Do you have a loved one that is struggling with addiction or in early recovery? Watching someone you love struggle with an alcohol or drug problem is painful for the entire family. It causes many intense feelings such as anger, confusion, sadness, and worry. Addiction is a “family disease” because the entire family becomes consumed [...]
When a loved one has an addiction the entire family often spirals into chaos. Family members can feel like they're walking on eggshells in order to keep the peace at home. Other times, they may feel like they are jumping through hoops to try to "fix" the problem or help their loved one get better. [...]
"Befriend Not Obliterate Emotions" Trauma reorganizes our minds, brains, bodies, and perceptions. It alters not just how we think or the content of our thoughts, but also our capacity to think at all. After trauma, the world is experienced through a different lens. A person who carries trauma can become focused on suppressing what they [...]
Unmanageability is not a word that we hear often unless we are familiar with 12 Step programs and recovery but, it is one of the identifying characteristics of drug and alcohol addiction. Most of us like to believe that we exert a certain amount of control in our lives. When we begin to struggle with [...]
The book To Buy Or Not To Buy, by April Lane Benson, Ph.D., published in 2008, explains how people fall into overshopping and gives excellent advice about how to get oneself out of this unfortunate pattern. If your overshopping has damaged your relationships, your self-esteem and/or your finances, then this book is for you. It’s [...]
I'm sure you have heard the word mindful before, especially if you've checked in to read our blogs.. But what does it really mean? Are we being Mind full or Mindful? Is your mind full of clutter? When you are doing 1 task, are you thinking about the other 10 things on your to do [...]
Judson Brewer, M.D., Ph.D. is the director of research at the Center for Mindfulness and associate professor in medicine and psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, an adjunct professor at Yale University, a longtime meditator and has written a book called The Craving Mind. His research has shown him what leads to people [...]
Do you often feel overwhelmed by your partner's emotions? Do find you rarely focus on your own needs? Are you unsure where you end & your partner begins? If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you are struggling with codependency. Codependency is defined as over-reliance on a person or in layman's terms [...]
Most of us are often thinking about making changes in our lives. Whether big or small, change if often an inevitable part of life itself. When we desire a change, we often want to make that change RIGHT NOW and we want it to be quick and painless. The problem is that with any life [...]
Throughout our lives, we naturally develop defenses to protect ourselves from thoughts, feelings, or experiences that seem uncomfortable. For example, we might deny that an uncomfortable situation is happening because we don't want to face that discomfort. You might think of defenses as rose-colored glasses that we put on so we can try to change [...]