Bluegrass Counseling for Relational Health

22/09/2022

Where are all my friends’ posts???!!!

14/10/2017

Connection

06/09/2017

What's your ACE score?
ACES (Adverse Childhood Experience Study) a groundbreaking study indicated that many health conditions such as lung disease, heart disease, autoimmune conditions (like RA, fibromyalgia, psoriasis, celiac disease, etc) and mental health struggles have direct correlation with a high ACE score. (Read about it here http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/02/387007941/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean)
More later about Developmental Trauma

First developed in the 1990s, the 10 questions of the Adverse Childhood Experiences test are designed to take a rough measure of a difficult childhood. Finding out your score is easy. Now what?

29/08/2017

"I'm sorry if..." Vs Please forgive me I was wrong

Don’t let this two-letter word make your apology false!

24/08/2017

Answers to the question, “Why can’t I be as happy on the inside as I look on the outside?”

18/07/2017

Interesting article.

You get all kinds of happiness advice on the internet from people who don’t know what they’re talking about. Don’t trust them. Trust neuroscience.

18/07/2017

This article is marvelous.

I used to say I believed in grace. I don’t say that anymore. Now I say I have known grace, and what I know is this: grace believes in me… It’s 9pm, and I walk in the door still carrying the burdens…

26/04/2017

So shame can feel like a tsunami, overwhelming and crushing, but sometimes shame works like a electrical circuit. An embarrassing event or thought is like flipping the power switch in the circuit. Every new embarrassment adds a light bulb and flips the switch again lighting up all the bulbs in the circuit. Shame fires up the accumulated feeling of every previous shame experienced. Eventually shame becomes tsunami-like in our emotional experience of it. Shame is often experienced as blushing and a hot feeling of the face, sometimes accompanied by nausea, or narrowing of field of vision (when we experience shame we often look down). Thoughts like "I can't do anything right." or "I really am a miserable person." "I'm so __________ (stupid, weak, etc.) come rushing in with the tsunami of shame and the light bulbs of hopelessness, sadness, loneliness and even anger get lit up as well. Wow, what a emotion! How do you experience shame?
Next up: Dealing with shame.

25/04/2017

Last week, I was thinking about shame, Okay, honestly, that is a topic I think about almost every day. Shame comes up for me, my clients, my children, my friends, Oh really everybody. Shame is that tsunami that washes over us when we feel like we may not measure up. Mistakes make many of us feel like we are overwhelmed and drowning in shame. Sometimes, shame can sneak up on us at the mere thought of the possibility of being less than we "should" be. Shame can be a tsunami but for many shame becomes an electrical circuit. More on that next time.

26/01/2017

Every human person needs and seeks connection and attunement to develop and flourish in this world.

18/10/2016

Procrastination; for many this word conjures up images of intentional laziness and irresponsibility, with a scent of scrambling genius. But why do we procrastinate?
Could it be that I am afraid that the process necessary to meet my goal is too much for me? Maybe I think I already know what the process will require, but there is that slim chance that I might have to learn something new, try a new, unfamiliar method, be faced with not knowing, and with the pain of destroying the illusion of my competence.
So instead of facing my inability and step, by step learning new facts, methods, and processes, I slap together at the last minute from what I already know. The result may (or may not) look good, but how did I grow in the creative process? Did I cling to magical thinking that it will all come together? Did I recognize I can grow and develop new competencies? To overcome procrastination I must tolerate the anxiety of my own incompetence. I must trust the process.

29/09/2016

Dissociation is technically a defense mechanism.