Category Archives: Growth

Joy & Personal Growth with Online LGBT Counseling

All Work and No Play? Why We Need to Take Advantage of Opportunities for Joy and Personal Growth

Online LGBT Counseling for Personal GrowthFor some of us, it can feel like we should spend every moment of our days being productive. A wasted moment is a missed opportunity to make more money, impress your boss, start a new project, or simply get more work done. To succeed in “adulting,” we might push free time to the back burner in favor of working longer hours instead. Without a doubt, many of us feel a lot of pressure to work hard and focus on productivity above all else.

Yet, if we neglect opportunities to prioritize our own personal growth or simply experience joy with no pressure to compete, we may begin to feel like our lives are incomplete or stagnant.

Why do we need time to simply be ourselves, engage in our hobbies, and let go of high expectations?

Continue reading on PortlandPsychotherapy.com.

All Work and No Play? Why We Need to Take Advantage of Opportunities for Joy and Personal Growth

Portland Public Therapy Resources

Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Resources

Mindfulness public resources from lgbt counselor.At Portland Psychotherapy, for years we’ve been maintaining a list of the best ACT resources for the public that we know about. We have links to video, self help courses, meditation recordings, apps, and much more. I recently went out and searched the web for additional Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) resources to update our list. Below are the newest additions. To see the complete list of resources, go to our ACT Exercise and Audio Files page. […]

Continue reading this article at Portland Psychotherapy.

Ch Ch Ch Changes

“Body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy shows how “power posing” — standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident — can affect testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain, and might even have an impact on our chances for success.”
Watch the Ted Talk here.

 

Can your posture or environment change you?

Try curling into yourself, bring your knees in, cross your arms, look down. Portland Oregon Cognitive TherapySit like this for a minute. How do you feel in this position? Now try stretching your arms up, standing tall, looking up. What body sensations do you notice?

Changing your posture can change how you feel, how you interact. She does a much better job at demonstrating this, watch her video to get the full scoop on it.

I what to take this somewhere else: your environment. That may be your home, your organization, your clothes in your closet or even the clothes you wear. Think about when you wear sweatpants and an oversized sweat shirt. I think cozy, comfortable, ease of movement. Now what about going on a date, what clothes do you pick out for that? And it probably depends on how you want to feel. Some women will wear sexy underwear or a camisole to feel sexy even if they are wearing not so sexy clothes.

Posture affects you. Clutter in your home affects you. What you wear affects you.

Check in with yourself when you are feeling a certain way, (Not as a fix it, I don’t believe in fixing your feelings, more as a possible shift move.) and try changing your posture or your clothes. Play with it and notice what happens.

Like I say to many of my clients, life is like a science experiment: have a hypothesis, try it out, determine the next step. Go into this not knowing, being curious, wondering what will happen. And then gather data.

If you think cognitive therapy could help you, contact me for Portland appointments.

Appreciation for use of the photo go to Serge Bertasius Photography At FreeDigitalPhotos.net

YES or maybe not

 

Head & Heart Life Coaching Tip

In the theory of work that I use for myself and my clients, there is a saying, Help with Life Coaching choices in Portland, Oregon.“If it isn’t a full body yes, then it is a no.” This is a very black or white way of looking at it and it hasn’t always sat well with me.

I had an aha with a client this week that shed a different light on that. We were exploring what she wanted and what appeared to be a divergence between her head and her heart. We then looked more closely at the different body centers (head, heart, gut). Each one wanted something, yet toward the end of the exploration we realized that the three centers really wanted the same thing. The what she wanted was the same, the how she would step toward her want was different.

If you are unsure what you are wanting at this time, perhaps feeling in limbo, take a moment to check in with each center. Take a breath, tune into your head, what does your head want? Once you land on something, check in and notice any body sensations around this want. Now, take a breath and tune into your heart, what does your heart want? Once the want percolates to your conscious, take a moment to bring your awareness to your body sensations. Simply noticing. Now repeat this with your gut.

