Learning what Vulnerability is

It’s not easy going to a therapist.Sometimes us therapists need to really feel what that is like. Being vulnerable and doing some strange in an unfamiliar environment. That’s a tall order and therapists really need to “get it”. Last week I finished off the fall teaching with my students at the University of Manitoba. The …

Growing

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama What a difference a week makes! This amaryllis is starting to strut her stuff…The bud of the flower is moving steadily northward daily. …

A thought

“Loving can cost a lot but not loving always costs more, and those who fear to love often find that want of love is an emptiness that robs the joy from life.” Merle Shan

Pouring Ourselves into Relationships at Christmas

In the Christian church, the four weeks preceding Christmas is a time called “Advent”–the church says it is a time of preparing heart for Christ’s arrival at Christmas. For most, it is a frenetic time of shopping, parties, decorating and brainstorming about what to get the person “that has everything”. The Meeting Place is a …

Growing

All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work ~Calvin Coolidge This baby is growing, and growing fast–this plant is one working-hard-plant! I think the little shoot on the left is the stalk waiting to happen…it’s thick and fat and full of promise. We’re watching it …

A family with 2010 kids and counting

Went to a fabulous concert this evening…performed by the children of the Mulli Children’s Family from Kenya. Un-buh-leev-able! Strong and tight harmonies, very well spoken and confident kids…they had SO much life in their eyes. Mulli Children’s Family is a place where over 2000 children live, learn and are loved. Charles Mulli, a man himself …

Growing

Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you’ll take, you’ll grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self confident and more and more successful. Mark Victor Hansen …

Roses and Thorns–Do You Know How You are Perceived?

You wouldn’t think I would be one to add fuel to the fire that mocks therapists, and adds leveraget to those who think cynically about counselling/psychotherapy. But, I’m let you all in on some potentially incriminating information, for a reason… As Dr. Norcross was trying to help us think realistically about ourselves as therapists at …

Refocusing on the Rewards

It’s too easy to forget the positives when the stress and challenge of the day are so present. When discouraged and frustrated, it’s time to shift the focus and see the rewards in balance. Blog readers will suffer the effects of “workshop-itis” that I have. You know what I mean…someone goes to a workshop, and …

A Thought

“To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.” Confuscius