In the world of addiction treatment and recovery there is contentious and ceaseless debate between two warring factions - those who believe addiction is a choice and those who believe addiction is a disease.
Parts of Me… Introduction into Trauma, Emotional “Parts” & Structural Dissociation
Trauma is the physiological and psychological response to deeply disturbing or distressing events that overwhelm our ability to cope, leading to profound feelings of helplessness and hopelessness protecting ourselves (or others we care about like parents or siblings) when faced with real (or perceived) threats.
When left untreated, patterns of disturbance which are experienced for more than 1 month after a traumatic event has occurred, and cause significant disruption in social and occupational areas of one’s life often become what is known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Porn Addiction: Men’s Silent Epidemic
But porn addiction has slowly become a silent epidemic for millions of boys and men. “Porn sickness” [1] a term coined to describe an imbalance in a person pornography use and the impact it has on their daily life function. This imbalance tends to cause problems in their social and romantic relationships, issues with sexual performance and decreased sexual satisfaction, and lower self-esteem.
5 Important Lessons I Learned During the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic
To say the least, 2020 was a strange and chaotic year for us all. With the COVID-19 pandemic at the forefront of great challenges and change in our social, political, and economic systems, many of us were forced into an unfamiliar and unpredictable world wrought with fear of what’s to come, grief at what was lost, and uncertainty about how to navigate it all.
How Mindfulness & Meditation Forever Transformed My Life
I am still astounded by what I don’t know, and I am continually amazed by how much I can still learn about this strange and mysterious thing called the “Human Experience”.
For the longest time, I felt as if I was sleep walking through life. My body was moving, but there’s no one driving the car, and I had no particular place to go.
Rites of Passage and Their Vital Importance to the Development of Boys & Men
There are three existential questions all of us have asked or will ask at some point in our lives:
1) Who am I?
2) Where did I come from?
3) What is the meaning and purpose of my life?
These questions are extraordinarily complex and intricate, as they are unique to the individual person and are exceedingly difficult to answer by one’s self. The reason these questions are more challenging to answer is because we cannot answer them by mere thought alone.
Trauma Theater: How to Stop Re-enacting Past Trauma in Our Relationships and Change Our Trauma Story
Relationships are fundamental to the human experience. They are intrinsic to how we define ourselves and relate to the world. They help form our values, morals, and beliefs. They protect us from danger and provide for us in times of need. They form the basis for our culture, shaping how we communicate and relate to others.
Recovery Month: Risks to Recovering Addicts During the COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed significant challenges to addicts in recovery. Not only have recovering addicts who have long-term sobriety are at risk, but has been especially strenuous for those who have recently decided to take a leap of faith transitioning from active addiction into unfamiliar world of addiction recovery.
Why Seek Therapy Now?
Healing from Trauma with EMDR Therapy
If you have ever been in therapy (great job taking a risk and getting some help), you most likely have heard about trauma, as it is quite the hot topic issue in the therapeutic community, and has been making its way into mainstream news.
Maybe you have even been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by a licensed clinician, or maybe you diagnosed yourself. I mean, who hasn’t done that at least once after reading WebMD or several online articles about depression, anxiety, or narcissistic parents?
The 2 Leading Ways Modern Addiction Treatment Falls Short In Serving Recovering Addicts
Recovering from drug and alcohol addiction is an immensely arduous challenge to overcome. It is even more strenuous to do it alone. Thus, people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction who are in desperate need for a solution turn to clinical substance abuse treatment for help stopping the destructive pain their addiction is causing them and their loved ones.
3 Tips for Taking Care of Our Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Many of us feel more than stressed out due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the associated job losses, social unrest, mask mandates, and lockdowns that have occurred over the last several months. We are filled with doubt things will return back to normal. We feel uncertain about our future and our children’s future. We feel angry and frustrated that our goals, dreams, and world have been turned upside down by a force we have no control over. We are scared about how much worse things can get and what “getting through this” will look like for us.
How to Come Back from a Break Up & Thrive
One moment the relationship is filled with joy, passion, and affection; we can’t imagine spending our lives with anyone else. The next moment everything is shattering into bits and pieces. Anger, jealousy, fear, pain, and hurt starts to seep in, and we say and do things to our partner which ends up poisoning our hearts. Sometimes we see this end coming, and deny the inevitable, hoping in the heart of hearts some miracle will save our relationship from ending. Despite all our protest, denial, and resistance, the relationship ends and we fall apart.
When Do We Keep Trying or Give Up: A Tough Choice
“You never know what’s around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you’ve climbed a mountain” – Tom Hiddleston
Her muscles scream in pain, telling her they desperately want to end this race right here right now. She feels a wave of anxiety creeping into her mind, wondering whether or not she’ll make it to the finish line.
When Is It Time to Make a Career Transition
How To Start A Healthy Relationship... With Yourself
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love & affection”
- Buddha
Having a loving and accepting relationship with myself has been an extremely daunting task, as a small part of me seeks to I resist the idea of self-compassion. Every time I am placed in a stressful situation, whether it be a project deadline, conflict in a relationship, dealing with a frustrated and angry child, parent, or client, or simply trying something for the first time, I would find myself consistently, but subtly criticizing and judging every though, action or word I spoke.
How Your Attitude Creates Your Success or Your Suffering
“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
What is the attitude you take towards challenges and conflict in your life? What are those loud, annoying voices in our heads saying to us about how should we live our lives? Raise our children? How we should view ourselves and place in this world?
The Time to Act is NOW
“Life is available only in the present moment. If you abandon the present moment you cannot live in the moments of your daily life deeply”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
All you really own is this very moment. Your past is just a historical record, and your future hasn’t come into existence. Everything in your life is created by what you do (or don’t do) here and now.
4 Tips For Getting Unstuck and Take Action In Your Life
“Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing”. - Eckhart Tolle
Have you ever felt so stuck in life that there seemed to be no way out? Finding yourself repeating similar cycles in your life, career, or relationships which continue to leave you feeling stagnant and unfulfilled?
There have been several times in my life where I too have been stuck in these seemingly endless cycles; always feeling hopeless, anxious, depressed, and confused about how to get unstuck. Like a truck spinning its’ tires in the mud, I was going absolutely nowhere fast. Too often in these situations we beat ourselves up, thinking with enough self-criticism and anger that somehow we will get out.
Yet, not only do we continue to dig our own proverbial graves, but too often our situations drastically worsen, sending us into a self-defeating tailspin.
Creating Principle-Centered Family
“Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible – the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family” – Virginia Satir
For most of us, our family – mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, grandfathers, and grandmothers – is an essential part in our lives, and are some of the most meaningful and important relationships we have.