Is there connection between the wants? Are they at odds or closer than you had thought?

Contact me for more information on life coaching in the Portland, Oregon area.

Photo compliments of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Frequency in Therapy/Coaching

I am an advocate of people empowering and listening to what they want. Here are some ideas to think about as you are thinking, “How often do I want to go in,” or “Can I cut back on my session frequency?”

What Are Your Life Coaching Goals?

What are your goals? How close are you to your goals? Have you accomplished them? What do you want to get out of your sessions? I see more frequent as powering your movement forward. So how fast do you want to move forward toward your goals?

And how intense are those goals? I am guessing if you are thinking of less frequent you are not in crisis, which is when many people want to decrease session frequency. My thoughts are that after a crisis is when you can really dig down and start working on what is really going on. You are not in crisis mode so have a different awareness; you are able to take a breath and notice.

How accountable are you to yourself? Are you able to practice the new tools or skills in that amount of time or do you wait until the night before or day of to do homework? Are you able to get the most out of the time in between?

Portland area life coaching sessions.What I have noticed is that once every week or two at the least is optimal to stay on track. Less is more of a “check in” vs digging down and making changes. And of course everyone is different, so this is not a blanket statement, just what I have observed and from talking with other people.

I would encourage you to talk to your therapist/coach about this. I don’t usually have people mention at the end of the session why they want less frequent sessions. This timing doesn’t actually allow for conversation in that session, it is a one way conversation, this is what I decided. I want you to actually have a conversation about it, bring it up earlier in the session, hear their thoughts vs just deciding because it is still a relationship and communication goes both ways.

To learn more about how a life coaching session can be a relationship for you, contact me today.

Photo compliments of Gratisography by Ryan McGuire.

Pruning

Don’t be Anxious About Pruning in Therapy

What in your life needs to be pruned? Pruning is the idea of cutting away something old or something that you don’t want in order to create growth in a new area. I don’t like pruning plants – cutting away, not sure if I am doing it right, not sure if I took too much or too little. And what I have noticed is that the plants tend to grow even more so.

Pruning in therapy for the Portland areaI equate this to the birth and death cycle. In order to direct the growth, I need to cut back. I think of containing the energy. If the rose bush is huge and all over, the life energy goes to it all, even the parts that are sickly because it wants to live. If I cut those sickly parts, then the energy can go toward the healthy parts and create more health. In order for something new to emerge, something needs to die. In order to step forward confidently in something, I need to let go of what is holding me back from that.

What do you want to prune? What holds you back from pruning?

Talk to me about pruning in your life for any anxiety, couples, family, or individual therapy sessions in the Portland area.

Image curtesy of Amenic181 at freedigitalphotos.net

Contradictions

Contradiction, according to Google: “a combination of statements, ideas, or features of a situation that are opposed to one another.” Opposites, same source: “having a position on the other or further side of something; facing something, especially something of the same type.”

ID-10066173Sometimes we can have ideas, feelings, thoughts that feel totally at odds with each other. fFor example I can either accept the situation as it is and do nothing or reject it completely and make major changes, I can either have security or passion, I can either win or lose this argument, I can either be rigid or be in the flow. And we think, “How can these possible co-exist?” We feel stuck.

Try something out with me. In one hand put one of your statements. Feel it there. Does it have any movement, texture, color, sound? Be with it right now in this moment. Now in your other hand put the other statement. Notice the same. Now can your two hands holding these statements move and be in existence in each hand at the same time? Hold both simultaneously and notice what happens. Once you notice ease in this, perhaps have ID-100279435your two hands interact together. Move them closer together then farther apart. Have one hand try on the movement, feeling of the other hand and vice versa. Do you notice anything different in your experience of the two appearing contradictory statements?

