So many of us are afraid that this national election will not turn out right and that we will be stuck electing a leader who both promotes hate and decries democracy. With good reason, we endlessly obsess about national polls and the latest news regarding the election. We lose a lot of sleep over this| The Phoenix Spirit
The Phoenix · Having Healthy Boundaries: A Necessary Way to Love To know where you begin and I end is necessary for me to respect you, for me to be respected by you, and for me to respect myself. Without respect, there is no authentic love. Every time I visit my family I come| The Phoenix Spirit
These days many of us are having a hard time finding hope. Some of us are overwhelmed by serious personal problems. Others of us live with a foreboding sense of an uncertain future for ourselves and our children. Looming climate change, increasing inequity between rich and poor, and massive dysfunction in our government all add| The Phoenix Spirit
Editor’s note: In the last issue of The Phoenix Spirit, John Driggs lent his more than 40 years of experience working with individuals, couples and families, to the topic of how to help foster moral character in children. Driggs aptly acknowledged that parents and other caregivers are not wholly responsible on how kids turn out,| The Phoenix Spirit
Parents need support. An epidemic of drug addiction with our kids today is scarier then ever. Every day on national and local news, more and more stories keep pointing to the opiate epidemic, overdoses, and addiction of our young people. These kids have parents whose hearts are breaking and need ongoing support and strategies to| The Phoenix Spirit
Hidden shame is a powerful emotional and physiological reaction. It fills our being in covert ways. It can cause us to become violent or withdrawn from life and it can prompt us to bring out the better parts of ourselves in ways we never expected. It is both a curse and a blessing. Typically we| The Phoenix Spirit
“When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future.” Bernard MeltzerWhy is it so hard to forgive? We can carry our hurts and injuries like precious gems in a velvet pouch, admiring their many facets, their high cost, how they refract the light of what once| The Phoenix Spirit
It's all very simple. You set a goal for yourself; you determine how you'll meet that goal, and then you follow some tried-and-true strategies that will help you reach it. Will power! That's all you need. Determination. Discipline. Ah, if the road to recovery were only that easy. Anyone reading this article, anyone recovering from| The Phoenix Spirit
“The Knife and the Wound Both Need Each Other.” — Sheldon Kopp, Psychoanalyst and Writer I’ve been married to Laura for 25 years and I’ve never been able to please her. We go for a period of time with things going well between us. Then out of the blue she gets bent out of shape| The Phoenix Spirit
It was the last day of a graduate class I was teaching on the Spirituality of the Twelve Steps. I asked the class what was most striking to them from the lectures and conversations we'd had. As though she had been given the question earlier, a woman immediately shot her hand up. "I learned again and| The Phoenix Spirit