I love a cappella music…voices blending together in beautiful harmony just melts me. There’s something about voices giving beauty to each other. When a voice finds its pitch in relationship to others, well…that seems exquisite to me. Voices supporting each other, adding to the others by their own unique contribution. In a cappella music, each …
The Five Regrets of the Dying/The Five Opportunities for the Living
Chatting about this with Dahlia on CJOB today…we have choices that we will have to live with for the rest of our lives. Why not invest some time in finding out how those who are dying wished they chose differently? From our series: Opportunity #1: Authenticity …to challenge the possibility of the first regret: I …
Accident on the Coquihalla
**Trigger warning…some graphic accident info described. Stop reading if you could be triggered, please. After 4 days of travel, we were on the Coquihalla, almost to our destination on the West Coast…and then we came upon the scene. The tour bus had done a complete roll, landing on the side of the highway…missing all the …
Post-summer parenting shame
It’s that time of year again, where parents pull out school supply lists and dust off indoor shoes to see if they still fit for the upcoming year. Lazy summer routines make way for structure, and boxes of KD head back to the pantry in favor of bagged lunches and portable snacks. For some people, …
The Mask of Humor
Robin Williams died last week. A man who made us all laugh. I think this was where I first met Mr. Williams: A man whose movies challenged us to not only laugh but to see how laughter fits in with challenge, and war, with growing up, and loving your kids so much it hurts. Robin …
The privilege of grumbling
When I was a little girl, I couldn’t decide between being a teacher or a nurse or a ballerina when I grew up. But I knew that no matter what, I wanted to be a mother. Being a ballerina was out pretty quickly, as I never actually took ballet. (Apparently having beautiful ballerina pillow cases …
Hump Day Nudge: Great Dads
“My name’s dad…and proud of it…all dads should be.” {! social/video/youtube?url=http%3A//youtu.be/6GYxH2-WeZY !} I love peanut butter. But I’m not at all sure about mixing peanut butter and Cheerios. I am completely sure that this is the sort of dad that is inspiring… I think it’s something about the encouragement, empowerment, boundaries, playfulness, affirmation towards his …
Meet our new intern…Heather Pringle
Introducing Heather Pringle! We, at Bergen and Associates Counselling are thrilled to let y’all know that Heather Pringle is joining our team, beginning to see clients at the beginning of September. It has been tradition, ever since our first loved intern, Rod Minaker, phoned me up and told me how much sense it made for …
6 Facts about Mental Health and Money
How does mental health and money intersect? Well, so glad you asked! As I’ve been doing some reading and listening lately, the topic of a person’s relationship to money and how that impacts the relationship to themselves and others has come up lately. What I’ve discovered is this: 1. A minimum amount of money is …
Complaining
Complaining costs a soul…and being mindful of complaining can change your life. The world conspired to have me think on complaining this last week. Dahlia Kurtz suggested a week ago that we talk about “complaining” for our weekly radio chat this week. She suggested an article to springboard off: I went 21 days Without Complaining …