FRIENDSHIP was the defining factor for both men and women in achieving a happy marriage. What is friendship in marriage? It is having mutual love and respect for one another, loyalty to your partner and knowing one another’s preferences and …
Exploring Karma
Karma is the idea that whatever we do now sets up a vibration that will return to us at some time in the future, which in Hinduism and Buddhism, includes future lives. So, things we are experiencing in this life, …
How to Interact with Closed-Minded People
I don’t really like the term ‘closed-minded people’ because I think some of the people we label as ‘closed-minded’ just have a different point of view to us.
Considering the Perspective of Others
When we take on the perspective of someone else, a whole network of brain regions becomes activated. The dorsomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, the temporoparietal junction and the precuneus. These areas are responsible for memory, attention, social cognition, integration and …
Keeping an Open Mind
Being open-minded is generally thought of as a necessary quality to think critically. It helps us to see all the factors that might be affecting a situation. It is one of the factors that protect against dogmatism. Being open-minded can …
Healing Shame through Journalling
When we experience shame, our gut reaction is usually to run as fast as we can in the other direction. In the moment, this might be the safest thing to do, but after the moment has passed it can be …
Where Does Shame Hide?
It is easy to read posts about shame and think, “Oh, I don’t feel any shame. That’s not in my life”. If that is the case, you are an incredibly rare individual. For most people, shame is part of life. …
The Antidote to Shame
Shame is a painful emotion that is created because of a sense of failure to meet a certain standard. Shame says that we are flawed and unworthy of connection. In response to shame, people will isolate themselves or numb their …
Understanding Shame
Nathanson (1992) presents a fabulous tool to show us how shame shows up. When we look at the middle axis of withdrawal and avoidance, we see two different behaviours. With withdrawal, there is hiding and disconnection. We know from research …
How Shame is Different to Guilt
Shame sounds like, ‘I reversed into a pole, I am such a loser, I can’t get anything right’ Guilt sounds like, ‘I reversed into a pole, I wasn’t looking properly, that was silly, I’ll start double checking from now on’