February 6, 2024

Events Don’t Have to Control You: Using the E+R=O Formula

“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf.” Jon Kabat-Zinn   Beware of quick fix formulas! But, there are tools that can help us to manage our reactions to external events that can shift our emotional and behavioral responses. The E + R = O (EVENT + RESPONSE = OUTCOME) formula, which we picked up on […]
August 1, 2021

Beyond Anger Management – You and Your Anger

“The beliefs we have about anger and the interpretation we give to the experience are as important to its understanding as anything intrinsic to the emotion itself.” Carol Tavris   Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion Anger has been called the “misunderstood emotion.”  Why is that? Seems like we know everything there is to know about anger, don’t we?  While there still is […]
January 7, 2020

Being Fully Present to Others

In how much of our communication with others are we fully there? If you ask what people want from most of their communication, many will say more clarity, better understanding, greater honesty – maybe even love? Underneath it all, what we really long for are deeper, more meaningful connections with others.  Even when we’re not aware of consciously seeking it, […]
January 11, 2019

The Mirror in Us: Mirror Neurons & Workplace Relationships

“We use the same cells to build a sense of self, since these cells originate early in life when other people’s behavior is the reflection of our own behavior. In other people, we see ourselves with mirror neurons.” Marco Iacoboni, author, Mirroring People, The Science of Empathy and How We Connect with Others Emotions and actions are powerfully contagious. When […]
October 7, 2018

Why is Conflict So Hard? How to Manage it More Productively

Despite the worn-out demands that the workplace is no place for “”personal feelings,” people bring all of their unresolved emotional baggage to work – and there is little we can do about that. Outmoded collective beliefs that endure like – work life and personal life should be separate – speak to a lack of knowledge about the new science  of emotions […]
May 9, 2018

The Power of Patience ~ The Emotions Series

 “Why is patience so important? Because it makes us pay attention.” Paulo Coelho There’s an emotion that can make big changes in your life. It’s the emotion that many people I work with identify as desirable – in themselves – and in others.  This emotion doesn’t have the transcendent quality of awe and wonder – it works more quietly to […]
January 13, 2018

The Language We Use in the Workplace

         What role does the language we use to describe our work play in our emotional life and behavior?  Words are not experience, but words shape experience.  The language we use is a reflection of our dominant thinking patterns, as individuals and as a culture.  Language frames our structure for experience. How much of the language we […]
December 6, 2017

Resolving Conflict: Going Beyond "Who Started It?"

“When patterns are broken new worlds emerge” Tuli Kuperberg What does a “who dunnit” in a work team have to do with a global conflict, or for that matter, any conflict? Looking at any major conflict one easily sees that they are usually convoluted, long-standing and seemingly intractable. Too often, most attempts at dealing with conflict boil down to these “strategies” […]
February 14, 2017

We Need to Belong

I continue to be surprised by the lack of understanding we have about what we humans need to thrive.   Of course, we know this.  Modern psychology has studied and  confirmed that without social connection, humans simply cannot thrive, They may, in certain cases, even die. Yet, many of us do not live as if we truly know this. This, I’ve […]