It's Life, Jim....

You're not looking for perfection in your partner. Perfection is all about the ego. With soulmate love, you know that true love is what happens when disappointment sets in - and you're willing to deal maturely with these disappointments.  (Karen Salmansohn) Photo by Cristofer Maximilian on Unsplash Yes indeed. Perfectionism truly is a seductive form of self sabotage. Follow my next post for more on that. As a life coach, I occasionally help by guiding individuals through the process of cultivating emotional resilience. resilience /rɪˈzɪlɪəns/ noun noun :  resiliency ;  plural noun :  resiliencies 1. the capacity to  withstand  or to recover quickly from difficulties;  toughness . "the remarkable resilience of so many institutions" 2. the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity. "nylon is excellent in wearability and resilience"  I boil it down to this idea: "Emotional Resilience is the ability to make promises to y...

  Halo effect , error in  reasoning  in which an impression formed from a single trait or  characteristic  is allowed to influence multiple judgments or ratings of unrelated factors. ( https://www.britannica.com/science/halo-effect ) Below Your 'Circle of Madness' If I were to posit the actual year that Life coaching became a necessary career, I’d go with 1920. You see, that was when people started going around falling madly in love with complete strangers. We know this because that was when Edward Thorndike invented ‘The Halo Effect’. Before that, I suppose falling in love with random people just wasn’t a thing. Mind you, Shakespeare did suspect its existence: And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.” Love's Labours Lost:  Act 4, scene 3 But actual attraction as we know it aka the "Halo Effect" was coined by psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1920 when he noted a cognitive bias where the overall impr...

  In a world that champions individualism and independence, there exists a curious phenomenon - our innate attraction to authority figures. Or, as many a life coach will attest, friction between people with issues about perceived authority. Above: Eva Braun who loved Hitler From political leaders to influencers, we do find ourselves drawn to those who confidently tell us what to do. This phenomenon is not new; it's deeply rooted in our psychology and has manifested in various forms throughout history. As Wiki says: Authority bias  is the tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an  authority  figure (unrelated to its content) and be more  influenced  by that opinion. [1]  An individual is more  influenced  by the opinion of this authority figure, believing their views to be more credible, and hence place greater emphasis on the authority figure's viewpoint and are more likely to  obey  them. This concept is cons...

It’s a story as old as time itself. “They were married for years then Tom up and ran away with Sharon from Accounting!!” I call it 'self-imposed emotional entrapment'. This is a story common enough to suggest there is a familiar and consistent psychological pattern at work. What is it that makes people choose to do this kind of thing? Photo by  krakenimages  on  Unsplash Above: Tom with 'Sharon from Accounting'  #motivation#lifecoach#personaldevelopment#success Ok, forget the lure of seduction. (it's too full of pain) Try this. You’re on holiday. You love it. The weather, the people, the culture. Wouldn’t it be great to sell the house, buy a nice little place here, set up a B&B for expats and live the happy life? Later on you return to the cold, wet, windy weather, the same old people, the same old routine and you obsess about how much happier you were on holiday. You look at your partner with all their flaws, their moods and all their little habits that annoy ...

What happens when a monk and a nun – both having taken a vow of chastity, fall in love with each other, and correspond for years? All who are about me admire my virtue, but could their eyes penetrate, into my heart what would they not discover? My passions there are in rebellion; I preside over others but cannot rule myself. I have a false covering, and this seeming virtue is a real vice. Men judge me praiseworthy, but I am guilty before God; (Abelard) In this medieval tapestry of love and intellect, Abelard and Heloise stand as a unique testament to the complexities of romance constrained. Their chaste love affair, sustained through letters and marked by unfulfilled desires, invites us to delve into the psychological nuances of how unrequited attraction can transform into fixation and obsession. love me as your mistress, cherish me as your child, your sister, your wife! Remember I still love you, and yet strive to avoid loving you. What a terrible saying is this! I shake with ...

 In 'The Art of the Good Life' Rolf Dobelli follows up the masterful collection of essays he compiled in 'The Art of Thinking Clearly'. Dobelli discusses something which may appear at first glance to be kryptonite to the personal development and life coaching industry when he subtitles chapter 16: ' Do What You Can, Not What You Think You Can Do '. Dobelli calmly deconstructs the 'big dream' and the 'calling',      "Hence why they pay such close attention to their inner voices - they're hoping to hear the call of          s ome fulfilling activity." It's a bit like J.M. Barry when he said 'Every time a child says 'I don't believe in fairies, somewhere, a little fairy dies.'. So to reframe Barry, it's like 'Everytime a potential client says I don't believe in big dreams, some where a life coach falls out of the sky.' But that's only true if said life coach feels it is his or her job to harvest ...