The Curious Counselor

Codependency is the need to make someone else happy with the expectation they will make you happy. It is driven by the need to feel loved. CoIndependent means living a life full of love and joy in yourself that you can both share with others and receive. Accepting that we are not only lovable but that the essense of what we are is love helps us realize we don't need to seek love from outside ourse...

Most of the time when we get mad, we immediately can identify the source of our frustration, be it a careless driver, someone cutting in line, a loud child, a less than compassionate friend or coworker or partner or whatever. "That person makes me so mad..." is often our refrane. But, what if our anger is not about the current situation? What if our inability to respond as a kind, compassionate pe...

I went through an awful divorce in 2016 to 2018. I thought my wife and I were doing all the right things to save our marriage (go to church, talk, pray, go to marriage seminars, etc) but still, we ended up in a divorce. Since that time I have been doing a lot of my own trauma work, a lot more praying and had, I think, I bit of good insight. Essentially, I thought was doing all the right things (go...

I am divorced. Am I doomed to hell? In the sermon on the mount (Mt. 5) Jesus says if you get divorced except for infidelity you commit adultry. Jesus says several other things that are a sin (including anger) then leads up to the last verse of the chapter to say you must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect (Mt. 5: 48) and if we don't keep the law as well as the pharisees and teachers of...

In the last episode, we talked about the three (3) phases of healing your inner child: self-regulation, working with internal defenders and finally, how to connect with the inner child. In this epsisode, I interview Camilla (psuedonym), a client of mine who has participated in several earlier episodes (thank you Camilla). She has DID (disassociative identity disorder) and has to date, identified 1...

This is a summary of a workshop I recently did at PlayThink 2024 (thanks Paige Zen, it was an awesome festival). The three steps to healing are: Spend time learning how to ground yourself through B - Breathing, T- tapping, S - stretching, S - Shaking. BTSS used 2 minutes 3 or 4 times a day will help you establish a calm safe center which will serve as a foundation for a safe space to connect with...

In past episodes, I've talked about kindness, compassion and curiosity. I've had on guests to talk about different aspects of healing through kindness, compassion and curiosity. In this episode, I want to share some of my favorite movies that illustrate healing through, yes, kindness, compassion and curiosity. 1 - Forrest Gump How can an "idiot" (Forrest Gump as played by Tom Hanks) have such a su...

This week I am talking to Camilla about how to break out of her current living situation and move to be closer to her children. Camilla has disassociative identity disorder (multiple personalities) so making any change is hard but making a change in living situation to a totally different city is overwhelming. In this episode we explore the logistical and emotional barriers to moving to be closer...

How can we build safe connections with others when we often don't even have a safe connection with ourselves? In this episode, I interview a client, Camilla (pseudonym) who has disassociative identity disorder (meaning she has multiple sub-parts to her personality). How has she learned to have a safe connection with herself, her subparts, let alone people around her? Sometimes its just basic self-...

We need kindness to thrive but unfortunately many of us did not have kindness modeled for us so we do now what we did when we were children in order to feel safe. We hide. We blame others. We yell and hit. We pretend to be happy when we're not and we try to make everyone around us happy. No wonder we don't feel feel happy. The key to joy is learning to be kind to ourselves and others. By channelin...

Imagine having more than one "personality" or part of your personality that is so well developed that he (or she) literally their own thoughts, perceptions, likes/dislikes. In this episode I interview Erin and Camilla, both with multiple "sub-parts" or personalities. Erin has her main persona and 3 sub-parts: Val (short for Valkyrie) that is her protector, Mitigate that is her healthy surogate fat...

Disassociation can range anywhere from a feeling of being out of our bodies, to being emotional shut down or literally being taken over by a part of our personality (disassociative identity disorder). In this episode, I talk with Camilla (and some of her parts) about her experiences with disassociation, how to heal and how to channel more compassion to her child parts, her defensive parts as well...

