DEBORAH COX BLOGS
Help for Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers
Narcissistic mothering is not a happy subject. But sometimes we need to call it out, label it, protect our daughter-selves from narcissistic influence, so we can let it go and move forward into the beauty that lies ahead. When your mother thinks you’re her . . . When...
Joy Lessons from my 5-year-old Niece
Lessons from Linde I recently took a road trip with my sister and her kids. While we drove and swam and hiked and visited, I got a good dose of anti-depressant wisdom from my five-year-old niece. Linde inspires me because she is full of joy and incredibly herself: no...
Relax and be an Imperfect Parent
Imperfect Parenting We're imperfect parents, but we so want to get it right. Am I providing enough security? Am I being consistent? Will he absorb my disappointment in myself? Will he absorb my anxiety? Am I telling her enough of what she needs to hear? Will she be...
“I’m unattractive & I Don’t Deserve Love”: Change Negative Beliefs with EMDR
I have a few Negative Beliefs . . . I did some dumb things in my teens. I backed the family car out of the driveway, into our neighbor’s car (which had exited his driveway a second ahead of mine). I waited tables at a church banquet and spilled iced tea down the back...
Denial, repression, and how to keep from losing your mind
I’ve always had a fear of dementia. It started on a visit to my great grandfather in the nursing home and I heard him mistake his daughter (my grandmother) for someone named Betty. Fifteen years later, the same thing started happening to my grandmother and I watched...
Transition and EMDR: No such thing as a wrong turn.
Spring brings rebirth and color and joy. It also brings pollen, tornadoes, and allergies. My life transitions like the seasons, and even though it scares the crap out of me, I know it’s a good thing. Something gets stale, stuck, or sour and I know it’s time to...
Calm Receptive Mode: Get calm and find the good stuff inside you.
Your higher self knows how to calm you. We all want to find calm receptive mode. But not everybody wants to get a massage (although we should - there are people who can make us feel safer and less awkward). Some of us need action. We need to be out in a kayak or...
EMDR, Worry, & Letting Go
Holding On & Letting Go You know, that feeling where you remind yourself to worry? Lately, I catch myself holding certain issues with a death grip; things I can’t control. My loved-one’s health habits. The world’s poverty and greed. Our mass addictions to...
Lessons in Relational Justice, I
What is Relational Justice? I just watched Michael Moore’s (2016) film, Where to Invade Next. It's all about Relational Justice. In the two-hour movie, Moore visits eight countries to steal good ideas and bring them back to the U.S. He also raises some questions that...
Ready to Receive: A Valentine’s Mindset
I just learned something: getting more of what we want happens when we shift into the right mindset to receive . . . Receiving Mode. We want intimacy, creativity, close friendships, satisfying work, a healthy family . . . a healthy community, nation, and world....
Political Despair? Focus on the Journey.
You’re safe. I’m writing to you: my Republican and Democrat and Independent friends . . . my companions on this journey. A series of conversations yesterday made me realize: We’re all stressed by the changes . . . yes, all of us. If you lean to the right . . . you see...
How Lies Put Us Into Trance and How to Stay Awake
Lies often come from authority-figures. When I was growing up, preachers told the story of Abraham and Isaac: the one about how Abraham takes his child to a mountaintop and prepares to stab him to death as a sacrifice to God (whose ego must have been puny).Every time...
Voice Medicine: Connect & Create Change
Saturday was Voice Medicine for me. Not only did I march and yell, I connected with thousands (millions) of others and said, We All Belong Here. It countered the heavy weight of worry and dread I’d been feeling for the last two and a half months (maybe longer), made...
Why You Need a Higher Power Right Now
I went through a hard-core atheist phase. In my 20s. I ran from organized religion and chafed at any mention of a higher power. This was it. Just the here and now. Looking back, I wouldn’t trade that liberation for anything. Throwing off all my childhood...
Leadership Monologues: Take Back the L Word
Leadership (said with a sneer) I hate the word, “Leader.” It’s lost every shred of meaning it once held for me. Leadership once meant authority and concern for the welfare of everyone in its reach. Now it sounds like a fake word with fake facts to support its...
Why do I want this? Skip resolutions and Go Deep instead.
My Bodysmith friends and I have been asking ourselves: Do we even want to make resolutions for 2017? Does it make sense to replay the same self-assignments, year after year? The question makes sense if you think about how New Year’s resolutions have evolved over time....
Be More Self-Centered and Save the World
What does it mean to be self centered? Your Self is your wise spiritual center. But outside this center, we live under a weighted blanket of stress and uncertainty, threatened by darkness and greed from all angles. We feel disconnected from neighbors and afraid of...
Transform Holiday Stress into Mindful Rest & Giving
Until recently, I resented the holidays. As in, Already???? We just did this, right? Except the years when my son believed in Santa and we put together tricycles and trains, after his bedtime, under the synthetic Douglas Fir, I got a sinking anxious dread just before...
Victim Mentality & My Grandfather’s Privates
"Don't sound like such a victim," said somebody on Facebook yesterday. I talk with so many of you in shock and grief about our presidential election. You feel assaulted. You fear saying how raw and threatening it feels, how sick you are. My throat started burning...
The Air We Breathe: Panic, Mental Health, & Misogyny
, Woman-Hate=Mostly Unconscious Fear of Women’s Empowerment. One day, in 1992, I had a panic attack. It came out of nowhere. I got up early and dressed for work, made breakfast and started a load of laundry, turned on the morning news while I finished my hair and my...
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