David Teachout's Blog, page 9

The Importance of Values

This is the first of a 3-part series looking into the essential characteristics of Relational-ACT, the counseling philosophy behind the services provided by Life Weavings. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), created by Steven Hayes, provides a great foundation for counseling/therapy. Through... Read More

A Need to Connect

“‘I want to help people’ is an easy answer when asked about pursuing a career in counseling, but masks an underlying uncertainty as to what is in store for that journey. It’s often accompanied by some fairy-tale vision of deep... Read More

Suppressing Sexuality to Appease Authority

Richard Feynman is reported to have stated: “Science is a lot like sex. Sometimes something useful comes of it, but that’s not the reason we’re doing it.” If we reverse the relationship a bit and see sex as rather like... Read More

Why We Need to Build Community

Just how much of yourself do you need to change to belong to a community? What are you giving over when signing on that dotted line, whether it’s an actual sheet of paper, verbal declaration or taking on the community’s label? There is much talk about tribalism and the seemingly inherent problems it creates, pitting one group against another in some

The Lure of Mob Mentality

Nobody holds to a belief that they knowingly acknowledge is wrong or inaccurate. There is an emotional and identity-defining weight attached to each belief. For every incremental increase in resources (time, energy, money, relationships) spent on maintaining a belief, the greater the feeling of attachment and the less likely a person is ever to question the legitimacy of their claim. What area

Living Through the Maps of Your Mind

  Traveling usually requires directions. They may be obsessively precise or they might be confusingly opaque, but whether you’re deciding to turn down such and such a street or taking a right at the end of the fence-line, there’s still some level of guided movement involved. With GPS, the history of more broadly keeping an eye on where we’re going seems to,

The I of Our Identity

There can be only one, one me that is, one I that moves through events observing and directing behavior. Personal experience seems to support this notion, thoughts and emotions arising out of the maelstrom of our internal world in response to information we believe ourselves fully capable of comprehending. Yet the seeming ease this occurs obscures a wider situation. If

Drones: Warfare Without Worry of Consequence

Overwrought declarations concerning the security of a nation’s people is the bread and butter of modern politics. Every potential leader of the self-proclaimed free world attempts to outdo another with over-confident pronouncements of their ability to defeat the enemy and keep us all safe. Just who “the enemy” remains to be, years and decades down the road of military engagements, is left

Being Present in the Space of Grief

Grief, as much as it often inspires thoughts of separation, is our mind’s way of recognizing over and over how close we truly all are. Loss is as much a part of life as growth, each movement a step away from one space into and towards another. There is no gender, economic status or race that is exempt. The form

Our Mind Provides a God to Be Filled In

Divine love seems inexplicably tied to divine judgment at times. With even a cursory search online the subsequent finding of so many articles and images depicting people of otherwise benign feelings supporting hatred and irrational judgment, the only seeming constant in a species devoted to exhibiting the divine in their lives is divisiveness and cruelty. There is assuredly much to be