Mindful CenterPoint Counseling

12/02/2025

Absolutely Beautiful. To Love is to be Present.

12/02/2025

Interesting thinking of aversions....... powerful limiting beliefs...... read below.

“The Subtle Stress of Wanting Things to Be Different” - Buddhist psychology teaches that much of our suffering doesn’t come from what happens to us, but from the way the mind contracts around experience. We grasp at what we want, push away what we don’t want, and brace against anything uncertain. These habits—wanting, rejecting, resisting—create a quiet stress that shows up in the body long before it becomes a thought.

If you pay attention, you can feel the pattern.
Grasping leans us forward.
Aversion pulls us back.
Resistance hardens the chest, the jaw, or the breath.
Nothing is wrong when this happens. It’s simply the mind trying to manage reality.

The freedom comes in how we respond.

When you notice the tightening, the first instruction is simple: don’t correct it—recognize it. The moment you see the habit, you’re already not fully inside it. Pause. Feel what’s happening in the body. Soften around the contraction, even a little. Allow the experience to be here without immediately pushing or pulling at it. And then return to the present moment—the breath, the ground under you, the feeling of being alive right now.

From that small shift, something opens.
Awareness becomes wider than the habit.
The next step can come from clarity instead of tension.
You don’t have to eliminate your preferences or reactions—you just no longer have to be ruled by them.

Today, you might watch for the quiet moment when the mind says, “I need this,” or “I can’t handle that,” or “This shouldn’t be happening.” These moments are not obstacles. They’re invitations. They show you exactly where practice begins.

12/02/2025

Enjoy the nature around you. It's there!

11/06/2025

This is a concise, super description of what to watch for in challenged--hurt--damaged relationships. There is hope for healing and repair though.

10/22/2025

Your reminder for the day. Love the ending...."Take a break--before you break."

10/16/2025

Great advise here. Lets normalize empathizing with others more.

09/15/2025

Love this! Check out Terry Real for further couples tips and skills.....

We want deep connection.

We want emotional safety, honesty, repair, passion, presence.

We want to feel seen. Held. Understood.

That’s the filet mignon.

But when it comes to how we relate — how we speak, listen, set limits, stay in the room when things get hard — most of us don't have the recipe.

We were raised inside systems that prized performance over presence, obedience over authenticity.

We didn’t learn to name what we feel, let alone say it skillfully.

We learned to protect, please, avoid, attack.

And then we wonder why intimacy feels out of reach.

We’re asking for a five-star connection with fast food habits.

That gap is not your fault — but it is your responsibility. No one else will fill it for you.

Intimacy asks more of us than most of us were ever taught to give.

But the skills can be learned. And when they are, what once felt impossible starts to feel within reach. Not because love got easier, but because you got better at showing up for it.

09/08/2025

This is such an important writing---this joining of the scapegoat--the person who is always made to feel like the problem in the family--and this equal and disruptive message of false empowerment. It all equals shame.

09/08/2025

This, this, this.

"Healing isn't about fixing brokenness. It's about reconnecting with your wholeness, your beauty, and your self-worth."
~ Marc David