Years ago, the proverbial s*%t hit the fan in our house, and we were all left reeling from what life had thrown at us. I was frantically trying to pick up the pieces, and all the while trying to look like a supportive “put together” mom to my kids. I was driving them to music …
A Swing Bridge: Like Counselling
Reprinted from our archives…feeling a little nostalgia with our lease renewal and remembering how we made the current space our own… Sometimes changing it up a little creates new conversation. That can be a good thing. That happened in our office this week.I’ve had a picture of the Sequoias in my office for about 11 …
FAQ’s: Selfies…what they tell us about us
Ummm…I hear this word “selfie” does everyone but me know what it means? Selfies are a relatively recent development, so let me let Oxford tell you: So…why would anybody take a selfie? Why take pics of yourself to post on social media? What’s the point? Ahhh…so you’re likely not a “Millennial” if you’re asking that …
Hump Day Nudge: Falling Floyd
A few weeks ago, I was leading The Daring Way ™ workshop over the weekend. One of the participants recommended the video Falling Floyd…an animated movie that essentially depicts what it is like to long for connection…feel rejected, and then what it is like to carry the shame gremlins that create pain and destruction. It’s …
Secret sharing
As a therapist, I am likely in a relatively unique position to be an authority on this having witnessed this more times than I can count: The weight of a secret can be staggering. being abused as a child having an alcoholic in the family repeating a grade as a child having an affair …
100 days of no dessert Part 1
There are all sorts of reasons I find enormous value and joy in being a therapist. One of those reasons is the personal enrichment I gain from watching courageous people take risks in talking about areas of their life most people don’t even let themselves think about. I get a front row seat to courageous …
You are not your job
I am a therapist. Yep. I am also a mother, a daughter, a sister, a niece, a friend, a cook, a writer, an eater, a teacher, a mentor, an auntie, a cook, a reader, a napper, a runner, a speaker, a walker, a parishioner, a sleeper, a Downton Abbey and Grey’s Anatomy watcher, a lover …
Worrying
The February 17th edition of Maclean’s magazine’s cover story was all about “The new worry epidemic”. In the article, worry is used interchangeably with anxiety, both of which are different than fear. Fear is the “flight/fright/freeze” response that occurs when one is exposed to a threat of some kind…a danger. Fear is in the now. …
The Movement: True beauty is real
I love this video that has popped up in a few places: It’s like these women are almost surprised at how disappointed they are at how they don’t/want/can’t own the beauty of the faces in these photos..the retouched, bleached, refined, blemish-removed, pore-airbrushed faces…just not seeing that perfected “beauty” in the image, and owning it as …
Internal representations of others
I blogged recently about the way adolescents, mostly girls, have incredible, seemingly blind support for Justin Bieber, which seems exuberant to a level that hardly fits the situation: He lives 1000’s of miles away, they have never spoken to him, but they believe they have known him because of how much time they have spent …