As a child, your caregiver had the ultimate power over your life, death, and happiness. It wasn’t safe to play, make noise, or be noticed, and your emotional and physical safety, and maybe your life, depended on your brain’s ability to pick up on tiny cues that might signal upcoming harm to you. Now, you may be fearful of things others are not. This is normal, you are normal, and you are not alone.
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You know the feeling: a dull pressure in your head, pit in your stomach, narrowed vision, feeling white hot or icy cold. You might feel like you can’t sit still - your heart racing, and your jaw clenched. You want to yell, cry, or kick something.
Read MoreLike many women of a certain age, we’ve moved past being a rebellious daughter and into being a mother in our own families. We tell our children no when they ask for unreasonable or unhealthy things. We tell our partners no when they have unrealistic expectations. We even tell our best friends no when we need more time with our children and partners. Why, then, is it so difficult to say no to our mothers or fathers or other members in our family of origin?
Read MoreIrritation, frustration, and anger are normal emotions - neither positive or negative. Anger is likely one of two things: a messenger or a symptom.
Read MoreMost of us are prone to high expectations, and stress around the holiday season. If you are someone who fits into this group, as I am, you may also worry your holiday might be disappointing or painful. Do you know what you are hoping for? Specifically?
It’s likely some aspects of your dream holiday are quite possible.
If you are alive and awake, you’ve likely read or heard about Josh Duggar, of the television show 19 Kids and Counting, molesting his sisters and a babysitter. What can you and I, as parents, do differently? Value our children, believe them, report their molester.
Read MoreThink back to the past week. Think about the positive, negative, and neutral events that happened. Did you have a bad day? Did you feel abandoned or panicked when the person you turned to wasn’t available? Do you want to feel better when it happens again? Because you will feel let down, disappointed, or abandoned again someday. We can control of our feelings of sadness, abandonment, grief, rage, and anxiety by changing our thoughts with a simple activity called cognitive restructuring.
Read MoreI made decisions, changed decisions, and meditated on it.
Read MoreEye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR) is one of the great counseling techniques to lessen the triggers and flooding that can come with anxiety. It works on the stuck memories that come out with physical sensations when you are confronted with smells, sights, people, places, or sounds that are similar to trauma, pain, or fear you experienced in the past.
Read MoreWith Father's Day right around the corner, here is a repost of blog on how to manage the holiday with a, shall we say, less than loving father. Celebrating YOU!
~ Robin