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Articles by Sheryl Paul

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189 articles by Sheryl Paul · showing 50

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By Sheryl PaulRecently publishedTopic pending

“Attachment and Flight”

“Something valid and necessary takes flight when it senses deep attachment, and this flight also seems so deeply rooted as to be an honest expression of soul. Our ultimate goal is to find ways to embrace both attachment and resistance to attachment, and the only way to that reconciliation of opposites is to dig deeply into the nature of each. As with all matters of the soul, it is in honoring its impulses that we find our way best into it mysteries.” – Thomas Moore, Soul Mates: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationships, p. 3

Primary topic: Recently published
Recently published
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Gift of Projection

Projection is one of the most important concepts to understand when you’re stuck in relationship anxiety or any manifestation of anxiety. It’s a psychological term that essentially means we’re stuck in a story about someone or something else with the belief that it’s true, and that if the person or thing would change we would feel better. Everyone will, at some point, find themselves stuck in a projection; it’s part of being human. Projections are a bit challenging to define and even more challenging to see when you’re in one. In Wikipedia’s words:

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

This is What it Takes to Heal from Shame and Anxiety

When I was in graduate school twenty-five years ago, we learned many essential principles and tools for becoming a skilled healer in the counseling arts. We thoroughly covered various modalities, including the depth psychological perspective that informs all of my work, and spent countless hours practicing the sacred art of listening, tending, and receiving. But there is one element that was left out – or at least it wasn’t explicitly discussed as an essential ingredient for healing – and it took me years before I understood why. It’s the element of love.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

How to Break Free from the Mental Addiction of Health Anxiety

Like all forms of anxiety, health anxiety is on the rise. With information about our health more available than ever, the anxious mind that seeks control at all costs can easily latch onto health as a hotbed theme that invites this mind to shift into overdrive. You mea I can prevent catastrophic events from happening if I only take these actions? Nothing could make the ego happier than jumping onto a train with control as the conductor. But there is no true happiness that arises when ego becomes perseverated on a theme. In fact, it’s nothing short of hell.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Birth Trauma and Anxiety

When working with anxiety and intrusive thoughts, the essential component is to resist the gravitational and habitual pull to attach onto the stories that appear like planets in our inner galaxy and assume that they’re true. The story of the day – whether it centers around your relationship, your fertility, your job, your health, or your children – occupies so much space and presents its argument with such conviction that the untrained mind will naturally attach and interpret in a lightening flash second.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

What is the Work of Breaking Free from Relationship Anxiety?

A coaching client recently said to me, “You talk a lot about doing “the work”, and I wondered for so long what “the work” was. I thought that if I understood anxiety intellectually I would feel better. And the first time I went through the course I did feel better for a while, which I know is very common for new course members. But then I felt anxious again, and I realized that I wasn’t doing the work.” “How do you understand the work now?”

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

A Passionate Life

Inspired by the courageous, wise members of my July 2014 Trust Yourself program. Quotes from the forum reprinted with permission. *** My family and I were driving into town last summer when we saw a blue van pass by with the words “Mr. Pool” printed on the side. “There goes Mr. Pool,” I said, as we had just hired him to finish hooking up our pool heater. And I had this moment of appreciation for the person who started Mr. Pool.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

When Fear Meets Love

When fear pricks the heart it flies in the face of every message about love we absorb from the culture: that love should provide a safe haven against the storms of life; that love should be easy; that love and fear are mutually exclusive, and that if fear enters the picture it means something is wrong.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Love Cannot Be Measured

Love cannot be measured. It cannot be placed in test tubes in a science laboratory or placed on the great scale of life to determine whether or not there’s enough. The anxious/sensitive mind longs for a definite answer to the questions that swirl through its brain - Do I love you enough? What is enough? Do I love you as much as you love me? - praying that a divine hand will reach down from the heavens and seal the relationship with a stamp of approval. But love is not an exam you take in school where you can receive a letter grade.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

When Anxious, Start at the Beginning

Anxiety is a messenger, a symptom, and a gift. I know that statement flies in the face of everything we learn about anxiety in a culture that is pathologically obsessed with eradicating shadow at every turn and consequently attempts to “get rid of” the symptom of anxiety as quickly and cleanly as possible, but I carry a vastly different approach. Instead of immediately medicating anxiety and its cohort of symptoms away, I seek to understand the messages encoded in its underlayers.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Call the Witch by Its True Name

