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How Your Partner Bids for Connection & What to Do Next
Are you connecting with your partner the way you want to? Listen up. Your partner is talking to you. What do you hear? “Honey, do you want to grab lunch tomorrow?” “You would never guess the stuff I heard at work today!’ “Aren’t YouTube cat videos the worst?” So, how...
read moreTraumatic Grief: Trauma, Grief, or Both?
Traumatic grief. Traumatic Grief. Reading the two words together signals that something terrible happened. They highlight shock and suffering. Something happened to you suddenly, or was stripped away from you tragically. Perhaps someone even betrayed you unexpectedly....
read moreInterpersonal Neurobiology: What Your Relationships Mean to your Brain
You know, from day one, our brains really are the sponges we hear new parents talk about. New parents might not be calling it interpersonal neurobiology, but they marvel at the responses they see in their babies. Science tells us relationships are powerful in our...
read more5 Steps for Anxious Overachievers if Stress is Ruining Happiness
You have that one friend who gets it all done. All of it. The classic overachiever. Everybody knows that she’ll win the awards, earn the degrees, chair the committee, keep an immaculate home, and get the raise. All the while smiling and keeping fit enough to wear...
read moreChristian Mindfulness (Or, Of Course Christians Can Practice Mindfulness. Here’s Why.)
Christian Mindfulness (Or, Of Course Christians Can Practice Mindfulness. Here's Why. Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention. Being in the present moment, attuned and aware. Neither fretting about the future, nor regretting the past. Noticing what is, right...
read more7 Ways PTSD Affects Your Relationship and How to Restore Your Connection
PTSD is hard on relationships. And it won’t just go away if you realize how much you love each other. Or ease its assault of isolation, flashbacks, nightmares, sense of failure, or waves of sadness and sudden anger on its own. PTSD breaks connections. The trusting,...
read moreFinding Relief for Trauma (Hint: There Are Logical Reasons for Your Symptoms)
What if you were experiencing excruciating trauma symptoms (like a break) to your leg, and it didn’t hold you up when you put weight on it? And what if your painful symptoms kept you from getting around in your daily life: sleeping through the night, getting dressed...
read moreWhat Does Marriage Therapy Have To Do With Driving a Stick Shift?
What Early Lessons in Partnership have to do with Marriage Therapy That ten year old girl with the horse in the picture? That’s me and my first horse, Bart. He was the horse I’d later develop such a close partnership with that I could ride him without any tack—no...
read moreWhat Students Need to Know about College Anxiety
This isn’t going to be a blog post on “Three Tips for College Anxiety.” Believe me, I know test anxiety and other symptoms are real, and if you are experiencing them, you need real strategies. That’s why in my counseling practice we start with specific tools for...
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