Alyssa Curtayne
Bio
WRITER, TEACHER, CREATOR
I write for my own therapy - I write when I'm happy, I write when I'm sad and I write because I love having the crazy ideas in my head on paper so I can really embody them. I hope what I write can help you too.
Stories (16/0)
Once Upon A Time
Once upon a time, it's the beginning of stories throughout humanity and similar versions exist in stories across all cultures. 'Once, in a time long ago,' 'In the time when...' and others are variants on the same theme, but ultimately those four little words that begin any fairy or folk tale sets the listener in a place or time that is not the present but simultaneously could be. It is an insight into the timelessness of the human experience that the storyteller is trying to draw the listener into.
By Alyssa Curtayne3 years ago in Humans
Find a Good Psychologist
Finding a good psychologist is a bit like dating; you have to kiss a few frogs until you find the right one for you. I should know, I've been seeing them for 30 years. I've lost count of the amount of different psychologists I've seen, but out of all of them, I've only found one who works well for me.
By Alyssa Curtayne3 years ago in Psyche
How To Lose the Love of Your Life
I had my first boyfriend at 42. Prior to that I had only attracted men who were emotionally unavailable, and I had thrown myself at them until I had become so broken by their rejection that I thought something must be fundamentally wrong with me. And there was.
By Alyssa Curtayne3 years ago in Humans
We have a Choice in Despair
You have choice. It might not feel like it right now, when you feel in such despair, but you do. The wonderful Nelson Mandela really captured that sense of freedom in choice we all have when he said: "Even behind prison walls, I can see the heavy clouds and the blue sky over the horizon."
By Alyssa Curtayne3 years ago in Motivation
We are all orphans
We are all orphans. All of us. It's a bold claim, but one that I think can explain our collective feeling of having a deep sense of not belonging, well, anywhere. I guess, with the exception of royal families across the globe, who have thousands of years of ancestry mapped alongside detailed biographies, the rest of us have scattered histories with unknown endings. People move and have done for thousands of years.
By Alyssa Curtayne3 years ago in Humans
Warming our Hearts by the Hearth
In many popular fairy tales, the family gather around the hearth: in Snow White and Rose Red, the bear is invited inside during the winter where they gather and tell stories and play. Cinderella swept the hearth and huddles around it at night and the Little Match Girl dies, cold and alone on the streets, burning each match while she watches families warm themselves inside by the fire.
By Alyssa Curtayne3 years ago in Geeks
10 Steps to Happiness
Last month I went to my psychologist and I told her that I was afraid to be happy. She promptly got up and wrote on the top of a piece of paper "my past" and on the bottom "my happiness" and ripped the words apart. Then placed the two pieces of paper on the floor and told me to stand up. I stood beside "my past" and looked towards "my happiness" and I desperately ...wanted to move towards happiness, but I honestly was scared.
By Alyssa Curtayne4 years ago in Psyche
