Communicating

COMMUNICATING: Communication skills will bend the arc of our lives, which way depends on how well we communicate. Too often our lives bend under the pressure of feeling judged, blamed, controlled and conflicted. Some of the pressure comes from other people, some comes from within ourselves. All this pressure can be relieved by learning to talk and listen in a different way. In our community we practice something called Perception Language, which bends the arc of our lives toward curiosity, openness, acceptance and love.

The Answer To Life’s Problems

The Answer To Life’s Problems

Are you ready for a New Year? How different will it be from last year? Will you be far less anxious? Will you have much greater clarity about your life purpose? Will you free yourself of your negative self-talk? Will you love your partner as well as you’d like to—or...

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The Emotional Olympics

The Emotional Olympics

What are the Emotional Olympics? They are contests we all participate in every day. There’s the 100-meter dash in which our tempers flare up and we’re crossing the finish line before we even know it. There’s the 800-meter run in which some dysfunctional dynamic goes...

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Grow Your Brain

Grow Your Brain

Would you like to grow your brain—learn how to use more of your brain? What if you could go from using 15% to 20%? Imagine the changes that would occur. The 2014 movie “Lucy,” explores this subject by dramatizing what happens when the main character gains access to...

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How To Live The Good Life

How To Live The Good Life

Who should read this article? Not everyone. This is written for people who are truly curious about the process of personal growth and development, and for people who want to live the good life, an abundant life—a life that is, as my friend Dada says, “an...

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Lasting Change Is Possible

Lasting Change Is Possible

What is the key to making real, lasting change in our lives? As a therapist I used to look to create therapeutic home runs. Some of these felt to the client like a 4×4 across the forehead and others came in the form of a wave of love that produced satori—sudden...

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New Year Resolutions

New Year Resolutions

Happy New Year! Okay . . . a brand new year. If you read our articles you know that we think one of the most profound things in life is our ability to “redo” ourselves.   What’s a redo? A redo is a chance to exercise our free will, so as soon as...

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Forgiveness Revisited

Forgiveness Revisited

A few weeks ago I wrote about Forgiveness. I shared my belief that, at times, forgiveness only happens as a result of something else happening first—forgiveness happens because an apology comes first. Is forgiveness always best? I was challenging the popular idea that...

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Forgiveness Is Not An Option

Forgiveness Is Not An Option

Please forgive me. I am sorry if anyone offends themselves, but I’m going to be controversial. Most everything I read these days says that forgiveness of those who have harmed or offended us is something we must do. I don’t agree, not if they haven’t apologized. A...

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Judging or Asking?

Judging or Asking?

Hmmmm . . . So many people are concerned about being judged or being judgmental. But, as a result, are we becoming overly sensitive about expressing ourselves? Are we becoming too politically correct? Can I tell you what I think without you feeling judged?   Can...

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A Conversation of Love

A Conversation of Love

Life is a conversation Actually many conversations, but they all share one thing in common. Every conversation is either based in fear or love.  This is true for the conversations we have with other people, and this is true for the conversations we have with...

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How To Liberate Yourself

How To Liberate Yourself

The ReDo. We launched our new website a week ago and we’ve been inundated with questions about the “ReDo.” So we’ll tell you a bit more about this powerful principle, behavioral tool, and way to liberate yourself. How does a ReDo work, why is a...

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Happier World

Happier World

 Can You Redo Yourself? This morning while driving our grandson to school, his mother called him on his iPhone. (I don’t think 12-year-olds should have iPhones, but his father bought it for him and his parents are divorced—and well—you can imagine the rest.) At least...

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Apologizing

Apologizing

What if you thought of the act of apologizing— not as admitting that you were wrong—but as a mature choice that you get to make to reconnect with someone you love.         Just to be clear—I do know people who are chronically apologetic—that’s not...

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The Need To Be Right

The Need To Be Right

“You have your way.I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”   ~Friedrich Nietzsche   Yesterday I drove my mother and father to the VA hospital in Albuquerque for a doctor’s appointment. I had never been to a...

