A New Year: Setting Successful Intentions for 2021

The old custom of making New Year's resolutions serves the purpose of being mindful of what has been and envisioning new beginnings with the transition to a new year.  However, there is a way to make your new beginning more successful.  In Sanskrit the word Sankalpa means vow, vow to self.  When we mindfully set a new Sankalpa we are aligning with our highest self and our highest good.  The Sankalpa originates in a heartfelt desire, and is then affirmed as an intention.  This takes your new resolve to a deeper level, one more likely to succeed because it is a commitment of your true self to your self.  Being directed by your heartfelt desire garners your full commitment and is more likely to succeed.  For example, a resolution to exercise more is frequently expressed in January.  Below I will describe how to go about setting an intention in this area that is more likely to succeed.

1. Sit in stillness and draw your attention within.  Notice the movement of the breath in the body, following the inhale and the exhale.

2. After a few breaths bring your attention to the center of the chest, the heart center, and invite yourself to become aware of your heartfelt desire.  That could be something such as, I am healthy and fit, I make healthy choices daily.  

3. Affirm this intention to your self as if it is already present.  Allow to come to mind images of your self making the healthy choices that result in being healthy and fit. 

4. Repeat this heart centered intention daily to reinforce and this is likely to help you experience the changes you want for your self.

Your heart's desire may be about relationships, or your work, or your life's purpose.   Here are a few examples to help get you started:

I experience love and connection in relationships.

I use my skills and talents in fulfilling work.

I am aware of my values and manifest them purposefully.

These more general heartfelt desires can be broken into specific intentions that lead to fulfillment.  For example, I make time to be fully present in relationships that would lead to greater love and connection. 

Happy New Year and best wishes for fulfilling your heartfelt desires. 

December 2020: Holidays during COVID

We’ve all joked, and sometimes cried, about how crazy 2020 has been, and we’re now looking into the month that may be the hardest for many of us.  We’re exhausted from nine months of varied stages of lockdown, isolation, fear, and unpredictability, and now COVID rates are rising again.  And on top of it all, it’s the holiday season.  For many of us, the holidays will look very different this year.  Here are some tips to help cope with this challenging time.

1. Be gentle with yourself.  Cry if you want to.  It’s okay to feel grief during this holiday season.

2. Keep what holiday traditions you can, but allow yourself to be creative about replacing ones that you’re not able to have.  If you can’t travel to see family, print out their pictures and set them around the table.  Or try zooming together while everyone eats their holiday meal.

3. Talk to others about how you’re feeling and share ideas.  We’re all in this together!  Maybe even join some Facebook groups or follow some Instagram accounts that are sharing ideas about how to cope with this year’s holiday season.

4. Practice gratitude.  Focusing intentionally on the things you’re grateful for is a foolproof way to feel better, even if it feels hard at first.

And, of course, reach out for professional help when needed.  We’re here for you!

Therapy in the Time of COVID

We are living through times unlike any we have previously experienced. A worldwide pandemic has added a sense of threat and powerlessness to our daily lives. We have been required to change the way we do most things: how we work, how we go to school, where we go, how we shop, and how we spend time with family and friends. While human beings are incredibly adaptable, COVID has stretched all of thin.

At The Counseling Center we are accustomed to working with our clients on problems related to anxiety, depression, trauma and relationships. We are now seeing new levels of stress which compound these issues.

We want you to know that we are still available to help in these times. We are fully committed to maintaining our level of excellence in providing psychotherapy and promoting safety, wellness, and wholeness. It has now been several months that we have been offering telehealth and virtual therapy. We have discovered that we are able to effectively work with clients in these formats. While we miss the personal contact of being in the office together, we have been able to establish new therapeutic relationships and maintain the working relationships already established.

If we can help you during this time, we welcome your inquiries. As you know, at The Counseling Center we are always interested in holistic solutions in times of trouble, so we offer the following suggestions as you continue to cope with an extraordinary time.

Our minds and bodies benefit from structure and predictability. As much as possible, try find some daily routines that provide that.

Attending to the body is a great resource for self-care. Try to include some exercise every day, anything from gentle stretching to vigorous exercise, dancing, or gardening will provide resiliency in the body.

Creativity is a great resource for hope, joy, and pleasure. Find ways to include your creative outlets into daily life. This might be the time to take up a new activity such as art or music, or to simply rearrange the furniture or make a collage.

When under threat the brain kicks into survival instincts and works overtime, so practices to help quiet the mind are essential right now. Even those of you who don't think you can meditate can find some simple practices to allow you to experience the quiet below the mind. By accessing some simple breathing techniques, using guided meditation recordings, spending time in nature, and learning to be attentive to sensing and feeling you may spend more time in calm awareness and less time thinking.

