The first book I ever suggested to a client, and one I still recommend 20 years later, is The Four Agreements. One of the agreements is “Don’t take things personally.”

This is the one people struggle with most. When someone says or does something upsetting, it feels personal because it hurts us. To...

Long before I was a psychologist, I had a job as an administrator at a CPA firm. The two male partners who ran the firm were difficult and unreasonable in many ways. But, I had a job, the other people who worked there were good to work with, and the clients were diverse and amazing. [One client was ...

Why would someone treat another person poorly and expect them to take it? And, maybe more importantly, why on earth would the recipient of that behavior accept it?

There are plenty of reasons someone might behave disrespectfully, but I want to focus on something else. Why would someone stay in a re...

You don't need to apologize for something you didn’t do, but you also don’t want to disconnect. Here's what to do when you and your partner see the same moment in completely different ways.

A client of mine, Tammy (not her real name), is nearing retirement as a healthcare provider. She's caring, sm...

“I apologized. Why isn't my apology enough?”

Have you ever asked yourself that question? My client Cassie (not her real name) asked me that question during a recent coaching session. She was confused and hurt. The day before, her partner made a simple comment about how she handled a situation with ...

We all love a good ending.

Not just in obvious stories, like books and movies, but in everywhere in life: in relationships, in arguments, and in the stories we tell ourselves. We want the dots connected, the characters explained, and the lose ends tied up. And, it's a bonus if the story ends in a w...