For a few years, I believed that what we often call “the rational mind” was my enemy.  I have a powerful rational mind, and most people would see this as a plus, but to me that was part of the problem.  I thought all the analysis, judgment and criticism my mind did was holding me [...]

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” – C.G. Jung
There’s a lot of personal development writing about how it’s important to avoid “toxic people” and “energy vampires”—people who criticize us, make fun of us, tell us we can’t achieve our goals, and so on.  I actually have the [...]

I wrote an article a while back about how, ultimately, many of our anxieties can be traced back to a single fear—the fear of annihilation, or nonexistence.  I described a few exercises we can use to grasp this fact at a deep, visceral level.  In this article, I’ll talk about a method I’ve used to [...]