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A Father’s Day Tribute Our father’s live forever in our consciousness. Their interactions with us crucially impact our sense of self and how we interpret our place in the world. The role of father was often ill defined in the past as a shadow-figure, the head of...

The Dynamics of Loss Many of us who live here are currently mourning the loss of Stu Saffer who was the original creator of the Laguna Beach Independent and who went on to create the successful on-line newspaper, Stu News Laguna. We are so fortunate here in Laguna Beach to have...

Rediscover the Magic   Have you lost your feeling of connection with yourself, your familial relationships or your friendships? If that is happening, what is the underlying cause? Yes, there could be many surface reasons. You could be disappointed, fatigued or bored. Maybe...

Emotional Etiquette   Do you have friends or relatives that you don’t like talking to because they interrupt, invalidate, shut you down, give you quick and useless bits of unsolicited advice and, to sum it all up, are lousy listeners, emotionally violating, aggressively...

Core Competence  A hallmark of personal competence is the ability to make discerning choices. Choosing well requires the mental work of uncovering, discovering and committing to taking right actions that represent our best efforts to resolve the issues that are demanding our...

Irish Eyes Are Smiling The cause of my happy eyes isn’t because of St Patrick’s Day this year. A few weeks ago, I discovered the book “The Power Behind Your Eyes.” It talks of the need to rest our eyes, taking periodic time outs from the task of looking, so that we...

Nothing Personal   Are you familiar with the term Machiavellianism? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is defined as “the employment of cunning and duplicity in state craft or general conduct.” In psychology, it is used to describe a person’s tendency to deceive and...

The Personal is Political  Carol Hanish’s essay written in 1970 questioned whether women’s consciousness-raising groups were a useful part of the political women’s movement. In the piece named “The Personal is Political” Hanish said that coming to a...

  Timely and Timeless   “Fate carries its own clock,” Pearl Bailey, “The Raw Pearl” (1968)    The first few weeks of the New Year have most of us frantically picking up the pieces of the lives that we unceremoniously dropped in favor of the holiday frenzy. When the world revolved...

Wisdom’s Secrets This election season has rocked the foundation of many of us. It is noteworthy how many have shared that they feel unhinged, unsettled and unnerved. Rather than being motivated to move forward, they have turned off the news, are unwilling to take in any more...

Taking Stock Since we are currently invited daily to swim in a cesspool of political negativity, let’s make a decision to take a deep breath and do something useful for our own clarity. We all have personal stories about our lives. Good stories. Bad stories. His-tory....

Imaginative Perception When we have a breakdown in our love relationships, our friendships or our familial ties, it often comes down to the loss of imaginative perception. We have lost the magic. Yes, there are reasons why the relationship isn’t working. If those reasons...

Ideas Rise From Multiple Perspectives   My consulting career brings me into the company of many individuals with strong values and points of view. During this highly charged political climate, I cannot in good conscience randomly express my preferences when I am serving as a...

Beyond Independence July 4 is set aside yearly to celebrate our declaration of independence. As Americans, we highly value independence. We often take our rights for granted. We expect, assert, demand, stand up, and speak out. The American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit...

Insecurity Amid a Cataclysm   Amidst the massive TV coverage of the tragedy in Orlando, we are all affected by accounts of the horror and helplessness that is left in the aftermath. During times of massive catastrophic and unexpected events, whether global, national or...