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The Last Word You Ever Speak

The Last Word You Ever Speak

I recently heard a story about a woman who survived the holocaust. When she and her younger brother were being transported by train to Auschwitz, she got upset with her brother for not packing all the clothes that he would need. She harshly scolded him, telling him...

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Smart People Find The Answer to Anxiety

Smart People Find The Answer to Anxiety

Smart people, not smart people—doesn’t matter—the first question we all ask is: “Am I safe or not?” We may not be conscious of this, but it’s the question that operates in the background—all the time. The oldest part of our brain—the primitive part—relies on...

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Why Do We Hold Back?

Why Do We Hold Back?

There are basically three reasons why we hold back . . . We judge something about ourselves as unacceptable so we don’t want others to see it. We believe another person will judge something about us as unacceptable. We withhold as a way to punish the person...

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How To Stop Being Defensive

How To Stop Being Defensive

There are two fundamental reasons why we get defensive. If we understand these reasons—with a little bit of effort—we can stop being defensive. Defending ourselves when we really don’t need to is one of the last vestiges of immaturity. #1—We defend ourselves...

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The Secret Language Of Buddhism

The Secret Language Of Buddhism

     Here’s the first secret:   An ancient Pali language, the language that the Buddha spoke during his lifetime, was a “verbing” language.   This way of speaking was unique in that it allowed one to stay in process, not fixing oneself or clinging to a...

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How To Raise Healthy Kids

How To Raise Healthy Kids

In the Live Conscious paradigm we don’t use praise or blame when interacting with other people. And if you want to know how to raise healthy kids, consider giving up the outdated techniques of praise and blame. Generally, people understand why we discourage the use of...

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What is Great Therapy?

What is Great Therapy?

  Have you been or are you currently in therapy? Did you get or are you getting what you want out of therapy? What makes for great therapy? I’ll share my perspective, which I’ve come to after twenty years in private practice. To get the most out of therapy,...

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Why Do I Hold Myself Back?

Why Do I Hold Myself Back?

I recently received an email from a client asking, “Why do I hold myself back?” Her precise words were, “I continue to feel myself holding back a small part of me … not wanting to fully engage myself. I recognize that I do this in several areas of my life....

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How We Become Whole

How We Become Whole

I’d like to acknowledge my gratitude toward John and Joyce Weir, our mentors and founders of Percept language, which we now refer to as Perception Language. John passed away in 2006. A few days ago, I was considering what it was exactly, that made John so...

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How To Stop Arguing

How To Stop Arguing

I’m a Gunsmoke enthusiast. The TV show aired from 1955 to 1975, and provided mentoring in honesty, integrity, accountability, kindness, and grit. Those of us who grew up paying attention to Matt Dillon learned valuable lessons. Recently watching a rerun, I thought to...

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Conscious Parenting

Conscious Parenting

Written by guest blogger: L.C.—Seattle My experience at the Live Conscious Retreat was truly life changing on multiple levels.  I have attended many personal growth seminars in the last 20 years, and though I’ve always enjoyed doing weekend workshops, this one was by...

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A Living Conversation—

A Living Conversation—

That’s what we are—a living conversation, reshaping our relationships and our world with every word we speak… This is a poem I wrote Thanksgiving day—giving thanks for the conversations we have within the Live Conscious community. One line, marked with an...

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What is Spirituality?

What is Spirituality?

I think of Live Conscious not only as a psychological practice and a set of communications tools, but as a spiritual practice as well. I hear many people talk about spirituality—of course I live in Santa Fe… but, even elsewhere, I hear many references to...

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Do Yourself Over Again

Do Yourself Over Again

Redo Yourself I love the simplicity of this concept. When you interact with other people and you displease yourself with your own behavior, or a particular result that you create—maybe things get tense, or there’s a misunderstanding, resulting in frustration or...

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Isolation only exists in isolation

Isolation only exists in isolation

“Isolation only exists in isolation…” This is a quote from a fictionalized account of the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, in the book When Nietzsche Wept, by Irv Yalom. Yalom goes on to say that “once isolation is shared, it evaporates.” In the Live...

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