Articles

Articles by Sheryl Paul

Browse every published article connected to Sheryl Paul, with exact attribution and full-archive search.

articles
189
shown per page
50
search signals
Topic + expert

Articles

189 articles by Sheryl Paul · showing 50

Browse every published article connected to Sheryl Paul, or search within this exact expert archive.

By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Breathe It In

These are words I find myself saying multiple times a day: to my clients, to my sons, to myself. Breathe it in. We see a prairie dog hit by a car lying on the side of the road. I turn to look at my son’s face to see if he sees it. As we live in a rural area, he’s learned over the years of seeing too many dead animals to look at the fields and mountains instead of at the side of the road while we’re driving, but sometimes his eyes veer to the telltale lump of fur. “A prairie dog, Mommy.” “I know, love. Breathe it in.”

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
872 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Relationship Anxiety: Intuition or Fear?

A subset topic of the million-dollar question – is my anxiety/doubt evidence that my truth is that I’m with the wrong partner or does it mean something else? – is the issue of intuition versus anxiety. In other words, embedded inside every question of the mind suffering from relationship anxiety is, “Isn’t this anxiety really my intuition telling me to leave?”

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
3,744 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

How to Shatter the Myths that Are Keeping You Stuck

A great deal of my work centers around shattering myths about love, romance, and intimacy that cause untold amounts of anxiety in relationships and sexuality. If we start with the very basic “doubt means don’t” slogan that permeates the culture of romantic love, we see immediately what happens when we dismantle this pernicious myth: we’re free to experience the very common and often necessary doubt that arises in the face of real risk, and we realize that the more we make room for the doubt, the more it shrinks.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,432 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Your Essential Goodness

A baby is born. You gaze upon the baby and see an angel’s face, impossibly smooth skin still flecked with gold, hair like spun silk, clear eyes, and then the smile that breaks your heart into a thousand pieces. You see the inca ation of goodness, the flesh definition of purity and light. You see love. Can you imagine seeing a newbo baby and not seeing goodness? It’s impossible.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,645 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Grief Place

There is a room in your heart where sadness dwells. Each story of sadness lives there like a stagnant, frozen particle of light waiting for you to see it, to hold it, to wrap it in a blanket and bring it tea. When you visit your grief place with love, the particles of light start to shimmer and move – dance, even – for all things, even our pain, especially our pain, only want to be seen and loved.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,929 views5/5 (1)
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

This is the Most Powerful Hijacker of Your Healing Path

Western culture places a premium on feelings in the form of moods. While we diminish the importance of experiencing difficult emotions like sadness, disappointment, frustration, fear and jealousy, we worship at the altar of moment-by-moment impulses. This sounds like: I don’t feel like it. I don’t feel like exercising. I don’t feel like working. I don’t feel like jou aling. I don’t feel like cleaning. I don’t feel like organizing. I don’t feel like studying. I don’t feel like cooking. I don’t feel like being loving with my partner.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
952 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

World Anxiety

One of the byproducts of being a highly sensitive person prone to anxiety is that you tend to take on others’ pain and stories. This is particularly true if you had an enmeshed relationship with a parent growing up and didn’t learn to solidify the borders of your skin but instead became a porous sponge that absorbed the emotional world of your parent. But the tendency to take on others’ pain and stories is a common struggle for many people regardless of early relationships and speaks to being both sensitive and not having established a full well of Self.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
996 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

“I’m Not In Love”

A few weeks ago had a great session with the man I’ve referred to as “Matthew” in these posts. We’ve been working together for quite some time and have uncovered layer upon layer of false beliefs that are contributing to his unhappiness. But in this particular session we uncovered what I believe to be the core belief that is keeping him stuck.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
2,000 views4.5/5 (2)
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Fear of Losing Control

When we spiral down into the deeper layers of anxiety – whether relationship anxiety or any other form that anxiety takes – we find some universal root causes that live at the center. These exist on both the emotional and psychological/spiritual planes, and they all need our attention if we’re going to heal.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,261 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Fear of Getting Old

We live in an ageist culture. It’s not only that we’re terrified of death and hurry to sequester the topic away under the nearest rock or stuff it into the closest corner; it’s that, in a culture that reveres youth, beauty, and physical perfection, we fear aging itself. We fear the lines that inevitably appear on faces. We fear the roundness and softness of skin and bodies. We fear the gray hairs that sprout out as if to say, “Welcome to aging!

