Enlightened Living

Mindfulness practice in everyday life.

by Michael J. Formica

The Social Politics of Saying 'No'

It's not uncommon for us to establish an unfounded core belief that we are somehow unworthy as we mature. Holding on to this misperception we compensate, becoming overly accommodating and driven by a need to please. So, we often find ourselves in situations where we want, or even need, to say, 'No', but, instead, find ourselves saying, 'Yes'. Read More

You Only Need One New Year’s Resolution

This is the time of year that we make New Year's resolutions. For many of us, keeping those resolutions is something of challenge. In truth, for all of those resolutions to stick, you only need one. Read More

Holiday Performance Anxiety

Last year I posted a piece on what I called holiday performance anxiety. Well, it doesn't seem to have diminished, especially for me, so I thought I'd revisit it. Read More

Anxiety Disorder or Hyperthyroidism?

We are often quick to judge a symptom profile, without taking time to consider alternative explanations. A case of hyperthyroidism, long misdiagnosed and treated as an anxiety disorder, reminds us that, when it comes to human behavior and emotions, things are not always as they seem. Read More

Not Taking Responsibility Makes Us Responsible

Whether it is leaving a two-year-old to bleed to death in the street, failing to report an incidence of child abuse, neglecting to report the ethical transgressions of a colleague or the flat out denial of sexual impropriety, when we are faced with certain knowledge and do not act, we are making a choice that indirectly condones the transgression. Read More

The Negative Side of Self-Evolution

The deep structures of a relationship are situated early on. Roles are established, patterns of behavior set and agreements made. Going forward, these elements outline both the context and trajectory of the relationship. Very often when a significant change in these rules is introduced, the relationship destabilizes, sometimes to the point of unraveling. Read More

5 Reasons I Hate Me

One of the more destructive aspects of our interior life is negative self-talk. Very rarely is it productive or self-motivating and, more often than not, the stories that we tell ourselves are simply not true. Read More

Are You Meditating, or Repressing?

The core intention of meditation is the release of thoughts and feelings that keep us stuck in our self-absorption. Repression is a way to avoid thoughts and feelings that are uncomfortable for us. If in releasing our thoughts and feelings we fail to be totally honest with ourselves, our practice of meditation can easily become a vehicle of avoidance. Read More

Cooperation, Not Compromise, Builds Relationships

Compromise, within the context of relationships, is troublesome because it implies that someone is giving something up. Cooperation, on the other hand, strengthens the underlying fabric of relationship through balanced interchange, open communication and mutual understanding. Here are some tips, tools and takeaways to help prompt the process. Read More

Research on One-Size-Fits-All Parenting

A recent study published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology (Aug. 2011) suggests that tailoring parenting style to personality can reduce the incidence of depression and anxiety symptoms by as much as half in school aged children. Conversely, mismatches in parenting style and personality were shown to lead to twice as many symptoms of anxiety and depression. Read More

5 Ways to Release Your Expectations

Our ideas about the way the world works are based, in part, upon our expectations. Those expectations color our experience - for good or ill - and can influence our reactions and responses to just about everything and everyone that we encounter. We can release ourselves from this self-created trap of expectation by following a few simple steps. Read More

Understanding Emotional Infidelity

Our social need to be loved comes out of our primal need to belong; the natural evolution of a basic survival instinct. The sense that we lack a certain intimacy in our primary relationship can often prompt us to seek out the false intimacy of fantasy relationships that are the bread and butter of emotional infidelity. Read More

5 Steps for Being Present

The other night I was discussing the "how to" of being present with a friend of mine. I fell back on the old Zen standby, "Chop wood, carry water." Her 13-year-old daughter, who was sitting with us, chimed in with the incisive understanding of delicate concepts that belongs only to a child, "So, don't chop water when you should be carrying wood." Exactly right. Read More

Love Hurts…For Real

A recently published study suggests that intense feelings of social rejection are experienced in much the same way as physical pain. The study showed that the regions of our brain activated by physical pain are similarly activated when we are confronted with an intense experience of social rejection. Read More

Osama bin Laden: The Closure That Isn’t

Osama bin Laden is dead. For some, there is cause for celebration. Others may feel some vindication. Some, lest we not forget our humanity -- and, frankly, to our potential peril -- may even be wont to mourn. But for many, there is no closure here, and this death will serve only to revive the grief and rage that has subtly gripped the national consciousness for a decade. Read More

Intimate Terrorism and Common Couple Violence

Violence against women has been a part of the social and cultural narrative almost since there has been a society and culture to narrate. It is a condition that has received considerable attention, but intra-relational violence against men has received considerably less. Two new studies suggest that men abused by their partners suffer significant psychological trauma. Read More

