Counseling Archives - Page 4 of 4

Mourning

September 19, 2016 by Andrea

I’ve often described it like standing on the sea shore. At first, the water is stormy and I’m regularly knocked down by an incoming wave that overwhelms me. I find myself swallowing a lot of salt water. Slowly (over years), the water calms down a little. The waves aren’t as huge. I’ve developed a strategy for bracing myself. They start coming in less frequently and I either handle the occasional wave like a champ or I get rusty and am surprisingly flattened by the next one. There’s no rhyme or reason to which way it goes. Perhaps it is a reflection of the context of my life – what else is going on, the level of emotional reserve I have in the tank when the wave comes. This is what grieving feels like to me and when I’ve shared this metaphor with others on the path, they nod knowingly.

That’s not the way our culture portrays it though. Typically, grief is shown as this linear journey which has as it’s goal – “getting back on the horse” or some similar cliche. You feel terrible at first. You’re allowed to have a few good cries but then you’re supposed to start sucking it up and finding something to do with yourself so that you can “get on with your life”. You can talk about your loss for a week or three but after that – folks squirm, look uncomfortable and try to redirect the conversation to more positive topics in an effort to rescue you from your pain. This leaves many feeling as though something is terribly wrong with them. They go into protection mode for their loved ones…not wanting anyone to be worried – effectively painting themselves into a corner of truncated grief.

My grieving path began with the loss of my adoptive mother. Eighteen years later, I lost my adult daughter. A little over a week ago, I lost my cousin who was more like a big sister to me. There have been other losses in between but those are the big kahunas. I have found one of the most important aspects of healthy grieving is the space and time to tell stories. I am incredibly blessed with a family that loves to sit around and tell stories about our departed loved ones. Tears (even years after the loss) are totally accepted. I speak about my daughter in every aspect of my life. One of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received is when someone said they felt like they knew her based on how much I incorporate her into my conversation. I have found that when I make it an open part of who I am, the people around me come along for the ride. They are comforted that the subject is not taboo – they don’t have to tiptoe around it. While our culture defaults to silence, I find that most individuals are terribly relieved when transparency is modeled.

Obviously, this topic is fresh on my mind this week and as I ponder my own path, I’m more aware of the grieving of others…The difficulty we face in this culture of doing it well. My passion for walking this path with others and my recognition of the work as sacred is renewed. Grieving isn’t just about the death of a loved one. It can be the death of a relationship, of a dream, of a life stage. Such passages are significant losses that must be acknowledged and processed if we are to glean all that it has to teach us and to move forward in good health. I encourage you to embrace this process and enlist a wilderness guide to walk with you!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Counseling, Grief, Group Therapy, Loss, Psychotherapy

Self Care 4.0

September 12, 2016 by Andrea

This is the fourth and final post in a series on the topic. Return to the first post here…

In our last post, I offered a preview of the difficult path to self love. Even so, it is hard to truly understand the nuances of the journey until you are in the thick of it. Nevertheless, as you move forward, it is comforting to think back to these discussions, realizing that yes – this is what she was talking about. It is much easier to endure when you are confident in the normalcy of your experience and the payoff to come.

I mentioned that while you experience the challenges I detailed, there would be a parallel venture that would be vital in supporting your work. That parallel venture is the art of setting boundaries. From the beginning, we looked at the challenges presented by the over-full life that comes with a lack of self love. You forged ahead anyway, sensitive to these limitations but determined nonetheless. Baby steps are necessary at the beginning…only the most basic self care tasks can be incorporated successfully. Before long though, growing pains ensue. The more you get to know yourself, the more compelled you are to make significant changes in your life…to set boundaries.

Boundaries mark what is you and what is not you. What you are responsible for and what is not your burden to bear. They provide a portal at which it can be determined what is OK and what is not OK for you. Do you see the connection to self love? How can you determine what is you and yours if you do not know your true self? How do you know what is OK for you if you do not understand your value? Self love cannot be lived out unless space is created to engage in self care. This space is created through boundaries. Fences that protect what is important. Think about the lawn edging that protects the garden bed from encroaching grass and weeds. Thus, you have a symbiotic process happening: boundaries are impossible to determine and enforce without self love….self love is impossible to pursue without boundaries. That combination is what facilitates self care. Now it all makes sense why self care falls apart so easily!