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,421 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Engagement Anxiety Relieved: A Media Diet

Transitions render us more vulnerable emotionally and psychologically than during other times in our lives. Being in a transition means that we are between stages and identities: no longer single but not quite married; no longer a non-mother but not quite a mother. These in-between zones are typically scary places when the familiar realm is out of reach and we’re left feeling disoriented and uncertain.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
4,636 views3/5 (2)
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Anxiety Blocks Connection

On the heels of my post on connection, which was both comforting and spike-inducing for some of my readers and course members, I’m elaborating on the topic of connection, specifically this one line: Of course, when anxiety is at the helm, it’s difficult to feel attached or secure anywhere and with anyone.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,009 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Two Most Important Qualities You Need in a Partner

As evidenced by our high divorce rate and, even more disheartening, how few long-term marriages are thriving and fulfilling, it’s clear that our culture has it all wrong when it comes to love. Not only do we project our gold and gods onto our partners instead of taking responsibility for our own genius and aliveness, but we unknowingly project our negative attributes onto our partners as well.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
989 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Unpacking Intrusive Thoughts

Over the years, I’ve worked with many clients who have suffered from the intrusive thought, “What if my partner is gay?” (or “What if my partner is straight?” for those in a same-sex relationship), and while I’ve written several posts on the “What if I’m gay?” spike I haven’t written about what is, in some ways, a corollary thought.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,055 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Time to Get on With One's Loving

In response to one of the assignments in my Sacred Sexuality course to watch the film “Enchanted April”, a member of the forum shared the following. I was so moved by her response that I asked permission to share it here. She wrote: This film touched something deep inside me. After I watched it, I wrote the following in response to Lottie’s comment that “it is a wonderful thing to get on with one’s loving.”

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
712 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Cycle of Healing

We learn and heal in ebbs and flows, spiraling around the center of ourselves where our true Self dwells. When we’re in a cycle of growth, we burn through layers of ego fears and touch into that core place of wellness where peace and clarity reside. Our hearts are open and alive and we can receive and give love with ease. This is the gold of being human, and how we long to live there always! But alas, inevitably, when the false self senses that we’re growing “too much” or learning “too quickly”, it bucks like a bull at a bronco, and it suddenly feels like we’re back at square one.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,071 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

How to Find a Therapist

On a daily basis, my assistant and I receive the following email: “Can you recommend a therapist in my area who is familiar with your work?” Sadly, I don’t have a database of like-minded therapists, and, even more sadly, I know that many therapists fall into the “doubt means don’t” mindset and end up creating more anxiety for their already anxious clients. As such, I can understand the reluctance to start therapy with someone who could very well tell you to walk away from your loving, honest, trustworthy, like-minded partner as soon as you hint at doubt.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,202 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

It's Hard Being Human

At least once a day the phrase “it’s hard being human” enters my brain. It usually arrives on the heels of my sons arguing with each other and me trying to teach them how to communicate more effectively. As a result of feeling hurt, one will lash out at the other, and before we know it the great domino effect of anger feeds off each other until they’re both in a rage.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
961 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Lies We Live With

Around the sixth month of my pregnancy with my second son, my hip locked up to the point of debilitating pain. I had experienced something similar in my first pregnancy, but the second time was more extreme and I knew I needed help. I booked an appointment with a bodyworker and hobbled my way to his office. He asked if I was enjoying my pregnancy and I said, “I love that I’m pregnant but I hate being pregnant.” He laughed and said that when his wife was miserably pregnant he conducted an informal poll, asking pregnant women everywhere if they enjoyed it.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,686 views3/5 (5)
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Projection as Protection

