Hills Open space

08/28/2020

So Little to Do, and So Much Time to Do It.

So, the last few months have been very difficult for most people. Not only is the fear of a deadly virus hanging around, we can’t go anywhere, and if we can, we must wear a mask and stay away from others; forget about hugs and handshakes with those you know and love. If that’s not enough, many have not been able to work, or lost their jobs. Financial worries are a very sincere worry! And now we’ve entered into an active political time and for many adults this is gut wrenching during this divided political season; what next?! An asteroid hitting the earth?!!!

Well, since school has started up, either online or face to face, things hopefully are looking better for some. The most important thing I recommended when the virus first impacted life as we knew it, was keep up with your routines. For the kids, going to school provides a good amount of the routine in their day. It’s good for them, and despite the hoops it may cause parents to jump through, it’s good for them too. Routine is good. It’s good because it provides boundaries for us to live in. The potential problem here is that we have to mix it up enough so that we don’t create a “rut”.

That is, I believe the specific issue that our present quarantine status presents. We can create a routine and the boundaries in which to live within, but we have very little options to mix it up; there-by creating a rut that we unwittingly get stuck in.

So how do we handle getting stuck in that rut? We pretty much need to think outside of the box. Routines are generally easy because they are habits. Creating a new habit takes about month of daily changed behavior. This is because the brain takes that long to create a new neural pathway. Thinking out side the box creates new habits and new neural pathways. We can all pick up old (benevolent) habits or start new ones. Reading is a good habit. During times like this I recommend a good table puzzle (this can also help ward off anxiety).

If you cannot think of new things to do to add to your routine, think again and harder. I cannot tell you how important this is. If you cannot find activities to fend off burnout and boredom, then you better have the skills to fend of anxiety and/or depression, because these two things are often connected to burnout and boredom. Unchecked during a quarantine time, such as now, depression and anxiety can become a very serious issue, leading up to over eating, panic attacks and even stroke or heart attack.

If you are feeling anxiety or depression, mainly due to the Coronavirus, or the lock-down etc., it’s important that you are talking to someone about this. A parent, spouse, trusted friend, maybe even a therapist. Even in times like this you can be free of the rut in the road… you may hit a few pot holes sure, but avoiding the ruts can keep us from the grave. Stay safe, and God bless you.

07/29/2020

I want to share this blog with you. What I've been told is a very valuable aid to what ails ya.

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Tumereric's role as a healing herb that has caused scientists to take a closer look at this ?miracle spice.? The magic of turmeric resides in the roots, in

07/21/2020

Mind over Matter
Our brain is full of 86 Billion neurons. These are the brain cells that make up what is called the gray matter of our brains. That’s a lot of brain cells. What’s interesting is there are more; about 100 million neurons around your stomach and heart. Did you ever have a “gut feeling”? Now you know where that came from… literally from your gut.

Everything you do, say, think and feel come from some form of neuronal cluster called a neural pathway. This is where one neuron is connected to another and another forming a line of neurons that pass an electro-chemical signal all the way down the pathway to make something happen.

15 or 20 years ago, if we received any brain damage, lets say from a stroke or car accident they were more often-than-not ready to tell you, you were out of luck and they’d ship you off to a long term hospital to live out the rest of your days in bed or a wheel chair. Thankfully, nothing could be further from the truth. Our brains DO HEAL; and they heal very effectively, with a process that is called neuroplasticity. Many of you may have heard of this already, because it’s a pretty hot topic in both scientific and new age circles.

In new age circles they have been saying, “you are what you think” for decades, it’s only in the last few years that scientific circles have caught up to the Shaman. New agers are easily heard saying “to change your life is as easy as changing your mind”, or “it takes 21 days to create a new habit”. When I search on Amazon for “21 days till…” there is return of 440 books. Of course, not all of these books had that in the title, but many did, and if they did, they were all about changing something, your weight, your husband, your wife, even your consciousness. It looks like the Shaman knew a lot more than our scientists just by being in touch with the human condition.

This is not to sell the scientists short. They are catching up very quickly, neuro-science is one of the hottest growth fields today. They know now that certain things aid in cell growth and the development of new neural pathways. They know that we do in fact grow new neurons every day; 700 per day from the hippocampus as a matter of fact. That may not seem like much, considering the volume of cells already in the brain, but 700 every day, adds up fast.

The message here is all the Shamen were right – all the neuroscientists are right. No one knows, what came first the mind or the brain, but they know the brain can “rewire” itself, and they know the mind can help do just that. If you’ve never seen the story of Morris Goodman, the Miracle Man I encourage you to look it up. So, if you or someone you know has had a stroke, or some time of Traumatic Brain Injury, you must know there is hope for recovery. More than that, anything you want to do, or become is possible. There is new meaning behind the old saying, “Practice makes Perfect”. I’ve recently heard is said; “What we Practice Grows Stronger” (S. Sapiro).

07/12/2020

My introduction. Hope you are all well during this trying times.

04/05/2020

HillsTherapy is now offering Telehealth during this trying time.

TherapyNotes™ is practice management software for behavioral health, helping you securely manage records, book appointments, write notes, bill, and more.

03/26/2020

During these troubled times it's difficult to know what the truth is. Fear of the unknown is one of the biggest causes for anxiety, which in turn is one of the biggest reasons people seek out a therapist. In order to help deal with the need I have started providing teletherapy in the evenings. If interested please feel free to contact me and we'll talk. (Normal fees apply)

03/15/2020

I felt like it was time I chimed in on the Coronavirus thing. I found what I thought was the perfect quote from Marcus Aurelius when he said “That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees”; and it’s the truth! I don’t know if you’ve seen a bee keeper at work, but if you have, you know that smoke is not good for the hive. If it doesn’t knock the bees out, it forces them out of the hive. This way the beekeeper can steal their honey in peace. No matter how you look at it, the bee is in trouble, as is the whole hive.