It is extremely difficult to balance this delicate connection by ourselves. Once again, we see the need for an objective other to help us continuously monitor this balance in the midst of our crazy lives which seem to conspire against us when we set out to grow.

I hope that this series has been food for thought and that you are equipped to choose your partner/s for the journey. We’re here to help – individually or in like minded groups.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Boundaries, Counseling, Foundations, Group Therapy, Identity, Psychotherapy, Self Care, Self Esteem, Self Love

Self Care 3.0

September 5, 2016 by Andrea

This is the third in a series on the topic. Return to the first post here…

We’ve established the core issue: self love, and we’ve laid the foundation for the work. So what’s next? This series emerged largely from a recent discussion with a friend. About halfway through the conversation she exclaimed – and all this comes from just trying to take better care of yourself?! Yes. It’s complicated. As she reflected on the poor unsuspecting client who shows up for that first appointment thinking they just need to come up with a better self care plan, she declared that this process ought to come with warning labels! Consider this post the caution tape that surrounds a work in progress 🙂

Think about an important loved one in your life right now. When they first appeared, did you have any idea you would love them as you do right now? I imagine when you first met, there was an extensive process of getting to know them. Would it be possible to love this person the way you do without knowing them as you do? Probably not. Likewise, the first step in this process is getting to know yourself. The person God created you to be, not just who others need you to be. Eugene Peterson said, “we are not ourselves, by ourselves”. That quote captures the importance of our ‘others’ on this journey. If we are to know ourselves, we need mirrors, but we must seek out objective mirrors. Many of the people in our lives can be like that carnival house of mirrors – each one offering their own distorted reflection rooted in what they need and want from us. Hence why we must have reflectors who don’t have a dog in the fight – who can tell us what they see in us without agenda. We still elicit data from our full community, but we bring it all back to the objective other who can help us evaluate and discern how much of the reflection is us and how much is the bend of the mirror.

Personally, I have found it helpful to reflect on my childhood. In particular, I try to remember simple moments I spent alone in my own thoughts or in non-directed activity, just being a child and not the manifestation of what adults required of me. Those recollections have been invaluable in showing me my true heart…the unique characteristics God placed within me that got buried over the years by life circumstances. There are aspects of this process that are really fun. Remember what it was like when you first met your best friend and who they are was unfolding before you? If you go into this process with an open mind and genuine curiosity, this can be the same. However, it isn’t all fun and games. There are aspects of you that aren’t so fun to uncover. Our shadow selves…the parts that shame forced us to bury? This is an example of how the truth hurts sometimes but there is a difference between hurt and harm. Pain is usually a necessary component of growth. What should we do when we have to have a medical procedure done? We prepare as best we can by completing tasks ahead of time we know we won’t have the capacity to do. We line up support whether it is transportation, meals or help with chores. We accept the pain as part of the process – we don’t jump off the bed, pack our bags and go home. We realize that would be ten times worse. Afterward, we follow the doctor’s orders, we rest, we go to physical therapy (more pain) and we do the work necessary for recovery. The process (done properly) – as painful as it is – does not harm us. It does just the opposite. It heals us. Learning to love ourselves is exactly the same! We get to discover the good, bad and ugly parts of ourselves so that we can celebrate the good, take away the power from our shadow and tenderly care for the ugly so that it can heal.

The other difficult component is the grieving process that begins when we start to see the canyon lying between who we were created to be and the ‘personas’ we created over the years to get through life. Or…perhaps we’ve been living out a true self but only a small slice of who we are because we figured out the other parts wouldn’t be accepted. As we look back at decisions, choices and relationships that were lived out from this other place – the assessment can jack up our lives. We may deny it all at first. It’s all too much to accept: This dissonance between the me I am discovering and how I’ve actually lived. Many of us abandon the journey at this stage. We’re not ready. Or, perhaps we try to embrace the authentic self without dismantling the masks we so carefully crafted. This doesn’t work and sooner or later a choice is forced. Author Mark Buchanan says, “Things that are meant to be must first plunder and displace things that are.” There is no room for both. Plunder – steal goods from (a place or person), typically using force and in a time of war or civil disorder. This process becomes a civil war in many ways. Anger at all those who forced their agendas on you and/or anger at self for allowing this, emerges and demands your attention. The underlying fear and hurt must be processed. Deep sadness settles in as the old, the untrue, the ‘no longer functional but all I know’ is put to death. Finally, grace prevails when we stick it out. Light appears at the end of the tunnel and acceptance begins to dawn as we embrace our authentic self and begin to appreciate the complexity and value of who we are as image bearers of our Creator. The pain is all so worth it!

