Answered questions(14)
Feeling lost
I am sort of at a loss with what to do with myself now. I have worked the last 15 years in marketing and event promotions and have achieved a lot, professionally and I have always enjoyed the work and I have done well financially from it. I have always been very career focused and a very driven to succeed person so work and my professional goals have largely defined how I have lived my life, and I was always very OK with this. I got a big promotion about a year ago to a position I had been striving towards, but the thing is, after the excitement and challenge of the first few months wore off I found myself feeling sort of blah about the whole thing. This sounds cliché but I sort of realized that there is no pot of gold at the end of this professional rainbow and that I am working very hard to keep rising into positions that do not necessarily offer me any increased happiness. I am single and educated and financially secure and in my early 40’s. I can do anything but I can’t seriously imagine any life other than the one I’ve got, even though it’s no longer fulfilling to me. I guess I am just very lost – a mid life crisis I guess – and I don’t want to look back on my death bed and realize that I wasted my life in an office building making money for other people for things that don’t really matter. But on the other hand, what if this is just a phase I am going through and maybe I’d be stupid to throw it all away so I can move to the country and farm (one of my crazy ideas) and in another 6 months I’d just be an out of work ex marketing exec who temporarily lost her marbles. Sorry for rambling, but how can I know if quitting my job and following a totally new path in life is the right thing to do?
Read answer →Food craving, addictions and neurofeedback (biofeedback for the brain)
I am interested in learning more about biofeedback for food addiction. I have very strong food cravings and urges to eat and these are very physical in nature. Would you agree that biofeedback can help a person to master her cravings by learning to control the physical sensations that lay beneath the metal processes? So does biofeedback work for food addicts or not. I confess I can’t understand the research that was sent to me by a friend. If it works how long does it take for biofeedback to ‘cure’ my very strong cravings?
Read answer →Depression and neurofeedback
Loren, I saw your answer to a question about Neurofeedback for depression but it was from 2012. Was wondering if you had any current opinion about it. My son, 20, has just admitted to having severe depression. He has been mediating with marijuana for three years heavily and has admitted that's how he pushes down any uncomfortable emotion he feels. He had a mental breakdown ten days ago and has been in the hospital since. Yesterday he tried cutting his wrists there and today admitted that he has suffered from depression for years and never told anyone. Antidepressants scare him (and me) with all the side effects and withdrawal symptoms. Please advise on what you think could help. thank you so much. Wendy
Read answer →Care for Care-Givers
I am in a bad situation. I have always gotten along very well with my mother in law so when she could no longer stay alone at home because of her dementia I said that of course she could come to stay with us. I don’t know if I didn’t know her like I thought I did or if she has really changed a lot in the past year but I have come to a point now where I hate her. I spend all of my waking hours with her every day and I never get a break from her complaining. The problem is we used a lot of the money she had earmarked for a retirement home to do renos on our house to make it more livable for her. So I feel like I am stuck with her. I feel awful to say this but I have on some occasions been rougher with her than I should have been. I feel awful afterward but sometimes I just lose control for a second. I have never told anyone else that I have done this. I am not the kind of person that hurts people. Or at least I didn’t think I was. I guess I gave learned some unpleasant truths about myself this past year. I am disgusted with myself but I am also totally frazzled. What can I do to make sure I can keep myself under control even at the worst of times?
Read answer →Limited Motivation
How do I become interested in sticking with things long term? Somethings I already am dedicated to like being a mother and becoming a wife soon (I got engaged in Sept). But the other things in life, I realized yesterday, that I like to see "if I can do them" and once I have seen I can, I stop. Like going to the gym. Did that and lost the weight I wanted to loose last winter until April then just stopped going. I haven't gained it back but I'm not as toned and want to look and feel more healthy yet haven't found a motivator to get myself to go again consistantly. Or like getting a part time job. Got one and got to it and decided I wanted to leave. Turns out they didn't really need the extra help and had hired too many people so I gladly left. I didn't really need it to begin with. It would help no doubt but I don't have to have one. Playing piano again, I used to play when I was young, and my mother gifted me an electric keyboard she got at a bargin. I sat down, saw I could still play and haven't touched it since. I tried another language and did well on pronounciation and vocabulary so instead of learning it I just lost interest because I knew I could if I really wanted to sometime. What is that part of me doing or wanting? Is this a bad indicator of something I need to be aware and working on?
