Blog | Dr. Amy Johnson

How to Avoid the Ups and Downs of Life

Stuff happens in life. You’ve probably noticed. Stuff happens to you without your approval and beyond your control. That’s the way of it.Yet, most of the people I talk with want the ups and downs to stop. They are searching for a way to keep life in the “up” territory to avoid the “downs”.It happens

Why Bad Moods Aren’t as Bad as You Think

“Most of the shadows in life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson How many times have you heard “Follow your heart” or “Let emotion be your guide”?Too many to count, I’d bet.It’s generally good advice—it’s certainly wiser to follow your own feelings than to blindly do what other people think

Decisions, Decisions

It’s pretty amazing what people do because they think it will give them a better life. They wake up insanely early and go to bed insanely late. They go to college, they set goals. They work hard or they refuse to work hard. They decide to be ambitious. They get married or they stay single; they

How to Forgive And Let Go

This is a fantastic article by my friend Lisa Esile. “The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.” ~Pema ChodronForgiveness is good, right? I don’t mean in a heal the planet kind of way—I mean in a selfish, me me me kind of way.We want to let go of our resentments and connect

What You’re Doing Doesn’t Matter.

The outside-in illusion is a persuasive one, I tell you. I’m working on my second book. Earlier this week I sat on the floor of my office—Cat Stevens blaring through Spotify—with 44 pages spread in front of me, each one representing a different chapter, quote, or story I plan to include. I spent an hour

The Thin Line Between Focusing on Yourself And Depression

I remember hearing about some research once that linked self-focus—thinking about yourself a lot and making things that happen out in the world about you in some way—with depression. The more you think about yourself, the more depressed you are.There are obviously a lot of missing variables here. This doesn’t mean that focusing on yourself

Enlightenment Lessons #5

Here’s the fifth video in the Enlightenment Lessons series: On Bad Days. It’s a good one.If you missed the first four, they live here.

Become a Team and Have Much Better Relationships

“We may have all come in different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” ~Martin Luther King Jr. I once had a totally commonplace, uneventful thought that transformed the way I viewed relationships.I’m not sure that it was mine; it certainly wasn’t anything groundbreaking or unique. I may have read it somewhere, I can’t

Make the Most of Anything

Time moves. Quickly. Quite unfairly, it often appears to speed up the older you are.But there is a way to combat that time-fly that doesn’t involve a time machine. It’s being fully in your life today. Moving right in, inhabiting your moments and experiences.Here’s an easy rule of thumb:Experiencing your thinking about life = time

Do you Need to Heal Your Past?

Do you think there is something from your past that needs to be healed? I used to believe that the past required healing. But when you think about it, how could that be?The past is over. It’s nonexistent today. How could something that doesn’t exist need anything?The past only comes up today in your thinking