Tag: Mental Health
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Becoming Ourselves
Growing into Our Identity One of life’s grand existential inquiries is launched by a simple yet fundamental question: “Who am I?” The answer to that query is nuanced and evolves seismically for some, based on one’s season of life, emotional development, and depth of understanding. Quite possibly our conceptualization of who we are ebbs and…
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Dead to Me: Enduring the Pain of Ambiguous Loss
Loss is a regular occurrence for most of us. We lose things – keys, earrings, phones, Air pods. Our favorite sports teams lose games. And most painfully, we lose people. When someone close to us dies, we enter into a natural, well documented, and interminable grieving process. And yet, death is only one way by…
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How to Reframe Performance-Oriented Identity
Why Who You Are is Not What You Are. Most of us harbor a self-critic in the amygdala of our brain. It operates on a continuum ranging from selective and reserved to vocal and harsh. While a modicum of self-criticism is necessary and probably desirable, too many of us take it to the extreme. The…
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Eyes Wide Shut: Why are We So Gullible?
I think most of us understand that this country is in the midst of the most acute and chronic era of divisiveness since the Civil War. Too many of us are holed up in our respective silos. It’s us against them; my camp versus your camp. We’re right, you’re wrong. We know the truth, you’re…
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Who I Am is Not What I Am: The Curse of Performance-Based Identity
Most of us harbor a self-critic in the Amygdala of our brain. It operates on a continuum ranging from selective and reserved to vocal and harsh. While a modicum of self-criticism is necessary and probably desirable, too many of us take it to the extreme. The genesis often occurs in childhood when we get the…
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Take Nothing for Granted. It’s Great to Be Alive.
“Take nothing for granted. It’s great to be alive.” I’ve heard those words uttered by Chicago disk jockey Lin Brehmer dozens of times. The phrase has been his mantra for years. And, every time I’d hear it I’d tell myself he’s absolutely right. We have all taken so much for granted every day of our…
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God Doesn’t Play the Blame Game.
Why is it that so many of us look to assign blame when the shit hits the fan? Everything has to be somebody’s fault: our boss, our parents, our sibling, our spouse, the yahoo down the street, politicians, the media, God. Tragedy is part of life. It happens every day. Sometimes there’s an obvious villain…
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Happy Father’s Day Asshole
Have you gone shopping for a Father’s Day card? If so, you’ve undoubtedly seen dozens of greetings that state, in essence, I am who I am today because of you, Dad. The verse inside may use words like love, acceptance, guidance, caring, kindness, role model, and hero. But, what if one of those sentiments isn’t…
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It’s Not Your Fault
The 1997 movie Good Will Hunting is one of my favorite films for a number of reasons. Each of the main characters is deeply flawed, lonely, fearful, and trying desperately to mask the pain that envelops them. Among the numerous powerful and poignant scenes in the film is a breakthrough moment in the relationship between…
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The Toxicity of Shame
I’m not sure who first identified the acronym for shame, but it’s spot-on: Should Have Already Mastered Everything. In other words, I should be perfect. I should understand this. I should know how to do this. I should… fill in the blank. Author Brené Brown, who spent many years researching shame says, “Where perfectionism exists,…
Roger M. Cahak 