My favorite fairy tale when I was a child was Rumpelstiltskin, the story of a girl who makes a bargain with an imp-like creature in exchange for saving her life from being executed by the king. First she gives the imp a necklace, then a ring, then promises her firstbo child. But when her child arrives, she begs the imp to let her keep it. He says he will if she can guess his name.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Fear is a Friend in Disguise

There’s a common concept in our culture – one that I’ve adopted myself at times – that fear is our enemy. When we’re caught in fear’s offspring of anxiety and panic, it certainly feels like we’re been taken into enemy territory and are being held hostage. It feels like someone wraps a gloved hand around our throat and is sitting on our chest with a fifty pound bag of bricks. Anxiety in any form around any storyline – relationships, health, impending loss/death – is an unmanageable state that feels like torture.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

A Lifeline of Hope in the Swamp of Relationship Anxiety

A coaching client recently wrote to me to share the following (shared with permission): Each time of the three times I spoke to you, you told me something that has been a huge lifeline for me: “If two people are willing to make it work, they can make it work.” You mentioned this to me three times and it’s been my mantra when I’m in the thick of things. That topic I know could help so many people, including myself. If you ever feel like you can share that beautiful wisdom in a blog post, that would be wonderful.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Still Learning

A few weeks ago my family and I spent five days up in the mountains. Overall, it was a lovely vacation, with much laughter, hiking, game-playing, and boating. But for some reason my husband and I were in one those spells when we bumped heads at some point each day. Perhaps it was hormones or lack of sleep; whatever the cause we weren’t in our best flow.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Intrusive Thought: "What if I Harm a Child?" (POCD)

When the same thought, image, dream, or motif shows up across cultures and crosses all of our lines of classification (age, gender, geography, race, religion), we call it an archetype. For example, the dreams where you show up at school without your pants on or have forgotten to study for a test are archetypal dreams. The character of the wicked witch or the evil stepmother are archetypal symbols.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

How to Harness the Hidden Sexy Ingredient of Marriage

Our culture worships the gods of youth and ete al happiness. If we could bottle and merchandize the elixir of youth, most people in the Western world would purchase it no matter the price. We extol the blemish-and-wrinkle-free face and lay ourselves prostrate at the feet of the toned body. A full head of luxurious hair is enough to sell cars.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

This is How I Learned to Love My Husband Well

It took me many years to learn how to love my husband well, and, of course, I’m still learning. Like many people, I didn’t grow up witnessing a healthy model of true partnership. My parents, like all parents, did the best they could and they gave me many gifts, but I’m sure even they would agree that role-modeling a healthy and loving marriage wasn’t one of them. Coupled with growing up in a culture that transmits abysmally dysfunctional messages about what real love and real attraction are and aren’t, I reached adulthood quite clueless about how to love well.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

You Have to Love

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” — Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Real Love is Available Love

The first part of this post appeared on Instagram this week. I’m expounding upon it here. Real love is available love. It’s not the chase. It’s not drama. It’s not longing. It’s not the kiss at the end of the movie or finally snagging the one who got away. Real love is here-and-now, human, messy love. It’s two imperfectly whole people committing to sharing and creating a life together – a life that will include as much heartache as joy. It’s the commitment that matters. The commitment to wrestling with the fear when it shows up, as it will.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Well of Self

We all carry within us a well of Self. We can’t see this well, but we know when the waters are clear and full or when they’re low and flecked with the dark matter of the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves. We know when the waters are warm from the time, interest, and compassion we pour into ourselves or cold from being ignored. Like a child, the Self thrives under the sunlight of focused and loving attention, and withdraws when you, as the loving parent, make everything else in your life more important.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Would You Like To Know Why Real Love Is So Scary

“We are all made up of yearning and light, searching for a way out, afraid we will be shut in or cut off or repelled back into the ground from which we are reaching. This is enough to begin: To know, before all the names and histories drape who we are, that we want to be held and left alone, again and again; held and left alone until the dance of it is how we survive and grow, like spring into winter into spring again.” – Mark Nepo in The Book of Awakening

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Conscious Groom: What Men Really Feel

While I was researching and writing “The Conscious Bride” thirteen years ago, I simultaneously took notes and interviewed for the obvious sequel, “The Conscious Groom”. But when I presented the idea to my publisher they said that there simply wasn’t a male market for that kind of book. Perhaps they were right, but since that time I’ve received thousands of emails and posts on my message board from men who are seeking consciousness.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

This is How to Overcome the Most Powerful Obstacle to Change

We all know that greens are healthy. We know that meditation can be life-changing. We know that breathwork is deeply healing and that yoga can be a pathway to profound change. We know that exercise is essential. We know that jou aling is a powerful tool. We know it, but what stops us from committing to these actions that will result in change and growth? Resistance. Resistance is one of the most powerful forces that both prevents and, paradoxically, invites change.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

What If I Make a Mistake?

