• Ep. 74: Four Ways that Control Smothers the Flames of Romantic Love
    Feb 11 2025

    Ah romance. What could feel better than falling in love? Bliss, delight, ecstasy. But those can happen only if we can let go enough to get things going, and enough to sustain them as things get more challenging. Nothing smothers romantic love worse than control. And this happens in more ways than you might expect. Today we’ll explore some of the blocks from family and culture that can predispose us to block the very thing we want.

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    19 mins
  • Ep. 73: Taoist Wisdom for Compulsive Perfectionists
    Feb 4 2025

    While I find parts of the Tao Te Ching baffling, exasperating and mystifying, Lao Tzu’s encouragement to accept things as they are still conveys an attitude toward life that I find to be a good counterpoint to my driven nature. Since Taoist wisdom can be especially useful to people who are compulsive, perfectionist, and obsessive, I thought it might be helpful for me to share how this enduring and poetic book has helped me.

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    13 mins
  • Ep. 72: 7 Ways to Achieve More Flexibility in Your Relationships
    Jan 28 2025

    I know that most of my listeners are passionately committed to doing the right thing, unfortunately that can lead to doing the wrong thing. If we get rigid about the way things should be and end up controlling people to achieve that, we can hurt others, damage our relationships, and even sabotage the greater good that we were aiming for. In this podcast I’ll share what I believe are some of the origins of this tendency and 7 suggestions for living more flexibly.

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    11 mins
  • Ep. 71: Clinging to Sacred Cows: Identity and Worth in the Compulsive Personality
    Jan 21 2025

    People with compulsive and obsessive tendencies tend to hold on to things—money, objects, time and ideas. We imagine that these things we hold on to make us more secure. But too often they bring us more stress than security. Some of the things we hold on to constitute our identity and worth. These are sacred cows in the worst sense—traits that we feel we can’t question much less let go of. And these cows are a heavy burden to carry. We’ll start with a story from the Buddha, explore scarcity mindset, and talk about two examples of women struggling with their sacred cows. Finally, we’ll discuss how letting go of sacred cows can lead to more fulfillment. lMB8tObSEfl1xD1abKMe

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    15 mins
  • Ep. 70: Are you a compulsive hero or a heroic compulsive?
    Jan 14 2025

    One way to free ourselves from unhealthy compulsive behavior is to understand our motivations, what drives and actually controls us. While we’re all unique, there are ancient and common patterns that underlie the roles we take on in life such as mother, father, warrior, healer, savior, priest, jester, caretaker and leader. These patterns are known as archetypes, and they’re illustrated in myths and symbols. These patterns exert a magnetic influence that can give us intuitive guidance and energy to help us do what we need to do. Or they can drag us into a perpetual rut of expectations and despair. Heroic energy can flow freely like water, or be frozen and rigid like ice.

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    14 mins
  • Ep. 69: How Self Control and Inhibited Expression Hurt Relationships
    Jan 7 2025

    Self control does have some benefits for relationships. But it also has dangers. If your self-restraint keeps you from expressing positive and intimate feelings, it may leave your partner feeling disconnected and unloved, which doesn't encourage them to express their feelings either, and then things start to go downhill quickly. But if you can be more intentional in using your self control to actually express more, the relationship is more likely to thrive.

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    12 mins
  • Ep. 68: Wield Your Shield Wisely: How Not to be Defensive
    Dec 31 2024

    Few of us make it through life without ever getting defensive. Shields are universal and archetypal. But, at the risk of being dramatic, how defensive we get can dramatically affect our relationships and careers. Some people keep their Shield of protection up almost all the time. Others ram it into the other person's face. Both of these can severely limit not just relationships and work, but, as we'll see, your psychological growth as well. This episode explores the differences between being defensive, and appropriately defending ourselves, with examples, and suggestions for being less defensive and for handling the defensiveness of others.

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    22 mins
  • Ep. 67: The Power of Lists to Tyrannize or Harmonize
    Dec 17 2024

    Lists can be either effective or excessive. They can help us to organize and prioritize what we need to do, and it feels great to cross things off. But they can also be very one-sided. Too often they are only about all the things we are supposed to do rather than the things we want to do. Why do lists have to be so bloody demanding, rather than allowing? Lists can be a place where you take a stand in allowing yourself to do the things you usually don’t let yourself do. And that can actually make you more, rather than less, effective.

    But this goes deeper than just the practicalities of how you manage a list. It’s also about the cultivation of your personality—individuation and becoming whole. It’s about who’s driving your car, and what parts of you get locked in the trunk.

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    12 mins