There is a parallel venture happening as we focus on knowing and loving self. In the final post of this series, we will look at that simultaneous battle and how it necessarily supports the first.

You’ve read the warnings but you believe you’re ready for the journey? Consider contacting us to share your interest in a therapy group related to this topic!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Counseling, Grief, Group Therapy, Psychotherapy, Self Care, Self Knowledge, Self Love

Self Care 2.0

August 28, 2016 by Andrea

This is the second in a series on the topic. Return to the first post here…

Once we are aware that perhaps we don’t love ourselves as well as we would like, we may be inspired to launch some sort of campaign to address the issue. What does it take to do that successfully? We’ve already discerned that good intentions don’t get us far. Detailed plans and schedules never last. I believe there are two foundational pieces that must be in place for transformation to occur in this area.

First, we must recognize our need for an “other” on the journey. We cannot do this transformation process alone. This may be a highly uncomfortable truth to accept. Think about it…if we are struggling to love ourselves, how can we possibly trust that anyone else would love us enough to walk this difficult journey with us? Oh, the irony! Yet – we need to face this challenge head on. We cannot see the forest for the trees. We require an “other” to provide an objective mirror to our processing, one who can hold with stability – all the emotions, history, pain and turmoil that will be unearthed as we dig in to whatever blocks the love of self. A counselor is an obvious choice but some of us are blessed with people in our lives who can play this role. It’s a rare commodity though because this “other” cannot have any potential consequences to your transformation (if they are to be objective), so keep that in mind when you choose your wilderness guide.

Second, we must have a realistic recognition of our present limitations. Remember those indicators we discussed last time that would help us determine if there is a problem? Well – those very indicators typically correlate well with an overfull life. One which has little room for the transformative process that is so desperately needed. Thus, we and our guide will have to formulate a pacing and process that honors our present reality and its attendant limitations. This may mean that the process is painfully slow but slow and steady wins the race. You may need to establish the most basic of self care efforts to begin. You may only be able to attend therapy twice a month, or even once a month. You may be unable to make any meaningful changes in your life until you first work through the inner turmoil. Sometimes, the chaos in our lives requires some sort of jump start if we are ever going to turn the ship around. This is where a therapeutic retreat may be the answer. There is no substitute for completely disconnecting from our worlds for a period of time to focus on the healing that benefits not only ourselves, but those in our world.

Regardless of the road you take, these two cornerstones must be in place and then the work begins. A little window into what that work entails will be our next discussion.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Counseling, Psychotherapy, Retreats, Self Care, Self Love

A Beautiful Risk

July 28, 2016 by Andrea

I started teaching in a counseling program because I heard so many stories from clients of woefully inadequate therapy they had received in the past. It boggled my mind to realize how many counselors existed who would only scratch the surface of a person’s pain, then retreat to strategies and interventions designed to band-aid the problem and provide solutions that looked good but didn’t last. I decided that I could do more good by facilitating the development of master therapists who would go on to impact infinitely more lives than I could alone.

In six years of teaching, I have come to realize the key to that goal: we must be willing to dive in to the painful self examination of our own wounds before we seek to sit with the pain of others. In that time frame, life has brought a collection of traumas but also an abundance of fellow travelers, as well as knowledge that has served to shape and mold me into a very different person than I was when I closed my private practice back in 2008 to start a PhD program. Even the world around me has opened up to this idea of vulnerability with researchers like Brene Brown carrying the message to the masses.

Three years ago, I began to consider the idea of going back into practice – the focus being on providing intensive therapy retreats for women. Over time though, it became obvious that the calling was broader – to provide that rare sacred space where men and women can completely deconstruct and build a self/life which reflects who they were truly created to be! The cool thing is that returning to this work will benefit my students as I lead from a place of current experience.

I want to offer hope. I want to challenge people to risk vulnerability with someone who has been there. I know there are individuals out there who are tired of living at the surface. They have a desire to dig deeper and they are willing to invest the time and resources in the journey. I’m here and ready to take that beautiful risk with them.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Counseling, Foundations, Hope, Therapy