
Growth Mindset
Adapted from the work of Carol Dwek and Andrew Huberman“When you’re given a positive label, you’re afraid of losing it,and when you’re hit with a negative label,you’re afraid of deserving it.”Carol Dweck"Enjoying the Struggle and Rewarding the Struggling...is arriving!”Mark KahnFlowing into your To Do list...is

How to Achieve Self Esteem: for Women in business!
Want to improve your Self Esteem?Are you a woman that sometimes feels disempowered or inadequate at work?Do you find you often have to deal with difficult people at work, especially in meetings?Do you feel that you work in an aggressive male dominated work environment? If

How to Achieve Self Esteem: for Women in business!
“The greatest source of our Self Esteem is to recover the genius we are, that society has trained us to forget” – Mark Kahn Introduction Hundreds of women have told me about the problems they are experiencing in the workplace, which are impacting

Guilt – The Axe Murderer Of The Soul
Guilt is the serial killer of the psyche, the axe murderer of the soul. When we feel guilty we are chopping up our inner joy and power and scattering them to the wind for the world to do with what they will. And believe me,

Do You Want To Be Wise?
Wisdom is a beautiful quality. It has extraordinary value across a lifetime of joy, challenge and pain. So why is it that in 35 years as a clinical psychologist, I have never had a client come to me saying, “I want more wisdom?

Is Your Identity Killing You?
I am 65 years old. In the not too distant past I would have been retiring at this age. Actually, it feels like my career is just taking off! With thousands of hours of psychological and spiritual work under my belt, I’m still neurotic in

Can You Be Lost And Late And Not Need To Be Right?
I am having lunch with a client whom I have known for many years. She asks me why I think intimate relationships are so difficult – she’s just ended a rather bad one. A memory comes to mind. A short while after moving into our

They said you were stupid – and you believed them!
For some years now I have loved quoting that magnificent Self-Esteem line from the movie Cool Runnings, the one about the Jamaican bobsled team that makes the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. While they are busy qualifying it’s discovered that their coach Irv Blitzer, who had

Love Blossoms
Waking up to a world of wanting and not wanting, passing through my mind and through my body. Yet beneath and around it all there is a sense of letting everything be as it is. No division, no trying to change everything, No resisting everything.

The Most Ridiculous Question You Can Ask!
The most ridiculous question you can ask is, “Do you believe in God?” Why ridiculous, well it would be like asking, “Do you to believe in music?” When I ask my clients if they believe in music, you should see the puzzled look on their

The Gateway To Stillness
At the most fundamental level, great Self-Esteem is expansion and poor Self-Esteem is contraction. I have asked thousands of clients what is happening in their bodies when they experience a ‘negative’ emotion and they all describe a contraction. We contract against life so often that

Are You Loved Enough?
I was thinking about my parents the other day – that’s them in the pic. How much they loved me and how much they didn’t. It’s a fascinating thing how we all want to be loved but for most of us, however much we get,

Resting In Being
50,000 thoughts a day…lost in the mind…homeless…wandering we are… To find that which has nothing to do with thinking? Like Frankie the cat so still as he watches the world Resting in the love of simply being.

The Empty Silence
The empty silence resonates like the big bang inside my body. Nothing and everything at the same time, a booming silence of ineffable love. The peace that passeth all understanding.

In Praise of Offensiveness
The worst thing my parents taught me???!!!Treat everyone the same.Be respectful, responsible, reliable, considerate…. To EVERYONE!Really!!!???Would you treat a hungry lion the same as you would treat an injured lion? Would you treat an injured feral cat the same as a hunting feral cat…a sleeping

Be Like A Tree
I am doing an amazing piece of work with a client who is discovering that she is good enough without having to do something to prove it and after years of depression, she laughingly says, “You might even consider me to be happy!” I say

Are You Living In A World Of Transformation…Or In A World Of Gain And Loss?
Dr John F Demartini – a great man with whom I have spent much time – says, “The master is living in a world of transformation while the masses live in a world of gain and loss.” I want to talk about this today because

