This Therapist's Therapy

  Thinking About Retirement? Raise your hand if you're already thinking abour Retirement?  Yeah, me too!   But not from therapy - I LOVE that job!  Being a therapist is my therapy. Part of my work as a therapist is to help people through various life transitions.  It's one of the things I love best to help people with.  But there's one of life's transitions that often gets overlooked, and that's the transition into retirement.  People are quick to think about or even plan for other life transitions, such as parenthood, empty nest, or career planning, but they forget to think about retirement. Some of you may be approaching this significant milestone, and as you do, it's important to prioritize your mental and emotional health, not just your financial future.  In this blog post, I'll share some insights and tips to help you prepare for a meaningful and fulfilling retirement. Reflect on Your Career It's important to take time to reflect on your own life an

  In Part 4  of this series on How to Manage Anxiety ,  we talked about Exercise/Movement. What types of exercies or movement did YOU do this week?  Tell us about it! Over the next few weeks, I'm going to share some tips on how to manage anxiety Maybe you're in a Leadership or Executive Level and you're excelling at your job, but deep inside, every day is a battle within yourself.  Maybe you're a wife, mom, and career woman, and sometimes things just get overwhelming. Today we'll look at an ongoing way in which you can manage your anxiety - Practicing Gratitude. I can't say enough on how much an "Attitude of Gratitude" can really help with mood and anxiety.   It sounds so simple. I encourage you, each morning, as you start the day, to think of three things you are grateful for.  These can be small things or bigger things.  From, "I'm grateful for my cat, because he likes to snuggle on my lap while I watch t.v.". to "I am grateful for

  Thank you for continuing to join me on this series about respect.  This week, I had a few moments with my husband when I realized that, in that moment, I was not following some of these tips about respect.  I found myself interrupting him and not always considering his opinion.  So, again, I'm glad that we can take this the journey together. Let's look at the next 10 tips: 51)  Make the other person's favorite meals regularly (This applies primarily to married couples or domestic partners) This is a way to show that you have listened.  You know what they like.  Also, they often say that food is the way to a person's heart.  If that's true ,then making the other person's favorite meals is a way show your respect. 52)  Ask the other person for advice on the things you're dealing with. This goes along with some of the other things we've discussion, but if you're having a hard time with something or tryin to make a difficult decision, ask the other per

  Good work so far!  I'm glad you've come back for Part 3.  You're going to be glad you decided to take this journey. This week you'll use the information you've gathered about yourself over the past 2 weeks to develop your confidence.  I bet you're wondering how your values, barriers, and next steps lead to confidence.   Here's the thing, now that you know who you are and what's important to you, and hopefully broken down the barriers that you identified and have taken the steps to make the improvements you wanted to see in your life, you can live authentically and congruent with who you are.  You are no longer living behind a mask of uncertainty or insecurity! Take a moment to think about that!!  You've done a lot of work to get here!  Give yourself a pat on the back!   So much of confidence simply comes from knowing yourself and your values. Confidence is defined as "the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; the state o

  Today is the last part of this series on Finding Yourself, Your Confidence, and Your Purpose.  I hope you're feeling a little excited about this week's topic.  This is the fun, yet kind of scary part.  So let's talk about finding your purpose. You discovered your values, what's important to you.  You determined the meaning and maybe the origin of your values, what really makes you, "you".  You discerned your barriers, what's gotten in the way of living out your values and who you were meant to be.  And you decided the next steps, the things you committed to doing to make a positive difference in your life.  In doing these things, you were able to figure out how to live authentically and congruent with your beliefs and values, which enables you to have a confidence in yourself that you may have never experienced before.   So, I'm wondering if, while doing all this work, you began to see a theme bubble up?  Were there ideas or feelings that came up acr

  Welcome back!  How'd it go in doing that bit of self-exploration last week?  I hope it gave you some insight about yourself.  Now we'll use that to draw from, to begin discovering the barriers to living out your values and what your next steps are. Step #3:  Discern the Barriers Now that you've discovered your values and determined what's important to you and why, it's time to take a hard look at yourself and discern your barriers.  These are often barriers that you've put up because of fear of failure, fear of rejection, or fear of being hurt.  But in order to find your confidence, you need to confront the barriers and knock them down one by one.  Take your time and be honest. So let's revisit the list. Family Relationships - What has stopped you or currently stops you from having the type of family relationships you really want?  How have you contributed to these barriers?   Marriage/Intimate Relationships - What issues are you facing in your marriage or

Do you feel like you aren't quite sure who you are or what your purpose is?  Do you feel unheard, unappreciated, or under-valued? Or do you feel like you don't fit in?  Do you worry about what other people think of you? Chances are that you’ve been battling these feelings for so long, you’ve come to believe them yourself. There are patterns in place that you can't seem to break.  But you want to be YOU. If you’re ready to change those beliefs, break those patterns, learn to value yourself, and take control of your own life, keep reading.   You're going to begin to discover who you were really meant to be. And you're going to take the first steps toward being comfortable and confident with who you are. Step #1:  Discover Your Values Values are the things in life that you feel are most important.  While one person might value their family relationships above all else, another person might value their career.  Everyone's values are different, and there's no &qu