5 Blocks to Empathy: How to Hurt Your Love

5 blocks to empathy“I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.”                                 Maya Angelou

Now that we’ve talked about what empathy is and why it is important, it can be easy to wonder why more people don’t practice it more often. As with most human characteristics and behaviors, there is more to the story than meets the eye.

Empathy has to be developed. It is taught and practiced. We learn through words, actions and the experiences we have with important caretakers in our life. As we have pointed out before, when our teachers are less than adequate, we don’t progress as far as we could.  Blocks can and will develop that greatly hamper or prevent our ability to be empathic. Continue reading

Questions to Ask Yourself After a Breakup

Questions to ask yourself after a breakupIt is an understatement to say it hurts when you breakup. We have all felt it. Not only does it hurt, it turns your life upside down. In many cases, large parts of your routine must be rearranged, changed and rebuilt.

You go from being a couple or a family to being a partial family or just one person. Your routines change, activities change, and friends change. You may even have to find new living arrangements and/or new sources of income.

Breaking up is, indeed, hard to do.

The “moving on” process takes time and is better done if you pay attention to yourself and where you are in the process. If you find yourself having a hard time moving forward, letting go of your ex, and building your own life, it might be helpful to ask yourself some important questions.  The answers can guide you to better understand yourself.

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Breaking Up is Hard To Do

Breaking up is hard to do

Don’t take your love away from me

Don’t you leave my heart in misery

If you go then I’ll be blue

‘Cause breaking up is hard to do

In 1962, Neil Sedaka’s song “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” became a huge hit, especially among people going through a breakup and the angst that follows. They could identify with misery and the blues.

Time has shown that he not only hit the mark during the 60’s, but in every generation since. This song has been covered and re-released frequently in the last 53 years.

The Breakup: Pain and Misery

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Mid-week Special:The Body Talks

THE BODY communicationWhen Albert Einstein met Charlie Chaplin, Einstein said,“What I most admire about your art, is your universality. You don’t say a word, yet the world understands you!”

Silent film star Charlie Chaplin epitomizes the power of nonverbal communication.  Think about it for a moment: he mastered the use of facial expressions and body language to convey messages in a medium where words were not an option.  He did so to such a degree that in 1998 – well into the age when words, music, and CGI could tell the story in the movies – film critic Andrew Sarris called Chaplin “arguably the single most important artist produced by the cinema, certainly its most extraordinary performer and probably still its most universal icon”.

Chaplin can help us understand what we were talking about last week: the importance of showing up.  When you show up there will be a language spoken, even if words are not.  As in Chaplin’s day, it will be the language of your body. Experiences and feelings are expressed by your movements, your posture, your silence, and your stillness. Continue reading