When my boys were learning how to write, they would freeze in their tracks for fear of making a spelling mistake. Their perfectionist tendencies were not a surprise to my husband and I – after all, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – and it was both fascinating and painful to see how powerfully the perfectionist halted their creative and free expression. I would say to them over and over again, “Make mistakes! It’s how you learn. I don’t care about spelling mistakes.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Deconstructing the Family Story

One of the essential spokes of the growth and healing wheel is being willing to see our parents clearly. As children, we almost have no choice but to see our parents as infallible heroes and gods, and many people continue to carry these fantasies into adulthood. But if we’re to know ourselves, which is essential to healing ourselves, we need to know where we come from. We need to be able to trace at least some of the lines of our negative patterns back to their origin.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Holy Fear

We hear and read a lot of fear these days in psychological and spiritual circles. Mostly, fear is painted in a negative way as the energy that we have to wrestle with and overcome in order to live a life of joy. Most of the statements and quotes we read about fear pin it in the position of the enemy, the obstacle, the dark road. These quotes are accurate, but they’re only talking about one kind of fear. There’s another face of fear that needs and deserves our attention.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

“I Wish He Was Funnier”

Oh, the list of thoughts that try to prevent us from taking the risk of loving wholeheartedly is quite long, but there are a few that always top the list, buzzing and darting in and around your ears like mosquitos in summer. I recently wrote about the “I wish he was taller” thought, and I’ve written extensively about the “I’m not attracted” thought. This week’s thought that topped the charts of my sessions was “I wish he was funnier.” Here’s an excerpt from a client (published with permission):

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Not attracted? Learn How to Unclog the Blocked Flow of Love

Once again, I turn to the poet and mystic Mark Nepo and The Book of Awakening for gems of wisdom about the stones that block our hearts from fully loving: “It seems this is the never-ending work of relationship, each of us in our own time and way moving the stones between us, repositioning the heavy things that get in the way, so the life of feeling can continue.”

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Pregnancy Anxiety

As I’ve written about before on this blog, one of the privileges of being the position of guiding people through the darkest aspects of their psyche and soul is that they share thoughts and feelings with me that they wouldn’t share with anyone else. Part of the reason why they share openly about these shadow regions is because they trust that I rarely take these thoughts and feelings at face value.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Am I Connected Enough to My Partner?

The connection question is one of the most common spikes that darts across the screen of my clients and readers’ consciousness when they’re struggling with relationship anxiety. Do we connect enough? Do we talk enough? What if I feel bored sometimes? Is there a meeting of the minds? Do we have enough chemistry? What is chemistry? What, oh what, is this elusive thing called connection that everyone keeps talking about and how do I know if we have enough of it?

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

“My Partner Isn’t Smart Enough”

“One of the big traps we have in the West is our intelligence, because we want to know what we know. Freedom allows you to be wise, but you cannot know wisdom. You must be wisdom… The intellect is a beautiful servant, but a terrible master. Intellect is the power tool of our separateness. The intuitive, compassionate heart is the doorway to our unity.” – Ram Dass

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Gut Health, Anxiety, and the Holidays Made Simple

I’m delighted to share this guest post by Dianne Rishikof, a registered dietician and licensed nutritionist, where she shares her extensive knowledge on the connection between anxiety and gut health. I first read Dianne’s incredible book, “Health Takes Guts: Your Comprehensive Guide to Eliminating Digestive Issues, Anxiety, and Fatigue”, last year when I became aware of some of my own untreated gut issues.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

A Love Story is the Medicine for the Fear of Loss

It was one of those moments that I could have easily pushed aside and continued on through my evening wrapped in the spiderweb of distraction. It was a moment so small that I almost missed the worlds of beauty and pain that lived within it, like a monarch butterfly floating past and I, caught in the clouds in my head, fail to recognize the utter miracle of this creature’s existence.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Most Powerful Medicine to Soothe a Rupture of Anxiety

Life moves along in flows and eddies. The more you attend to your inner world and heal the long-standing and deep-seated pain and trauma that live at the root of intrusive thoughts, the longer the stretches of eddies and the time you’ll stand amongst the reeds, flowing with the small moments of life as they arise, both the poetry and the pain. But we cannot live in the eddies forever, and it’s often when the earth tilts and its relationship to the sun shifts – in the crack between two seasons – that the next layer of grief bubbles up to the surface.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

What is my Truth?

