Self Help Blog - Page 5 of 8 - GW Associates Counseling & Hypnotherapy

Power of Thought

In all things, consider the power of the mind. The vastness of thought becomes the gateway to the power of creating change in one’s life and in turn, in bettering our world. I read somewhere that the movie star, Halle Berry, was inspired by her mother, a psychiatric nurse. At various points in her life and career, her mom would say, “You aren’t here for no reason. What do you think your purpose is?” Brilliant. One should be seeking to discover one’s own answer to this question. Thoughts are things. If one can change the thoughts in one’s mind, then one can begin to gain some control, over oneself first, then over creating a new reality for self and in turn, the world.So the first principle is to put good stuff into the mind. Have you ever heard the term “gigo” ? I am advised that it arose out of computer programming… it means, “garbage in, garbage out”….If you put garbage into your computer mind programs, you are going to get garbage back out. We carry in our subconscious minds all thoughts, ideas, beliefs, attitudes, values, that we got since our birth, and it all goes back beyond that….this reservoir…

Self Care: Change How You Think!

So, how do we get to move ourselves into those feel-good emotions, at least for most of the time? Well, that is the trick, is it not? It is easy to feel great when life is treating us well, but then we hit that thing called an emotional roller coaster. That is when we have ourselves defined by what is going on around us. I am told that the Hawaiians have a saying for this: “What is up is up, and What is down is down…” I believe that one of their dialects says it this way, “Kaleela kaleela, kalalla, kallala” Psychiatrists call this state of having our happiness be controlled by external events an “external locus of control” instead of an “internal locus of control”. We are all certainly somewhat subject to this phenomenon, but we can modulate it somewhat, by learning a few tricks, and developing coping strategies so that we are not always yanked around so much by the outside world. I was always intrigued by the book entitled, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It talks about things like taking naps, being on a schedule, eating right, making and keeping good friends, enjoying…

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My Barn Has Burned Down, Now I Can See the Moon

Recently, a client of mine who had previously found success in using the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy in her life asked me the question, “How can I reframe this?” Her life circumstance involved a very deep depression which came over her as a result of many significant changes in her life, converging all at the same time: a recent move, the giving up of her teaching job, the youngest child leaving home, husband taking on a very consuming job. These circumstances left her nearly immobilized and unable to get out of bed. I responded to her about how she might look at this period of life as being a transition to a new phase of life, and gave her some tasks to begin looking at new pathways for her future. And we will continue from there. Many times I find that a person who has had multiple losses or changes cannot conceive of what his or her life could look like if it were to be better. In such cases, I try to help that person to imagine the possibilities of what a better life could be. This might involve finding some new resources that could help them, or…

On Boundaries: Mending and Tending Fences

A kind of a buzzword in the field of addictions and mental health is a word called codependency. This arose out of the effect that alcoholism was noted to have in the wife of the alcoholic; she tended to cover up and make excuses for her mate’s disease as it manifested in various habits where he tended to be less than functional. For example, she would call his employer and say he was sick, when he had really been out the night before to tie one on. Or, as the disease progressed and he became less functional in terms of doing what he was supposed to do in his role as husband and father; she would overcompensate, for example, by being the one to do all of the chauffeuring to soccer games, handling all the finances, keeping the household running, plus working a job and a half. She became very tired and very resentful. Melody Beattie wrote many books on this subject, such as Codependent No More. Groups with the name of the acronym CODA, (Codependents Anonymous) have sprung up all over the country. These are also twelve-step programs and they can be very helpful. People who have grown up…

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Energy Psychology – Something Old, Something New

Several years ago, after having worked with a client for whom hypnosis was not as effective as we both had hoped, a consulting colleague introduced me to EFT, also known as Emotional Freedom technique. This is becoming more widely known now, as “Tapping”, and has even been featured on popular shows like Dr. Oz or Oprah, and is even on YouTube. At that time, I actually combined knowledge I gained from instructional techniques demonstrated on a DVD series with my own clinical background, and I was intrigued by often rapid relief clients had from some challenging and longstanding issues. EFT seems to be helpful a good percentage of the time. I wanted to learn more ways to be more effective in cases where the relief did not occur, or did not hold to the next session. I affiliated with and have completed training with an organization known as Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology, which is an organizational umbrella that fosters training, research, networking and humanitarian efforts for a number of techniques dealing with mind-body connections to healing. This venture has exploded my knowledge about ways to help people get past challenging roadblocks in life, from changing lifestyle habits to managing…