Being too self-critical is rampant in our society. It's almost a national pastime to beat ourselves up over real and imagined imperfections...

Many of us spend a great deal of our life rushing to get places. In the process we do clumsy things, get embroiled in impatience and irritation, and sometimes cause accidents. In our haste to get somewhere, we miss being somewhere, and never seem to get anywhere.

How am I going to break them the news? This is not going to be easy. I will admit that I was wrong, but I decide to put it off until I get there, hoping that once they see our brave faces, some of the sting will be gone. I will bring it up after dinner but before...

What  does it actually take to live a life that’s rich with self-care? There are five basic elements of self-care.

Although Imposter Syndrome (IS) has traditionally been seen as a female phenomenon, there isn’t an awful lot of hard data to confirm that women actually do experience this more than men. The reason that it is seen as a female condition is simply that the phenomenon was first discovered using research on women and it is a stereotype that seems to have stuck.

The ancient Greeks spoke of two kinds of time, or two experiences of time: chronos and kairos. Chronos is what we now call clock time, objective time. In music, chronos is met­ronome time. Kairos is timeliness, the opportune moment that surges out from our experience, something that cannot happen at any time but only at this time. Educators call it the teachable moment.

Log onto Netflix, and you’ll be presented with a menu of nearly 6,000 titles. Create an OkCupid account, and you’ll have the chance to connect with 5 million other active users.

Do you ever think that you're not good enough to act compassionately? Not quite holy enough, so maybe you would rather leave that sort of behavior to the saints and sages, the ministers and priests. After all, aren't these the people who are in charge of communications with God?

Welcome to the world of the Imposter Syndrome. It is a secret world, inhabited by successful people from all walks of life who have one thing in common – they believe that they are not really good enough. They might be men or women, young or old. And imposter beliefs are not always related to work; I have met ‘imposters’ who feel they are not good enough parents, husbands, wives, friends or even not good enough human beings.

Who said that if you lived consciously nothing bad or challenging would ever happen to you? Who told you would never get sick, have a lover leave you, have a loved one die, have a car accident, or make a bad choice, huh? Who ever said that walking the spiritual path would be a piece of cake, easy as pie?

Satisfaction with your home can depend on its size compared to the homes of your neighbors, according to new research.

I'm officially coming out of the closet! Here goes: I, Barry Vissell, besides being a counselor, author, doctor, and workshop leader, am also a musician!  There, that wasn't so hard. So what makes me hesitate to announce this beautiful, musical part of me?

Choice is perhaps our most vital freedom. We sometimes start sentences with “Given a choice . . .” In reality, almost every waking moment offers myriad choices. Many are small and inconsequential, whereas others are life changing.

Complain? Don't we all? Of course we do, yet do we know how to complain properly? Is there such a thing as complaining properly? Isn't complaining just a "negative" thing? Or is it a necessary way of venting our frustrations? First let's look at what complaining is...

We all have opinions, beliefs, preconceived notions, etc. And I've noticed, in myself and others, a tendency to discount anything that falls outside of what we've decided we "like". For example, when I discovered a...

When composer George Gershwin was developing his career, he contacted his esteemed role model Maurice Ravel and asked if Ravel would take him on as a student. Ravel, familiar with Gershwin’s work, rejected him, replying, “Why become a second-rate Ravel when you are already a first-rate Gershwin?”

As it happened, our current litter was born yesterday, Sunday, on the last day of our mentorship retreat! If I could have planned the worst possible time for our Gracie to give birth, it would have been that day! We were expecting her litter starting in the next few days.

Are you thrown off by unforeseen complications? Are you frantic to meet deadlines or goals? Do you hate to wait? Are you a slave to the clock? Well, the price you pay is huge. First and foremost, your hurried pace and unease rob you of...

Conformity is how we have been conditioned to participate in a false sense of security which results in us being out of integrity with ourselves. On a deep, unconscious level we are aware of this and this awareness largely informs our suffering.

Sometimes trying your best isn't enough; when the situation demands it, you need to be perfect.

Shame is an unhealthy and extremely toxic emotion that makes a person very sick inside. It plays out in families and in society in a self-destructive and violent way, and it is at the root of addiction as well as all forms of abuse. You can heal your shame...

Part of your life isn’t work­ing. The part of your life I’m talking about is wherever dissatisfaction and doubt are making you spin in circles, feeling dissatisfied with whatever you have, or stuck in doubt about what you should do. Where in your life do you feel that way?

Living with anxiety and fear creates unhappiness and despair in all our relationships. However, most of us suffer from too much anxiety and fear primarily because our communications provoke these destructive emotions through criticism, accusa­tion, punishment and humiliation. So reducing the anxiety and fear caused by...