Sublime

In the late ’60s and early ’70s, researcher Walter Mischel began methodically tormenting four-year-olds at Stanford University’s Bing Nursery School.

Powerful emotions, therapy says, are triggered in the present by traumas and difficulties that began in a distant and usually largely forgotten past.

Only when subjects held both heightened emotions and clear objectives in alignment were they able to produce the intended effect.

Robert Waldinger

Indeed, changing how you relate to yourself is one of the foundations of my work with clients. Here’s an experiment you can try: For 20 minutes every day for a week, listen to the critical voice in your head*.

1. Every time it is mean, say “ouch.”


2. Every time it tells you that you messed up, say “ouch.”


3. Every time it tries to make you feel small, say “ouc

2 Épictète ou l’art du contrôle

l’incroyable Découvrir un sens à sa vie de Viktor E. Frankl et You Are Not So Smart [Vous n’êtes pas si malin] de David McRaney.

the book The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller.