DR. ZWIG’S SELF-HELP EXERCISES

Here’s a fun exercise to connect with your process and discover solutions to your problems. Think of a problem you want to work on. Take a minute and review your experience of it. Then put it aside and do the following: Step One: Close your eyes and listen for music....

Here’s a simple exercise to strengthen your capacity to stay centered and aware, especially when you experience difficult emotions. Do this every day for 5-10 minutes and you’ll notice a change in your consciousness quite soon. You can't change what's going on within...

It's common to view our problems as solid “things” we can capture, diagnose, label, and target with a “medicine.” This is a misunderstanding. A problem isn’t a “thing”—it’s an intangible, fluid process driven by meaning. It originates in the deep layers of the psyche...

To change and grow we must become aware of what’s happening within us. We can't heal our problems if we're unconsciously possessed by our thoughts, feelings, and moods; we must step outside of them and observe ourself. This gives us the possibility of intervening in a...

Psychology has it wrong by viewing the inner critic as a purely negative feature of the psyche, something to get rid of by silencing it. Nowadays there are a 101 techniques for trying to make it go away. But your critic is the voice of your subconscious trying to wake...

Are you in a relationship in which your issues get triggered repeatedly? Do you wonder why you’re in this kind of partnership? The reason is that the other person fills a need for you by allowing you to live within a familiar dysfunctional pattern. Doing so can feel...

I find it disconcerting that many so-called mental health “experts” offer no tools for processing depression and anxiety. They relate to these problems as if they’re viruses or bacteria to get rid of. Their methods aim to make you “feel better” in the moment by trying...

Self talk is a powerful determiner of how we feel in life. It’s even more powerful than fate itself. The problem is that we’re often not conscious of who’s talking—which part of our psyche is mouthing off. We just unconsciously identify with it, and suffer the bad...

Whether you consciously experience fear or not, it defines you in many ways. It determines who you are and what you can do in life. We tend to orient our lives in ways that avoid our fears, and in doing so, quash our natural growth. In fact, it’s such an automatic...