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mindfulness Tag

Heather Edwards Mental Health Counseling / Posts tagged "mindfulness" (Page 2)

Mindfulness: attention with purpose

Sleepily, I tiptoed to the kitchen to make my morning tea. As I gripped the bright yellow lemon my attention noticed it’s firm, dimpled outer rind. I wondered for a moment about the hands that picked it and the tree from which it came. I acknowledged the sunshine, clouds, rain, and earth that provided the conditions to make it grow. I rinsed it and watched the drops of water cascade around its surface. I cut into its middle and witnessed the nectar escaping to the countertop and bursting toward the sky. It’s citrus aroma exploded, filling the room and my nostrils with its unmistakable tart bounty. With each breath the anticipation of its delightful flavor built as my mouth began to water. Is your mouth watering?...

Heather Edwards Psychotherapy in New York

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...

Happy Holidays: Quick Survival Tactics

    The Holidays are upon us! They can bring a host of joys and sorrows with them. Use these quick tips to skate through the Grinch’s and Gremlin’s efforts to sabotage your holiday spirit. When the dinner rolls are burning and the kids are screaming, reach out for help. Delegate. Your partner and sister could enjoy having a task assigned to them. They’ll have a sense of ownership and purpose, and you’ll have a sense of relief. When Aunt Sally teams up with Negative Nancy to criticize the gifts, dinner, or activities take a deep breath. Hit your pause button and reflect on what could be motivating her behavior - her aches and pains, poor sleep, “h-anger” (hungry-anger)...

heather edwards psychotherapy gratitude

Gratitude in Tragedy: Practicing hope

Have you noticed that it's difficult to focus on abundance? Gratitude seems like a chore, and being thankful with so much hardship in the world seems frivolous? Gently ask yourself this question - How does my suffering relieve the suffering of others? Pause, breathe, and take a break just for a moment from the pain of the world to notice what is abundant in your life. You deserve and need hope. You deserve and need moments of relief. You deserve and need to feel grateful so that you can continue to shine your light to make this world a better place for everyone - one person, one interaction, one gesture at a time. When you function from a place of love, honesty, and nonjudgement you open yourself to limitless possibilities. Fear, anger, and judgement shut down creative processes and keep you small. Let...

psychotherapy overanalyzer heather edwards

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...

heather edwards mindfulness

Racing in a New York Taxi: A lesson in mindfulness

Yesterday, I was taking a taxi cab across town to Penn Station with my dad. Our driver grunted and mumbled about gridlock the whole way. Clearly, he was frustrated and angry.   When we arrived at our destination, he barked, “No tip? Get out of the car!”. I showed him the $2 in my hand intended for him when he said, “Forget it! Get out! I have to go to work!”. I calmly and perplexedly replied, “You ARE at work. You’re already there.”. I got out of the car and wondered what I tend to rush through. You know that sense of urgency and pressure that compels you to hurry? It fuels impatience and frustration. It short circuits your effectiveness. It’s the focus on what’s next...

heather edwards, psychotherapist, mindfulness

Your Friends Have It All! 7 Steps to catch up.

Your friends are getting married and having babies. Some are moving to the burbs. Others are advancing in their careers making beaucoup bucks. Status, love, money, and recognition abound for everybody else. But what about you? You’re feeling lost. Your head swirls with uncertainty and doubt. You wonder if you’ll ever get what you want or feel satisfied with your life. You hear the clock ticking as the abyss between you and accomplishment widens. You wonder if you’ll ever catch up to those who seem to have it all. What happened? And where do you begin? Start with stopping. Just “drop in” to yourself and the moment. When your mind is racing and your heart is breaking, you’re probably spending too much time focusing on...

The Art of Non-Attachment – Learning to let go

I heard the crash of my beloved pottery as it shattered on the cement floor. It jolted me. It freed me. 17 years ago when I was starting out as a potter (one of my passions), I toiled endlessly to make each piece perfect. The walls needed to be straight. The mouth perfectly circular, and the form of the body exact - that's the beauty and the art of it. My instructor painfully witnessed my labor and determination for perfection everyday. I attended every open studio session and took multiple classes per week. I knew if I worked hard enough, I'd get it. One night that instructor suggested non-attachment to the work. I had no idea of what he meant. He might as well have been speaking a foreign language...

Scarcity to Abundance – Healing from loss

“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...

Heather Edwards Happiness

Psychology Today: 5 Steps to Happiness

Psychology Today - Mark Banschick, MD. Article By Guest Blogger, Heather Edwards Reclaiming Happiness By Mark Banschick M.D. on February 13, 2017  The Intelligent Divorce Guest blogger Heather Edwards has a five important tips that'll help you align with your heart's desires. The quest for health and happiness today seems like an uphill battle. Each day, the  issues gracing our headlines challenge the equilibrium of our hearts and soul. The politicsof the moment burdens our psyche. Many worry about jobs, paying for college or for rent; and the world continues to show its openness to violence, depressing our sense of peace, love, and hope for a better tomorrow. We’re further misaligned by our own personal demons. Whether it’s illness, relationships, or finances, each of us has a complexity of...