Organizing Yourself – Body, Mind and Spirit

There is an expression in the Eastern wisdom teachings that says, “We strengthen the body to free the mind and thus polish the spirit”, which is the essence of the teachings around mindfully integrating body, mind and spirit. We often forget that our first step, strengthening the body, begins with organizing and being mindful of our everyday movement. Read More

Oral Sex, Kids and Cancer

Recent research out of Ohio State shows that human papillomavirus (HPV) is the leading cause of oral cancers. A University of California study suggests that teens and young adults are more likely to engage in oral, rather than vaginal, sex. Put the two together, add a dash of the puritanical cultural imperative that informs the meta-culture, and you get a perfect storm. Read More

The Power of Perseverance and Leaving Your Ego at the Door

Figure skating is one of the more individual of sports, characterized as much by ego and social isolation as by talent and a drive for perfection. Bringing all those elements together sounds like a recipe for disaster, but add the understanding that the only way the whole thing will work is through cooperation, trust, humility and humor, you get something wholly different. Read More

Do Your Friendships Feed You or Bleed You?

As adults, our social connections are frequently relationships of convenience. They are very often based more on circumstance--or even happenstance--rather than personal choice. When our personal circumstances change, the conditions of our friendships can also change, potentially leading us to reconsider exactly where we're putting our energies. Read More

Foreplay (Still) Starts at 7AM

The deeper we allow ourselves to enter into relationship, the closer we come to a state of unconditional love and mutual acceptance. The more we are removed, the further we are from the love, intimacy and connection that we, ourselves, are seeking. The challenge is fostering the willingness to let go of our ego enough to surrender ourselves, without losing ourselves. Read More

What Sort of Chaos Do You Invite?

I'm acquainted with a fellow who re-married his (again) ex-wife four times. A former patient of mine was a severe asthmatic, and a two-pack-a-day smoker. I knew a waitress in college who paid for her very first brand new car - a BMW - in full, with her very first brand new American Express Card. Sometimes we just can't help but to stir our own pot. Read More

A Season of Joy—and Stress and Anger and Angst…

‘Tis the season for peace, joy and humanity, so why is it that so many people are angry, stressed, self-involved or just plain sad? Holiday performance anxiety might be one way to think of it. Read More

Yoga and Living Gracefully

Long a symbol of resilience and grace, in 2009 Elizabeth Edwards brought her special brand of warmth and tenacity to Living Beyond Breast Cancer's 3rd Annual Conference for Women Living with Metastatic Breast Cancer. LBBC is celebrating that same sensibility in women affected by breast cancer everywhere this weekend with its first annual Barefoot Ball. Read More

The Key to an (Almost) Perfect Partnership

Not too long ago my friend Jeff and I were sitting in a bar discussing the trials, tribulations and triumphs of life, work, kids and - more than anything else - relationships. At one point he turned to me and said, "You know, it's too bad you'd look like sh*t in a dress". Read More

The Promise of Goodness That is Really a Trap

You catch a monkey by cutting a hole in a coconut, putting some raisins inside and tying the coconut to a tree. The monkey, reaching inside the cococut, then unwilling to release the raisins he has grasped, effectively traps himself. So it is with us, and the promise of potential goodness. Read More

The False Face of Our Social Media Persona

Social relationships, by their very nature, are transactional. They are richly imbued with nuance, color and tone. Relationships engaged in the various theaters of social media lack these characteristics because social media introduces two parallel and paradoxical elements - false intimacy and social distance.

A recently released survey published by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life details a demonstrable imbalance in basic knowledge of core teachings, general history and religious figures of the major world religions between Atheists and Agnostics and those who identify themselves as "religious". Jews and Mormons scored most closely to Atheists and Agnostics, with both Evangelical and mainline Protestants, as well as other Christians and Catholics lagging significantly behind. Black Protestants and Latino Catholics scored at the bottom of the survey. Read More

What You Believe Can, Literally, Shape Your World

I would like to share with you - at potentially considerable personal expense - a fairly hilarious example of how what we think we know can shape our experience, and how a simple lapse in memory turned into a rather marvelous introspective, and outrospective, moment about expectations, assumptions and our ideas about the way the world works.

Enabling, like co-dependence, gets a bad rap, although, like co-dependence, when it is not distorted or misapplied, enabling is actually an important part of any healthy and balanced relationship. Not distorted or misplaced, it is the unconditional support that is reflected in the idea of the "good enough" relationship; a relationship that simultaneously provides us with the safety and comfort of a fall back position, while allowing us the complete freedom to figure it out for ourselves.

Michael J. Formica, M.S., M.A., Ed.M., is a psychotherapist, teacher and writer. He is an Initiate in the Shankya Yoga lineage of H.H. Sri Swami Rama and the Himalayan Masters.

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About Enlightened Living

Enlightened Living considers psychology -- the science and study of the spirit -- and psychotherapy -- the practical application of wisdom -- through the lens of eastern thought, as well as eastern and western spiritual practice.