http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?&id=50896&cn=42
All the best in your decision making!
Heather Severn, LMFT & Coach
Heather Severn Callister, LMFT & Coach |
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A colleague, Jeffrey Brandler, spotted this thought provoking article. I had to repost this...
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?&id=50896&cn=42 All the best in your decision making! Heather Severn, LMFT & Coach
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Q. "When I enter into any relationship, I almost always seem to scare men away. Just when I think I am with the right guy, I go out of my way to do everything in my capacity to care for him, to love him and show him how much he means to me. I tend to fall in love too quickly and find it almost impossible to control myself. Why does my love scare men away, after all isn't that what they are looking for in a relationship? and what should I do to overcome this problem?" -Anonymous I was interviewed by decodinghim.com in response to the question above. Check it out the free audio of the interview below! Thanks for listening and feel free to share this! Heather Severn, LMFT & Coach P.S. The recommended books that I mention in this audio are in the "Books & Products" section of my website. My colleague, Alisa Snell, is Utah's Dating Coach. She shares her personal story how she went from a toxic relationship to finding a healthy one. Check out her audio!
http://itsyourtechnique.com/2013/07/09/are-you-vulnerable-to-toxic-people-and-relationships/ Feel free to share it with others! Thanks! Heather Severn, LMFT & Coach We’ve all had stressful days at work. Our minds can race about all the things that need to get done. Sometimes we can be frustrated with things that aren’t going well in our personal lives and it’s difficult to concentrate while at work. Just like our computers, sometimes we need to reboot ourselves. The more we can quiet the brain, the more we can reset and refocus to help us accomplish more. The following are some mindfulness techniques to help quiet the mind and refocus: · Pen Exercise: Take a pen and pretend you’re describing the detail of the pen to someone who has never seen a pen before. Pay attention to what happens when you focus on describing the pen. While describing the pen, how often were you thinking about what needs to happen tomorrow? How often were you thinking about what happened last week? The more you focus and concentrate where you’re at in the moment, the more you’ll be present focused rather than thinking about the past and the future. Being present will help you to prioritize what needs to happen now versus later. You can apply the same principle by describing other things. For instance, pretend you are a novelist and you’re describing what you see in a room to the reader. By the way, this helps to reduce people’s anxiety as well. · Foot On Tennis Ball: I learned this little trick from my colleague, Camille DeLong, LMFT. This is a grounding technique to alleviate pressure in the feet as well as relax the body. Take your shoe off and place your foot on top of the tennis ball or other round object. Press your foot in the spots where there’s tension. The bottoms of your feet have acupuncture points connected to the rest of your body. When those points are massaged, it helps to relax the rest of your body. It’s like having your own mini-foot massage. I’ve had clients do this while they’ve talked about stressful situations and it started to calm them down. Another added benefit to doing this is that it helps with plantar fasciitis. · Calm place: Close your eyes and imagine being in a place where you feel calm. This can be up in the mountains, at a beach, your front porch, or bathtub, etc. Really put yourself there in your mind. Focus on the sounds you would hear, the smells you would smell, the temperature, and the textures you would feel. Once you get that visual in your head, take deep breaths. Inhale for 5 seconds, hold it for 5 seconds, and then exhale for 5 seconds. If counting your breath is too distracting, just focus on deep breathing. Steadying your breath will relax the mind and the body. Once you’ve visualized being in your calm place and steadied your breath, visualize how you want the rest of the day to go. Each exercise only takes 2 minutes. Some spend longer than 2 minutes to get a longer lasting result. In any case, experiment with it and enjoy! Thanks for reading and feel free to share this with others! Heather Severn, LMFT & Coach *Here's the KUTV Channel 2 News Clip demonstration of it with Mary Nickles & Heather Severn: http://www.kutv.com/news/features/guests/stories/vid_1596.shtml EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) has been around for years but Dr. Oz recently posted about EFT on his website in March 2013. Check out this video clip! I use this technique in my practice and clients have been amazed with their results! Results do vary with each individual case. Call me to see if EFT is appropriate for your situation. Have an awesome day! Heather Severn, LMFT & Coach 275 E. South Temple, Suite 101 Salt