I think most of us have the belief, or maybe the hope, that if we do the right thing everything will feel good. The reality is that while it tends to feel better in the long run, Right Action, at least at first, often means trading one discomfort for another.
Read MoreMy parents signed me up for swim lessons when I was starting first grade hoping I would learn to cooperate during hair washing time. I have to admit washing my hair entailed an almost bloody, ridiculously noisy battle that nobody won. I took my blood curdling screams to the pool and after a couple years…
Read More“Do you know you aren’t breathing?” This is one of the most important questions anyone has ever asked me in my whole life.
Read MoreThe Seven Tools create a shared vocabulary and a structure to think and talk about the inner process. They sound pretty straight forward when you talk about them so the ideas are easily taught/learned. I can drop a line here and there in therapy without having to do a whole psychoeducational sidebar and the point is conveyed.
The application of The Seven Tools, however, gets you into the same ooey gooey process as therapy. I have found that when I use the Tools with my clients that they are able to actively engage in the therapeutic process more quickly because we have a shared vocabulary and framework for thinking about the work.
Read MoreImagine you are sitting with a friend and they share with you a problem they are having in their lives.If you are anything like me, you listen empathically and offer support, and there is a part of you that wants to jump in to fix it for them but that isn’t usually what they need.
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I once had a student ask me, with tears streaming down her face, if she was going to cry forever. We had gotten to the part of the Taming the Bear class where I asked the question “What is a belief that you do not currently hold, but that if you held it, you would feel less stress?”
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I break a lot of bad news to clients. Well, it isn’t actually bad news but it sometimes feels like it in the moment. The “bad” news I break is that they are going to have to feel their feelings (all of their feelings) if they want to move through them.
Read MoreI have met a few people whose life is just as they want it. They are very happy and wouldn’t change a thing. But these people are rare. I bet if you looked at yourself or looked at your life, you would see some things that you wished could be different. Wanting things to be…
Read MoreThe season of giving sometimes turns into the season of over giving. And if we are being honest, over giving has become a way of life for some of us humans. It is something I hear about a lot in the office, and for transparency’s sake, it is something I have done a lot of…
Read MoreI’ll be honest and say that I am borrowing this exercise (with permission of course) from a past student. I have taken to calling it The Longest Run-on Sentence, although she usually refers to it as the And, And, And, Acceptance Exercise. I am sharing it with you because A) it is such a helpful…
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