In this 4th interview with "Camilla" we explore her healing journey. What things in and outside have contributed to her healing process? While creating a safe space to be heard is the foundation to healing, we dive deeper into Camilla's experience with healing, the people in her world that are safe (which are unfortunately few) and the many people that have not been safe. By listening, repeating a...

"Lynn" is a friend of mine that has had a hard time finding a good therapist. In this interview, we talk about what therapy is, how it can help, why she might have had bad therapy experiences and we do some exploration of her trauam which began with bullying at the age of 5.  As I provided a safe emotional space for her to tell her story by listening, repeating back what I heard, validating her fe...

Many and perhaps most of us have an inner critic, the part that tells us we didn't do enough or we didn't do it good enough or we are just stupid for thinking this or that. Why do we have an inner critic and what can we do to bring healing to that part? In this episode, we look not only at what the inner critic does but why does the inner critic feel the need to criticize us? What if that part is...

I am excited to have my client "Camilla" join me in this podcast to capture what an EMDR session looks like.  EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a well researched processing tool for healing trauma. The major components of EMDR processing include:  Identifying a negative message (in this case, touch is not safe) Identifying a positive message the client would rather have (I ca...

Have you ever asked or been asked "aren't you over that yet?". It may feel like a helpful question but it's really not. I expect the person asking is actually a caring person and wants to help but to the person that is still struggling, it is anything but helpful. In this podcast, I interview an actual client "Camila" (not her actual name) to talk about this complicated question. Why does healing...

Breathing is so simple. We all do it every moment of our lives and the vast majority of the time don't even think about it. But, what if we did think about it. What if we intentionally took a few minutes just a few times a day to breath fully in and fully out. Would you believe that simple action could reduce your anxiety, reduce physical pain, give you more energy, help you heal faster, protect f...

Most of us think of self-care as things we do for ourselves to make ourselves feel better and/or just disconnect from the stress of day to day life. In this Interview with Lee McMichael, Lee gives some insights on self-care: maybe self-care is not just doing things that feel good. maybe self-care means doing things that nuture the self and nurture the things and people that we place the most value...

Unfortunately many of us either don't know how to handle a disagreement or even if we do, we fall into old patterns of being pushy, yelling, crying or whatever worked when we were like 5 years old (it's funny but not). In this episode, I want to remind you of the power of compassionte listening (good for talking to adults and children). When you care more about what the person you are talking to w...

Emotional healing is very simple but can also be very difficult. It means allowing ourselves to experience our emotions in a supportive non-judgmental environment. When we do that and allow our children the support and space to emotionally heal, negative energy is released and positive messages are instilled. When we repress our emotions or our childrens, the negative energy is repressed inside ou...

You are enough. You do enough. It's ok to feel safe when you are safe. What we do is largely motivated by what we feel. What we feel is dependent upon what we think. Some of our thoughts are conscious but many of them are sub-conscious.  We all carry sub-conscious thoughts about our self-esteem, control and safety. An emotionally healthy person might say: I am good enough, I do enough and I feel s...

Healing is not complicated but it can be difficult. In this episode I review the stages of grief (shock, bargaining, anger, sadness and resolution) and look at some ways we get stuck and how to get unstuck. The key, as always, is to be kind and compassionate to yourself and to be curious how to understand what you are feeling and how to bring compassionate energy to whatever feelings you have. Man...

I am sad, angry, shocked, mystified and I don't even know what else and I was not directly impacted by the horrific shooting on Monday March 27, 2023. How can we live in a country where this seems to keep happening? What can we do to change our system? What can we do to heal our hearts? What can we do to love and help those impacted? Honestly, I don't have answers to many of these hard questions b...

Approaching suicide the same as any other negative coping mechanism with kindness, compassion and curiosity, may be the best way to help yourself or someone else that is struggling with suicide. At it's core, suicide is not a desire to die. It is a desire to stop hurting. When we acknowledge people's pain and listen to their story, we are often giving them something they have been missing, a carin...