Lake City, UT 84111 Phone (801) 505-1332 www.skylightcounseling.com Do you or your friends say the following? “It’s hard for me to trust people because I’ve been burned before.” “If I push you away first, it won’t hurt as bad.” “When I get close to someone, I tend to sabotage things and find nit-picky things wrong with the other person.” “I should be able to handle this, I don’t know why I can’t make my spouse happy.” “If this is how I feel then that’s reality.” Or “I don’t have a problem, I can stop anytime.” All of these statements are common. Don’t feel bad if you’ve thought them. All of these are a part of the four “A’s” that can keep us from having happy healthy relationships with ourselves and with others. The four “A’s” include anxiety, abuse, abandonment issues, and addiction. ANXIETY (OCD, Depression-a cousin to Anxiety) What is Anxiety? Anxiety is a general term for several disorders that cause nervousness, fear, apprehension, and worrying. These disorders affect how we feel and behave, and they can manifest real physical symptoms. Mild anxiety is vague and unsettling, while severe anxiety can be extremely debilitating, having a serious impact on daily life such as panic attacks. • Generalized—at least for 6 months—excessive worry, difficulty controlling worry, restlessness, easily fatigued, difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, sleep disturbance. • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder—repetitive behaviors such as excessive hand washing, ordering, checking, repeating words silently. The behaviors or mental acts are aimed at reducing or preventing distress. • Panic Attack—intense fear or discomfort that develops abruptly and reaches its peak within 10 minutes—heart pounding, sweating, trembling, shortness of breath, chest pain, nausea, dizziness, fear of losing control, fear of dying, tingling in limbs, chills or hot flashes, sweating. • Depression (Anxiety and Depression are cousins)—blue feeling, low self-esteem, feelings of worthlessness, feelings of guilt, hopelessness, suicidal thoughts, crying spells, indecisiveness. • Relationship Anxiety—symptoms only show up when you’re in a dating relationship. When you break up, you no longer feel them. Stress within a marriage or cohabitating couple can cause anxiety and one’s anxiety can also cause stress within the relationship if the person projects their anxiety onto their partner. ABUSE (or traumatic experiences) Different types of abuse can include the following: physical, sexual, mental, or emotional. Children who witness emotional, mental, or physical abuse between parents can cause secondary trauma for children. This can affect children when they later become adults in how they feel, act, and behave in their adult relationships. They may even have difficulty committing to a relationship as an adult out of fear of what they witnessed as a child and not want to have the same type of relationship their parents had. Abuse can affect trust, self-worth, and boundaries. If people were sexually abused while growing up they may shut themselves off emotionally when they try to have sex with their partner. 8 out of 10 domestic violence offenders witnessed abuse while growing up. They all claimed they didn’t want to be like their mom or dad but when they were given a limited toolbox, they tended to grab the one tool they had, which was a hammer. Obtaining new healthy tools are essential to deal with emotions and communicate more effectively. Not everyone is affected the same by abuse. We can all be in the same room as someone who has a cold but not everyone will get a cold. ABANDONMENT ISSUES Dr. Susan Johnson in her book, “Hold Me Tight,” talks about feelings of abandonment that are referred to as attachment injuries. An attachment injury is when you needed the person you were close to during a significant moment and they weren’t there for you either mentally or physically. A simple example is when a woman is in labor and her partner decides to go golfing instead of being there for the birth of their child. This can shift how the couple interacts from that moment on. The woman in labor feels completely ditched by her partner and loses trust that her partner will be there for her in the future. These attachment injuries can begin in childhood. If parents are having a rough time, kids can feel neglected. The parent may be physically there but not mentally or emotionally there for the kids. Kids may also feel neglected when a parent remarries if the parent is not as emotionally available to them like they were before. Please note: This is NOT meant to cause guilt towards parents who remarry or have a tough time in their current relationship. There is hope to remedy the situation and we’ll get to that in a moment. Tough break ups and divorces can lead to feeling abandoned by their partner. This can shake trust in people. As a result, in their next relationship they might withdraw or push people away first to avoid getting too close to someone to stop from getting hurt. It gives the person a sense of having more control. ADDICTIONS An addiction is the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming and that causes major distress if the person is unable to continue with it. Some addictions include: porn, sex, drugs, alcohol, gambling, lying, shopping, food, etc. People who are heavy into their addictions tend to lose the capacity to love. The addiction becomes their love. Their perception of reality is skewed. They tend to withhold information, tell half-truths, minimize, or flat out lie. This kills trust in a relationship. Addictions are commonly used as a coping tool to escape responsibility, relieve stress, relieve boredom, or avoid getting too close to someone. REMEDIES ON WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT Reduce Anxiety: Learn to manage stress in your life. Keep an eye on pressures and deadlines, and commit to taking time away from study or work. Learn a variety of relaxation techniques. Information about physical relaxation methods and meditation techniques can be found in bookstores, libraries, and health food shops. Some local libraries and community pages will offer guided imagery relaxation and meditation classes for free or at a reduced cost. Mindfulness techniques are excellent at focusing on the present moment and clearing the mind. Get your body moving! Have you ever heard of the runner’s high? Exercise increases endorphins in your body, which improves the mood and helps to reduce stress. Exercise also increases serotonin levels in the body, which regulates learning, mood, and sleep. A lot of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications regulate serotonin levels in the body. Keeping a journal is very therapeutic. You can vent your feelings onto the paper and the paper will not get its feelings hurt or even judge what you have to say. When you write down your feelings, the paper can be responsible for the information so you don’t have to recirculate the information again and again in your head. When Abraham Lincoln was upset with someone, he actually wrote the person a letter to vent his feelings but never gave the letter to the person he was upset with. It was a way to clear his head and figure out what do with that situation next. Writing a to do list and keeping things in a calendar also allows you to see what needs to be done instead of trying to remember everything in your head. How’s your support system? Having people to talk to can really make a difference in processing feelings, helping you feel more connected, and seeing what’s rational versus irrational. My old college professor said, “If one person tells you something about yourself, take it as a grain of salt. If two people tell you the same thing, pay attention. If three different people tell you the same thing, it’s gospel!” Visit a licensed therapist. It’s really okay to treat yourself to feeling better! Therapists can help identify things faster than you might be able to on your own. Remedies for Addiction: Key elements to overcoming addiction have to do with changing your playground, your friends, and your toys. If alcohol is the addiction, avoid the playground of the bar. It’s a major temptation. You will also put yourself on shaky ground if you think you can hang out with your drinking friends at the bar and tell yourself, “I’ll just order a Diet Coke.” Getting rid of the alcohol in the house is getting rid of the “toys”. I understand this is easier said than done but it has certainly worked for many people. When it comes to a pornography addiction, many of my clients are technical savvy and are successful at getting around filters. One filter that’s different than traditional filters is called www.covenanteyes.com. This makes it so that a designated person will get an email history report of every website that was ever visited. It helps the addicted person to think twice about visiting pornographic websites when they know someone else will get the web history report. For additional remedies on pornography addiction, visit http://www.fightthenewdrug.org/. Support systems and 12 step programs are useful tools in managing addiction. If the addicted person has at least a few people to check in with them as a support, other than their partner, this helps the addicted person be more accountable for their behavior. Individual therapy is useful to figure out why that specific person has that addiction. Not everyone is addicted for the same reason. It’s a matter of getting to the core issue why that particular person started the addiction because of a mean boss, a cruel parent, sex abuse, not feeling “good enough”, etc. Identify the pay off for having the addiction—this applies to any addiction. For every negative habit or addiction, there is always a positive pay-off in doing it, even if it’s short–lived. Even though you may not like that you have the addiction or habit, you are getting something out of it. What is the addiction a substitute for? Love? Acceptance? Comfort? Once the positive intention behind the addiction is identified, the person can come up with other alternatives to achieve a similar pay off in a healthier way. Additional Remedies for Abuse, Anxiety, Abandonment, & Addiction issues: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy involves challenging distorted thinking. Thoughts affect feelings. If we shift our thoughts, it shifts our feelings. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) and EFT Tapping (Emotional Freedom Techniques) are great tools to reduce anxiety, trauma, depression, past abuse anxiety, and addictions. Both techniques help release blocked energy that gets trapped inside the central nervous system from a disturbing event or stress. The body remembers everything it’s ever gone through at a cellular level. This is why when people have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), they will have distressing dreams that will physically affect them. The EMDRIA organization explains, "When a disturbing event occurs, it can get locked in the brain with the original picture, sounds, thoughts, feelings and body sensations.” If you feel stuck from a certain event in your life, EMDR helps to clear that disturbance so your heart can catch up to where your mind is. It’s similar to unclogging a drain in the sink. Once the drain is unclogged, everything can flow through. “EMDR seems to stimulate the information and allows the brain to reprocess the experience. That may be what is happening in REM or dream sleep. The eye movements (tones, tactile) may help to process the unconscious material. It is your own brain that will be doing the healing and you are the one in control." -EMDRIA EFT Tapping (Emotional Freedom Techniques) involves tapping the meridians of the body to unblock energy flow. It’s similar to reconnecting wires in a wall where electricity can flow through. EMDR and EFT can facilitate healing in fewer sessions than traditional talk therapy alone. If a person previously has had a Traumatic Brain Injury or consistent severe migraines, he or she should consult their physician first. See www.skylightcounseling.com under the “Resources” tab for more information about EMDR and EFT Tapping. For a list of book recommendations to reduce anxiety/depression, improve self-esteem, and improve communication in relationships, visit the “Books and Products” section at www.skylightcounseling.com. Thanks for reading and feel free to share this blog! Heather Severn, LMFT The clip below has the TV condensed version of it on Channel 2 News. One homework assignment I give to couples in counseling is to try and go on a weekly date. Why? Courtship doesn’t end after you say “I do.” Whether you are married or cohabitating, a relationship needs consistent nourishment to keep things alive and well! Not sure what to do on a date? Some friends and I came up with this list… 1. No matter where you live or where you’re traveling to, Google “free things to do in ...” (whatever city you’re in). You’d be amazed at how many free things are available in your area. 2. Ice skating at the Olympic Ice Oval. It’s less than $7 a person and that includes skate rental. 3. Downtown Salt Lake City Concert Series. The concerts are free and you can either bring a picnic or get dessert afterwards. 4. Go to a bookstore and each pick 3 books that represent yourselves. They may not even be books you’ve read. Find a place to sit down and discuss why each of you chose those books to represent yourselves. Most bookstores have a café if you would like to have something drink or nibble on. 5. Geocaching is a creative way to go on a hike. All you need is a GPS. Visit www.geocaching.com to find a hike that has a treasure in your area. 6. Go to the driving range and hit a bucket of golf balls. It’s a great way to relieve stress and just have fun. You don’t have to be good at golf to do it. 7. Batting cages. 8. Take a trip to the library. 9. Dollar movie theater. 10. Try a new recipe together. 11. Take a cooking class together. 12. Attend a cultural festival or museum. 13. Go for a walk or bike ride to a place you haven't been before. 14. Go to a park and read a book together. 15. Make goodies for a neighbor or someone who needs cheering up. 16. Volunteer at a soup kitchen together to feed the homeless. 17. Visit a retirement home together. You can play games with the residents, perform a talent, or just plain old talk to people. They love company! 18. Play cards or other board games. 19. Fly kites. 20. Snow shoe during the winter and have hot chocolate later. 21. Go on a hike and take creative pictures of a certain theme or topic. 22. Hot tubbing. 23. Take a class together. Often times the Park and Recreation centers will offer classes in dance, guitar, pottery, etc. 24. Go on a double date and do a photo scavenger hunt. 25. If it’s your birthday month there are several restaurants that will give you free meals or discounts if you sign up to be on their email list. Check this out! In Salt Lake City, Benihana will give you a $30 gift certificate, Happy Sumo $15, Market Street Grill up to $25 off (2 for 1), and Texas Roadhouse a free appetizer. I’m sure there are more. Just visit the websites of your favorite restaurants. Happy Dating! Heather Severn, LMFT |
AuthorHeather Severn Callister is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist Archives
August 2020
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