Articles
Browse every published article connected to Isabel Kirk, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
Articles
Browse every published article connected to Isabel Kirk, or search within this exact expert archive.
Like any other threat to the basic need of survival, the recent Swine flue alert is causing fear in people. While a reasonable fear of death is a normal human reaction to a threat, excessive worrying and paranoia are not. The Swine flu alert can understandably trigger a sudden loss of security ...
There are thousands of articles about the physical preparation that a healthy pregnancy requires and very few about the psychological aspects of it. I titled this article “How to emotionally prepare for motherhood” because the psychological changes that start before your become pregnant do not ...
What comes to your mind when you think of the word grief? Most people think of death. Even if you google it, the listings that come up are related to the emotional response that surfaces from the death of a love one. There is very good information and help out there related to that topic. So the purpose of this article is to talk about the silent discounted grief that is part of our daily life but we don’t even know is there for the most part. Believe it or not we all grief since we are born and our emotional health depends on grant part on the mastering of this process.
Cleansing, detoxifying diets, exercising… what else do we do to purify or clean our bodies? It is somewhat common to hear people say that they are engaged in one of these practices to clean themselves from toxins and other harmful elements. They usually express to feel more energized and thinking clearer after one of these periods. Our bodies naturally let go of toxicity when we exhale and when we go to the bathroom. My question is what do we do with the emotional toxins that negative emotions, stress and pain accumulate day after day?
In this month when we celebrate love, I wonder what we are celebrating and what love is all about. Love…what’s love? That is the question. A word that causes the biggest happiness but can also cause the biggest misery in our lives, especially when we don’t know what it means, misuse it to achieve personal goals, or to cover up personal deficiencies. I see that everyday when people come to my office justifying their abusive, comfortable or unconscious behavior in the name of LOVE. Providing a definition for love is most difficult.
There are thousands of articles about the physical preparation that a healthy pregnancy requires and very few about the psychological aspects of it. I titled this article “How to emotionally prepare for motherhood” because the psychological changes that start before your become pregnant do not ...
Change! Such a loaded word. What comes to your mind when you think of the word change? Stop for a minute and try to answer that question. What types of feelings does it bring up in you? Hope, excitement, joy, or on the other hand, fear, anxiety, loss, or to make things more complicated, a combination of both? I really like this anonymous quote “Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely,” because I feel it very much encompasses the point I would like to make in this article.
Forgiveness is one of the most difficult things to do while at the same time one of the most needed in the world. There are plenty of people sick of anger, either toward others or to themselves. Forgiveness involves letting go and surrender of judgment and condemnation while engaging in a ...
I just came back from a professional workshop about calming your inner critic and I couldn’t wait to share this interesting topic with you. Where to begin? Well the structure of the human personality is very interesting and complex. Fascinating and confusing, lovely and irritating, logical and irrational… and all at the same time. Our inner selves have different parts and that is why we all experience internal dialogues. Many people who come to my office feel they are going crazy or wonder if they are normal because sometimes this dialogue could be too intense or constant.
Wow…the Winter Olympics are gone but the idea of how many good lessons we could learn from them keeps gravitating in my head. The most important is the idea of persistence and trying again vs the typical win or loose model, not only when pursuing an Olympic medal but in life. Stop for a second and think if you are one of those people for whom the word looser tends to come often into your mind? Or do you constantly deal with a feeling of winning or loosing in life even when things are small and maybe not so important? If so, this article is for you.
Relationships are a beautiful thing but they can also be challenging. I love a cartoon that reads as follows: “Relationships: a mess worth making.” It very well illustrates how many times relationships can be messy or unhealthy. The main cause of unhealthy relationships? Unhealthy boundaries. ...
Every human being needs to get around satisfactory human relations, both in the family and other areas. Your emotional well-being will depend largely on the capacity you have to achieve this objective. In 328 BC, Aristotle said humans are social animals. Nowadays, more and more evidence is ...
Try to assess people fairly and look inside yourself to find out where your expectations and disappointments really come from. All of us get disappointed sometimes, but if it happens very often or if it hurts too much it might become a problem. What we don’t realize is that our expectations ...
When talking about relationships and families, dynamics are complex. Why? Because especially the closest we are the more we expect and therefore, the more disappointed we can be. For example, one of the biggest dreams every parent has is that their children get alone. It sounds simple and easy ...
One of the biggest problems my clients complain about everyday is not that the person they love hurt them or did something wrong. It is the fact that the person didn’t apologize or the apology did not feel sincere. Let’s face it. We don’t really know how to apologize and the problem is that it ...
Finances and money have for always being the number one cause of relationships failure. Many people say, “he/she was my friend until I lent him/her some money and things were never the same.” It has been proven by the American Psychological Association that during bad economic times, any ...