One way to free ourselves from unhealthy compulsive behavior is to understand our motivations, what drives and actually controls us. While we’re all unique, there are ancient and common patterns that underlie the roles we take on in life such as mother, father, warrior, healer, savior, priest, jester, caretaker and leader. These patterns are known as archetypes, and they’re illustrated in myths and symbols. These patterns exert a magnetic influence that can give us intuitive guidance and energy to help us do what we need to do. Or they can drag us into a perpetual rut of expectations and despair. Heroic energy can flow freely like water, or be frozen and rigid like ice. 

Self control does have some benefits for relationships. But it also has dangers. If your self-restraint keeps you from expressing positive and intimate feelings, it may leave your partner feeling disconnected and unloved, which doesn't encourage them to express their feelings either, and then things start to go downhill quickly. But if you can be more intentional in using your self control to actually express more, the relationship is more likely to thrive.  

Few of us make it through life without ever getting defensive.  Shields are universal and archetypal. But, at the risk of being dramatic, how defensive we get can dramatically affect our relationships and careers. Some people keep their Shield of protection up almost all the time. Others ram it into the other person's face. Both of these can severely limit not just relationships and work, but, as we'll see, your psychological growth as well. This episode explores the differences between being defensive, and appropriately defending ourselves, with examples, and suggestions for being less defensive and for handling the defensiveness of others. 

Lists can be either effective or excessive. They can help us to organize and prioritize what we need to do, and it feels great to cross things off. But they can also be very one-sided. Too often they are only about all the things we are supposed to do rather than the things we want to do. Why do lists have to be so bloody demanding, rather than allowing? Lists can be a place where you take a stand in allowing yourself to do the things you usually don’t let yourself do. And that can actually make you more, rather than less, effective. 

But this goes deeper than just the practicalities of how you manage a list. It’s also about the cultivation of your personality—individuation and becoming whole. It’s about who’s driving your car, and what parts of you get locked in the trunk. 

Most people get happier as they reach their 50s, 60s and 70s. But people who are obsessive, compulsive and perfectionistic may miss out on the potential benefits. Their default strategy of control can block the those benefits, and leave them metaphorically pushing a rock up a hill, only to have it come crashing down again. The solution is to relinquish some control and welcome all the aging has to offer. 

We often hear that we need to be able to let go, let go of things like resentment, control, limited identity, and replaying that embarrassing episode from last year’s Christmas party. But letting go wasn’t covered in the curriculum at your grammar school, or middle school, or high school. So today we’re going to talk about how to develop this skill. It takes practice and courage, but it is possible to learn. 

Too often our efforts to be conscientious overshoot their goal and we become rigid and rulebound instead. Sometimes this is because we follow convention rather than conscience, and other times it's because we have forgotten our original motivation. In both cases, becoming more mindful of conscience and more skillful in how we execute it can put us back on track, rather than driving nowhere. 

Sitting still and watching their breathe may be the last thing most driven, perfectionist, and obsessive-compulsive people want to do. But it might be one of the most helpful things they can do. The benefits of mindfulness meditation for just about everyone have been well documented. In this post I'll explore some of the particular benefits for people who feel a constant need to fix, produce and resolve.  

Frugality can be a blessing or a curse. It can provide for you practically and prepare you for rough times. But it may also cost you emotionally. It can leave you stingy, obsessed, and austere. Knowing whether it’s helpful or harmful for you requires that you know your own tendencies; Too withholding? Too indulgent? If you want to sort this out, it also helps to know your motivations. This isn’t just about a bottom line. Depending on why you are being frugal, it can work for or against you. In this episode we’ll listen in on an imagined therapy session with Franklin, whose frugality is causing conflict in his family and within himself. We will also explore the pros and cons of 4 different motivations for being frugal, and the scientific research about how money affects our well-being. 

Since people with obsessive-compulsive personality traits often feel that the right thing is to hold on to money, time, objects and compliments, they may miss out on the benefits of generosity. And since they tend to get engrossed in goals, projects, and fixing things, they may neurologically wire themselves into a narrow focus which excludes generosity. I can’t guarantee you’ll feel happier if you engage in large or small acts of kindness, but I do believe there is a very good chance that you will at least feel like your life has more meaning—and, silver lining for the compulsive—you’ll feel like you have more control over your mood.