Ella Rebanks, Registered Psychotherapist

02/13/2021

So, of course, this over simplifies everything but... maybe go to therapy anyway! I've got availability on Fridays!

01/17/2021

So this quiz just came out -- https://www.idrlabs.com/difficult-person/test.php

Think of an issue... is it them? Is it you?? Gah! Who knows? But you’re the only one you can change… so let's find out how you measure up as a difficult person! (btw… the test says I’m easy to get along with… my husband is in the other room questioning science!)

If it brings up something you'd like to change, or at least talk about, contact me!

Difficult Person Test, measuring whether you are easy or difficult to get along with.

01/06/2021

I get asked this all the time... (but FYI, my responses are significantly more kind... and helpful!)

10/14/2020

Happy belated mental health awareness day! In honour of the day, I'm sharing a tool that everyone who has ever worked with me has looked at (I'm pretty generous/dictatorial about this)

If you're going to do inner work, you're going to have to know the language... and the more specific one can be (even though language has its own limits), the more the experience is understood, the more meaning we can make and hopefully a little peace comes from the whole thing.

So, how do you feel? Or how did that thing that went down today make you feel?

Good? Bad? Okay, that's a start... now go to the wheel and think about how you really feel... and if you want to keep going, think about the feelings you don't feel, check out what feelings are on the flipside of the ones you are familiar with, think about other times you've had this feeling.. yeah, we can spend hours on this.

And if you want help navigating it all, consider therapy!!

10/09/2020

Are you identifying with all the characters you've been watching on TV?? Well, this quiz will confirm (or deny!) any connections you've made.

(Some of my results: In Simpson's terms, my highest match was Marge, 80% and lowest was Moe Szyslak, 17% - which aligns with my thoughts!)

Tell me how you do!!

Test matching your answers to the crowd-sourced profiles of fictional characters.

05/13/2020

Early in the quarantine, the Harvard Business Review published a widely shared piece called "That discomfort you're feeling is grief". In the piece they spoke with David Kessler, a grief expert, about all the different ways we could be experiencing grief in the pandemic.

This resonated with me, as I was (am) grieving my freedom, my normal life (which I really enjoyed) and having dreams put on hold.

Last week The On Being Project posted this mediation also addressing grief. Its quick (10 minutes) and brought up things I didn't know where so close to the surface of my experience and brought me some peace.

So I'm recommending you check a grief meditation out... very low-key fun for quarantine

Roshi Joan Halifax is a zen abbot and medical anthropologist. In this guided meditation, she shares nourishing wisdom as we face suffering in the world, help...

11/11/2019

Yup, I've been watching The End of the F***ing World on Netflix It's amazing and this line, although used by a monster, is something to think about...

09/26/2019

How many times to we hear stuff that we have NO IDEA how to respond to... or we give like super good advice on how that person should solve their life only for it to be ignored?

Therapists are trained (sometimes it come naturally, but to get better we need actual training!!) to respond with empathy. Rarely do others need a response to the content of what they're talking about, they just need to know someone is listening.

Up your amateur therapist game (or just be a better listener) by remembering a few statements from this article!

Making your partner feel heard is the greatest gift you can give.

09/26/2019

I'm not a big fan of science-y articles (and I seem to be a little complain-y today!) so you can fast forward to the final paragraph:

"If all this uncertainty makes nutrition guidelines and nutrition even more inscrutable, it also stands to do some good by undermining the moralizing and simplistic character judgments often associated with body weight. Seeing obesity as a manifestation of the interplay between many systems... invites the understanding that human physiology has changed along with our relationship to the species in and around us. As these new scientific models unfold, they impugn the idea of weight as an individual character flaw, revealing it for the self-destructive myth it has always been."

I think that seeing any food issue as involving one's bio-psycho-social-spiritual well-being (this article being heavy on the bio-) is a first step to actually working with it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/08/inflammations-immune-system-obesity-microbiome/595384/?fbclid=IwAR1XU3joRFp0O6mErP_zJdjBnyf8wf8Bt8K4INJ9-KPQRT8kLRlIN_mwvrQ.

Inflammation plays a critical role in determining how we digest food, and it’s only now starting to reveal itself.