MIRA KIRSHENBAUM

Mira Kirshenbaum has an international reputation as a therapist for individuals, couples, and families. She is co-founder and clinical director of The Chestnut Hill Institute. A sought-after speaker, Mira is the author of nine award-winning books, some national and international bestsellers. She has appeared many times on the Today Show and has been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey.

Getting started, getting support

Today I [Charles Foster] like an idiot went on TV and in my weekly Fostering Change segment on New England Cable News announced that I’d started a diet on Jan. 1 and had a goal to lose a pound a week for the entire coming year.  Yikes!  What was I thinking?!?!?!  Now I’ve got to do it! 

But the fact is I want to do it.  What’s more, I need to do it.  My doctor just told me I was slightly pre-diabetic, so if I don’t lose weight I could get diabetes, which sucks.  What’s more, I could die (which sucks even more) and not get to see my grandson graduate from college.  Plus I know that if I turned out to eat myself into an early grave my wife (that would be the wonderful Mira) would be really pissed, and maybe a little sad too, although on the plus side she would gain control of the remote and be freed from my snoring. 

Plus I really hate being fat.  It’s not me.  Well, OK, it has been me.  That’s true.  But it’s not the real me.  I have photos of the real me and I look trim and fit.  I’m not a fat man; I’m a temporarily fat man, a hopefully soon-to-be-no-longer-fat man. 

But why would I embarrass myself and go public with all this?  First of all, it makes me accountable.  And that’s the first of many weight-loss tips you’ll find here as I lay out Dr. Foster’s damn-good diet.  Read the rest of this entry. »

Our dreams of romance are haunted by nightmares of romance gone bad.  The question we all face is, How do we make our dreams come true and avoid the nightmares?  Well, as a start, here are answers to the questions I most often get from people when Valentine’s Day is approaching:

Q:  “Have you looked at the calendar?  Valentine’s Day will soon be here.  Do you know how busy we are?  How do you celebrate Valentine’s Day when you don’t have time to celebrate?” Read the rest of this entry. »

When we look at how Elizabeth Edwards, Elin Woods, Jennie Sanford, Silda Spitzer, and Hillary Clinton responded to their husband’s infidelity, a mystery emerges.  Why do some people respond one way to being betrayed and other’s respond very differently?  Read the rest of this entry. »

To listen to a free audio sample of the audio version of Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay, go here and click on “Listen to an AUDIO SAMPLE.”

Valentine’s day is looming.  Now V-day may be an unmixed blessing for people who happen to have just fallen madly in love, but for many of us there is a lot of dread.  V-day can be depressing if you’re not in a relationship, anxiety producing if you’ve just started going out with someone, and BOTH depressing AND anxiety producing if you’re in a well established relationship with some tread wear.  And that’s because V-day demands a level of romantic levitation that’s a challenge for people whose relationships have long since come down to earth (in some case, with a thud).  So how do you deal with this challenge?  Read the rest of this entry. »

The long awaited, long anticipated audio-book version of Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay is finally coming.  Soon!  Countless people have read this in book form, but we know Read the rest of this entry. »

Check out Dr. Foster’s two new TV spots on New England Cable News for insight and solutions for how to stop fighting over what is clutter and what is just being homey.  Read the rest of this entry. »

A lot of you have written about how helpful our recent blog on Clutter Clashes was.  But we left something out.  When you try to use the tips there, remember this:  Do NOT argue over who is right or wrong.  Do NOT say things that imply that your partner is stupid, crazy, or evil, you know, like “What’s wrong with you?  Why can’t you be like a normal person and…”  Instead, just talk about what you want.  You’re entitled to what you want.  So is your partner.  Now all you two have to do is talk this through until you find a solution.  And that’s much easier when you aren’t putting each other down.   

What do you fight about?  And how often?  This is important.  New research shows that of all kinds of fights, fights over finances were most likely to lead to divorce.  And not only that, but how often you fight about money makes a big difference.  A couple that fights over money once a week is 30 percent more likely to get a divorce than a couple whose money fights take place a three times a month. 

This is serious, and scary.  There are a lot of couples having money problems in this time of unemployment, less income, foreclosures, and so on.  And of course money problems usually mean money fights.  But do they have to?  That is the question.  Read the rest of this entry. »

This is the first of what will be an occasional series on problems that people think affect only them but are in fact surprisingly common.  Today’s problem: clutter.  As in: “Why can’t you get rid of those piles of magazines in the living room?”  Read the rest of this entry. »