Category: awareness

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Bringing the Unconscious to the Surface

Tamika, 26, was raised in a home with parents who were deeply religious. She was adopted and she was aware that she was adopted from an early age.

A part of her always wondered about her birth parents, but she subconsciously felt trying to learn more about them would be a betrayal to her parents. Regularly, people said things like: “you’re so lucky you got adopted” which reinforced the belief that she should feel nothing but gratitude. She never felt fully emotionally connected to her parents, but she did know that they loved her. 

When she meets Aaron, she’s smitten. They move quickly. She knows her parents will approve because he shares similar religious beliefs. But as they get closer she can’t help but feel a lack of trust. She regularly goes through his phone. She questions him consistently about where he’s been. She pushes him to propose to prove his loyalty.

The voice in her head and the alarm in her body speaks loudly: he will betray you. 

Aaron doesn’t know how to cope with her insecurity. In his mind, he’s done nothing but be faithful. He’s feeling exhausted and worn down by allegations. He starts to pull away, which only activates Tamika’s abandonment wound. 

She doesn’t have the words to communicate the impact of her adoption trauma — and even if she did she fears she’d hear what she’s heard since she was a child; “you should be grateful.”

She also can’t explain why she’s never felt safe in relationships and that her controlling behavior stems from an unconscious fear that people who love her will eventually leave her.

This is where a third party with a trained ear can be of service; to listen, to interrupt at key points during the conversation and ask questions, and gently guide the client towards seeing if the unconscious is influencing the conscious. There is absolutely no shame or embarrassment about looking at oneself and wanting to live more consciously, changing the course of one’s life for the better.

#therapy #counseling #counselor #psychology #endthestigma 

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Making time for your well-being

Although its getting better, there is still an enormous amount of stigma and shame wrapped around the subject of mental health and seeking out help. Often times its viewed as embarrassing and/or shameful when the reality is that its no different from talking to your physical doctor about a pain in your knee or taking your car in when the check engine light comes on. Zero difference. Anyone can benefit from talking with someone when the need to unpack comes up.

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Mental Health Awareness Month

The month of May has been Mental Health Awareness Month in the US, so lets review some facts about Mental Health.

One in five adults in the US will experience a mental health challenge at some point during their lives. One in five. And over forty percent of people suffering from a mental health event will take over a year to seek out help.

Stigmas around mental health and its treatment can include shame, embarrassment, ego and pride, discrimination and even culture. Many “isms” go hand-in-hand with mental health: substance abuse, food, and sex are common ways that people can avoid themselves. People can overwork, over acquire possessions and people in their lives to numb themselves so that they won’t have to feel what they do when there’s no action around. Simple logic dictates that we see a doctor when we’re physically ill. Working to treat our emotional health is no different.

What is Mental Health?

Mental Health is a state of emotional well-being in which an individual:

Realizes their own capabilities

Can successfully mange the normal stresses of life

Can work productively

Can contribute to their Community

What is a Mental Health Challenge?

There is a major change in someone’s thinking, feeling or behavior that interferes with the person’s ability to live their life.

The interference lasts longer than typical emotions or reactions would be expected to.

How to observe Mental Health Awareness:

1. Take care of yourself. Sometimes life’s ups and downs can seem to be heavy and burdensome.

2. Check up on your friends and family. Often, all people need is a non-judgmental listening ear. Support and encourage your friends and family if they are being treated for any mental problems.

3. The more mental health is discussed, the more accepted it will become. Learn about what behaviors and language to watch for in your friends, family and also in yourself.

Some resources:

Crisis Text Line

Text MHFA to 741741

Mental Health First Aid USA

https://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/mental-health…/

Finding a Behavioral Health Professional

www.psychologytoday.com/us

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Facing our Fears

The feeling of disconnection and numbness that afflicts so many people’s lives comes from  habitually absenting ourselves from our difficult experiences.  

Like a mountain climber that is stuck on their rope and would rather die there that way, we’re terrified of sinking down into those places within us that we refuse to inhabit.  The grief for what we’ve lost or never had, the longing for a worthiness that we don’t feel, the unknown of it all threatens to swallow us whole.  So instead, we insulate in the form of alcohol, drugs, sex or material objects; or we find a way to exist in an anxious suspension above our fears and loneliness.

We can undermine our own efforts to move forward, remaining in fear of becoming self; because to walk the maze towards our next selves means we need to face all that we’ve neglected or abandoned, and relinquish that which no longer serves us.

Sacrifice is a show of trust in the unknown.  Like quitting a job only to have a new opportunity appear that very afternoon, or ending a toxic relationship only to meet your true love two days later, there is magic in sacrifice.  Life is calling you, and the severance of the tethers that bind you to outgrown thoughts/ideas/reactions is you answering that call.

#growth #personalgrowth #psychology #cognitivebehavioraltherapy 

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Writing your own Story

When you reach a certain age and look back over your life, it seems to have had an order; it seems to have been composed by someone.

And those events, when they occurred, seemed merely accidental and occasional and just something that happened, turn out to be the main elements in a consistent plot.

So, who composed this plot?

