Self Improvement Site
On The Internet! Take the Self Improvement Tour
On The Internet! Take the Self Improvement Tour
Articles from Sheryl Paul | Selfgrowth.com
- Shrink Fear Grow Love - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulWhen the fear-fog clears, when the projection that has kept him separate from you and sealed a barnacle over your heart finally shatters, you see your partner as if for the first time. Not only do you see her clearly, in all of her sweet and simple splendor, but the delusions of separateness ...
Views: 859 - A 24-Hour Challenge - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2018 from Sheryl PaulIn 2008, shortly after we moved from Los Angeles to Denver with our two-year old son, I adopted a weekly ritual in honor of the Jewish sabbath: to shut down my computer for twenty-four hours. This was before the era of smartphones and before I was pouring my energy into my online business daily, ...
Views: 858 - Gut Health, Anxiety, and the Holidays Made Simple - by Submitted on Nov 26, 2019 from Sheryl PaulI’m delighted to share this guest post by Dianne Rishikof, a registered dietician and licensed nutritionist, where she shares her extensive knowledge on the connection between anxiety and gut health. I first read Dianne’s incredible book, “Health Takes Guts: Your Comprehensive Guide to ...
Views: 858 - “I Married the Wrong Person” - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulWhenever a theme arises in my weekly work with clients I know it’s important to write about it here. Last week the theme was: “I married the wrong person” or “It would have been easier with someone else.” One of the most important tasks for those on the road to awakening is to notice all of ...
Views: 855 - The Truth About Love (and my thoughts on Instagram) - by Submitted on Oct 31, 2018 from Sheryl Paul“Love is one of the great enlargers of the person because it requires us to ‘take in’ the stranger and to understand him, and to exercise restraint and tolerance as well as imagination to make the relationship work.” – May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude I recently decided to join Instagram. ...
Views: 854 - How to Multiply Your Love and Attraction - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2019 from Sheryl PaulWhat would it be like to throw yourself full-bodied and without restraint into love’s arms, to set the fear voices and inherited scripts that say, “Love isn’t safe” on the fence of your mind and walk through the tattered gates of your heart that are still trying to keep you safe? What would ...
Views: 844 - How to Harness the Hidden Sexy Ingredient of Marriage - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2019 from Sheryl PaulOur culture worships the gods of youth and eternal happiness. If we could bottle and merchandize the elixir of youth, most people in the Western world would purchase it no matter the price. We extol the blemish-and-wrinkle-free face and lay ourselves prostrate at the feet of the toned body. A ...
Views: 841 - Flags Versus Red Flags - by Submitted on Oct 17, 2018 from Sheryl PaulOne of the most common questions I’m asked during a coaching session is, “What are red flags? You say that if I’m suffering from relationship anxiety and I’m in a healthy and secure relationship without red flags then the anxiety is a manifestation of pain that needs attention as opposed to ...
Views: 840 - How One Lightbulb Moment Can Ease Your Anxiety - by Submitted on Feb 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIn every session with clients, I drop down into the core of myself, breathing and opening into the vessel of being so that I can listen with the ears we do not see, the ones that hear underneath the top layers stories into the invisible layers where the gem that needs to be revealed rises gently ...
Views: 839 - Heartbroken Not Broken - by Submitted on Oct 31, 2018 from Sheryl PaulShame is often a placeholder for powerlessness and a protector against grief. Instead of feeling the rawness of grief, the mind latches onto a shame story that says, “I’m broken.” Instead of surrendering to the powerlessness of painful situations that had nothing to do with you, like your ...
Views: 836 - This is the Most Powerful Hijacker of Your Healing Path - by Submitted on Nov 21, 2019 from Sheryl PaulWestern culture places a premium on feelings in the form of moods. While we diminish the importance of experiencing difficult emotions like sadness, disappointment, frustration, fear and jealousy, we worship at the altar of moment-by-moment impulses. This sounds like: I don’t feel like ...
Views: 835 - The Critical Moment to Break Free From Anxiety - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2018 from Sheryl Paul“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor E. Frankl If we could slow life down to micro-moments, if we could literally alter time like a movie turning it into sloooooow ...
Views: 833 - The New Pledge of the Highly Sensitive is Life-Changing - by Submitted on Oct 01, 2019 from Sheryl PaulA theme has been constellating lately in my professional and personal worlds, and when I see a theme I’m compelled to write about it here as it’s my indicator that we’re tapping down into the realm of the collective unconscious: the invisible realm where we’re all connected, all struggling with ...
