Category: The Psychology of Connection

topographia

The alchemy of our lives is found in the way we meet the Other. Here, we move beyond the surface of relational dynamics to witness the sacred and the shadow within our human connections—from the warmth of kinship to the friction of our adversaries. By examining how we bond, break, and rebuild, we honor the messy, vital struggle of connections that either feed or frustrate the soul.

  • Compartments

    Compartments

    When we give up our illusions of the Good Self, we see ourselves as we are: Smaller, less accomplished, more primitive, reactionary, and selfish.

  • If Ever Bliss Was

    If Ever Bliss Was

    Birth is important, and what happened before birth is important, but most important of all is what happens afterward.

  • Father’s Day Redux

    Father’s Day Redux

    When we finally gave our parents what they ought to have first given us, we discovered we were repairing not only our own hearts, but tears in the fabric of the universe, too.

  • Things My Mother Didn’t Tell Me

    Things My Mother Didn’t Tell Me

    The love of a mother is so powerful, it lasts a lifetime and beyond. Every time you think of that love, you know you are enough. This is true even if that love came through a different relative.

  • Leaving Home

    Leaving Home

    A thread running through many dysfunctional leave-takings is that they occur between adolescents and their parents. The once-perfect child goes wrong and is ousted by parents who project their own lack of individuation through an act of tough love.

  • Being There

    Being There

    Some people survive childhood by taking care of themselves. One day, they realize that they’re giving others what they didn’t experience, but knew they needed. They become pioneers in their families of origin.

  • The Hearth from Which We Leave

    The Hearth from Which We Leave

    How different it is to be in a nurturing family! Immediately, I can sense the aliveness, the genuineness, honesty, and love.

  • House Pests

    House Pests

    In sharing our lives with others we’re shaped into people with more patience, more discernment, more capacity to love wisely. We come to understand that hospitality isn’t just something we offer; it’s a way of being in the world.