Wilson Counseling: The Armchair Chronicles

The great Dr. Maya Angelou passed away recently. Though her passing is a loss to all of us, I am thankful we have such a large body of written work and interviews so that we can glean from her life experiences, her mistakes, and her wisdom. Dr. Angelou speaks with a fluid elegance and authority that makes people stop and listen. It was riveting to watch her interview with Dave Chappelle from the Sundance show Iconoclasts. One of the quotes that really stuck with me was her discussion of anger and bitterness. Dave Chappelle was asking her about her experience with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's.  Angelou was involved with the movement and was friends with people like Dr.Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X.  Chappelle asked her something to the effect of how can you not be angry when there was so much unwarranted violence against your friends? This was her response: “You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon ...

The title of this post may sound very dramatic, but I think it is important to get the word out.  If you are feeling lonely, left out, unimportant, or even ashamed, there is way you can change all of that. This change, however, will come at a cost. One of my clients, Brooke (not her real name), tearfully shared with me how dumb she felt about her choice to keep going back to her ex-boyfriend over and over for the last 6 years. Her friends had told her a hundred times to leave him, but it had been too difficult to completely sever ties. Now her ex had moved on and was dating a much younger girl. Brooke felt old and rejected. She wondered if any man would ever want her, and she felt too ashamed to open up to her friends who she thought must be tired of listening to her. As a result, she felt completely isolated. I encouraged Brooke to open up to a trusted friend. It takes great courage to be open about our vulnerabilities, but it is the best way I have found to sta...

We lost a great hero this week at the death of president Nelson Mandela on December 5th. He suffered in prison for 27 years for his role in trying to end apartheid in South Africa. I can only imagine how I would feel if I was unjustly arrested, and forced to spend decades behind bars. I can imagine coming out bitter, broken, and revengeful. But Nelson Mandela understood that bitterness would come at a great price. Talking about his release from prison, he said, "As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison." It is sometimes hard to let go of the bitterness, anger, and scorn we feel for the people in our lives who have wounded us. Very often those people are close family or friends, and the wound is made more difficult when we have to regularly face those individuals. I think about one of my clients who was sexually abused as a child by a family frie...