“Again. I keep getting hurt by all the people that I love and it seems like all I ever do is get hurt. My trust has been broken so many times by… everyone that I don’t even think… I can’t trust. What’s even the point of having friends if you can’t trust them?” … I get questions like these a lot in my practice. It is also so much more than a question about others motivations or intent, because it is a single moment of hurt compounded by many, an innumerable many, moments of hurt. It is also a hard …
On parental betrayal
“Brady, I’m torn. I’ve recently found out from my dad that my mom had an affair. I’ve always been close to my mom, and I know I’ve put her on a pedestal, but this hurts and keeping this secret is killing me. It is hard to look at her, and even though I’m an adult, the thought of them divorcing, the secrecy… I don’t know what to do. I’m lost.” … Hello. I want to say, first of all, that I am deeply sorry that you are going through this. I believe that parental conflict and betrayal doesn’t simply occur …
On anger: justified
How I see it is anger isn’t an emotion in the same way that happiness or sadness are emotions. Happiness and sadness arise from deep inner experiences of trust, while anger, at least from my perspective, is attached to the belief of rightness; trust and belief are distinctive, and their exploration is something that we will explore at another time. What I mean by, the belief of rightness, is that anger is more of a reaction anchored in the thought “(blank) is wrong!” That “blank” can be another person, a group of people, a country, a politician, or even one’s …