A Sinking Heart Knows No Love.
I’m playing my Brain HQ game on my phone to prevent Alzheimers. The scourge of the aged. I keep making mistakes – which is part of the game – and I see that I’m not going to beat my record. Horror of horrors, my heart

Every Snowflake Is Unique – So Are You!
Here’s a quick summary of how some of the major therapies try to help us. Sigmund Freud said that we are welded to the pleasure principle. We are chasing pleasure and running from pain. He also said that our instinct for sex and aggression were

Truth!
Are we really experiencing life, Or are we just experiencing our minds? Life is sensation and hearing and tasting and touching and connecting. It is love and creation so vast. The mind tell its endless, desperate story, Unravelling infinitely into worlds of division and chaos.

Are You Addicted To Your Expectations?
I have never had a client ask me what is the one thing most likely to transform their suffering. I wonder why? The answer is, to learn to drop your expectations. I often hear people say, “Life so difficult.” My response is “Compared to what?

When Things Go Well, Who Should Get The Credit?
I do you a beautiful piece of work with a client… It is in enriching and rewarding. But then I need to check. Did I do the work or did my Spirit do the work? If I did the work – my ego – then

“I’m A Cheat!”
When I was 13 years old I was caught cheating in a test by my teacher, Miss Strano. I can still remember the sound in my head of us having to say each morning “Gooood morrrning Miss Straano,” in this singsong, manufactured tone of voice.

So Much Gratitude!
Two clients that I saw over 30 years ago for therapy, contacted me in the last couple of weeks. The one said, “You are almost always on my mind as my time with you as a client has been truly one of the highlights of

Is Your Motor Car More Dangerous Than ISIS?
Of course your motor vehicle is more dangerous than ISIS. If you just look at the numbers of deaths caused by motor vehicles, you would have to consider them as weapons of mass destruction. 1,25 million people were killed in 2016 by motor vehicles worldwide.

Grasping For Peace!
I ran a meditation workshop for some teachers last week. They all wanted more peace in their lives. I was helping them to let go of the past and the future to get into the now, where peace resides. I asked them what it would

Is There Magic Inside You?
I’m watching the latest season of the X factor UK. I so love music. I mean, I really love music. I play the guitar and the piano, not too well and you might know that I believe that failure is not a fact, it’s just

Loving An Injured Scrub Hare
Last night gorgeous cat Frank brings home a gorgeous little scrub hare, who is innocence beyond the naming of it. Frank is showing off his prize catch. As I reach to save the hare, Frank drops her and she limps desperately to get away. After

Are You A Moody Parent?
A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine asked me to write about the impact of parent’s moods on kids. She was concerned about how her mood and the mood of her husband was impacting on her seven-year-old child. The short answer is, parent’s

The Mind Is A Dangerous Place!
I just watched a video by Michael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul. He talks about the mind being a dangerous place. It bullies us endlessly with its paranoia and need for control everything that’s happening on the outside. I just love that. I’m a

“To Stagnate Or Grow?” – That Is The Question.
Hamlet famously asked the question, “To be or not to be?” meaning should I kill myself or not? My response regarding our psyche is, “To stagnate, or grow, that is the question?” It has so often amazed me how the world has changed in just

Lazer Surgery – Love & Power
I’m lying on my back in the retinal surgeons office. Two years ago I developed a hole in the retina of my left eye. It can lead to a detached retina and blindness. Panic! Lazer surgery was performed. I recently discover that it was inadequately

Everyone’s Doing Their Best – Even When They’re Not Doing Their Best!
Everyone has wondered why the world is the way it is. Much love and joy, but so much pain and suffering and disease and chaos. We also wonder why people are so wonderful and kind and caring and loving and yet so erratic and crazy

Falling Into Stillness
I am working with a client who is doing a business deal that could potentially make him millions. He is anxious about all of the potential negative impacts this could have on his life. Very wise. As we speak I am looking for that feeling,

