Wilson Counseling: The Armchair Chronicles

image:gratisography.com Forget the New Year's resolutions As 2015 fades into 2016, this is the perfect time to think about what you want your life to look like in the coming year. I am not just talking about New Years' resolutions. We have all made and broken resolutions more times than we can remember. I want to ask you to think about a bigger, more important question. What is missing from your life? What would enhance your life? For some of you, this might include finding the courage to pursue a new job, start dating again, open yourself to more community or new friendships, or getting involved in a club, church, or other non-profit. These goals may have even been things that have been on your mind for a while. But inertia, laziness, fear, or insecurity have been getting in the way. We often just keep doing what we have been doing. Ultimately, we are creatures of habit. We talk to the same friends at parties, sit in the same seats at church, order the same food a...

We are excited to welcome Wendy Evans to Wilson Counseling. Wendy has a wonderful combination of warmth and strong clinical skills. This combination is one of the reasons she is so successful at helping people make real changes in their lives. Wendy is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 20 years experience in the field. She enjoys working with adolescents, adults, and couples who are struggling with grief and loss, anxiety and depression, eating disorders, and relationship and abuse issues. Wendy offers a safe and non-judgemental environment that allows clients to open up and feel accepted. She uses a variety of techniques to help clients reach their goals including cognitive behavioral therapy, problem solving and some gestalt techniques. These techniques help clients build on their strengths instead to motivate change toward their goals. If you would like to schedule an appointment with Wendy, you can contact Wilson Counseling via e-mail at nancy @ wilsoncounseling ...

www.bhg.com Thanksgiving can be a really difficult time for my clients who struggle with eating. Before Thanksgiving ever comes, we spend time working together so that this holiday centered on eating can becomes a time where they can enjoy family and friends, and even food. But to do this, it is important to be mindful about the Thanksgiving meal itself. Many of the kinds of things I cover with clients are discussed in a  Psychology Today  article " Tips for a Mindful Thanksgiving Feast " by clinical psychologist Alexis Conason. I have reprinted the text from the article below. She includes simple tips that will help you truly enjoy the food you consume and avoid some of the common behaviors that can leave you feeling uncomfortably full and unhappy with yourself. Thanksgiving can be a time of socially sanctioned binge eating. We come together with friends and family with the intent of consuming as much food as humanly possible in a short amount of time. Ma...

image:Huffington Post Exercise, the magic pill I have talked quite a bit about the importance of physical exercise on strong emotional health. I firmly believe movement and physical exercise are necessary components to a good body image as well as to optimizing a whole sense of self, not to mention the benefits of decreasing anxious and depressive emotions. As one of my clients likes to say, exercise is the magic pill. It won't cure everything, but it will make many things in your life more bearable. Exercise is a great coping mechanism for dealing with all of the garbage and stress that life will throw your way. I have had clients who struggled with anxiety who were able to control their anxiety with daily exercise instead of anti-anxiety meds. I have been amazed at the results. Do something that motivates YOU It is important to find a type of exercise that you don't mind doing, or you will likely burn out. For some people, being part of a recreational...

womenhairstyleblog.com For the parents of my teenage clients, I think understanding their kid must feel like trying to read the Rosetta Stone without the knowledge of Greek, Demotic or Hieroglyphics, i.e. frustrating, mysterious and sometimes downright impossible. I received a call from an upset parent recently. The call was similar in content to calls I have taken in the past from other parents. "Lindsey has done something and I don't know how to handle it. I just need to talk to somebody who knows my kid."  The tone in their voices is usually a mix of sadness, disappointment, and sometimes panic. This call came from a parent who has always impressed me. In my interactions with her and her daughter, I have felt that she parented in a very balanced, wise and caring way. But even good parents go through moments when they have used all the tools at their disposal and they don't know what to do next. In those moments, it is helpful to be able to talk out your p...

You may already know that sleep is necessary in order to stay emotionally healthy, but did you realize that getting sufficient sleep is also important for maintaining a healthy weight? This  article  on WebMD entitled  "Sleep More, Weigh Less" explains why your body is more likely to feel hungry, hold on to calories and crave starchy/sugary foods when you don't get enough sleep. It is a very interesting read. If you are looking for tips to improve your sleep, check out one of my past blog posts on this topic. Sweet Dreams! If you are struggling with pain or feeling stuck  in your life , professional counseling can help. You can contact our Houston therapists by phone at  713 - 591 -3612 , via email at nancy @ wilsoncounsleing. org or visit the Wilson Counseling website at  www.wilsoncounseling.org   to find out more. Help is just a phone call away!

image:deathtostockphoto.com Doing couples counseling can be some of the most rewarding and exhilarating work I do as a Houston therapist, but sometimes it is also heart breaking stuff. By the time couples come in to see me, they usually have years of frustration, anger and resentment coursing through their veins. They may even view their partner more as adversary than ally. Life is incredibly lonely and conflictual when you can not find peace in your home and in your marriage. But, if through therapy, couples can start to tear down the walls they have erected to guard their hearts, it is a beautiful thing to see the healing take place. I genuinely believe that marriage is one of the best places to heal all of the brokenness that world has thrown your way, but it requires consistent and often challenging work. One of the biggest myths about marriage that poisons the well for couples is the idea that if you find the "right" partner, marriage will be sm...