I’ve been thinking a lot about projection lately, especially since many of my engaged and newlywed clients have been perseverating on the thought, “I don’t love him/her.” This is such an important and complex topic that I’ve written about it several times, but let me say it more clearly here: Projection is a defense or an addiction against feeling the natural fear and grief associate with a transition and the anxiety, self-doubt, and old traumas around love of your wounded self.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,637 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

A Tale of Two Moths, Dark Night of the Soul, and Sexuality

I met Andrea in my first round of Open Your Heart in May 2013. Every time she posted on the forum, I was moved and inspired by the depth and clarity of her writing, and her ability to transpose her inner world into words. When she shared this story with me over email, I immediately asked if she would be willing to share it on my site, as I knew it would provide light and inspiration for those struggling through dark night of the soul, especially when sexuality is effected.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,350 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Angels All Around Us

There is so much pain in this world. There’s personal pain that often takes the form of anxiety, depression, addictions, and intrusive thoughts. There’s the physical pain of illness, injury, and disabilities, both short-term and chronic. There’s relationship pain when we endure conflict with partners, children, friends, colleagues, bosses, and family members. There’s community pain when we witness homelessness, poverty, isolation, and elder and child abuse.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,555 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

A Roadmap for How to Reclaim Your Magnificent Body

Sacred Sexuality isn’t only about sexuality; it’s about our relationship to our bodies, our creativity and our aliveness. When we learn to rinse away shame layers so that we can inhabit and appreciate the bodies we’re in (instead of the one we’re conditioned to believe we’re supposed to be in ), we find more acceptance and gratitude, and we start to re-open the pathways that lead to healthy sexuality and aliveness in all forms. Along these lines, I’d like to share another magnificently beautiful post from the last round of the course. This post was in response to the following prompt:r

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,007 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

What’s Your Running Commentary?

At some point in my counseling work, I hear a recurrent belief or thought that surfaces for my clients. It’s the belief that tends to wreak havoc on my client’s psyche, the one that’s been with him or her since childhood. Most people are so fused with this false belief or negative thought that they can’t even hear it. It’s like the news banner that runs across the bottom of the TV screen: you know it’s there and you subconsciously absorb the information but you don’t give it much thought. In other words, it’s always in the background, like a running commentary.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,621 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Engagement Anxiety Dismantled: Real Love versus Infatuation

Transitions are always opportunities for growth and healing. Sometimes we need to heal ways of being in the world that are no longer serving us – like my clients who realize, through the wedding planning, that they’re suffering from the disease to please and that they need to learn how to put themselves first. Sometimes transitions provide opportunities to expand our internal resources – like the new mother who thinks she doesn’t have enough patience to handle the needs of her newbo and yet, through time and the immensity of her love, her patience grows.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
2,744 views3/5 (5)
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

In Bed With Fear

We hear a lot about the power of fear these days, and the way we culturally/psychologically talk about it speaks to our beliefs that there are forces “out there” that are dark or evil that we need to overpower. In the early days of my work, I also spoke of fear in these terms, but over the years I’ve softened my perspective and have come to see fear as an inner bully that doesn’t need our aggression as much as our loving attention. When fear takes over, especially in the form of debilitating anxiety, it’s easy to feel like fear is the aggressor and you’re the victim.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,247 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The One Essential Question that Lives Inside Relationship Anxiety

One of the most challenging elements of relationship anxiety to understand is that, if you’re in a healthy, loving relationship with no red flags, the anxiety is projection. This means that the parade of intrusive thoughts that tortures the anxious mind and sensitive soul are actually pointing to areas inside of you that are crying out for your attention. This is such a reversal of our literal, read-everything-at-face-value culture that it can take a while for the shift of mindset to sink in.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,114 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Guilt and Regret

Let’s imagine that there are invisible tracks streaming like ribbons in the ether of psyche. Some of these tracks resonate at a higher vibration and some move at a lower vibration. The tracks of higher vibration carry the feelings that emanate from the source of ourselves: sadness, joy, contentment, fear, uncertainty, disappointment, and, of course, love and gratitude. When the channels are clear, we can easily connect to these source feelings, which allows us to remain in the flow of the river of life without obstruction.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,276 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Oh, So That's How You Love!

