01May

Better Together: The Strength of Community—The Practical Side

I have an old therapy intervention I have used for years which I simply call, “the two buckets.”  When clients are feeling anxious about different things in their lives, I encourage them to imagine two buckets. One is labeled, “control” and the other is labeled “not control.” For more hands-on learners, I take a sheet […]

01Apr

Creating Boundaries to Make Peace—The Personal Side

In the first half of this blog, we talked about boundaries and how our experiences and personalities (including genetics) affect the way we see and set boundaries. We also talked about visualizing the boundaries you want in your life. For example, maybe you want to set the boundary with your boss that you will stay […]

01Mar

Creating Boundaries to Make Peace—The Practical Side

The book, Set Boundaries, Find Peace: a guide to reclaiming yourself, by Nedra Glover Tawwab, has been gaining popularity for several years now. In it, the author talks about how to set boundaries to find peace and gives concrete examples of ways to do so in various life settings—work, family and friendships to name a […]

01Feb

Friendship—The Personal Side

Someone challenged me years ago to think about each friendship I have and what role that friendship plays in my life. For example, I may be friends with my neighbor, another counselor in the community and my child’s best friend’s mom. I am friends with each of these people and they each have a different […]

01Jan

Friendship—The Practical Side

When I counsel clients about friendship, I ask them to imagine a swimming pool filled with large steps–maybe 4-5 levels total—descending into the water. I tell them that some friends we hang out with on the first step in the pool and others we swim with in the deepest part.

01Dec

Treat Yourself – The Personal Side

Not everything about getting older is bad. In fact, some things get better with age, especially if we work on them. I am going to be incredibly transparent and say that in the past I was not good at treating myself or self-care, as described in the first part of this blog.

01Nov

Treat Yourself – The Practical Side

In Season 4, episode 4 of Parks and Recreation, Donna (Retta) and Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari) created the tradition of “Treat Yo Self” day. In this episode, they can be seen buying themselves whatever they want for a day. After the airing of that episode in 2011 the phrase “treat yo self” gained popularity. In […]

01Oct

Rhythms that Renew—The Personal Side

I would love to tell you that as a mental health therapist I have always practiced great self-care and never felt overly stressed or burned out. However, that is not the case. I have experienced seasons of stress and burnout and have had to walk through them and find support just like I am encouraging […]

01Sep

Rhythms that Renew—The Practical Side

Stress, busyness and commitments of all sorts (those involving work or play) have become badges of honor in our society. Rarely are people praised for carving out time for rest or putting boundaries around what they will and will not commit to.

01Aug

Burnout and Why It Should Not be Normal—The Personal Side

As a therapist, what is more concerning to me than burnout itself is that it has been normalized. Along with realizing that a lot of the people I talk with think that burnout is “normal,” neurodivergent clients experience burnout at a more intense and frequent rate than others. My 20-something neurodivergent friend recently told me […]