The Dangers Of Kindness
Most people – excluding psychopath’s, serious narcissists and bullies – usually want to do good in the world. They want to be kinder, less selfish, and generally speaking more giving. You would naturally say that this is a very good thing, but wanting to be

Waiting For Godot.
I’m running two workshops on today. A unique experience. Biggest pressure is, will I have enough energy to do it? Will the cup of coffee at lunch time keep me going? Energy, physical energy, such an amazing thing. We are nothing without it. When I

“Everything Happens For A Reason.” – Are You Sure?
I cannot tell you how many times my clients have said to me, after some stressful or traumatic event, “Well, everything happens for a reason.” Do you know what I see in them when they say this? A desperate attempt to rationalise away the pain

Competition vs Magic
I’m thinking about how we are trained to be so competitive. So much of the time, thinking win-lose, superior-inferior. When we learn to read and write at school we are either told, “You are so clever or so stupid.” Wouldn’t it be beautiful if they

A Closed Heart Cannot Live!
I was reading a post from a Facebook friend, Francis Bennett, a couple of weeks ago. She was a Franciscan monk – previously being a ‘he’ who transgendered. She is spiritually Awakened. She wrote about the suicide of a spiritually Awakened friend of hers Wayne

My ‘Chef Mind’
Nothing much is happening right now. Sitting on my patio looking at the garden, the trees, the flowers, the birds hopping and flying around. I notice my mind, looking for something to dissect, comment on. Searching for peace and meaning in this strange and uncontrollable

Guilt Creates Anger!
It’s a really fascinating thing about Self-Esteem. If you get it from approval and success, you will never feel complete. In other words there may be areas in which it is high, but there will also be areas in which it is low. Extremely successful

Love Is What Is Happening
I’m totally exhausted. Stachybotrys, the mould biotoxin, has got to me. I’m looking, searching, clawing desperately for a way to escape the pain of exhaustion, to feel better. It’s just a fantasy. Without the fantasy I can sit with the pain. But I don’t want

Doing Without A Doer
I have asked the following question of hundreds of clients over the years: “Have you ever given a presentation or speech to a group of people and you started out anxious and stressed, self-conscious and hypervigilant about your ability to perform? You are filled with

Advice Without Strings.
I notice myself giving advice to someone. It isn’t from a place of love. I am trying to change them. They don’t listen to me and I am resentful. I laugh at myself. Self-righteous advice is to make myself feel good. Loving advice is a

Are You Emotionally Blocked?
When I first went into my own psychotherapy 40 years ago I was immensely emotionally blocked. What does that mean? It means that I spent a lot more time in my head than in my body, where feelings occur. I had experienced so much pain

Just Smelling the Coffee is Enough.
I am walking through the offices of Investec. I do some therapy work there for Maureen Kark & Associates. The beautiful aroma of coffee wafts through my senses. There is a subtle and now, not so powerful desire to have a cup and of course

Nobody is Perfect!
Some Like It Hot is a movie that has one of the best endings ever. Jack Lemmon spends the entire film pretending to be a woman. There’s this rich guy that falls in love with her/him. At the end they ride off on a boat

Beauty on the Inside!
It’s a beautiful Sunday morning. I’m out walking in our Estate. The sky is blue, the sun is shining, the ducks I so love are swimming on the dam. All is perfect. I walk past a beautiful home overlooking the green belt. A barbecue is

Envy – The Illusion Of Happiness!
I’m thinking about a friend of mine who has sold more books than me. A lot more. I catch myself jumping into envy. What creates this feeling? It’s the idea that I’ll be much happier if I’ve sold more books. Just another lie to make

Are You Hiding From The World?
One of the most defining features of the human race is our need to attack others and to defend against that attack. My personal experience of this is that it is extraordinarily painful, even agonizing at times. I think that is what got me started

