Psychology

“For the joy set before him he endured the cross” (Heb. 12: 2 NIV).

I open the window and breathe in the air, trying to guess the weather. Floating around, mixed, are scents and miasms alike; it's hard to decipher these intricate clues.

One night while checking on his patients in a palliative care centre, the therapist risked asking a confusing question to a person whose universe had shrunk to the size of his sickbed: “What brought you joy today?” The answer was immediate: “Being alive.”

When a closed window shade becomes an SOS sent by those used to living on their own but afraid of dying alone, something has fundamentally changed in a society that not long ago valued human relationships.

Albert Einstein didn't speak until he was 4 years old, and didn't read until he was 7. His parents thought he was mentally disabled, and one of the teachers described him as "mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in his foolish dreams." He was expelled from school and denied admission to the Zurich Polytechnic.

Today, communication is becoming easier thanks to technology, which makes it faster and more accessible. Unfortunately, this does not necessarily mean that we know how to communicate effectively.

The refrain: “I’m booored…” is “the worst song on the parenting soundtrack,” says journalist Kat Patrick humorously. Chanted in the most inconvenient moments, this complaint often triggers the parent’s guilt or concern. But there’s nothing wrong with letting your child get bored sometimes.

Even in difficult times there are many things we can do at home to help children as well as teenagers to feel less worried.

I used to be among those who have a great aversion to the recommendation to "live in the present," firmly convinced that, in fact, this advice is nonsense. That, in reality, every moment we enjoy right now, is actually a millisecond behind, therefore, it is still not the coveted living in the present.

Change is the only constant in life, especially the kind that comes unexpectedly and makes us believe that we cannot give in to it without giving up on ourselves, or turning into something we are not.

Sleep is perhaps the most important, complicated, and misunderstood physiological mechanism that keeps us alive.

Along with the rising death toll due to coronavirus complications, a usually latent aspect of our fear becomes harder to ignore. Despite the fact that it is the only certainty we all share, realising that our own end is a reality we might need to confront sooner than we had thought leaves many of us fervently searching for consolation.

At the age of 27, for the first time in my life, I worried that time was passing too fast. For the next few years, the speed with which most of my friends were getting married was the next source of concern.

Behind the prelude to a divorce are four major destructive behaviours which can prevent the couple from keeping their enthusiastic promise of staying together ...for better or for worse, till death us do part.

The portrait of a good listener contains skills that are formed over time, through an honest interaction with others, motivated by the desire to understand and help them.