Talk to yourself like someone you love

"Talk to yourself like someone you love," Brene Brown.

Often in therapy we talk about the inner voice and how it criticizes, blames and would not always be our friend. It can be easier to speak to a friend, child, or family member in a supportive manner when they make mistakes, feel down, or struggle. Think of times in your life when you needed support from your inner voice, but instead you told yourself you looked fat, were not worthy or good enough.

Spend a moment with your inner voice and tell that younger you what you needed to hear instead. For example, "That was a tough time, but you will make it through." Tell yourself you can be brave, imperfect, and are worthy of love and belonging. Give yourself permission to be happy and fulfill your goals and dreams. Connect your relationships when they are disconnected. Tell the critic inside of your head to stop disrespecting you. You are not dumb or stupid. Be kind to you. This is a practice. Keep practicing.

Parenting Tip: Love them

From Sark, see more at www.planetsark.com

What Counseling Can Do For You

What Counseling Can Do For You

Veterans Crisis Line: Prevent Suicide

Help Prevent Suicide.  Any concerned person can call to help a Veteran.  When in doubt, ask if they are having suicidal thoughts.  Make the call.  Save a life.  

Let go of what weighs you down

Obesity: a Ted talk not to miss

Dr. Peter Attia has me researching insulin resistance after watching this Ted.com talk.

Dr. Andrew Weil has discussed inflammation and sugar for years and correlating health concerns. He prescribes a low glycemic index diet for life.

I have a personal belief that the closer our food is to the way God made it the safer it is. I believe this is what the Paleo diet is prescribing. I also like the 100 days of real food website at http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/

Isn't it amazing how complex the body is that we still don't really know what to eat? It can be so confusing in the eat this not that research.

The Wikipedia resource for insulin resistance describes most obese people I know. Belly fat, depressed mood, increased hunger, foggy brain, high triglycerides, high BP, and sluggish after meals. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_resistance

Most alarming is the statement that the belly fat creates harmful hormones that create the insulin resistance.

Meanwhile, our local gas station gives free sodas daily. Any size.

I have actually tried to eat 15grams of sugar or less per day. It was so hard to do. Sugar is hidden in so many things. And to think that sugar that turns to fat makes you hungrier. I recall being told that when you introduce sugar into a child's diet, they lose the ability to self regulate what they need to eat. Prior to sugar in the diet they will eat what their body needs. Vegetables, fruits, etc. but after sugar, they will prefer sweeter foods.

I hope you enjoy this Ted talk. Compassion for those of us who struggle with obesity by turning upside down the prior beliefs in healthcare.

Help Prevent Suicide

Help Prevent Suicide.  When someone appears depressed, ask them if they have thoughts of killing themselves.  You won't know if you don't ask.   If they say yes, you can take them to an area emergency room for an immediate assessment.  They can also call this hotline. 

The Purpose of Life

I find myself reading this quote over and over, as it is loaded with meaning.  The purpose of life….To love life…..without fear…..to experience life and to feel fresh, inspired and to try new things.  Many people that I meet do not experience life with such awe.  There is pain, suffering, disappointments and fear.  How do we look at life, almost childlike?  To be excited again over the smallest of things.  To become explorers and experience life with our senses.  To learn to love ourselves with our whole hearts and share this love with our family and friends.

How to love our life?  How do we love ourselves?  How do we live without regrets?  It makes me think of a toddler learning to walk.  We encourage, we smile and cheer.  We know they will fall down. But we try and try until they let go of our hands and step; they are falling forward.  And the child walks; and we cheer.  I believe the inner voice in our head needs to be that encourager.  Our cheerleader even when we know we will fall or fail sometimes.  We say in our head that we can do it and with some more practice we can.  

Surviving Infidelity

Dr. Scott Haltzman provides a pro marriage perspective and provides much needed rules for behavior in marriage.  This review will provide some basic understanding as to why people cheat and what rules can be used to strengthen a marriage, prevent future infidelity or establish rules following an affair. 

How many relationships experience infidelity?  No one knows!  Most people lie about an affair, so to get an accurate survey is nearly impossible.  We know they are not rare. It is at least 50% of all relationships.  It is no surprise that over 50% of marriages fail. 

So, why do people cheat?  Of course, there is no simple answer and everyone is unique.  But in numerous surveys, there is a natural decline in relationships that increases vulnerability to affairs.  There is also a rush of dopamine, like a drug, when attraction and affairs occur.  Some common reasons affairs occur include: it makes them feel attractive, the marriage may have become problem focused (focus of annoying habits), the allure of others, lack of morality, and addiction or flame addiction (dopamine increases with attraction). 

In college, I asked an instructor who was considered an expert in infidelity, Why do people cheat?  She said, "because they can."

Dr. Haltzman also says reasons for affairs include sexual enjoyment, curiosity, excitement, intellectual sharing, understanding, companionship, ego -bolstering, career advancement, and getting even with a spouse.