Wanting…Strangling My Spirit!
I watch myself tightening at the slightest sign of trouble. Someone is angry with me, I lose a client, my body is oh so tired. Noticing this contracted wanting, fighting life, as it endlessly winds its way through these sometimes desperate days, like a slow,

Women’s Day 2017!
Wednesday the 9th of August is International Women’s day. I had some thoughts. In the movie Gigi, which I saw about 100 years ago, Maurice Chevalier sang thank heaven for little girls. I sing, thank heaven for the women that little girls become! What is

Animals don’t threaten me…people do!
I am lying on my bed watching a movie cuddling my gorgeous cat Frankie. He nuzzles my hand. He purrs. Such a magnificent connection. Suddenly, he starts to bite me playfully. He spreads his claws and digs them into my hand. I do my best

Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results!
Everyone has heard this statement, but do you know how to work with it, to stop doing the same things, to stop behaving like an insane person? Which gets me to the problem with inspirational quotes. They sound great and they feel good for about

Why Are Only 4% Of Intimate Relationships Nourishing?
Virginia Satir, a world famous family therapist says that only 4% of intimate relationships are nourishing. My personal and professional experience draws me to the same conclusion. Why is this so? Just to start with, I think there are 3 main reasons.

Murderous Thoughts
I am peeling the skin off of an organic carrot. It’s a very small carrot and it’s hard to peel all of it because it is so short, holding it with one hand and trying to peel it with the other. I cut off the

Great Leadership Is To Undo Your Belt And Look For Trouble!
“Leaders are there to help us to discover the greatness within us.” Mark Peter Kahn I’ve been a management consultant for 20 years and I’ve been coaching executives and middle managers for the last 10. I believe that the most useful thing learned by the

The Parental Lecture Or Strategic Questions?
I see kids from 11 years and upwards for psychotherapy. It doesn’t matter whether it’s about studying for exams, or tidying one’s room, or putting out the garbage, staying up too late, watching too much TV, whatever the issue, parents so often default to the

“Don’t Leave Me – I’m The Most Beautiful Woman In The World.”
It’s winter around 2006. It’s a cold Tuesday morning and I’m sick in bed with the flu. I’m scrolling aimlessly through the TV channels and I come across the Tyra Banks show. There is a very attractive woman in the studio. She is being dressed

Trust vs Betrayal
Have you seen the movie Passengers? It is completely awesome!!! It got a 7/10 rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I gave it a 10/10. Why did I love it so much?

How To Stop Fearing Failure.
Our culture is obsessed with success. The Guinness book of records is the third highest selling book in history. Our culture is addicted to #1’s! If you’re a parent then you are either obsessed with the success of your children or you live in fear

Embracing Your Imperfections.
How much of your life do you spend trying to be a better person, a perfect person? What are the costs of doing so? Last week our beautiful 16-year-old cat named Guinevere – that’s her in the pic above – went into kidney failure. We

Are You Living In Slavery?
There are worldwide, 37 million people in slavery. More than at any time in history. The rest of us think we are free to live the life we want. Think again. We live enslaved, by our a conditioned minds.

Escaping The Pleasure Trap.
It’s Wednesday morning and I’m bouncing joyfully along the sleek tiled floors of the Mall of Africa on my way to having a haircut. I walk past a shop that smells absolutely delectable. It’s called Cinnabon. You might know that I have this chronic fatigue

How To Stop Being A Rescuer.
I had one of the most spectacular moments ever in a therapy session last week. I’m working with a mother and her 18-year-old daughter. They have communication problems. The mother really cares about her daughter but she is controlling and wants to rescue her from

The Right Way To Live.
I’m sitting down at my desk on a Sunday morning to write this blog. The room is bright with sunlight, I feel at home in this beautiful space. There is a picture of myself on the desk. I am four years old. I’m bright and

Living And Dying Without Regret.
Opening into the day, Playing at life A smile releasing…being Lightness dancing into the world. I’ve been fascinated for decades with our cultures inability to dialogue issues of suicide and death and indeed wrote a blog about the former a couple of months ago.

