When we think about our bad habits, our instinct may be to judge ourselves for having them and perhaps to feel ashamed of our inability to break them. We may think that piling on the guilt will motivate us to change those bad habits, but it usually just makes us feel worse and results in a deepening of the self-defeating behavior. Instead of judging ourselves, it’s often more helpful to approach our bad habits from a place of curiosity. After all, it’s confusing: why do I kee

“Yes” and “no” are two of the clearest words in the English language, but they can also be two of the most opaque. “Yes,” for example, can come in a variety of forms. “Yes” can be big and heartfelt, small and scared, or twisted with anger. When you say “yes,” do you always know what kind of “yes” you’re saying? And if it is a scared or angry “yes,” why aren’t you saying “no” instead? Learning to say “no” can be transformative because it means overcoming the fear or guilt that

One hundred and sixty seven. That’s the number of hours the typical client spends outside of therapy each week, and it is ultimately the time in which real change takes hold. Some people may not initially view the other 167 hours as part of the therapeutic process. They may begin by using therapy as a release valve on their stressful lives, enabling them to ‘let off steam’ for an hour a week and then resume living as before. There is certainly some value in that, but if thera