Views: 830 - Social Anxiety and the Cocktail Party - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulWhile flipping through one of my favorite bedside stand-bys, Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, I came across the following passage and chuckled out loud: “My experience is that I can feel that I’m in the Grail Castle when I’m living with people I love, doing what ...
Views: 829 - What You Choose Determines What Comes Next - by Submitted on Oct 17, 2018 from Sheryl PaulTransitions, as breaking and renewal points, offer choice-points that determine how we unfold into the next stage of our lives. Many people find me during their wedding transition when when they’re broken open not only by relationship anxiety but also by the earthquake of feelings that erupt ...
Views: 821 - Live the Questions - by Submitted on Sep 19, 2018 from Sheryl PaulI recently came across the following in a book called “The Middle Passage” by James Hollis: “What the frightened individual wishes above all is the restoration of the sense of self which once worked. What the therapist knows is that the symptoms are helpful clues to the place of injury or ...
Views: 812 - Invisible Lines of Hope - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulOut beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about. Rumi When we’re being asked to unpack a new layer of wound that will lead to healing, it can feel daunting, overwhelming, and ...
Views: 811 - Conversations with my Seven Year Old: In the Fear Forest - by Submitted on Jul 27, 2018 from Sheryl PaulOne of the blessings of having a second child is that we, as parents, gain some skills by walking with the first one through predictable stages of growth, maturity, illness, and emotional challenges. When our firstborn had a high fever, we panicked. When the younger one has a fever, it’s old ...
Views: 808 - A Lifeline of Hope in the Swamp of Relationship Anxiety - by Submitted on May 17, 2019 from Sheryl PaulA coaching client recently wrote to me to share the following (shared with permission): Each time of the three times I spoke to you, you told me something that has been a huge lifeline for me: “If two people are willing to make it work, they can make it work.” You mentioned this to me three ...
Views: 806 - Who Sits at the Head of Your Table? - by Submitted on Aug 11, 2018 from Sheryl PaulIn last week’s post, I wrote about the essential task of attending to our four realms of Self in order to find wellness and equanimity, and that in order to do this we need to have a loving, competent and clear inner parent at the helm of psyche. Just as kids feel safe when there’s an attuned ...
Views: 806 - Loneliness is a Part of Life - by Submitted on Aug 11, 2018 from Sheryl PaulOne of the biggest obstacles to finding more wellness and equanimity is the belief that we shouldn’t be feeling what we’re feeling; that if we were more evolved or healed or with a different partner we wouldn’t feel so ________ (anxious, depressed, lonely, confused, empty, bored). Because we ...
Views: 799 - When It's Time To Say Enough - by Submitted on Sep 19, 2018 from Sheryl PaulFor those of you who are struggling with relationship anxiety, you probably saw the title of this post and wondered if I was going to talk about when to leave a relationship, and perhaps felt nervous that it was going to spike you. But hopefully you have enough faith in my site that you know ...
Views: 799 - Not attracted? Learn How to Unclog the Blocked Flow of Love - by Submitted on Aug 01, 2019 from Sheryl PaulOnce again, I turn to the poet and mystic Mark Nepo and The Book of Awakening for gems of wisdom about the stones that block our hearts from fully loving: “It seems this is the never-ending work of relationship, each of us in our own time and way moving the stones between us, repositioning ...
Views: 794(1 vote) - Breathe It In - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2018 from Sheryl PaulThese are words I find myself saying multiple times a day: to my clients, to my sons, to myself. Breathe it in. We see a prairie dog hit by a car lying on the side of the road. I turn to look at my son’s face to see if he sees it. As we live in a rural area, he’s learned over the years of ...
Views: 785 - What If I Make a Mistake? - by Submitted on Aug 11, 2018 from Sheryl PaulWhen my boys were learning how to write, they would freeze in their tracks for fear of making a spelling mistake. Their perfectionist tendencies were not a surprise to my husband and I – after all, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – and it was both fascinating and painful to see how ...
Views: 781 - This is What it Takes to Heal from Shame and Anxiety - by Submitted on May 17, 2019 from Sheryl PaulWhen I was in graduate school twenty-five years ago, we learned many essential principles and tools for becoming a skilled healer in the counseling arts. We thoroughly covered various modalities, including the depth psychological perspective that informs all of my work, and spent countless hours ...
