Skills for Growth

Social Media as a Self-Awareness Tool

When I was training to be a therapist, we did a lot of role-playing, enacting out different roles that were typical in a family drama. Generally, it was easy to play these roles, because we are all familiar with them, and we often ended in uncomfortable laughter partly because our acting was terrible, but more so because our reactions were so predictable that it was funny. It’s one of those sad, but funny (tragicomedy?) experiences, similar to how one might feel reading the comments on social media. Role-playing isn’t so necessary anymore because we can witness these dramas playing out online, in real-time, anytime. It’s

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Skills for Growth

End Polarized Thinking with 4 Simple Questions

Mainstream media is eroding our ability to reason wisely. When we are chronically exposed to news that highlights our differences, rather than our similarities, and plays on our emotions, rather than appealing to reason, we lose our ability to use wise reasoning. This furthers social division, reinforces intolerance, and fuels conspiratorial thinking. Here is how to combat this trend. So what is wise reasoning anyway? For millennia philosophers have promoted wisdom as an attribute that can strengthen societies and help us to overcome all manner of challenges. Contemporary scholars are still working to clearly define what wisdom is, but they do have some clear agreement

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Skills for Growth

Communication Tweaks that Can Transform Your Relationships

As humans, we are wired to connect with one another. We need personal relationships as much as we need food, water, and the air we breathe. Considering how vital it is that we have strong connections with others, it’s shocking how little most of us are actually taught about creating and maintaining these connections through good communication. Anyone who has been in a conflicted relationship (umm everyone), knows how frustrating it can be to do your best to express your feelings and still be misunderstood. You re-word, you cool off and re-visit, and still end up in an argument. Repeated failures then cause us

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