by telling someone else), “I have to be honest with you…” Following that beginning, when has there ever been something said that made you feel good– or was anything other than a criticism? When we preface what we say with, “I need to be honest,” that’s basically code for this is going to suck or you are not going to want to hear this. Similarly, we use the expression, “Be honest with yourself” to denote...
Doc’s Thoughts I was recently talking to a patient who had picked up smoking again after successfully quitting. He was off cigarettes for a while, and then picked them up again during a period of high stress. He was so angry with himself. “Why the $%# would I do this to myself?” he asked me. “I know better, I hate these things, and here I am addicted again.” His reaction is understandable. We all do things that are not in our best interest, and end up in a place where we are frustrated and...
Doc’s Thoughts I’ve written before how the way we define the opposite of something defines the thing itself. When we hear that we need to be more accepting of people, or things, there’s a lot that this can mean. If the opposite of acceptance is denial, then accepting something means facing the truth, embracing reality as it actually is. If we define the opposite of acceptance as resistance, then acceptance means something much closer to surrender, or acquiescence. If we define the opposite of...