Oops…Deleted!
On Friday my blog for today was complete and I sat down at my PC, cutting it from Word and pasting it into my website. I left out a piece and inadvertently deleted what I had pasted into the website and when I got back

Are We In Control Of Our Lives?
When I first studied at university many years ago I was fascinated by the concept of free will versus determinism. Are we in control of our lives or are forces outside of our control running us? Are our personalities determined by nature – genetics –

Letting Go Of Judgement.
I’m driving to my local farm stall earlier this week to buy the organic yoghurt that I love so much and I’m listening to an advert on the radio and the announcer has this lilting, singsong voice in the ad, much like one hears at

Wedding Vows On The Scrapheap
I have spent many years being bemused and amused by the fantasies and nightmares created around marriage. I am twice divorced. Which means that on two occasions I vowed to remain committed to my partners and I betrayed these vows, which is one of the

Forgiveness
On 16th June in the year 2000 I got carjacked at gunpoint by two men while I was unlocking a game fence gate in the middle of the veld about 3 km from my home just north of Johannesburg. They hit me over the head,

Aggression and the Google Robots.
I have pondered long and hard for many years about the questions of anger, violence and the human longing for world peace. Last week I came upon the most extraordinary piece of research that added something really spectacular to my understanding. Before I get to

Judgements in the Age of Trumpism!
The sinister and dark emergence of Donald Trump upon the world scene has been frightening, fascinating, intriguing, amusing and all-consuming to many people, not least of all myself, over the last 9 months. I have seen world-renowned psychology professors denounce him as a malignant narcissist,

Tunnel Vision Thinking.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog about Valentine’s Day and the fantasies associated with it. What I so love about writing these blogs is that the writing seems to drive me deeper into these issues and some amazing new insights emerge. Today

Social Perfectionism
“If you live to satisfy others, you will be left…empty.” Mark Peter Kahn I have run hundreds of corporate workshops and one of the favourite games that I used to play was that I would walk into the room before the delegates had arrived and

How to Recognise if You Have a Self-Esteem Issue.
One of the most fascinating things about Self-Esteem is that there is a group of people – usually very successful – who do have a Self-Esteem problem, but don’t recognise it. Then there are the people who know very definitely that they struggle in this

A Valentine’s Fantasy!
Looking forward to Valentine’s day? Anxious about it? Scornful or dismissive of the whole concept? Welcome to planet earth – Fantasyville for short. From the moment we hear a fairy tale, of walking off into the sunset to live ‘happily ever after’, the virtual

“Life is What Happens While You’re Wishing Things Were Different.”
A friend of mine Barbara Kuppers, was facilitating a Byron Katie group a week ago. I’m walking down the passage during the tea break and I see that wonderful saying by John Lennon on the wall which says, “Life is what happens while you’re making other

Are You a Robot Manager?
I come from a background of advanced, over-socialised, super controlled politeness and professionalism. Under pressure this used to be my default mode of being. It has not entirely disappeared. On my ‘bad days’ I still succumb to the dead, robot, frozen position. The question is,

Suicide and the Power of Listening.
I learned the most incredible lesson about 25 years ago under the most extraordinary pressure. I had this client. He was about 40 years old and he was deeply depressed He had been depressed for years and I had been seeing him for some months

Gratitude, the Antidote to a Negative Mind.
Gratitude is supposed to be such a wonderful thing to do. For years I never bought it. That changed. If somebody complains a lot about their life, someone at some point is going to say: “Be grateful, you’ve got so much going for you!” Oprah

Are Your New Year’s Resolutions Destined to Crash and Burn?
How to Fail Better in 2017 “It isn’t money that makes the world go around, it’s our fantasies.” Mark Peter Kahn It’s often hard for us to distinguish fantasy from reality and the bigger the gap, the more we suffer. Dreams about our future can