We would be glad to assist you in developing a self-care plan designed for you to help you thrive even during this time. Best wishes and be well.

The Staff at TCC

Mindfulness Magic

The skill of mindfulness is not complicated and is in fact a capacity all of us have, but it must be recognized and practiced. The simplest definition of mindfulness is that it is the ability to observe our own thinking and experience. The busy mind is prone to thinking all the time, but we have the internal ability to step back from thinking and observe it at work. So, if my thinking mind has taken off again with its habit of following a “What if” thought, like what if my boss is thinking I didn’t do the job, or what if I don’t have enough money this month, there is part of us that can step back and see “there is that worry again.”

The more time we spend practicing observing the less time we spend captured or fused with our thoughts. This is called dis-identification. When we can dis-identify with thoughts we may be able to see the thought for what it is. We may be able to discern truth instead of just buying into what thinking has to say. So, from the observer standpoint I could see that the worry about money is coming up again and I could also observe that there was enough money last month, or the boss gave me a positive evaluation a couple weeks ago.

Sometimes it takes some practice to disengage from thinking and assume the position of the observer. A simple mindfulness practice is to close the eyes, bring your attention inside, and focus your attention on the movement of breath in the body. You can notice the rise and fall of the chest, the expansion and contraction of the ribcage, the rise and fall of the belly. As you attend to the breath, you can count the breaths saying to yourself, “10, breath in, 10, breath out, continue counting down for 10 breaths. Notice the stillness in the mind, the relaxation in the body, and notice yourself as the observer who is aware of this experience.

The magic that is produced with mindfulness expands the more we do it and includes no longerbeing a victim of every thought we have, reducing fear, enjoying periods of stillness and quiet, and developing a new standpoint of wisdom and discernment. As you stand in the observer standpoint you are also increasing positive biochemistry in the nervous system and decreasing harmful biochemistry. This can affect your health, your sleep, and your experience of joy and pleasure in positive ways.

Four Tips to Improve Your Intimate Relationship

February 2020 In the film ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ the main character tells a story about her friend Deborah: “Deborah, a psychologist, was asked by the city of Philadelphia if she could offer psychological counseling to a group of Cambodian refugees, ‘boat people’ who had recently arrived in the city. Deborah was daunted by the task. These Cambodians had suffered genocide, starvation, witnessed relatives murdered before their eyes, spent years in refugee camps, and endured heroic boat trips to the west. How could she relate to their suffering? How could she help these people?” The main character who plays Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the book ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ went on to say that the Cambodian people wanted to talk with her friend Deborah, the psychologist, not about the trauma and suffering they had experienced as result of fleeing their country, but about their love relationships. They wanted to talk about the love they had found, the love they had lost, and the love they were missing and wanted back…all about a special guy or girl whom they couldn’t stop thinking about. Elizabeth Gilbert found herself thousands of miles away from home going to talk to a medicine man about the very same issue: her love life.

Why is it that so many people are consumed with their love relationship? These relationships touch a very deep place within us. The concerns seem to fall into three categories:

-People who have had their heart broken by someone they love and just can’t seem to recover.

-People who are in a relationship currently and are concerned that the relationship is not working.

-People who are looking to find the right person with whom to spend their lives.

In this blog posting I would like to focus on some tips for those who are in a current relationship and feel that it is not working. In future blog postings, I would like to address more tips for current relationships, as well as tips for those who are trying to get over a past relationship, and tips for those who are looking for the right person to be with.

So, here goes:

Tips for Improving Your Current Love Relationship

1. Be willing to listen. Try to hear what your partner is telling you when he/she speaks. Pause. Don’t think about what you are going to say next, just listen. Let your partner know what you think they are saying. Let them tell you if you heard it accurately or if there is something they need to clarify. Stay calm.

2. Provide safety for your partner. Remember that you are both on the same side ultimately. Your partner is not your enemy. Your partner is your friend. How can you speak to your partner in a way that allows them to feel respected and not attacked? When either of you escalate, the discussion is over for the moment and needs to resume later after a cooling off period.

3. Laugh together. Remember when you met your partner and you had countless moments together talking and making each other laugh? Where did that go? Bring the humor back into the relationship. You may have to work hard to find it again, but you will.

4. Devote time to the relationship. You two need time together and without your children or your friends. It may be very difficult if you have children, but it is essential that you make it happen on a regular basis. Get off the sofa or away from the computer. Turn off the cell phone. Think of a creative way to spend time together. Surprise your partner and ask him/her to surprise you. Make it a priority. And make a rule that you won’t talk about your problems on the date.

written by Linda Beam, LCSW-C