Wilson Counseling: The Armchair Chronicles

digsdigs.com Have you ever caught yourself saying, "Where has the year gone?" I feel this way at the end of every year. I don't know what happened to 2014. A full year gone. What have I done in that time? What do I wish I had done? This can be a pretty reflective time of year--the passing of one year, and the beginning of the next. If you can find even one quiet moment to sit and reflect on your year, what comes to mind? For some of you, it will be the mistakes and regrets that haunt your thoughts. For those mistakes, you beat yourself up emotionally. For some of my clients, this might include a small chiding: "Why did I say something so dumb?" Or a more cruel voice: "I don't deserve to be loved." "My family would be better off without me." "I will never get better." "I am a loser." These words are soul crushing. If you really believe them, it becomes hard to change anything about your life. Imagine feel...

image:metasmetalizadas.blogspot.com I am kind of a sucker for Christmas music.  I will often listen to a local radio station that starts playing holiday songs on Thanksgiving day. Songs like "It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year" have such a feel good vibe. The lyrics remind you, "It's the hap-happiest season of all. With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings, when friends come to call." Sure, the lyrics are a bit dated, but you get the point. Be happy - it's the holidays! Many of you will be heading out to gatherings with friends and family this holiday season. And some of those events can be happy times. But many of you will also be in close quarters with someone you don't necessarily enjoy.  Perhaps this person has treated you badly in the past. They have been selfish, mean, difficult,  judgmental, or just plain irritating, and you would rather avoid them. On the eve of Thanksgiving, I think this is the perfect time to use ...

image:dzineblog.com One of the common traits of anxious people is that they tend to catastrophize events in their lives. For example, I might be worried that something I said to a co-worker might be construed as unprofessional and that might lead to me having a bad reputation on the job which might lead to me not being promoted, or even fired. I don't necessarily have any evidence to back this up, but I just feel like it is true. That is catastrophizing. I was working with a client named Kim (not her real name) recently. She rated her anxiety at work at about a 10 out of 10 - in other words very high. Kim had a run in with a co-worker that had resulted in her being called into the human resources office. Ever since that time, she was highly anxious and afraid of any interaction with her co-worker. She avoided this individual, and any possible conflict, at all costs. She felt deep shame about being reprimanded. This was a woman who had twenty years of exemplary service wit...

The premier of America The Beautiful is coming up on Wednesday, October 22nd at 7pm. The event is free and open to the public, but you do need to register here . Below is the media release of the film if you would like to know more about it. "Award-winning filmmaker Darryl Roberts takes an unflinching look at the insidious effects of our culture's preoccupation with sex in "America the Beautiful 3: The Sexualization of Our Youth" premiering this fall across the United States.   "America the Beautiful 3: The Sexualization of Our Youth," is an important yet disconcerting film that both informs and warns viewers that our fixation with sex is adversely affecting our culture, leading to a public health crisis and even worse, the escalation of violence against women and children.     * WARNING: This film includes scenes with graphic violence and pornographic imagery, which have the potential to trigger some viewers. Individuals with a histor...

Most of the people I work with in my practice have come in at some point with high levels of stress. They are experiencing the kind of stress that makes it hard to sleep at night, that causes them to have trouble focusing, or to feel agitated and short tempered with people they love. It is the kind of stress that makes them question what is wrong with their lives, but then feel too exhausted to do anything about it. Many of them are drained by demanding jobs that they spend a lot of their waking hours thinking about. Often, they even take work home. These are smart, hardworking, successful people. But, they have had the joy sucked out of their lives by the time they come to see me.  I talk with them about creating more balance in their lives. This means working less, and getting back to things in their personal lives that they value and that energize them. In general I recommend that they leave work by a designated time every night, and do not take work home. It soun...

image: punditforhplanet.com Take this quiz to find out if you have a healthy relationship with food.

Life can be a very sticky affair. It's easy to get stuck in a rut and feel ambivalent about changing. Take, for example, something as simple as exercising. How many times have you told yourself that you are going to start working out, and then proceeded to do a hundred other activities, but not a single one of them involved exercise? I have felt like I have been in rut with writing this blog lately. It's strange because I actually love writing the blog, but things got so busy in the summer. And then a few weeks went by and I had not written anything. I got out of the habit, and it started to feel like it was going to be difficult to challenge myself to block off time to write. I also told myself I would get back to it as soon as I had more free time. Sound familiar? If you sit around waiting for the right time to change, or more free time to make changes, you might never do it. So I got myself motivated with a technique that works for a lot of my clients who are having ...