There have been countless times over the many years of my marriage when my husband will say something that makes me feel loved or do something that gets us back on track when we’ve been in a negative feedback loop and I’ll think, “Oh, so that’s how you love!” It could be something as small as walking me to the door to say goodbye instead of being satisfied with a kitchen goodbye or apologizing with a hug and an “I’m sorry” instead of just the words, and I’ll look at him with a certain amount of awe because he seems to know innately these simple ways of loving and repairing that I’ve had to lea

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
696 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

How One Lightbulb Moment Can Ease Your Anxiety

In every session with clients, I drop down into the core of myself, breathing and opening into the vessel of being so that I can listen with the ears we do not see, the ones that hear unde eath the top layers stories into the invisible layers where the gem that needs to be revealed rises gently to the surface, glimmering with joy at being found.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
942 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Loneliness is a Part of Life

One of the biggest obstacles to finding more wellness and equanimity is the belief that we shouldn’t be feeling what we’re feeling; that if we were more evolved or healed or with a different partner we wouldn’t feel so ________ (anxious, depressed, lonely, confused, empty, bored). Because we live in a culture that disseminates the message that everyone else is living a happy life, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that there’s a manual that you didn’t receive that outlines the steps for happiness.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
863 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Two Healing Words

Last week, I had the blessed opportunity of having a closure session in person with a beautiful woman with whom I’ve worked for almost six years. As we sat face-t0-face (as opposed to screen-to-screen) and the session’s minutes clicked toward the end of our hour together, I told her that I wanted to make sure we had ample time to talk about our work and reflect on her growth over these past six years. She immediately dropped into her heart and, through tears, expressed her gratitude.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,141 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Timetable of Transitions

Transitions, like grief, have their own timetable. Despite one's best efforts to rush along the difficult feelings and anxious thoughts, each person will traverse the terrain of transitions according to their own internal needs and rhythm. While major life transitions like getting married or becoming a parent usually follow a two year course (engagement to one year anniversary or pregnancy through baby's first birthday), this time frame can vary dramatically depending on the deeper issues that are triggered during the transition.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,668 views3/5 (1)
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Moment By Moment

Life is a series of micro-moments. Most of the time, we’re floating along in the fast-paced current without self-reflection. But inevitably, at some point, we will get snagged on a branch of anxiety or intrusive thoughts, an uncomfortable feeling, an illness, an argument with a loved one, or a season of depression. The habitual responses to these gifts-disguised-as-snags are to protect in some way: to attack outwardly through blame or withdraw into stony silence.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,014 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Gratitude 108 Offering

We hear a lot about the power of gratitude lately. There seems to have been a hundredth monkey leap in consciousness, a global awareness that gratitude is a powerful and relatively easy way to sweep out the propensity toward negativity and connect to what’s good and right in our world.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,987 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The News and Anxiety

We live in uncertain times, and that statement alone can send an anxious-sensitive personality type into a tailspin. But the truth is that we’ve always lived in uncertain times. Because death exists, our lives hang in the balance on this precious and precarious planet. The threats change faces – where once we feared our babies getting eaten by a wild hyena or dying of tuberculosis now we fear terrorist attacks and school bombings – but the threat is more or less the same as it’s always been.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,144 views
Read article
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
891 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Social Anxiety and the Cocktail Party

While flipping through one of my favorite bedside stand-bys, Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, I came across the following passage and chuckled out loud: “My experience is that I can feel that I’m in the Grail Castle when I’m living with people I love, doing what I love. I get that sense of being fulfilled. But, by god, it doesn’t take much to make me feel I’ve lost the Castle, it’s gone. One way to lose the Grail is to go a cocktail party. That’s my idea of not being there at all.” p. 76

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
913 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

How We Love Ourselves

We hear a lot about the importance of loving ourselves these days, and how we can’t love someone else until we truly love ourselves. While I don’t entirely agree with that statement (adult attachment theory shows that it’s through secure attachment to loving others that we feel loved and, therefore, learn to love ourselves), I do know that loving ourselves is a key component to wellness. Yet what does it mean to love ourselves?

