effective help for anxiety

Anxiety can lead you to go down the road of catastrophic future thinking- afraid this is going to happen, that will happen. WE all can find ourselves down that road- I call it the "negative thought cycle" or "thought bubble" that feels like it is in control of our thoughts! You probably know what I mean.
Now think about this.. Every time you find yourself in your negative thought cycle say to yourself,
"Come back to the present,
Come back to the present,
Come back to the present."
It is only in the present where you can think more clearly.
Come into the present and start observing what is around you. Look out of a window and observe a tree, maybe see or hear the song or a bird... stay with that, in the present moment and you can pull yourself out of negative thought cycles.
It works, I assure you. If you are in my part of town and really want training in this powerful technique call me and I know I can help you feel in control of your life!

Time to renew your commitment to life without worry and depression

The beginning year is always a good time to renew your commitment to life. This past year has been hard for so many people and the stress has gone through the roof! But you are still here and every day is a new opportunity to say to yourself that you are ok and that you will slow down and be present every day.
When you worry about the future you are unable to be in the present. Worrying can cause so much stress and many people can feel depressed because they cannot stop worrying. If you say to yourself, "Come back to the present" when you find yourself worrying about the future, you can start to be more present.
I encourage you to try this, experiment CHANGING THE CONVERSATIONS YOU HAVE WITH YOURSELF. This is most important. When you find yourself in the vicious cycle of continued worry try saying this simple phrase over and over. It can reboot your thinking. It really does work!

help for depression-changing your perspective

As I was hiking and running this morning I came upon two large rocks that I see on this trail every day. One rock is covered with a wonderful bright green moss, the other, because of its location is just covered with fallen leaves from the trees above. I began to acknowledge these rocks when I pass, touching them gently as I pass them. It made me think of a tale I heard lost ago about a man who felt empty, who felt there was no meaning in his life and was sitting by a stream one day. He noticed that a stream of water was constantly hitting on rock and had been doing so for many, many years and now there was an indent in the rock. He realized that even a rock can change when some force was pushing it to so he could change if he pushed himself- if he had the will, the motivation. He began to think differently about his life from that moment on and he became a very wise man.
If doesn't matter how long you have been sad, depressed, angry or defeated you CAN change when you change your perspective.

Ever wonder what a therapist actually does?

My brother has a love bird that is blind and it cannot fly. Its mate died years ago and this bird was stepped on by mistake. And my brother has this bird, who cannot see, by his side. And the bird won’t let my brother touch him even though he is blind and alone.. What a dilemma for both of them. This is what happens to us in life. We want closeness but we can’t bear to be close, we want love but we run from it. And we look out from the box of our own making, shaking ours heads because we don’t know how to fix it. That is when they may decide to see a counselor.
I see people who want better lives but are unable to see how to do it. They want to be close but they can’t, they want to feel happy but they won’t allow themselves. And they enter my office looking to me to give them something, anything, that they can take with them to help them. It seems to me sometimes a daunting task and a big responsibility.
As someone talks to me in my office on that first day I begin to get the feel for the person. I look at how they are telling me their story, what piece of their story they choose to tell me first, what piece may get left out until the very last moment of a session. All of this is important. I observe how they are sitting, how their body remains motionless or can’t stop moving as they tell me why they are in my office. I listen as they tell me their hope for our time together and the fears they have about their lives.
As they talk to me I feel patterns appearing in my head, the swirling patterns of lives lived and stories told the shocking similarities between the most different of people and the wonderful uniqueness of everyone I see. Patterns arise and a picture can appear of interconnected energies all feeding off of each other. My task is to try to separate and clarify what is really happening in that person’s life. It is most often not the thing that the person has turned to me to fix or cure. If only it were so simple.

help for depression-understanding the brain

Did you know that the brain likes the familiar? Did you ever wonder why you may notice that you do the same behaviors your parents did EVEN THOUGH you hated when they did it? well the brain got used to the interactions you had with your parents based on those behaviors and now, since the brain loves the familiar, you continue to do the SAME behaviors EVEN THOUGH they don't work in your life and the behaviors may make you depressed or anxious. As I have written many times in this blog, understanding this and becoming aware when you engage in the unsuccessful, ineffective behaviors will allow you the space to start thinking differently and actually change your brain. Remember, the brain likes the familiar, so if you begin to interact and think in a more positive way ON A REGULAR BASIS than THIS will become familiar to your brain and you will feel better,feel more successful in your life and certainly happier because things are working for you! It's all in the brain and its YOUR brain so you get to change it