Well Being Psychotherapy

02/19/2026

“Always come back to the body. The reason people get stuck on the healing path, a major reason, is they believe they can heal by understanding things intellectually. I doesn’t work like that, it needs to come back to the body. Stay aware of the body, what is happening inside.”

Gabór Mate, MD

02/11/2026

Regulating your nervous system when you feel activated or dysregulated

To come back toward regulation, unhook awareness from preoccupation with thinking and return to the body

Redirect your awareness to neutral or positive sensations in the body

Gently touch your hand or heart, feel the body, drop into the body

Feel the points of contact with your seat, focus on the sit bones

If you feel activated in fight/flight/freeze/fawn mode, practice paced breathing for 5 or 10 breaths: take long, slow breaths and exhale for twice as long as the in-breath while noticing the points of contact of your body in the seat

Ask the activated part to give you breathing room and space so you can be with it. Ask other parts to step back, so your Self can be present to help

If you are able to have some curiosity or compassion toward the upset part, let it know that, find out what’s wrong and kindly reassure it (RAIN practice can help)

Connect with a loved one if you need more soothing and support

01/29/2026

Are you feeling anxious or panicked? Try these exercises.
VAGUS NERVE EXERCISES FOR CALMING THE BODY-MIND

Paced Breathing
When your exhale is longer than your inhale, it signals to your body and mind that you are safe and can get you out of the flight/flight/freeze/fawn survival mode and into rest/digest/connect mode. The important thing is to have your out breath be longer than your in breath. So, you have to slow down the exhale. You can try breathing in for say 4 seconds, holding for 2 seconds, then exhale for 8 seconds. Or, you can count the seconds of each in breath and double the exhale. Repeat for 3 rounds, then breathe naturally.
Voo Breath
1. Find a Comfortable Position: Sit or lie with your back straight, and your body relaxed.
2. Take a Deep Breath In: Inhale deeply, allowing the breath to fill your belly and chest.
3. Make the “Voo” Sound: As you exhale, make a deep “voo” sound from your gut. Aim to create a sound similar to a foghorn. The vibration can come from your belly and resonate through your body and throat. Don’t strain or try too hard to do it just right. Be easy and kind.
4. Feel the Vibration: Focus on the vibration created by the sound.
5. Repeat the Process: Continue the cycle of deep breaths and “voo” sounds at least 3 times or for several minutes. You can do this for as long as it feels comfortable.
6. Rest and Reflect: After a few minutes, stop and rest. You may like to place a hand over any area where you notice sensations to help ground yourself. Notice the change in how you feel.
(Some people chant OM, which has a similar effect.)

Bee Breath
This is similar to Voo breath, but instead of making the Voo sound, hum on the out breath so you sound like a buzzing bee.

Butterfly Hug
There are two options for this bilateral stimulation which can help you self-soothe, ground, calm your nervous system and process trauma. You can either cross your arms over your chest and tap each hand on the opposite arm in a gentle, rhythmic pattern. Or, you can cross your thumbs and place your hands on the center of your chest forming a butterfly and gently tap one hand then the other on your chest. Do whichever feels best to you. Be gentle and kind.

Save your adrenaline and cortisol for when you actually need to flee or fight in the moment. Take action to prevent future harm.

Lisa Cottrell, LPC

12/31/2025

Thoughts about the New Year by Jack Kornfield
"If your heart is tender this year, you are not broken. You are human." – Jack Kornfield

Dear ones,

Another year is drawing to a close.

The turning of the year is more than a date on a calendar—it is a threshold. A place where we pause and feel what has moved through us: the joys and struggles, the beginnings and endings, the ways we have grown without even noticing.

The New Year is not asking for reinvention.

It is offering renewal.

This is a quiet moment to bow to what has been and to gently open your hands to what is still unknown. You do not need a perfect vision for the future. You only need a willing heart and a kind attention.

If you wish, take a few breaths and offer yourself this simple blessing:

May I carry forward what truly matters.
May I release what no longer serves.
May I walk into this new year with courage and care.

And then extend that light outward:

May we choose love again and again.
May our world remember its own goodness.

The light you seek for the year ahead is not waiting somewhere else.

It already lives in you—
in your capacity to begin again,
to forgive a little more,
to open when it would be easier to close.

As this year turns, may you trust that something wise is moving you forward, even when you cannot yet see the path.

With gratitude for you, and faith in what is unfolding,
Jack

12/30/2025

https://tricycle.org/article/suffering-mothers-death/?utm_campaign=02197039&utm_source=p3s4h3r3s

A Colombian Zen monk reflects on a teaching imparted by his mother’s death

11/03/2025

I once wrote about insomnia, and the lesson still holds. The more you fight with your mind at night, the more awake you become. Your body already knows how to sleep. The trick is to let it.

If you’re struggling, maybe the answer isn’t to try harder, but to practice acceptance — to do nothing at all.

You can read the full piece here: https://stevenchayes.com/having-a-hard-time-sleeping-do-nothing/

09/22/2025

Some of the causes of our suffering: “Western society has encouraged and finessed a perverse, vice-like trap: we are caught between the jaws of a desire to be perfect and feelings of self-loathing. A lose-lose situation. Though many of us do not believe we are good enough, paradoxically we constantly seek to prove that we are. The more we struggle, the more this trap can tighten its grip on us. Beyond this alienation from ourselves and our inherent worth, we also experience alienation from each other and from Mother Earth.” From Calm in the Storm: Zen Ways to Cultivate Stability in an Anxious World by Brother Phap Huu & Jo Confino. (This excellent, lucid book provides a remedy - in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh.)

07/30/2025

To be beautiful means to be yourself.You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don't try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself.

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

06/25/2025

Why Meditate? "In one very simple statement," Joseph said, "the Buddha pointed out the various possibilities when he said, ‘Our minds can be our best friend or our worst enemy.’ It's a remarkable statement—that within ourselves, this nature of the mind, the nature of knowing, the nature of awareness, how consciousness plays out—can be our best friend or our worst enemy. The source of either tremendous happiness and fulfillment in our lives, or the source of tremendous suffering. And we've probably all experienced both in the course of our lives...To realize that we can train the mind, that is a powerful understanding. So, as another way of answering the question, Why meditate?, we might say, to make our mind our friend."—Joseph Goldstein

06/08/2025

05/06/2025

The Self-Compassion practice as developed by Kristin Neff:
Put your hand on your heart (which releases Oxytocin and stimulates the Vagus nerve.)
Silently say to yourself: “This is a moment of suffering.” (or your own variation of ) while taking in the meaning.
Then say: “Suffering is a part of life.” (Connecting you with the universal experience of suffering)
Then: “May I hold my suffering with kindness and compassion.”

Feel it all in your body.

04/07/2025

“Here is a fundamental Dharma practice for bringing balance: As much as possible, try not to project into the future. Fear is always about the future. That’s why staying in the present is a refuge. By staying in the present, you can respond wisely to the reality that is here right now. You are less likely to be lost in the fearful stories your mind is creating about the future. And when that future comes, you will be more likely to deal with that moment instead of fearing the future that lies ahead. When you stay in the present everything is more workable. And you are aligned with another liberating truth: Everything changes. I believe our practice is calling us to remember the good in all of us so we can help bring it out in each other and to our country."
James Baraz, mindful meditation teacher