Making the decision to become a parent can be exhilarating and a journey filled with joy. However, now more than ever parents, particularly mothers and birthing folx, face assumptions of motherhood/parenthood that masquerade as truths.
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I was recently interviewed by someone looking for clickbait. What they didn’t know was I don’t do light, and I certainly don’t do divisive. We were going to go deep whether their article wanted it or not, hence the failed interview.
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August’s highlighted position of the month is the Within Reach. While guidelines for masks continue to change back and forth with the new COVID variants picking up speed, please keep healthy sex practices in mind - please remain cognizant to wash your hands (and use the restroom) before and after a sexual experience!
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A few years ago I wrote a blog on compassion fatigue for therapists and got more comments on it than any previous blog. I wanted to go back to it, as helpers just navigated lockdowns, a pandemic, and limited resources while giving to their clients. This seems more relevant than ever before.
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I’m a counselor so I am always a strong advocate of mental health awareness. When Simone Biles pulled out of the competition because of mental health reasons, I knew there would be strong reactions on all sides. My time as a competitive gymnast and as a mental health counselor pushed me to want to write about this experience so others can understand.
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We are currently living an age that I like to the call the “Mental Health Renaissance”. Everywhere you turn in popular media, there seems to be more and more discussion about mental health and mental illness. And as a therapist and a longtime recipient of therapy myself, I think it is a beautiful thing to see. The less taboo we can make the subject, the more people will reach out and get the help they need, and the research seems to be bearing that out!
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I’m not sure how far into motherhood I was when I first heard the term, “A mother is born.” To be honest, my experience into motherhood didn’t feel like I was born. While I was more in love with my baby than I thought was ever possible, it still felt more like something in me was lost- it felt more like a death than birth. The more I work with new mothers and now being almost a decade into the motherhood journey, I have some understanding of this experience.
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Welcome to part 8 of this blog series and thank you for following along! If you are just arriving and have not already identified your Enneagram type, I strongly recommend going back and also reading about Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4, Type 5, Type 6 and Type 7. To recap, I will be explaining all 9 Enneagram types and sharing personality specific self-care recommendations for each type. Many of these self-care ideas have been pulled from Christina S. Wilcox’s book, Take Care of Your Type.
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This is a question that I hear a lot in the first few sessions of working with individuals and couples. Client(s) are always interested to know if a specific struggle should be processed in an individual therapy setting, or if this something that should/could be addressed in couples therapy. And, then do we need couples or sex therapy? In short, the answer to this question is a bit more complicated than it appears!
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Being a therapist, I have a few “secrets” about human behavior. One is that the pursuit of happiness can sometimes be dangerous and destructive. I know, shocking for a therapist to say this, right? Give me a second to explain. We know from research that people constantly stay at a happiness level of 7 on a 1-10 scale. I witness this often in session, when someone is going on an amazing vacation, they rant about the service or weather.
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July’s highlighted position of the month is the Press the Flesh. This holiday weekend could be a great time to carve out some much-needed connection time with your partner.
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Going through a divorce is one of the most stressful and painful experiences one can go through. Yet, it’s also such a common experience with about 50 % of marriages ending in divorce. Divorce is a life transition that feels a bit like grief. You grieve the marriage you hoped for, the life that you planned for, the significant other that you fell in love with, and the person you were while married. In an instant, life is flipped upside down. And that is just the emotional grief and stress.
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