I was reading a beautifully crafted essay written by one of my friends and felt simultaneously thrilled by the brilliant analysis and beautiful prose, but I also felt a little pang of jealously at the ease with which he could produce such incredible work. Even if I  painstakingly edited 100 drafts of my writing, I would never come close to his talent. Later that day, a different friend posted some photos on social media of an event he was attending. He looked like he was having the time of his life. So I started thinking about my own day, which felt a little, well, lackluster. I sighed, turned off my computer and reminded myself of what I already knew--comparing is always a trap, and it will not help me lead the life I want. I see people falling into this comparison trap all the time in my practice. Social media bombards us with carefully selected detail of our friends' lives. What we often don't think about is the fact that those status updates and pictures don...

I often get asked by people who know me personally how they can find the best therapist for them. The strength of the therapeutic relationship will have a major impact on the success of your therapy. If you and the therapist don't have very good rapport, it can feel kind of like going on a bad date. It just won't click. But that does not mean you give up on therapy, or dating for that matter, it probably just means they were not the right person for you. So, how can you choose the right therapist? Psychology Today has a helpful article that will give you some tips. I would recommend that you do some research before scheduling an appointment with someone. Ask for referrals. Check the therapist's website. And I would also recommend that you call the therapist and ask some basic question including: How many years have you been practicing? What kind of experience do you have working with (whatever problem you are experiencing)? What are your areas of expertise? Wh...

The great Dr. Maya Angelou passed away recently. Though her passing is a loss to all of us, I am thankful we have such a large body of written work and interviews so that we can glean from her life experiences, her mistakes, and her wisdom. Dr. Angelou speaks with a fluid elegance and authority that makes people stop and listen. It was riveting to watch her interview with Dave Chappelle from the Sundance show Iconoclasts. One of the quotes that really stuck with me was her discussion of anger and bitterness. Dave Chappelle was asking her about her experience with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's.  Angelou was involved with the movement and was friends with people like Dr.Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X.  Chappelle asked her something to the effect of how can you not be angry when there was so much unwarranted violence against your friends? This was her response: “You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon ...

http://m1.behance.net I was reminded recently how powerful and healing a loving touch can be. One of my clients,  Jimmy (not his real name) was talking about the feelings of insecurity, loneliness, resentment, and self-doubt he felt after having sex with his girlfriend. Jimmy had been a victim of childhood sexual abuse, and has felt conflicted about sex for most of his life. The perpetrator of the abuse had coerced Jimmy into performing oral sex repeatedly and would yell for him to do it again and again. Jimmy felt he was never good enough to please her. He carried this need to perform into all of his sexual relationships throughout adolescence and into adulthood. It is particularly difficult for Jimmy to feel wanted if the woman he is with does not initiate physical contact. In his current relationship, his girlfriend has expressed a preference and a need for him to "be the man" and initiate sex. He feels further pressure to play the role of leader/initiator that he ...

The title of this post may sound very dramatic, but I think it is important to get the word out.  If you are feeling lonely, left out, unimportant, or even ashamed, there is way you can change all of that. This change, however, will come at a cost. One of my clients, Brooke (not her real name), tearfully shared with me how dumb she felt about her choice to keep going back to her ex-boyfriend over and over for the last 6 years. Her friends had told her a hundred times to leave him, but it had been too difficult to completely sever ties. Now her ex had moved on and was dating a much younger girl. Brooke felt old and rejected. She wondered if any man would ever want her, and she felt too ashamed to open up to her friends who she thought must be tired of listening to her. As a result, she felt completely isolated. I encouraged Brooke to open up to a trusted friend. It takes great courage to be open about our vulnerabilities, but it is the best way I have found to sta...

image:socialmediatoday.com My client John (not his real name) came in and sheepishly told me "I did something I should not have done. I got on Facebook and I looked up pictures of my ex with his new partner." As you can image, these images were very painful. John spend the rest of the night wondering how his partner could move on so quickly. He went over all of the things he had done wrong in the relationship and berated himself for his flaws. Would he now be alone for the rest of his life with no hope for love or a family? This thought haunted him: he may never be happy. We live in a very public society. People post everything on social media from what their relationship status is to pictures of what they are doing on a Friday night. It can be fun to get on a site like Facebook and connect with people without making any real effort. And when you feel lonely and vulnerable, as most people do after a break-up, social media seems like the quickest way to not feel so ...

