tipspro

What most people are longing for and yet feel is missing from their life is a good relationship. We yearn for "true" love or to be "in" love. Why is it that we have such a difficult time with this? Why are most problems we encounter in our lives about our closet relationship? We feel disconnected, negatively judged and critisized. We can feel adequate and competent in all other areas of our lives and not feel that way with our partners, parents, children, etc. Our focus is on what's wrong with me or what's wrong with them! Let's first look what factors are involved in what creates a positive and nuturing relationship... Primarily it seems important that we feel acknowledged and supported. If there is judgement, it is expressed and utilized in a positive manner. Feeling acknowledged allows us to hear "constructive critisism", it allows us to feel the information is being provided with good intent, not a reminder of our inadequacies. When this oc...

Online Therapy Let’s be clear right from the get go… there is some controversy regarding the benefits of online therapy. When you look online you will be able to read credible information from various perspectives. Professionals who have been practicing for many years are generally expressing reluctance around using current technologies for psychotherapy as it does not offer the same experience that a face to face in the same room provides. Some refer to it as a simulated experience… I have always been fascinated by resistance. It is frequently a part of the therapeutic experience. For most, resistance seems to be an inherent part of being human. We tend not to trust something/someone we don’t know. We need “evidence” before being willing to reduce our resistance. Things that are different we can find threatening and make assumptions often without challenging those assumptions. I say this because it directly effects how we perceive our world and create change, or not. At the vey least ...

Feeling Anxious? Feeling anxious is a common and normal response to situations in our lives typically created by excessive demands that we are not accustomed to like writing an exam, heavy workloads or dealing with problems in a relationship. These feelings are different from symptoms of an anxiety disorder. People with anxiety disorder have difficulty finding a reason for why they’re feeling the way they do. Their anxiety may be triggered by certain events but the symptoms often occur seemingly on their own. They can appear as a prolonged sense of distress and fear without an obvious reason. People with an anxiety disorder will typically begin to accommodate the physical and cognitive sensations by avoiding certain situations and can become agoraphobic, which is primarily an avoidance of all situations where the person does not feel they have a sense of control. People with anxiety feel at risk, fearful, out of control and helpless. They often feel that nothing can help. They may...

Many clients come to me looking for change... feeling stuck with or in a situation that they perceive themselves unable to resolve. They often feel compelled to "fix the problem" and want me to help them fix it or tell them what they need to do to fix it or fix it for them... It's a normal response for them to be upset, frustrated and perhaps angry when I tell them that I cannot do that... and try instead to have them understand that our minds work differently... and we need to understand why people don't invite or create the change that they say they want. If we don't have what we say we want... why not? There's a story of a person who falls off a cliff... with all of who they believe they are in their arms and a parachute on their back. In order to save themselves all they need to do is to let go off their "stuff" and pull the parachute cord to fall safely to the ground. Even knowing this, the person persists in hanging on... even to their death! T...