Just as your dreams are composed by an aspect of yourself of which your consciousness is unaware, so your whole life has been composed by the will within you.

Just as those people you met became effective agents of the structuring of your life, so you have been an agent in the structuring of other’s lives. And the whole thing gears together like one big symphony; everything structuring and influencing everything else.

Its as though our lives were the dream of a single dreamer in which all the dream characters are dreaming too, and so everything links to everything else, moved out of the will of nature.

~ Arthur Schopenhauer

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Just sit with it

Sit with it

Instead of drinking it away, smoking it away, sleeping it away, eating it away, sexing it away or running from it in whatever manner,

Just sit with it.

Healing begins with feeling.

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A New Year

You wanna make a resolution?
Then start a revolution. Within yourself.

Instead of the morning bathroom mirror pep talks and mantras, tell the person in your mirror that you love them and that you’re proud of them.

Take a walk in the woods. Notice the trees; all the different kinds of trees. Big ones, small ones, tall straight ones, smaller crooked ones. Oaks, maples, and who knows what other kinds. Notice all these trees and then notice how you just accept these different kinds of trees for what they are. You don’t get all hung up about the crooked ones or the pines if the maple trees are your favorite. You just accept them as they are and walk on.

Now try that with the people around you and see what you notice. Can you really accept them for who they are or do you get hung up on something?

Go back to the mirror for a minute.
Instead of lashing yourself and telling yourself you can do better, just admit how hard you’re being on yourself. We’re all human, and we’re all gonna make mistakes and we’re all gonna be way too hard on ourselves. Nobody here is an enlightened master. But here’s a spoiler; even enlightened masters screw up. Give yourself a break. For once. Can you really do it?

It’s just three things but it’s so much, isn’t it?

A long time ago, Khalili Gibran wrote “And God said to love your enemy. And I obeyed Him and loved myself”.

Let’s make 2022 so much better than 2021. I have faith in us.

newyear #2022 #breakthepattern #psychology #innerwork #resolution #cycles

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Gratitude

When we practice being thankful, we go through the process of counting our blessings, acknowledging the wonderful people, things and places that make up our reality. While it is fine to be grateful for the good fortune we have accumulated, true thankfulness stems from a powerful comprehension of the gift of simply being alive. When we feel it, we feel it regardless of our circumstances. In this deep state of gratitude, we recognize the purity of the experience of being, in and of itself, and our thankfulness is part and parcel of our awareness that we are one with this great mystery that is life.  

It is difficult for most of us to access this level of consciousness as we are very caught up in the ups and downs of our individual experiences in the world. The thing to remember about the world, though, is that it ebbs and flows, expands and contracts, gives and takes, and is by its very nature somewhat unreliable. If we only feel gratitude when it serves our desires, this is not true thankfulness. No one is exempt from the twists and turns of fate, which may, at any time, take the possessions, situations, and people we love away from us. Ironically, it is sometimes this kind of loss that awakens us to a thankfulness that goes deeper than just being grateful when things go our way. Illness and near-miss accidents can also serve as wake-up calls to the deeper realization that we are truly lucky to be alive.  

We do not have to wait to be shaken to experience this state of being truly thankful for our lives. Tuning in to our breath and making an effort to be fully present for a set period of time each day can do wonders for our ability to connect with true gratitude. We can also awaken ourselves with the intention to be more aware of the unconditional generosity of the life force that flows through us regardless of our circumstances.
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#thanksgiving #blessings #breath #gratitude #beherenow

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Awareness

There is freedom that comes with awareness, because with it comes the opportunity to make a choice.

Each day, we are provided with a myriad of opportunities that can allow us to transform into our next best selves. One moment we are presented with an opportunity to react differently when yet another someone in our life rubs us the wrong way; on another day we may find ourselves wanting to walk away from a particular circumstance but are not sure if we can. Eventually, we may find ourselves stuck in a rut that we can never seem to get out of. We may even make the same choices over and over again because we don’t know how to choose otherwise. Rather than moving us forward, our personal paths may take us in a seemingly never-ending circle where our actions and choices lead us nowhere but to where we’ve already been. It is during these moments that awareness can be the first step to change.  

Awareness is when we are able to realize what we are doing. We observe ourselves, noticing our reactions, actions, and choices as if we were a detached viewer. Awareness is the first step to change because we can’t make a change unless we are aware that one needs to be made in the first place. We can then begin understanding why we are doing what we are doing. Afterward, it becomes difficult not to change because we are no longer asleep to the truth behind our behaviors. We also begin to realize that, just as much as we are the root source behind the causes for our behaviors, we are also the originator for any changes that we want to happen.  

There is a freedom that comes with awareness. Rather than thinking that we are stuck in a repetitive cycle where there is no escape, we begin to see that we very much play a hand in creating our lives. Our behaviors and choices are always ours to make. Our past and our present no longer have to dictate our future when we choose to be aware. We are then free to move beyond our old limits, make new choices, and take new actions. With awareness, our paths can’t help but wind us forward in our lives while paving the way for new experiences and new ways of being. It is through awareness that we can continue to consciously evolve.