http://blog.habitrpg.com/tagged/habitrpg-fanart Procrastination is a problem for all of us. Most of the time we accomplish what we need to accomplish to keep things moving in our lives. But there are always those pesky, irritating, boring to-do's, and even big lifestyle changes that we just can't seem to get around to. Exercise is one of those things. We vow that we will start exercising...tomorrow. But when tomorrow comes, we're tired at the end of the day, so we sit in front of the television and binge watch episodes of Dexter or Orange is the New Black . One of my clients was having this exact problem. She couldn't focus at work. She was highly anxious that her lack of productivity would lead to her being fired. And yet, as stressed out as she got, she could not seem to change her behavior and get motivated. She knew that exercising in the past had helped her sleep better, feel more rested, and concentrate better. So we set exercise goals and discusse...

image: refinery29.com I was invited to speak with radio host  Dr.Carolyn Clansy Miller on Monday at 9am . Tune in to the show to hear more about how to embrace your body at any size and start feeling confident and strong.

We all have times when it is hard to relax. You may have a lot on you mind, feel overtired, or just can't seem to get to sleep. Instead of using alcohol or t.v. to help you sleep (both of which often cause you to have a poorer nights sleep), try these yoga poses, from an article in Women's Health , instead. You will reap both the emotional and physical benefits. And, you might actually have fun doing it.

During that "time of the month" it can sometimes feel like you are under an evil spell. The circumstances of your life look grayer, people are more irritating, and nothing seems interesting. Some months it is more severe than others. But, even though it happens every month, many of us are taken by surprise every month . We fall into the depressed mood and negative thoughts as if they are the reality of our lives. I had a client who came in this week looking down and agitated. The spark she normally has in her eyes seemed to have dulled. After sharing the long list of things she was upset about, it came out that she was about to start her period. She had not realized how much this had affected her mood and general outlook on life.  People often buy into their negative feelings as if they are facts. For this particular client, she felt like she woke up feeling ugly and fat, and so she was sure she looked uglier that day. She did not want to see people or have them...

image: http://artilleri.blogspot.com/2011_11_01_archive.html I had a client, Sandra (not her real name) who came in this week feeling particularly down about her weight. She is anorexic, and at least 25-35 pounds under what most doctors would consider a minimum healthy weight. She avoids looking at herself in the mirror, afraid of looking at her "fat body." When Sandra gets in the shower, she checks herself out to see how far out her ribs stick out. It never feels like enough.  Frantic to know that she was skinny enough, she weighed herself and found that she was "only" about 25 pounds underweight. Considering how little she eats, she was sure she would weigh less. Sandra was crushed to see the number on the scale. She ruminated for days feeling disgusted about how much she weighed. I had a second client who came in this week, Claire (not her real name),  also feeling down about her weight. She had started exercising regularly and eating better. Yet, wh...

FREE RECOVERY WEBINARS OFFERED BY THE RENFREW CENTER  The Renfrew Center is offering a FREE upcoming recovery webinar series. These one hour webinars are open to anyone in recovery or currently struggling with disordered eating. February 19, 2014 12pm - 1pm & 8pm - 9pm EST Defining Recovery: What Does it Mean? Why Does it Matter?    March 19, 2014 12pm - 1pm & 8pm - 9pm EST Finding Hope in Families: A Special Focus on Mom, Dad and You April 16, 2014 12pm - 1pm & 8pm - 9pm EST Holding onto Recovery: Preventing Relapse and Moving Onward May 21, 2014 12pm - 1pm & 8pm - 9pm EST Navigating Social Media: To Tweetor Not to Tweet? June 18, 2014 12pm - 1pm EST & 8pm - 9pm EST What Are You Craving? Exploring the Elements of BingeEating Disorder

In a culture obsessed with thinness, it was sort of surprising at first to see a sport that encouraged women to embrace whatever body type they had, but that is exactly what happens in the sport of roller derby . If you ever go to a roller derby game, you will notice there are thin girls, short girls, amazonian girls. It is a wonderful motley crew. Each of these body types carries some advantages in the sport. If you are short and small, you may be able to get low enough to get past your opponents, whereas being bigger may give you extra-strength to block or hit your opponents.   Roller derby turns all of the regular conventions of the "right" body type on its head. A prime example of this is a player named Beyonslay. She learned to use her larger size to her advantage. She is pretty amazing as the video link below attests. And because she is so amazing at using her larger body, it starts to subtly change the way everyone on the team looks at wei...