 

 

 

Image curtesy of Ambro  and taesmileland from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

More on Intentions

I was talking to my banker. He shared that he took a class on intentions and learned some interesting statistics. One that 75% of people make the SAME resolution for ten years without achieving it (I haven’t found this written so am not able to cite it). I found a few more here, that only 8% were successful in achieving their goal, younger people in their 20s tend to follow through more than people over 50, and that 6 months after a resolution only 46% are still going strong. Another thing I have heard many times is that “people who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions.” I have also heard that writing it down and telling someone is even more powerful.

I want you to be in that percentage of people who attain their goals. And I want you to set yourself up for success. A couple of things:

ID-100316601. Limit your goals to 3. The more you have the more unfocused you can be. Focus and succeed, you can always add more later.

2. Write them down and tell someone who you will be accountable to. Share with someone who is supportive (vs critical or doesn’t believe that you will accomplish this or anything else in  life).

3. Take a small step toward it every day. I talked about this in Intentions. A tiny step that is easy to do.

4. Don’t beat yourself up if you step away from your goal. Read more here. Recommit and move on. You can always step back on the path.

Set yourself up for success. Homework, do the above steps.

Photo curtesy of scottchan at freedigitalphotos.net

Doing vs Being

A continuation of Intentions or perhaps on a different or deeper level. 37H

I have been thinking about my own intentions as the new year approaches (I am writing this on the 30th). In the past I have mostly thought of doing intentions. Things I want to accomplish. When I looked back over the Intentions blog, only one was a being, 9 of the 10 were doings.

Let me clarify the distinction between doing and being before I continue. According to the Google dictionary, doing is engaging in an activity. Some of the synonyms I found were effort, work, exertion, application. Being, on the other hand, is the existence, the nature or essence of a person. Synonyms for being are life form, soul, living soul, human.

I am exploring my intentions with the lens of Being. Who do I want to be? Who do I want to become? What do I want to step into that may feel scary to me right now? And as I write this, I notice more energy and excitement then thinking about what I want to do. I am noticing the doing seems “out there,” it may happen, it may not. Whether based on money to do it (Hawaii trip) or seeing a set number of clients (some of which is out of my control). When I think of who I want to become, I notice an opening, spaciousness. There are an infinite amount of possibilities. And I have control over this intention.

Tying this back to last weeks Intention post, when you are pondering these questions, be specific. For example: I want to be a better friend. That is a great start and what are specific behaviors that create that? I want to talk to a particular friend each week, I want to set aside some time to email/call/text to stay connected with friends each week/day/month. Then you can actually make steps toward your intention. Having a goal, having something you are working toward that you can actually say, “yes I did this” or “no I didn’t.” And then recommit to your intention, leaving the blame out.

Homework if you dare to step in, think about the following questions: Who do you want to be? Who do you want to become? What is an attribute that you admire in someone else that you can’t even imagine yourself possessing? Ponder these then come up with specific behaviors or steps toward your intention. Have fun and Happy New Year!

I added a tree because I think it is such a representation of being. The acorn has the potential to be an oak tree. It just is and will be if given the right environment to grow. Same with you. You have the potential, give yourself the right environment (setting intentions, creating goals, getting support) in order to grow into that which you are. Embrace it. The tree doesn’t need to effort, if just grows.

 

 

Living as Art

I was talking with some people recently about strengths and being a visionary and an artist. I started thinking about art: life as art, the art of living, being art. Which is where the idea for this blog came in.

ID-100203610I was thinking about what to name it. There is already an Art of Living Foundation. I settled into Living as Art. What if we are a masterpiece in the creation? We are the art. We are the focus which looks different in different light, in different settings. We are not stagnant. We are not finished. We are evolving and changing.

 

ID-100146460Painters can start, paint over, cover up, change what they are working on. Aren’t we doing that all the time? I have
the intention to continue looking inward at the exploration which is my life, of my patterns, of what I create in my life or not. I adjust myself, I shift from stuck to possibilities, I express.

Exploration for thisID-100209562 week is to check out what looks like an amazing example of this called Exhibit: Growth. It is interactive. Art is created from your responses. ID-10047285How awesome is that?

Photos from Free Digital Photos