How to Flip Holiday Madness into Mindfulness
The magic of the holidays is upon us and behold, it can speed toward madness or mindfulness. Some call it the holiday bustle. Others call it pandemonium. Try these 7 tips. ...
anxiety Tag
CBT: Spring Clean Your Mindset
Spring has sprung! Just as Mother Nature ditches the dreary dormant season of winter, CBT can shift your mindset from doom to bloom. Think of it as a spring cleaning for your brain. So, grab the mental Swiffer and dust out the cobwebs. Spray the virtual Windex to clear the fog. It's time to blossom. It’s easy to fall into the habit of negative thinking. The shorter, darker, colder days of winter have a real effect on mood and energy. Over time, it can affect your attitudes, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors. You might begin to automatically assume worst case scenario's. That fearful belief provokes an anxious feeling that further validates the fear that something will go wrong. It’s a vicious cycle that feeds on itself. It’s partially rooted...
Anxiety and Lockdown
Anxiety is on the rise. As we approach another lockdown, you anticipate uncomfortable feelings. You notice parts of yourself vying for attention - the ones that feel fear, loneliness, and shame. The anxiety of unfinished business from the past, beckons your acknowledgment and soothing. Without the external distractions of work, shopping, and appointments, you are forced to sit with your internal world. There are many ways to distract yourself from this discomfort. You can go for a walk, watch a movie, call a friend, dance in your bedroom, or take a class online. It's a temporary "fix" but, will all this “doing” result in healing? What if this is the time to stop doing? What if all this doing has kept you stuck in unproductive being? And what if...
Ritual. Grief. Quarantine.
Ritual. It brings family, friends, and communities together. It binds you in your values. It bonds you in your shared beliefs. It connects your mind, body, and spirit. But what if rituals don't exist? Sunday was Easter. I’m not a terribly religious person, but I knew that I wouldn’t be with my family for a traditional gathering. And it felt like a freight train rolled in and parked on my chest. I woke up sad. The familiar heavy fog of longing for something that wouldn’t be, had settled in while I slept. My family ritual was not happening today. And I'm not alone in that. Weddings, funerals, bar & bat mitzvah's, seders, school & sports events, and more have also been cancelled or modified. It's a loss...
Control vs Concern during quarantine
Right now, things feel out of control. And when things feel out of control, a sense of fear and helplessness can take over your thoughts. You become the metaphorical rat in a maze searching for a way out, or around, the dreaded worst-case-scenario. This can be paralyzing from a psychological perspective. But what if there are things you can influence right now? What if there was a way to discern the difference between your concerns and your control or influence? When the two get muddled together, you lose the distinction between what you can actually change, and what you can't. Then you swan dive into the rabbit hole of hopelessness and isolation. Many people are struggling with control during quarantine. Control leads to self efficacy, feeling proactive, and grounded. So,...
Dear Trauma: EMDR changes lives
Dear trauma, I don’t need you anymore. You served a purpose and kept me safe in the face of danger. But now you’re getting in my way. I got this. Yours truly. When trauma happens, your central nervous system reacts in one of 4 ways to protect you: Fight - physically defending yourself Flight - running away Freeze - if I don’t move, they won’t see me - think deer in headlights Faint - playing dead It’s involuntary and automatic. It’s your body‘s way of protecting you in the moment. So, thank your body for doing that - and let it know you’re safe now. In the case of PTSD and limiting beliefs, it’s not enough to know you’re safe. Your body's protective mechanisms get frozen in time...
Mind Tricks: Conquer your fear
Mind tricks, a.k.a. cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), EMDR distancing techniques, chunking, and meditation practices saved me at Huayna Picchu. Little did I know, I would be frozen with fear upon arrival at Machu Picchu. With each step along the Inca trail, I held onto the mountainside to prevent being sucked into the valley 8000 feet below. My legs felt shaky, my breath was shallow, and my head was dizzy. Welcome to acrophobia, the fear of heights. When my guide suggested I would be hiking the big black pointy mountain, Huayna Picchu the next day, I was stunned. Huayna Picchu is a 9000 foot mountain that overlooks Machu Picchu. The part we would hike is a 1000 foot vertical climb in less than one mile. It’s named...
Insomnia Tips: Sleep like a baby
Insomnia wrecks your mood, energy, and focus. Kayla Johnson from Tuck realizes this and requested that I share sleep resources with my readers. A good night's rest regretfully eludes many of us. Consequently, the outcomes can be dire. Insomnia has many links to mental illness as a cause and an effect. I'll share a few of Tuck's insights and research findings here. Chronically sleep-deprived people, some 20 percent of Americans, are more prone to costly diseases, accidents, and workplace absenteeism, at a steep cost to our national and global economy. The cost of drowsy driving motor vehicle accidents alone is estimated at $56 billion per year. Shift workers, healthcare workers, long-haul truck drivers, military operators, and others in jobs with demanding hours are at higher risk for sleep deprivation and...
EMDR Therapy Changes Lives
EMDR Therapy: Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing changes lives. EMDR can be thought of as an integrative physiologically based therapy that helps a person see emotional material in new and less distressing ways. A Certified EMDR therapist helps guide you in a specialized way to clear trauma, break through limiting beliefs, and create an empowered way of being you. Using Mindfulness and bilateral stimulation while holding gentle pulsers, healthy memory processing is stimulated to gain emotional distance from difficult memories. Research shows that trauma & emotionally charged experiences can get physically frozen in time in your body. They live there in the present, interfering with your life, as if the experience is happening now. EMDR creates a natural flow of information processing so that balance is restored and memories become...
5 Signs You’re an Overanalyzer: And how to kick the habit
Are you plagued by indecision? Do you overanalyze whether or not there's a hidden meaning behind someone's words? Do you look for the possible trap or snafu that will make everything blow up in your face and leave you riddled with regret or shame? These thinking patterns can be debilitating if you run away with them. When you simply observe, rather that get consumed by them, you can keep a healthy distance and choose a different path. Here are five signs that you could be an over analyzer. Your friends keep saying, ”Just let it go.”. You feel more stressed, instead of less stressed, by trying to make the right decision. Your default internal monologue is, “I don’t know what to do.”, and you mentally go in...
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