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Chop Wood Carry Water

This article will explain in more detail a Buddhist suggestion of what to do when going through a hard time.
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“Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.”
Swami Sivananda
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Work. What does the word mean to you? Is it something to be avoided? Is it a means to an end? Is it the only appropriate focus of your attention and energy?...

This is an excerpt from the book Cooperative Parenting and Divorce: Shielding Your Child from Conflict — A Parent Guide to Effective Co-Parenting by Susan Boyan and Ann Termini. This book is dedicated to protecting the emotional health of your children from the difficulty in the transition process of divorce. I highly recommend it for further advice on the subject.

Do not talk badly about my other parent. (This make me feel torn apart! It also makes me feel
bad about myself!)

Do not talk...

Here are a few activities to deepen your relationship: you don’t need to do these all at once. Space them out over a month.

Just take one or two things that you think would be most helpful to the two of you.

1. Think of one behavior you have that the other person likes or praises:

Ask yourself why you do this. Share with your partner your feelings as you think about this behavior and why you do it. Then, think about a negative behavior that you do, especially around your partner....

After people decide to separate, I’ve notice that there is a process people go through around whether or not they wear their wedding rings.

Often people wear their wedding rings throughout the whole divorce group series. They aren’t ready to take them off. Having a ring on your ring finger means something. For many it means they are not available to date and they are still attached to someone.

They may also be protecting themselves in their work environment because they...

One of the members in my divorce support group, Sarah was so triggered by another, I couldn’t help but wonder if they would be able to connect. Mary, had been left by her partner. Sarah, had been the one to leave. Being face to face with each other brought up feelings of guilt, anger, and hurt that really originated in the relationships each had lost.

As it turned out these members got past the triggers by moving deeper into their pain and owning the parts of themselves that felt...

A while back, I was interviewed about my methods when helping people contemplating Divorce. Here is an excerpt from that interview.

Many people who are considering divorce or separation have trouble making the decision. Maybe this is something you are going through right now. You may feel unhappy in your marriage, but afraid of the unknown – deciding to divorce can be scary. Perhaps the same questions keep going around and around in your head, and answers seem out of your reach. How can...

What bad habits did you get into in your long-term relationship? Often times I’ve heard folks say that their long term relationship changed them. They stopped doing things that made them feel happy and they experience less joy. In long term relationships we sometimes question why we were together and where things fell apart. Did we give up on our own lives? Was it impossible to find happiness with our mate, or was it both? Often times the habits of not communicating, losing interest in...

In our group we often talk about the date of their divorce. People are often full of anxiety when they reveal that they have received the date which their divorce process has been finalized. Typically, in the state of California, it takes 6 months and 1 day. However, it often takes people a lot longer to get the paper work done and make all the adjustments when actually filing for divorce. Some people file and never do anything else — they just separate physically. It’s really...

All behavior means something. Oftentimes kids are over stimulated at school, tired, hungry, or busy trying to keep up with their peers. One of the things that could help them is if they have a consistent and concrete routine at home. For example, going to bed earlier every night, getting up earlier in the morning with time to spare for a meal before leaving the house could all help to make a morning as stress-free as possible.

Your children uses a lot of energy at school. Children are...

One of my favorite theorists, Gottman, writes about the sound relationship house. The sound relationship house is a really great model of trying to identify the patterns in your relationships and where the weak areas are. If we think of the relationship as a house, we have to build a foundation and make that foundation really solid before we build the frame. There are 7 basic levels of relationships and we can think of the first three floors as being made up of a friendship system, the basis...