Dr. Haltzman recommends the following rules:

1.  End the affair.

2.  Sever ALL connection with the person

3.  Create a "see-through" marriage- create transparency where all communication is accessible including phone, email, facebook, tweets, google+.  There will be no secrets including charge accounts, bank accounts, phone and text records

4.  Make time to talk.  Do ask, Do tell.  The cheated on partner can ask any questions about the affair and the one who cheated must answer all questions openly and completely.  Clarification questions are fine and are to be answered.

 

Following an affair, it is important to express feelings, for both parties.  This is an excellent and common reason to see a counselor.  Sometimes it is helpful to have a person to mediate and help you identify and validate the emotions you may have. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The counseling stigma: seeing a counselor doesn't mean you are crazy

http://www.counseling.org/docs/counseling-corner-library/cc_april_15_2013.pdf?sfvrsn=3

As a member of The American Counseling Association, I am impressed by the articles they publish. I especially liked this article (click the link above) about removing the stigma of counseling.

I always applaud clients for coming, as it takes courage to ask for help. There can be fears of going to counseling, denying you have a problem, or realizing you have a problem but not knowing what to do about it. Sometimes people want our significant other to come, but they won't, so you decide not to come alone.

The good news is counseling helps! There is hope! We are trained to listen; your story is unique to you. We are not here to judge you or shame you. We are trained to help. Moods improve to allow space for joy, healing and acceptance.

Anyone can benefit from counseling. It doesn't mean you are crazy! Life can just get overwhelming sometimes.

I fixed the link on this page, so click away! 

Inspiration tip: Smile, Breathe and Go Slowly

My husband says this is my running mantra, very funny. But seriously, this mantra works great for the office when stressed, overwhelmed in any environment, while eating, even any exciting memorable moment you want to cherish. I love it so much, I hung it in my office.

Exercise motivation tip: Work hard

Weight loss top #2: track it

After reading about awareness, tip number 1, you think, ya, so? Now what?

One very effective behavior is to track the food you eat; the ultimate awareness tool, right? Likely how weight watchers is so effective: the tracking.

In the confusing world of dieting, we are left wondering what should we eat? There are a million "diets," which do you choose?

What if you abandon the idea of a diet? What does your body need versus want? What foods make you feel good? Bad?

I like the livestrong app my plate calorie tracker. There are many app's for that--calorie tracking that is. Pick one. Plus, the livestrong app lets you select the number of pounds you want to lose and gives you a target calorie range.

I've been to weight watchers, like millions of others, and you know when you are falling off the wagon when you quit tracking!

Weight loss tip: increase your awareness

How do we break through the defenses of our weight? The daily little things we tell ourselves about our bodies and food. Our inner voice that says "It won't matter, just eat it." Or, "You look fat, disgusting, and cannot wear that, don't be ridiculous!" Or when we go out and think we look cute, only later to see a picture of ourself and feel mortified, "Oh my....is that what I look like?"

What is truly amazing to me is even when people appear skinny to me, they can still think like this?

Tip 1: begin with awareness. Notice what you say to yourself. That inner critic is holding you back from accomplishing your weight loss goals.

Questions to help you hear the critic in your head:
Look in a mirror. What do you think?
What thoughts first pop in your mind? Where do your eyes go?

When you reach for something unhealthy, what is flowing through your mind?
Do you ever just not think about it at all? Eat numbingly? A who cares? What difference will it make?

Increase your awareness of the inner voice.

Motivate the reptile inside

This is by far my favorite lifehack. It is labeled under procrastination; I believe this is a key to motivation. We need to motivate the lazy, but basic needs driven reptile inside of us. It is finding the balance between basic needs and pushing ourselves to do more than that. Enjoy the Einstein and lizard images!  Your lizard drives your behavior and Einstein tries to logically take control.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/how-do-i-get-over-procrastination.html

Weight loss tip: mindful eating

Author Thicht Nhat Hanh describes how to eat mindfully in his book Savor. Basically, saying practice gratitude, slow down, and pay attention to what goes in our mouths. A perfect tip for overeating.

http://life.gaiam.com/article/zen-your-diet

Stress Reduction through Meditation: Jon Kabat Zinn

Jon Kabat Zinn is a master at stress reduction. Consider meditation to quiet the mind.  This takes practice and non judgment.  Mindfulness is moment to moment nonjudgmental awareness.  Every moment learning to not judge things, people, ourselves as neither good nor bad.  Being present in the moment allows us to live more fully.

This youtube video can help you begin the art of meditation…..Meditation with Jon Kabat Zinn

Procrastination Tip

Pair something you don't want to do with something you do. For example, listen to music when you do chores or homework, watch a movie when you fold laundry, go to a store you love after you grocery shop, etc.

What other ideas do you have?

Present moment living helps anxiety. Practice it.

80% of life is showing up

"80% of life is showing up" - from Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart by Dr. Gordon Livingston

Brene is on Oprah! I believe this is the key to happiness

http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/Full-Episode-Oprah-and-Brene-Brown-on-Daring-Greatly-VideoBrene Brown Video

Own our story...

Gotta Love Brene Brown

My office inspiration

This photo was the inspiration of my office space.  It takes a lot of courage to open your own therapy office, or any business for that matter.  The idea of a boat dock inspired me to "take a leap."  But I admit, it was scary.  I wanted a rope swing!