Read answer →Social tension and anxiety
I’m an educated and well read person with a wide range of interests and activities. When I am with family or close friends I have no trouble engaging in stimulating and enjoyable conversations, but as soon as I try to make any kind of conversation with a person I don’t know well, I always come across as some kind of idiot. I don’t know why I get so tongue tied, but as soon as I am forced to make conversation with a stranger my mind always goes blank and I can never think of comebacks for little jokes and I generally just wish I could disappear. Since most conversations tend to go this way I try my best to avoid engaging with people beyond my immediate network of family and close friends…and this is not an ideal situation, I have come to realize, especially as my circle of close friends seems to be dwindling as people move away and yet is never replenished with new faces. Are difficulties such as mine something that can be addressed through counseling? I wonder if I could learn to be less nervous and tongue tied through relaxation exercises or some sort of practice therapy, or maybe even medication.
Read answer →Break-ups, anger and self-destruction
I used to burn myself on purpose when I was 15 sometimes. I stopped because I knew it was wrong and dangerous but I really don’t know how I stopped it seems to me I just did. Now I am 24 and I am doing it again all of a sudden. I am really depressed and messed up because I just broke up with my boyfriend and things are not going very good in my life. I know that burning myself is stupid and I want to stop myself. I never burn myself very much and no one knows that I do it. I wish I could remember how I stopped before but I don’t. What I want to ask you is how do I stop doing it when I get the feeling that I want to because it feels like something I cant control.
Read answer →Hearing voices...
If I hear voices but I know that I am hearing voices does this mean I have schizophrenia. I hear voices in my head. They sound like other people talking to me. It is not like they are telling to do horrible things or anything. They just talk to me. I have been like this for as long as I can remember. Should I be worried that this will get worse? If it does not really bother me do I need to get treatment for it or should I just leave it alone?
Read answer →Addictive Relationships
What are the main signs that a person is addicted to another person. I am in a very volatile and rocky relationship. I do not think you could call it a happy relationship. But I am totally unable to stay away from this other person. This has been an ongoing situation for more than a year and it is different from other relationships I have had in the past. It’s like an uncontrollable compulsion to be with this person.
Read answer →Resolutions that Stick. . .
How to do you make new year’s resolutions that you keep for longer than a few days. I am tired of my life and I want to get healthy and actually do something good this year rather than just spend it on the couch smoking weed and playing GTA. I am not addicted to anything in particular but I have spent way too many years living like a student in a student ghetto (except for the part where I don’t actually go to school) so I am sort of addicted to irresponsibility and laziness. I am 29 and I work at Starbucks.
Read answer →Forgiveness: The Gift You Give Yourself
Is it ever healthy to refuse to forgive someone? I have a spiritual teacher who says life is short, forgive everyone today and leave your hurt and anger behind. But I am not sure I can forgive some of the people from my past and if I do it seems like I trivialize the very not trivial things that were done to me?
Read answer →Dealing with Memories that Impact Your Life
I think something happened to me when I was a at a summer camp when I was a very young kid. I have these weird dreams about it all the time and I feel like I am repressing some sort of terrible event. I feel like this event that I don’t even remember is affecting me today and is making me into a suspicious and paranoid person when what I really want is to be able to embrace life. I want to move past this whatever it is and I am ready to face it. Is hypnosis the best way to deal with this? Is there much of a risk of false memories? Is there a better way than hypnosis?
Read answer →Living Empowered: Being True to Yourself
How do I stop caring so much (too much) what other people think about me so I can live my life according to what should be most important to me?
Read answer →How to Remember that I Want to Stop Drinking?
Right now my head is pounding the screen is sort of shimmering in my sight and I can barely hold down my coffee. I am hungover and feeling pretty bad and I don’t want to do this anymore. But I know I will…How can I learn to keep the feelings I have in the mornings when I wake up hungover and full of self loathing active enough to remind me not to drink again by nightfall? I drink pretty much every day and most days after a night of drinking I wake up really regretting the whole things and kind of promising to myself that I won’t do it again anymore.. but then as I start to feel better as the day goes on those thoughts seem to disappear somewhere and by the end of the workday when my friends are going out for a beer…there I am walking along beside them, not thinking at all about how I was feeling in the morning and what I wanted to do….and the cycle repeats itself. Is there some sort of mental trick I can learn so that I can learn to keep my good intentions of the morning alive long enough to get me into bed without falling dead drunk into bed by nighttime?
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