As a psychiatrist who has worked extensively with people battling borderline, I’m here to level with you. It takes effort, usually a therapist, time and commitment. It’s worth it because you’re worth it. These six insights may help you on your journey towards stability.
Read MoreAs a psychiatrist who has worked with many people afflicted by this disorder, I’m here to give you 5 important things to know about BPD so you can encourage anyone who is battling it to keep reaching for wellness.
Read MoreBorderline Personality Disorder (BPD), is a problem. There is nothing glamorous about it, yet there is nothing fearful about it either. It is a mental disorder that responds to treatment, People with BPD are battling a condition, like a broken leg, diabetes or depression, but because the symptoms are in the getting-along-with-people area, it is highly stigmatized.
Read MoreRight here and now, I want to give you five steps out of self-harm. You deserve wellness and to be treated well, even by yourself. You’ve read Know your emotions (last post) and you want out of self-harm.
Read MoreSelf-harm is a coping mechanism to alleviate emotional distress, right? So the way out means understanding emotional distress, and finding better coping mechanisms. Know your emotions is important groundwork to prepare you to successfully use better coping mechanisms.
Read MoreSelf-harm is a coping mechanism. It alleviates emotional distress. Physical pain is easier than emotional pain, you feel in control for the moment, and can make you feel alive, like a drug. It becomes a habit or even an addiction as the brain associates self-harm with I’m in control … this feels good. Like drugs, it gratifies short-term only.
Read MoreYou can’t see it, but you experience it every day: your amazing mind. Humans have always pondered what it could be. Then, in 1997, Steven Pinker published How the Mind Works, but, oops, soon after, cognitive scientist Jerry Fodor published The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way. If experts can’t agree and make up their minds, how are we supposed to know?
Read MoreWe’ve learned a lot about brain chemicals these last few decades. Your brain can feel naturally great if you can optimize your DOSE of these: Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphin.
Here’s how.
Read MoreMy aim here is deceptively simple: to let you know how amazing your brain is, and to inspire you to take care of it. Your brain is one of a kind; an unfathomable universe. When people talk about alternative realities, someone will say maybe we’re all just brains in a giant vat, all connected up. It’s never maybe we’re all just hearts connected up; or maybe we’re all just twisted intestines.
Care for your amazing brain in 5 easy ways: AEIOU.
Read MoreIt hurts to hear it, but you’re not always boss in your brain. Your limbic system is like an excitable puppy running after anyone who gives it a treat, making them boss for a while: fashion, peer pressure, your sex drive, your love of fast cars, ambition, greed, and more.
For you to be boss in your brain will mean developing skills as easy as ABCD:
Read MoreBrain chemicals are manipulated by things that are addictive. That’s why anyone with a brain can get addicted. Amphetamines, for example, get the brain to release a heap of chemicals; particularly the pleasure-chemical dopamine. Dopamine hits feel fantastic. But drugs cheat your brain of real pleasure connected to purpose.
Read MoreCan pursuing pleasure make us miserable? (Weird concept.)
Have you ever felt all-movied-out?
After a chocolate or drinking binge, do you feel sick?
Do you secretly wish you could give up smoking?
Ever argued with someone because you drink or gamble too much?
Do you ever feel bad because you’ve manipulated someone for your own gain?
If any of these are you, then you know what it’s like to go for pleasure and end up in pain. Pursuit of pleasure is costing you. (WTF???)
Read MoreThere may be much you can’t change about your personality, but you can give it a workout to optimize its strengths and manage its weaknesses. Here’s how. You can’t change your DNA, temperament, culture, or childhood, but you can learn and practice skills to strengthen your character for a healthier personality. Know its strengths and optimize them; know its weaknesses, and manage them. Here are my top tips for things you can change in your personality.
Read MoreCan you put your personality type in a box? Personalities are unique. Yours is. So is mine. Still, categorizing personality types is useful for understanding yourself and others. Just don’t let it limit you. Let’s look at different personality types.
Read MoreShe’s got personality! He’s got character. They’re quite temperamental. But what do we really mean? Each of us has a personality; an enduring pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving to relate to ourselves, others and the world. Like the body, it’s unique, and it’s a vehicle to help you drive down the highway of your unique experience of life. It’s your style of driving; how you do life.
Read MoreI was at a 21st birthday. Family friends were catering. Beautiful food. Canopy-style rather than sit-down: Italian meatballs, Lebanese kebabs, Indonesian sate chicken, Tasmanian salmon with chips. Lovely. Delicious. But one guest was very annoyed. He bellowed at the service: What’s the vegetarian option? Quick as a flash, the server retorted, mate, the vegetarian option is “don’t eat the meat” but you can eat everything else. The guy fumed. You should cater for everyone!
Read MoreIt’s all well and good to live from your own values, but what do you do if your values clash with someone else’s? As with personalities, cultures, and beliefs, values can be in harmony or can be dissonant. Clash. It’s natural for people of the same family, community, country or group to share certain values, but, hey, we live in a world of diversity and that means diverse values and clashes.
Read MoreLast post, we applied values to goals. But there’s more. Values can help guide your priorities, decision-making and behaviours as well. They help you understand yourself and live more of the way you want to live. Building a life on values takes effort. But why put in this effort?
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