Love – Heather R. Morgan

Out from the Clutches of Worry, Fear and Control

Over on @parentingforward, @cindybrandt was talking about the way we worry as parents. She said, “Every parent worries. To love is to worry. What if that doesn’t have to be true? What if we can learn better coping mechanisms for our anxieties so that we don’t exchange them with our children? What if we don’tContinue reading “Out from the Clutches of Worry, Fear and Control”

Honesty – Part 1

I’ve been thinking recently about the idea of honesty.

Most often when we think about teaching our kids to be honest, or being honest with our spouse we think about not saying things that aren’t true. So if you ask me if I ate the last cookie and I tell you that I did indeed eat the last cookie, then I have told the truth.

The second thing we think about in terms of being honest is not failing to tell the truth. So if you never ask me if I ate the last cookie but I know you’d want to know where it had gone, then I should probably mention that I finished off the cookies. This is a deeper truth.

Understand, Connect, Correct

There is fear and there is love – which one do you currently parent from?

Which one do you want to parent from?

How do we get from there to here?

Responding To Self-Harm and Suicide

Because of the role that worthlessness and disconnection play in self-harm and suicidality, if someone is courageous enough to tell me about what’s going on, I do my best to respond immediately with deeper connection.

I might take them out for coffee, for a walk in the woods or by the water; I might invite them back to my place for dinner and some chill hang out time, or even invite them to spend a night or two with us.

I know that this response is not going to fix all of the underlying reasons for where this person is where they are. That’s not my goal.

My goal is to create an immediate, felt sensation of increased connection for the person – like first-aid for the soul.

‘What Would Love Do?’

Last week’s post ended with this question – ‘What would love do?’ So today I want to explore that a little bit more. And to do that, I need to take you back a few years in my life to winter of 2015, when I decided to try giving up fear for lent. It might seem anContinue reading “‘What Would Love Do?’”

Fear and Love

There is a concept in psychology called ‘primary emotions’. These are seen as the emotions out of which all other emotions flow. Theorists, however, disagree wildly on what these different primary emotions might be. The following chart summarizes a wide range of these theories: Theorist Basic Emotions Plutchik Acceptance, anger, anticipation, disgust, joy, fear, sadness,Continue reading “Fear and Love”