Emotional Health and Well-Being

As life continues to roll along, I'm realizing how important it is to trust my instincts with people - ignoring our gut feelings can lead to enormous heartache and wasted years.

It's a fact of life that some humans are intent on taking advantage of others.  They want you in their life only if they can consistently use you for their benefit with little to no thought of being a good friend in return.  And quite often, such people have enough interpersonal skills to fool most decent people into believing that they, too, are decent. Read more

From Our Mailbag:

Hi Dr. Kim,

I read with interest your article on Jason and people like him who frequently take advantage of others. I've been struggling with this very issue for several years, wanting to be helpful to a friend and wanting to see the best in him, but with passage of time and countless disheartening "favors" I've realized that this person will not stop taking advantage of me until I put an end to it. Read more

Updated on February 6, 2020

If I can share just one bit of relationship advice to our sons before I no longer have much influence on their development, it is this:

A genuine apology from the heart can heal, nourish, and inspire in ways that no amount of money or counselling can.

I feel this holds true in every type of relationship, including between life partners, parents and their children, friends, work colleagues, teachers and students, and businesses and their clients. Based on my life experiences thus far, I've come to believe that many humans don't appreciate the value of delivering a heartfelt sorry.

In the moment that we realize that we have made a mistake or we are told by someone that we have hurt their feelings, whether our mistake was purposeful or inadvertent, do we have the emotional intelligence to process our mistake, take full responsibility for it, and deliver a genuine apology? Read more

Earlier this year, I decided to untether from my cell phone. I have a feeling this will rank among a few of the best decisions of my life when my time here is up.

Why untether? Primarily because on careful reflection, I concluded that having my iPhone on me for most of my waking hours was hurting my quality of life in a significant way. In constantly being available for the world to put me into reactive mode, spending my energy on issues that don't need my immediate attention right now or ever, I have far less capacity to be fully present in the moment. Read more