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,257 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Nobody is Perfick

When I was young, one of my favorite books was a collection of four short stories called “Nobody is Perfick“. I liked the first three stories, but it was the fourth one, called Nobody is Perfick, that captivated my attention. It was the story about a perfect boy named Peter Perfect. He always had sharp pencils. He always dressed perfectly. He received perfect scores on all of his tests. He had perfect manners and all of the adults in his life adored him.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,071 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Dismantling this Offshoot of Anxiety Will Set You Free

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom,” said Kierkegaard as quoted by Mark Nepo, who continues with, “The truth is that every fresh experience has this dizziness of freedom that we have to move through. Every time we reach beyond what is familiar, there is this necessary acclimation to what is new. It is the doorway to all learning. We needn’t be afraid of it or give it too much power. We simply have to keep leaning into what we are learning.”

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,103 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

One of the Anxious Statements I Hear Every Week

One of the blessings of listening to the inner worlds of my global audience is that I hear about the thoughts, feelings, questions, and stories that are archetypal to all human beings. I’ve written extensively about the various intrusive thoughts that enter my virtual office, but there are other stories that tiptoe into the arena as well: stories about worthiness, stories about shame, stories about social fears and questions. There has been one in particular lately that has been calling for attention, and whenever that happens I know I need write about it here.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,051 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Nothing Lasts Forever

For all humans, but especially the highly sensitives, one of the most difficult truths to accept is that all seasons pass, all stages come to an end, all beings die. Just as the gorgeous peach tree in full-tilt pink spring bloom drops its blossoms to reveal summer fruit, then drops its leaves in autumn’s melancholic dance to stand bare-limbed in winter, so we watch with grasping hearts as life closes out: from people and animals we love passing from this planet to childhood ending to the day’s close.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,420 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

Am I the Only One Struggling with Anxiety?

People often ask me why they’re struggling with relationship anxiety or social anxiety or any other kind of anxiety when other people seem to glide through life more effortlessly. The subtext embedded in the question is, “Is there something wrong with me?” or “Why am I being singled out or punished?” In our culture that is dominated by the pursuit of the happy face and the false correlation of vulnerability with weakness, these questions and assumptions are understandable.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
1,137 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

The Top 10 Reasons to Leave Your Partner (According to Fear)

Fear’s entire mission in life is to keep you safe from the risk of loving. It sees love as a dangerous cesspool where the invisible sea creatures lurk beneath the dark surface, waiting to snatch you into their murky waters. Fear believes that if you risk your heart through committed loving you will endure unbearable loss: you will either lose yourself in some way or you will lose your partner. Either way, fear tells you to run because it’s trying to protect you from an unpredictable risk.

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
4,551 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

A Roadmap to Break Free From Anxiety at Last

We spend at least fifteen years in school learning the skills that our culture has deemed essential for a certain type of success in the world. We learn how to read. We learn the basics of math. We learn how to write. If we’re lucky, there’s some art and theater thrown in, but it’s understood that these aren’t the “real skills” we need to succeed. After all, how many artists actually make a living through their art?

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
993 views
Read article
By Sheryl PaulRecently published1 topic

What If We Don't Have A Strong Enough Connection?

The following is from course member findingpeace28, who shared this on the e-course forum two weeks after her wedding. As soon as I read it, I knew had to share it with those of you struggling with relationship anxiety and, in particular, the connection spike, to offer you a lifeline of hope and a rope of inspiration. As she wrote to me when I asked for her permission to share her words her, “I honestly feel like if I could get through, anyone can. I hope to provide encouragement to those who need it, because I’ve sooo been there.” ***

Primary topic: Life Transitions
Life Transitions
708 views
Read article