On the last round of Open Your Heart a participant asked: “So if I don’t trust these anxious thoughts then what can I trust? If my truth was really that we are not right for each other then how would I know if I am teaching myself not to listen when doubts arise?” And then she wisely responded to her own question with: “But I can see that is probably another clever resistance pattern.”

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Conversations with my Seven Year Old: In the Fear Forest

One of the blessings of having a second child is that we, as parents, gain some skills by walking with the first one through predictable stages of growth, maturity, illness, and emotional challenges. When our firstbo had a high fever, we panicked. When the younger one has a fever, it’s old hat. When our firstbo struggled with separation anxiety we thought he would never leave our side. With our second born, we trust that he will find his way with time (and some help, if he needs it).

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Life You're Meant to Live

Somewhere along the road of childhood into adolescence, a belief is transmitted that says: Follow the roadmap that culture presents and you will find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. This roadmap looks like: Graduate from a 4-year university, land a corporate job then climb the ladder, get married, buy a house, then have a couple of kids (in that order).

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Art of Patient Loving

Perhaps the area of our lives to suffer most from the increasingly fast pace of the culture is love, for the expectation of immediate results naturally leads to a belief that love should not only be easy, but that when there’s a problem, it should be remediated quickly. Love doesn’t work this way. The truth is that when it comes to intimate relationships – with partners, friends, and children – very few things come quickly or easily.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

A Brave Explosion of the Myth of Desire

As always when I run my Sacred Sexuality course, I was blown away by the vulnerability and honesty on the forum on this last round. Where else do we share our deepest, darkest thoughts and feelings around sexuality, the ones we think we’re the only ones having, the ones that cause shame to fester in the dark, damp corners of psyche because they never expose themselves to the healing light of normalization that occurs when we share with others?

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Intersection of Sex and Relationship Anxiety

If you’re familiar with relationship anxiety, you know that it doesn’t take much for a flyaway thought to send you into a tailspin of anxiety that then leads you to question if you’re with the right person. This thought could be, “I’m not feeling in love” or “My partner always irritates me” or “I’m not attracted right now.” Because we’re not properly educated both about how to work with thoughts and how relationships actually unfold in the real world (as opposed to the media world), it’s a quick jump from the normal thought to the assumption: “I’m with the wrong partner.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

What Should Love Feel Like?

At least once a week, a client asks, “I know that love isn’t all butterflies and fireworks, but what should it feel like? Since I’ve never seen a healthy relationship and I’ve never been in one, I have no idea what it should be like.”

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Anxiety is a Game of Whack-A-Mole

The anxious mind can latch onto almost any topic: What if I don’t have enough money? What if my kids aren’t okay? What if I don’t get pregnant? What if I have cancer? What if I don’t love my partner enough and I’m making a terrible mistake? What if I don’t have enough friends? What if I’m gay? What if I’m a pedophile? What if I have an STD? What if there’s a terrorist attack ? What if I’m in the wrong career? What if the plane crashes?

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

I Love You Go Away

Among the many misconceptions that people have about love – that it’s only a feeling, that the feeling of being “in love” should exist from day one, that attraction is static and based on exte al attributes – the faulty belief that often gets swept under the rug more than any other is that love is ambivalent. What does this mean? It means that: Love includes doubtr Love includes indifferencer Love includes boredomr Love includes numbnessr Love includes irritationr Love includes the need for spacer Love includes doubtr Love includes – dare I use such a strong word – hater

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

How to Multiply Your Love and Attraction

What would it be like to throw yourself full-bodied and without restraint into love’s arms, to set the fear voices and inherited scripts that say, “Love isn’t safe” on the fence of your mind and walk through the tattered gates of your heart that are still trying to keep you safe?

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
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