Views: 780 - This is Why You Struggle with Relationship Anxiety - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2019 from Sheryl Paul“Probably the next important evolution of Western humankind is to find a proper container for religious life so that we do not unrealistically expect another mortal human being to carry this high value. In short: don’t ask a human to be God for you.” * Robert Johnson, Balancing Heaven and ...
Views: 775 - The Rapture of Love - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2018 from Sheryl PaulWe long for rapture. We long to be transported to an otherworldly place where the problems that weigh heavily into our souls and the pain that pierces our hearts lift away, if only for a moment. We long to feel profoundly alive and deeply fulfilled. We long for ecstasy. Western culture ...
Views: 773 - How to Break Free from the Mental Addiction of Health Anxiety - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2019 from Sheryl PaulLike all forms of anxiety, health anxiety is on the rise. With information about our health more available than ever, the anxious mind that seeks control at all costs can easily latch onto health as a hotbed theme that invites this mind to shift into overdrive. You mean I can prevent ...
Views: 760 - Real Love is Available Love - by Submitted on May 27, 2019 from Sheryl PaulThe first part of this post appeared on Instagram this week. I’m expounding upon it here. Real love is available love. It’s not the chase. It’s not drama. It’s not longing. It’s not the kiss at the end of the movie or finally snagging the one who got away. Real love is here-and-now, human, ...
Views: 760 - A Love Story is the Medicine for the Fear of Loss - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIt was one of those moments that I could have easily pushed aside and continued on through my evening wrapped in the spiderweb of distraction. It was a moment so small that I almost missed the worlds of beauty and pain that lived within it, like a monarch butterfly floating past and I, caught in ...
Views: 754 - This is How I Learned to Love My Husband Well - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIt took me many years to learn how to love my husband well, and, of course, I’m still learning. Like many people, I didn’t grow up witnessing a healthy model of true partnership. My parents, like all parents, did the best they could and they gave me many gifts, but I’m sure even they would ...
Views: 737 - If I'm Calm Now Is It Still Relationship Anxiety? - by Submitted on Jul 27, 2018 from Sheryl PaulThere is often a predictable arc to relationship anxiety that includes three stages.* The first stage is characterized by typical symptoms of anxiety and panic: Can’t sleep Can’t eat Tearful Depressed Bolting awake in the middle of the night Difficulty functioning at work Fluttering ...
Views: 723 - The Scars of First Heartbreak - by Submitted on Oct 31, 2018 from Sheryl PaulThere’s nothing like the first. The first family. The first friend. The first kiss. The first job. The first baby. The first heartbreak. The first time or experience or relationship lays the groove of a blueprint for how we navigate later, similar experiences. Our first experience of a family ...
Views: 717 - Conversations with my Seven Year Old: In the Fear Forest - by Submitted on Jul 27, 2018 from Sheryl PaulOne of the blessings of having a second child is that we, as parents, gain some skills by walking with the first one through predictable stages of growth, maturity, illness, and emotional challenges. When our firstborn had a high fever, we panicked. When the younger one has a fever, it’s old ...
Views: 714 - Falling in Love with Other People - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulLet’s blow the cover off of another taboo topic in our culture, one that causes my clients to barely be able to whisper their experience loud enough to share it with me: “falling in love” with people other than your partner, including bosses, celebrities, religious figures, and even your ...
Views: 675 - Time to Get on With One's Loving - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2018 from Sheryl PaulIn response to one of the assignments in my Sacred Sexuality course to watch the film “Enchanted April”, a member of the forum shared the following. I was so moved by her response that I asked permission to share it here. She wrote: This film touched something deep inside me. After I watched ...
Views: 643 - What If We Don't Have A Strong Enough Connection? - by Submitted on Sep 19, 2018 from Sheryl PaulThe following is from course member findingpeace28, who shared this on the e-course forum two weeks after her wedding. As soon as I read it, I knew had to share it with those of you struggling with relationship anxiety and, in particular, the connection spike, to offer you a lifeline of hope and ...
Views: 640 - Oh, So That's How You Love! - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2018 from Sheryl PaulThere have been countless times over the many years of my marriage when my husband will say something that makes me feel loved or do something that gets us back on track when we’ve been in a negative feedback loop and I’ll think, “Oh, so that’s how you love!” It could be something as small as ...
Views: 626
- « first
- ‹ previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4