In Latin, persona originally meant a mask worn by actors to indicate the role they played. Carl Jung used the term to represent the ‘I’ that one presents to society. It is also the ‘I’ that society expects us to show. Like the theatrical mask, the persona gives an indication of what the person/character is like. It helps define […]
The Lasting Effects of Trauma & Childhood Adversity
Even though we might believe that we had a ‘normal’ childhood, most children experience some form of ‘adverse childhood experiences’ (aka ACE’s). Whether it was emotionally unavailable or controlling (e.g., everything had to be ‘fine’) parents, a chaotic household (due to addiction, mental illness, depression, anxiety, domestic violence, or divorce), neglect or abuse, children are […]
Valuing Finances = Valuing Self
We talk about physical and emotional health, but what about financial health? Financial health can be seen as how safe we feel about our level of money. We do not want to be stressed about money; nor do we want to be in denial of our money situation (in order not to be stressed!). In fact, physical, emotional […]
Words Do Mean a Lot
An old Chinese proverb stated, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.” There are two meanings associated with words – denotation and connotation. Denotation is the literal meaning of words while connotation represents the various social, cultural or emotional associations with words. For example, families that do not consist of […]
Our Sense of Control
As discussed previously, worry, the cognitive side of anxiety, occurs in the higher brain (prefrontal cortex). Thus, it is important to ‘stop-thought’ the brain from worrying about something right from the start, especially if the something is out of our control. It is the mind that tells us that we do or should have control […]
Learning from Our Projections
You may often be fascinated by finding images seen in the shapes and textures of clouds. Is that the profile of Gandhi or a rabbit? The well-known Rorschach inkblot psychological test works in this manner. How do you get from that cluster of clouds or blob of ink to a distinct image? When unrecognizable images […]
