Category Archives: therapy

What Dogs can Teach Us: Lesson 1

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Tips Learned from Man’s Best Friend

I was talking to someone recently about how much dogs can teach us and what they can show us about counseling.

Lesson one:

How to express anger. I think the American culture has an idea that feeling anger is either stewing or full on rage. What if anger is a boundary issue? Ie: “Don’t step on my tail!” when you Anger management tips learned from dogs for Portland therapy.step on a dog’s tail, typically the dog will bark or growl or yelp, jump up and move, and then come back and want to be pet.

What if anger was that easy to express as humans? Express and come back to connection. Let the other person know, “I don’t like that.” It doesn’t mean you bite the person’s hand off (say things that you don’t mean or intentionally say to hurt the other person). It also doesn’t mean that you sulk for hours or days.

Challenge: Play with noticing what are your boundaries. And how can you express in an easy, friendly way?

Contact me today to make an appointment for counseling in the Portland area.

Photo compliments of Gualberto107 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

Frequency in Therapy/Coaching

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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.

Emotional Fitness

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I was attending a friend’s conference on The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A new paradigm for sustainable success through Conscious Leadership Group. My friend, Deb Katz, mentioned the idea of emotional fitness instead of emotional intelligence.

Your Emotional Fitness Through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

To step back for a moment, what is emotional intelligence. IQ stands for intelligence quotient, measuring human intelligence. Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, is your ability to monitor your own emotions as well as others, the ability to discriminate between different emotions that you feel, and to use that information to determine thinking and behaviors.

I loved that she used the term emotional fitness. I think is resonates much better. It is not something that you have or don’t. It is something that can be continually explored to deepen the understanding of self. I also love that she used the word fitness because it shows that one can become stronger with practice.Emotional fitness with cognitive behavioral therapy.

Take a look at this guy. He is beefed up, very strong and can lift a lot of weights. He did not start out this way. I am guessing it has taken quite a bit of daily practice, discipline, and patience to get where he is in this photo.

How about giving yourself some compassion, some love for where you are right now even if it is not where you want to be with you emotional fitness. What goals do you have for you emotional fitness? What are a few steps that you can do, what practice can you start that will help move you toward those goals?

For me, I meditate every day and I practice deep breathing and listening to my body. I check in while I am eating to determine first if I am hungry, when I am full, asking if I want more or not. I also surround myself with people who honor emotional fitness so that I can be held accountable and see modeling as well as model for others.

Work on your emotional fitness with Portland, Oregon’s cognitive behavioral therapist Caroline Resari. Call me today at 503-961-3141 or contact me for more information.

Thank you photopin.com for image

Contradictions

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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

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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

Small Changes

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A recent book that I read recently that has made a huge impact on my life is, The Slight Edge. The short version is that you make small changes, that may even seem imperceptible in the grand scheme of things, on a daily basis. Every day. And he points out that often these things are easy to do and also easy not to do. By doing this over time, major change happens. And this works for something positive in life (being more social, paying off bills/debt) or something that you don’t want to happen (isolating, accruing more debt). And the other thing is that what one day seems hard will become easier the more you do it, also most likely less scary.

I think we live in a culture where instant gratification is expected. See the photo right away. Feel better right away. Get the answer right now. Which is why it can be hard to make a small change everyday where you do not see the result until much further down the road.

What is one change you want in your life? Are you willing to make one small change every day for a month and see what happens?