Inner work

Why you continue to reach for an empty glass to quench your emotional thirst.

By Nicole Urdang | September 1, 2023
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  When it comes to relationships, it’s all too easy to keep reaching for the same empty glass to quench one’s thirst—the primal thirst for relationships that offer understanding, connection, support, and comfort. This manifests in continuing to seek, from those incapable of giving it to you, the emotional succor you crave. It’s a fool’s […]

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

By Nicole Urdang | July 27, 2023
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A recurring theme in therapy is the Buddha’s second arrow. It refers to the fact that whatever is difficult or painful in life is exacerbated by the negative self-judgment we inflict on it. This is a crucial concept for separating pain from suffering. As the Buddha supposedly said: Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. There […]

You can’t re-parent yourself but you can parent yourself.

By Nicole Urdang | November 12, 2022
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You can’t re-parent yourself, but you can parent yourself While there is much talk in therapy circles about reparenting yourself, that ship has sailed. You can’t re-parent yourself. It’s impossible to go back into your childhood and give that younger you what they truly wanted. The good news is, you can parent yourself until the […]

Detach from what causes you pain and attach to what brings you joy.

By Nicole Urdang | October 4, 2022
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Detaching from what causes you pain and attaching to what brings you joy sounds incredibly straightforward and almost absurd to write about, yet for most people it can be amazingly difficult. First of all, one must do a fairly fearless inventory to discern what actually brings you joy in the first place and what engenders […]

Antidotes for five words that create stress and ruin relationships.

By Nicole Urdang | May 6, 2022
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Many years ago, when I studied with Dr. Albert Ellis, I learned the five words that create stress, dissatisfaction, and ruined relationships. They are: NEED, MUST, SHOULDN’T, SHOULD and CAN’T. These five words are like mental handcuffs. They keep you from feeling free, creatively exploring life, and, most of all, living with self-compassion. They create […]

What makes it so hard to truly befriend yourself?

By Nicole Urdang | March 17, 2022
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We are born helpless and incapable of living without other people’s assistance. We depend on caretakers, usually parents, to take care of us so that we can develop into adults able to live interdependently with others. This is just a fact. And from what we know of history, it’s been true since time immemorial. As […]