On a sunny day in the LA area years ago, I was driving to work on the Harbor Freeway. I was thinking about thinking. It gradually occurred to me that when I became attached to a particular way of understanding something, I immediately became vulnerable to error because I wanted that way of understanding to be accurate. I became biased. So, I was less likely to recognize or value information that challenged it. What to do? I figured that one thing to do would be to try to be

I don't know about you, but I don't like conflict. When I can, I avoid it. But still... sometimes people see things very differently from each other. No surprise--our different life experiences can cause the same situation to have hugely different meanings for us, and it happens a lot. In fact, sometimes minor differences are so frequent and so insignificant that we barely notice them. Differences in experiences and meanings are so common that it wouldn’t be too surprising

“I have no reason to feel sad.” “Don’t be afraid.” “You should be ashamed.” I’ve been thinking that, even though we might not focus on how we relate to our emotions, it turns out that we have relationships with them. We’ve all been exposed to various ideas about emotions and their meanings. We might think of some as positive, others negative, and some in between. We have favorite emotions and troubling emotions. * And our relationships to our feelings change over time, depend

Thanks to suggestions from perceptive readers, I’ve been rethinking some elements of my blog post of June 3, 2020. In it, I offered a...

[Note: I've added more recent thoughts on this in my July 3 blog.] You know how it is when you get into a conversation with someone, and...

By Ariel Phillips We humans do something with our brains that has gotten my attention lately, and I think it has implications for how we...

Listening FAQ 10/12/19 How to be a “good listener” might not be obvious. Or easy. 1. What is good listening? Isn’t it just making eye...

The questions below come from many conversations over many years with clients and students. 1. How would I know if my relationship to...

The meaning of success and failure ​ I’ve learned that most of us go through life without giving a lot of thought to how we...