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Heather Edwards Mental Health Counseling / Posts tagged "fear"
normalcy

The Normalcy Paradox: Is it too soon?

May 25, 2021
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Anxiety, Lifestyle, Stress Management

One year ago, after more than a month in lockdown, you yearned for a return to normalcy. However, weighing that desire against the real threat of death, you opted for safety and stayed home, many alone and in fear. Today, 128 million people are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in the United States, and 282 million are partially vaccinated. Mask mandates and social distancing requirements are loosening. For many, it’s a ticket to freedom. For others, to roam freely seems a scary and potentially deadly proposition.  So, the normalcy paradox emerges. You want it and you fear it. You are having mixed feelings like excitement and reluctance, curiosity and hesitation. In my virtual therapy room, I’m hearing concerns like the following: I’ve changed and my body has...

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ritual grief quarantine

Ritual. Grief. Quarantine.

April 15, 2020
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Stress Management

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...

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Heather Edwards Psychotherapy in New York

EMDR Therapy Changes Lives

March 20, 2018
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Articles

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...

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Is Fear Your Driver? Pump the brakes. Take the wheel.

October 9, 2017
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Articles, Psychology Today Articles - In the Press!

How to conquer a phobia: The psychology behind phobias and how you can face them Jackson A. Thomas interviewed me for tips on managing anxiety and panic. Check out the article published in Chicago's Community Health Magazine. They often come out when it rains and they’re used as fish bait. But Candace Tucker isn’t going anywhere near them. “I used to fish with my dad and sisters a lot, so naturally worms were involved,” says Tucker, a resolution specialist in Parma, Ohio. “The more I looked at them I started noticing how nasty they are. It’s the smell of them, how they wiggle and the nastiest part: They can grow another head if one is cut off.” This fear of worms, called vermiphobia or scoleciphobia, has inflicted Tucker since...

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Is Shame Holding You Back? You are worthy.

April 20, 2017
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Articles

Let’s go alternate reality. Yes, AR. What’s your biggest wish for this year? Five years from now? Or for your lifetime? Tap into the full experience of that image. Be the hero in your own game. One where you make the rules. You tell the story. You determine the outcome. What’s there? Who’s there? Smell the scents, see the colors, connect to the people, hear the sounds, engage with your surroundings. Notice the energy that fills you up. Close your eyes. Lock it in. Wait. Did I hear the voice of self doubt? Disbelief? Uncertainty? It’s okay. It’s what we do. Notice it and dismiss it. Shift your focus to what you want. The nasty little self critic gremlin works hard at sabotaging your dreams. It’s...

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Scarcity to Abundance – Healing from loss

April 12, 2017
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Articles

“How do you want to die?” These are the haunting words spoken by her doctor after being diagnosed with stage four cancer. Three months after her passing, I’ve turned toward and through my grief and loss seeking peace. Grief takes time. It can feel overwhelming and eternal. But it eventually changes. The cloud lifts. Clarity and lightness return. Our love for those who have passed before us never dies and perhaps that’s what keeps us moving forward. They’re never really gone. They live on in memories, moments, and a felt sense of connection to them. While sitting on the edge of loss and wholeness, I’m struck by the flood of ideas about cultivating a robust authentic life. It’s an integration of real science from multiple areas of...

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Turn Toward the Enemy – Mastering negative emotions

December 21, 2015
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Articles

You feel stuck. Trapped. Immobilized. When in the therapy and coaching room, conversations about fear, regret, disappointment, and frustration arise and take center stage.  It’s easy to fall prey, be guided and controlled by negative emotions, even feel consumed by them. It's an uncomfortable place. It's dark, heavy, constricting. It can hold you hostage. And it can intensify before it dissipates. Recognize negative emotions not as your enemy but as your informant. Acknowledge them. Accept them. Be open to them. Question them. Break them down. Look those unsavories in the eye. Release their grip. Identify the building blocks of negativity. Uncover the hidden messages. Initiate a plan designed for empowerment. When you turn toward your anger, fear, and sadness you validate the experience of the pain. You soothe and comfort, rather than avoid...

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Fear Sucks. Doubt Debilitates. Stress Kills.

October 7, 2015
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Articles

Fear sucks, doubt debilitates and stress kills. Loneliness isolates and worry permeates. Anger enrages and sorrow depletes. Yearning drives and hope transcends. Joy eases - all or most of the pain, at least for a moment. Darkness and light. Greatness and shame. Brilliance and defeat. Ecstasy and despair. Two sides of the same coin, right? They're separated only by a the velocity of a spin or gravitational pull from our Mother Earth. Unavoidable. Unmanageable. Unimaginable. Or not? These are the feelings you will inevitably experience as a living, loving, breathing, growing, evolving human being. They're scary. They're jarring. They're life changing. They're normal. At times, they force you to look them in the eye and realize the limits of your comfort zone. They reveal the distinction between being passenger...

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