Their voice will correct you for the rest of your life. — Sometimes tiny, seemingly insignificant events from childhood stay with us forever. For me, it was raking leaves in the backyard. I was eleven. It was a crisp, November morning in southern Mississippi, a few weeks after the blueberry bushes had yielded their last. Being a sixth grader, I had a…

A moment of shame can have lifelong implications. — The moment we’re born, we begin a lifelong process of discovering who we are. We gather clues from the outside world. The face we see in the mirror, the ways people interact with us and the actions we observe ourselves take — gradually we piece this body of evidence together…

What motivates these anonymous cyber villains? — If you’ve ever braved that digital dystopia known as “the internet,” you’ve probably encountered a troll. They aren’t hard to find. They are as ubiquitous in cyberspace as “horny singles in your area” and before/after weight loss ads of the same fitness model poking out and then flexing their stomach…

A nemesis loves to show up when we’re at our lowest. — Sometimes we have moments that make us look like terrible people. Sometimes, when the moon is ill-phased and the planets have aligned just so, the worst possible person is there to see it. I was fourth in a funeral procession. It was a cool November, by Mississippi standards, with a…

Anyone can learn to stand up for themselves — and they should. — No one is born assertive. Sure, some of us emerge from the womb with genetic predispositions that make it easier to assert ourselves — like high emotional stability or a fight-tuned fight-or-flight response — but assertiveness is a skill we must acquire through learning and practice. Even the most mild-natured…

Please don’t judge me but I’d rather wait in line at the DMV. — Science has always been a simp for meditation. Did you know, for instance, it can reduce anxiety? Have you heard it can improve sleep? Were you aware that meditation can lengthen attention span, heighten mood and cultivate warm, fuzzy emotions like hope and gratitude? Science will happily fill you in…

They are pulling twice their own body weight in emotional burden. — The donkey has successfully carved a niche for itself as the animal kingdom’s premiere bearer of burdens. While strong — capable of carrying nearly a third of their own body weight and pulling six times that much — they are often loaded beyond their capacity. Some people, I have noticed…

We’ll do a good deed and then run away screaming. — Like many sensitive people — if not most — I have a difficult relationship with kindness. I’ll give you an example. One Tuesday afternoon, after a long, satisfying day of clinical work, I pulled into the grocery store for fajita supplies. It had been raining on and off all day…

When the power to know thyself is a few keystrokes away. — As a psychologist, I know next to nothing about physiology. Fortunately, I would never let a minor detail like that stop me from diagnosing myself with a search-engine-optimized cornucopia of physical ailments. Over the decades I’ve identified colds, flus, migraine headaches, cluster headaches, stomach viruses, stomach ulcers, IBS, Strepp throat…