DR. ZWIG’S SELF-HELP EXERCISES

The capacity to observe yourself determines how you experience life. The more reactive you are, the less options you have. Most of us are on automatic, lost in the flow of our perceptions, and the only thing that wakes us up for a moment is a painful event or a...

One of the most common and painful experiences we have is hearing the voice of an inner critic. It can range from mildly negative thoughts about yourself to devastating destruction of your character and even of life itself. It has many different effects on people —...

It’s become popular in therapy and self-help to use mindfulness methods for observing the negative stories we tell ourselves (“I’m not good enough,” “No one will ever love me,” etc.) with the aim of realizing they’re just stories, and we don’t have to be oppressed by...

Our lives are divided into 2 processes—the person we identify with and the person trying to be born. Between them lies a story. It’s where our fears, beliefs, past experiences, and future unknowns live. This story structures our life experiences and problems. Change...

Imprinted in our earliest dream or memory is our entire life’s personal growth task. Some of this task is inherited and some comes from our childhood experiences. Working on it can awaken us to the process behind our long-term problems. A simple start: Recall your...

If we want to know our life story, it’s right there in our worst problem. It contains everything happening in our psyche—both our full potential as a human being, and all that prevents it from manifesting. A life problem can make us lose hope, or at least put a...

Your darkness is trying to lead you to the new light! When we go through dark times we want to get back to our old life when things were better. But difficulties happen in order to lead us to a new life, not back to our old life. Suppressing symptoms by medicating...

Most of us have experienced at least a few wonderfully happy moments in our lives. We get beyond our everyday troubles and connect with a more expansive sense of life. This experience doesn’t only feel good, it also contains wisdom. But isn’t it gone and in the past?...

If someone wanted me to give them a prescription for getting depressed, I’d say, “Stop dreaming.” Life is a dreaming process. As soon as we literalize our lives by assuming things just are the way they are, we die inside. We assume that we download a preexisting...