I have a confession...and I hope you'll hear me out before you run screaming, appalled, and hit unsubscribe.  I had an intense urge to kick a dog.  Let me clear, I didn't do it, but I thought about it.  I am, admittedly, not a dog person. But I'm not a monster, either. I was in Puerto Viejo, a...

I can not tell you how many people I encounter - in my psychology practice, through my work here at Peak Mind, and just in life in general - who are guilt-y. I don't mean guilty of some crime or faux pas. Rather, guilt-y as in prone to experiencing excessive guilt. This is you if: You freque...

There's a super professional term that I routinely use...ick.  Sometimes, I'm talking about inside ick, the uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories, or urges that arise in so many situations. Sometimes, ick might refer to external circumstances that are hard or gross or upsetting ...

Tell me if this sounds familiar. You come up with an idea - something you want to start or stop doing, a change you want to make, or some project you want to take on. You're gung ho. Motivation level 10...and then an 8, and then a 4. Your motivation wanes, and you don't reach that point you were ...

There's no denying it - the last handful of years have been very challenging. Aside from the personal adversity we've all felt in our individual lives, we've faced incredible collective adversity. The pandemic. Political divide. Crime and mass shootings. It has all been a lot to handle, and many ...

BURNOUT. It's a topic in the news almost daily. Given the stress we've all been under over the last 2 years, burnout is at an all-time high. But is it? Really? I mean, I agree that we're burned out, but my instinct tells me that we've been that way much longer than we realize. The pressure of th...

Because of the way our minds operate, human beings struggle with change. No matter whether the change is a net positive or net negative change, whether it's big or small. All change causes some degree of friction and difficulty. And we've all weathered a LOT of it in the past few years. On today...

I'm going to ask you to do a little thought experiment with me. Think of your dearest friend. Don't just gloss over this. Really take a couple seconds to call their face to mind. Think about why you're friends and why you care about this person.  Now think about a time when they were str...

You may not know this about me, but I'm a giant nerd, truly a scientist at heart. That means that when I got really serious about figuring out what makes for a happy life, I delved fully into the science of happiness by reading, learning, thinking about, and testing out everything I could...

If you want to maximize happiness and cultivate more inner peace, expect less.    As a teenager, I was stoked to watch An American Werewolf in Paris. I just knew it was going to be edgy and scary - a cinematic masterpiece! What it was, however, was a giant let down. It was a terrible mo...