Of course, when the World Health Organization (WHO) announces the Coronavirus is a pandemic the entire world sees this has bad for the “hive” (or the world in general). Indeed, it is very bad. The world has seen this many times before. In the middle ages, the Black Plague decimated Europe then Syphilis tried to kill who was left. The Hantavirus attacking the Americas, and more modern age; Influenza, Tuberculosis, HIV and of course now; Coronavirus. Of course, some of these were worse than others, but all non-the-less caused some panic.

However, like everything else, I’d like not to lose perspective. First let’s look at the formation of the work disease. Easily broken down it says Dis – ease. The act of NOT being at EASE. So, the word that means illness to the body basically means we are not comfortable. Is that discomfort, (or “Dis – ease”), only physical or does the mind play a part in this too? I believe the mind plays a very large part in this. We all know science used to believe that stomach ulcers were caused by stress. They now know that not to be true, but stress CAN make ulcers worse. We do, however, know that stress can raise our blood pressure, and lower our immune system. It is much easier to get sick when your immune system is not functioning at its best. Some even believe that everyone inherently has cancer, but you don’t get cancer till it is activated by dis – ease.

Now let’s go back to the beehive, and make it synonymous with our societies. First let’s look at two words that we commonly use:

Illness
Wellness

Can you see the difference between the two words? It’s clear that Illness starts with an “I”, and Wellness, with a “We”. In this day and age, we are being told to separate ourselves from the “hive” and be alone. I think we’ve done that enough; we don’t need to let fear or politics make that divide even bigger. We need out connections, we need our relationships in order to survive. Don’t let fear ruin that.

I must also speak of hording. I don’t understand it at all. two months ago, there was enough for everyone when they needed it. Here in the USA, you could go to the store, get what you needed and go home, leaving more on the shelf for your neighbor. That is not the case today; hording of toilet paper, water, disinfectant. The hoarder has what they need, but what of the elder or families that must now go without? In one sense we should be glad we are not a beehive. Do you know what the hive would do if they found one bee trying to horde all the nectar or honey for themselves? The other bees would take the hoarder out of the hive and kill it.

Do be a good bee.

07/21/2019

07/20/2019

Attachment theory is a foundation to therapy.

07/14/2019

What Goes Up, Must Come Down...

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression; “Life is like a roller coaster”. They say that because of all the ups and downs we go through in our lives. That’s true, our lives do have a lot of ups and down, ins and outs, happiness and sadness. But is all that your doing?

A lot of times we get caught up in things that draw us into these ups and down. Either we are on autopilot and find ourselves in situations we didn’t really want to be in, or sometimes we just make stupid choices and get caught up in the consequences of those choices. There is another saying; “you can’t always choose what happens to you, but you can ALWAYS choose how you respond to what happens to you”.

Forget the metaphor for a minute… have you ever been to an amusement park with a friend that loves to ride the roller coaster? It’s not your passion, but your friend insists that you ride with him. As you are in line getting closer and closer to the ride, you feel your anxiety rising. You don’t really like heights that much and the stomach turning, loop d’ loop does not excite you… AT ALL. But this is your friend, and you want to be a good friend.

You get to the ride, and your friend wants to sit right in the front. You try to argue but he is persuasive. As the safety harness comes down over your chest you feel your heart beating a mile a minute and you’re distinctly out of breath. You start going up the first rise, the chain pulling you forward clanking loudly beneath you. You get to the point on the rise and all you see is sky in front of you. You slowly breach the summit of the ride and the daunting drop looks as if it goes on forever, and it is STRAIGHT down,… at least that is what it looks like. You close your eyes, and grip the bar in front of you. Everyone starts screaming and you’re not sure if the damn thing is even still on the rails because all you feel is the air rushing past you. Then it happens the ride starts making all these turns at incredibly fast speeds, and you are being bounced back and forth between the wall of the cart and your friend, like so many apples, that escaped from the shopping bag, and are now rolling back and forth in the back of the car. You gather a brief moment of courage to open your eyes, when you see it coming toward you… the loop d’ loop. Bang! It's there before you get a chance to close your eyes, and you feel your stomach rising up to your throat. Its over in seconds, but you feel certain that you bent the rod you were holding onto; your grip was so tight. You take a second to look over at your friend and you notice that he is laughing, smiling, holding his hands up in the air… he is having a wonderful time, while all you can think about is when will this death ride stop. You get to end and your friend jumps out excitedly and gleefully says, “wow that was great, let’s do that again”, while you slowly, crawl out of the ride trying to feel the ground beneath you and looking for the nearest trash can you can lose your lunch in.

How can this be? Both people went on the exact same ride, in the exact same time and space. Yet one person is exhilarated, happy and wanting to do it again, while the other is feeling sick, traumatized and wanting to leave the area as soon as possible. I’m sure you’ve guessed the difference; one was able to “let go”. I’m not talking about just being able to let go of the bar in front of them, but they were also able to let go of the tragic stories about roller coasters, they were able to let go of, what the other would most certainly call a “death defying” ride, and basically let go of their own insecurities and fears; anxieties that were never ‘real’ in the first place.

So, it is in life. We can’t always control the other people we are with. They may bend us to their will, or we will make choices that are not necessarily ones we would normally make; like riding a “death defying” ride, but once on the ride we can choose how to respond to what’s happening. Most trauma in our lives is not our choosing, how we respond to that trauma is the difference between being a wounded victim or victorious survivor.

Just let go…

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Richard is a child therapist in the Concord, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek area for the last 4 years, but has been working with children in school settings for over ten years. He specializes in autism, ADHD, anxiety, depression behavior issues and a number of other issues.