I have a friend who wants to run for a local elected office.  She feels that she’s got the character and ideas to make a positive difference for her city.  However, she told me, going into politics just doesn’t feel right for her.  “All that conflict and debating isn’t for me,” she said.  “It just [...]

We all have behaviors we use to “take the edge off”—to temporarily rid ourselves of anxiety, depression or nagging discontent in our lives.  Alcohol and drugs are the most obvious examples, but there are many other, subtler behaviors we use to distract ourselves from our difficult feelings.
For me, until I started consciously catching myself in [...]