Do You Have a Gorilla Memory
Have you ever noticed how often you are certain that your memory of an event is perfect, particularly when you are having an argument with someone? One of the defining features of human nature is that we have a deep seated and enduring belief in

Thank you Mom!
If you have read my previous blogs you will have realised that I’ve had a lot to say about how much of the time parenting comes from the ego, from fear and a desire to manipulate and control kids and how this desire for control

Self-Doubt…the Confidence Wrecker!
“Self-doubt is chopping your personality up into pieces and scattering them to the wind.” Mark Peter Kahn. I have spent decades creating this work and yet I continue to discover new things. Isn’t life wonderful? What I discovered recently is that self-doubt is one of

I Must Lose Kgs…!!!
My mother used to say: “A woman can never be too thin or too rich.” I had a very hard time convincing her that this was a sexist and indeed outrageous comment. She passed on at the age of 87, 6 years ago –

World Kindness Day
Our first world culture imprisons children with conditioned rules and beliefs, the vast proportion of which are just not true. We become slaves to these rules and live outside of our authentic selves, outside of freedom to choose and act in our unique and special

Great Leadership
You could fill an aircraft hangar with all of the books written about leadership. They talk about vision, innovation, mission, responsibility, enabling others and so on. Get Out of The Victim Position First! I want to talk about just one quality – it has three elements

Jim Carrey & “I’m Not Good Enough.”
Are you looking for fulfilment? Are you looking for happiness? Are you searching for that final key, the ultimate thing, that will give you the Self-Esteem that has eluded you all of your life? These are the questions raised by the magnificent speech given

Stress Management Techniques.
“Do you want to run smoothly or do you want your life to run smoothly?” Mark Peter Kahn It’s well documented how useful exercise and yoga and eating properly are beneficial for stress reduction and yes they are. I’m not going to talk

The Law of Conservation of Stress.
Sitting here right now as you are reading these words, how much are you wishing that you could get rid of the stress in your life? You know how it goes, you come across a friend whom you haven’t seen for a while and they

Great Parenting for Self-Esteem
“We abandon ourselves because we were abandoned.” Mark Peter Kahn I had tea with a great friend of mine Barbara Kuppers – an amazing TRE trainer and facilitator – bsassy@telkomsa.net, a couple of weeks ago. We got to talking about her daughter who’s just had a

How Not To Be Happy!
“Some regrets and some mistakes, we want happiness but we can’t hold her.” All that matters – by Cliff Richard. This week’s blog is the longest I’ve written. My inspiration in the writing of it, was unstoppable. I hope you’ll stay the course with

The Best Way to Relieve Stress.
I’ve been having the most creative time in my life this year. It’s been deeply inspiring and gratifying. However…isn’t there so often a ‘however.’ I have so much going on, the publication and marketing of my book, managing social media, managing my health which is

Improving Your Perceptions.
I got smash and grabbed at gunpoint Saturday night a week ago. I pulled off the highway – rather foolish it would seem – just before the entrance to OR Tambo International Airport. I was a little early to collect my partner Suzie from her

Self-Love is Not Apologizing for Being You!
I’m working with a client on his Self-Esteem. At the end of the session, he says that he has lost his last invoice and needs a copy of it. In making this request, the tone in his voice and his body language is deeply, desperately and

Can You Stop Hurting People?
How many times have you been hurt in your life? How many times have you hurt others? Is there really anything you can do to stop this? I don’t think so. We can try to be more kind and compassionate, but in the end as

Does Schooling Destroy our Confidence and Genius?
For some years I used to introduce my corporate workshops by saying: “My name is Mark Kahn, I grew up in Johannesburg and spent 12 years in prison.” I would pause feeling the tension in the room and then I would say: “Some people

Are You Destroying or Building Relationships?
About 25 years ago I was out with my stepson Chris, who was about 20 years old at the time. My age…you’ll have to Google it! We ran out of petrol, fortunately fairly close to a petrol station. When we got there I’m about to