Hi! My name is Barb Markway. In no particular order, I’m a wife, mother, owner of two fluffy white dogs (Bichons), a psychologist, writer, and a homebody. I’m overly serious, but working on it. That’s the short version.
Oh, and this describes me perfectly: I’m an INFJ.
I feel funny writing about myself (you wouldn’t know it because I do it all the time), but here’s a longer version:
My husband, Greg
I’ve been married to my husband, Greg, for almost 28 years! We met in graduate school. We had both been counseled by our professors about being “too quiet.” (That’s a whole other blog). In meeting each other, we found acceptance of our more gentle dispositions. I actually got up the nerve to ask him out on our first date. It was the best leap-of-faith, courageous, daring greatly, non-shy thing I’ve ever done. He is a huge support to me, and that’s an understatement. We make a great team in so many ways. We’ve worked together in several settings, written books together, and in general, just enjoy spending time with each other. He takes a lot of the pictures for this blog. I’m hoping he’ll teach me some about photography Here’s a picture of him cooking, which he does better than I do
We have a grown son who brings me/us much joy. Although parenthood is a huge part of my life, he doesn’t like me to write about him, and I try to respect his privacy. We also have two Bichons, Lily and Larry, and I end up writing about them a lot. I’ve turned into a crazy middle-aged dog lady. You’ll see a lot of pictures of them around here.
I’ve spent over twenty years in direct clinical practice–mostly in outpatient counseling centers in hospitals and a few stints in private practice. I specialized in anxiety disorders and co-authored three books related to social anxiety and shyness. This is an area of personal interest, which you can read about here, here and here. Greg and I also wrote a book on marriage called Illumnating the Heart: Steps Toward a More Spiritual Marriage. For the past two years, I’ve been in a transition mode. Chronic pain
Lily likes to do relaxation exercises and meditate with me.
was making it difficult for me to work full-time, so I took a part-time position as a psychological consultant with Disability Determination Services for the State of Missouri. I’m trying to write some, as well. I miss working with people face-to-face, but I’m not sure what the future holds in that area.
I’ve ended up writing quite a bit about my health and chronic pain in this blog. I’ve had two back surgeries, one lumbar and one cervical. I’ve been told I have scar tissue from the surgeries.I’ve been diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome (famous baseball pitchers get this, most recently, Chris Carpenter of the Cardinals). I also have severe repetitive strain injuries from too much typing over the years. I’m trying to learn a voice-activated dictation program, but I haven’t mastered it yet.
I love being creative and learning new things. I recently took an awesome e-course called Montage: A Guide to Creating Soulful Videos. Below are my first attempts. Both are short, two-minute pieces that will give you a sense for what I’m all about these days. I have a feeling you’ll be seeing more videos around here. It was very fun and addictive!
Leaving Worry Behind
Busy Be Gone
And if you want to smile big, watch this 30-second clip of Lily.
Okay, that’s it for this page. Again, thanks so much for dropping by. Hope you stay awhile and come back often.
You can contact me at barbmarkway@gmail.com.
The Self-Compassion Project 
Hello,
By a series of odd connections I ended up on your website. Although I wouldn’t normally describe my work as self compassion, it certainly parallels in some ways your approach. I did a TEDx talk recently about grief that you may find interesting from the point of parallels with your approach. Best wishes
Dr Geoff Warburton
I can’t wait to watch it!
Hi Barbara
I am shwetal a investment banking , technology professional. I see you are a psychologist and a writer as well thats interesting. Have you heard of Dr Brian Weiss , i follow him and have read all of his books. I recently started my blog as well and posted some articles. I am a ameature writer but would like to know your views on whatever i wrote whenever you have a moemnt,. Below are the links to my blog articles.
I really like this “about me” page! It’s very well organized and written, though I’m proud to say I already knew most of this about you from being friends with you. 😉 Look forward to catching up on your writing now that I have a break from school! Sorry I haven’t kept in the best touch this year, but I do value your friendship and miss talking with you and exchanging ideas. Happy New Year!
If you will e-mail me, I would like to share my story of overcoming (and thriving). I am a college sophomore at 66, because of my story. Thank you!! Sincerely, Alice (over comer and wounded healer)
Hello, Dr. Barb, I am, as we speak, sitting up at 2:00 a.m. researching webpages and blogs. I am in the process of building one of my own and I was “led” to your site. I really love your About Me page, the look of it as well as the content. I can only hope my blog adventure is as great looking, inviting and interesting as yours is. This is very new to me and sometimes a little overwhelming (not very computer savvy) but somewhere in your blog I read ‘never give up’. Many times I think to myself, “who wants to hear what I have to say?” Then, I snap out of it and I realize I, too, have plenty to say that people would like to hear, so there! I plan to put your site on my ‘favorites’ list and check it out often, not only for my research, but for its helpful content as well. Thanx for the inspiration.
Hi Barb!
Well, it looks like I’m a few years too late in finding this lovely blog of yours. I wanted to introduce myself in the chance that perhaps you still check messages from time to time. My name is Lauren Zalewski and I am the founder of the blog Gratitude Addict which I only launched in January. But I’m also the founder and admin of a very special Facebook group called “Attitude of Gratitude with Chronic Pain” that I started about 2 1/2 years ago. Currently we are about 1700 members strong and the focus of our group is very different from the other chronic pain groups you find on FB…as the name suggests, we are gratitude-based. We have a strict no-complaining rule (you can do that in any of the other groups…we are different) and we really strive towards living a happy, wholehearted, meaningful life despite our struggles with chronic pain. If that’s something that interests you we would love to have you! You can simply send in a member request.
We have started a video series interviewing doctors, artists, educators…and in my research in finding someone who focuses on self-compassion I stumbled upon you.
I hope this finds you well and in low pain and I would love if our paths crossed someday. Please feel free to contact me privately if you’d like.
Peace & love. Lauren
Hi! I just put in a request to join your FB group!
Awesomesauce! Welcome to AoG!