In couples counseling, I teach couples to use active listening techniques to improve their communication. Usually one of the the partners wants to "fix" their partners problem or fix their partner when the partner really just wants to feel understood and heard. This video makes light of this concept of listening versus fixing. It is pretty hilarious. Enjoy! If you are struggling with pain or feeling stuck  in your life , professional counseling can help. You can contact our Houston therapists by phone at  713 - 591 -3612 , via email at nancy @ wilsoncounsleing. org or visit the Wilson Counseling website at  www.wilsoncounseling.org   to find out more. Help is just a phone call away!

So much time wasted on fat talk How much time do you spend daily thinking about how dissatisfied you are with your body? Now multiply that by 365 to see how much time you spend annually feeling dissatisfied with your body. Then think about all of the people you know, and add up how much time, energy, emotion and money they spend disliking their bodies. Can you even count that high? One of the questions I ask to assess my clients who struggle with body image problems is, "what percentage of your waking hours do you spend thinking about food, weight, and your body?" The answers vary from 10% to 90%. Often these thoughts tend to be of the punishing variety, like "I hate my (insert body part)" or "My (insert body part) looks really fat." These thoughts do not necessarily correspond to reality; they are instead based on negative feelings we have about ourselves. I had a client named Kristie in my office recently. I think by accepted western standard...

It has been a long hard week for so many people in the Houston area.  When we went to bed on Monday night,  we could not have imagined what would soon be at our doorsteps, literally at our doorsteps. The thunder boomed, the lightning struck and the rain poured all night long. Many people stayed up anxiously waiting as the flood alerts rang on their phones.  And then they scrambled to move valued possessions as the waters started seeping into their homes.  The insurance adjuster who later came to assess the damage told us enough rain had fallen in Houston to fill the entire state of Delaware with 10 feet of water. On some parts of our street,  the water came up to my chest.  The city sent rescue boats to help the elderly,  or anyone else stuck in their homes. Imagine boats where streets used to be.  The air was filed with the sound of helicopters and rescue vehicles.  It is an incredibly surreal experience. ...

Sitting across from me on the sofa with her adolescent daughter, Lydia was tearful and a little overwhelmed. I had not planned to meet with them that day, but I had a cancellation and was able to fit them in. Lydia's daughter Sandy had been in treatment with me for the past few months for an eating disorder. Though she had made great strides, Sandy continued to struggle with stuffing her emotions down with food. Sandy was working out the trauma she had experienced as a victim of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a family member. Sometimes Sandy acted out, sometimes she numbed out. For her, going numb was easier than letting the pain of her experience live alert inside her. The trouble of parental guilt Just like so many of the mom's who bring their children in for treatment, Lydia was incredibly resilient and was determined to do right by her daughter. Watching your daughter deal with any illness is tough. For Lydia, this pain was compounded by the extreme guil...

image:yourtango.com Cindy came in feeling like things were falling apart all around her. She had had an altercation with someone at work and had been written up for it. This was pretty devastating to someone whose identity was wrapped up in her reputation at work. Add to that stress the fact that her and her husband were fighting more and she was questioning if marrying him was a mistake. Her communication with her husband had become increasingly combative. She felt he did not help out enough, was not contributing to the relationship financially, and did not listen to her when she tried to voice her concerns. Cindy did not want to leave her husband or her job, but she knew she could not keep things going the way they were. Sometimes when I write about my clients stories, I wonder if the words do justice to the real pain of their experiences. Words like stress hardly seem sufficient. When you think about your own life and the the conflict you have had with loved ones, you reali...

This article is a funny and insightful reminder about ways you can start to feel better about your body and yourself. Check the list to see if you find yourself on it.  Chances are, you are doing at least one if not all of these things at some point. Most of them seem innocuous, but are pretty much guaranteed to erode your confidence over time. http://www.buzzfeed.com/sallytamarkin/unhealthy-body-image-habits-and-how-to-break-them-right-n?bffb&utm_term=4ldqpgp#4ldqpgp If you are struggling with pain or feeling stuck  in your life , professional counseling can help. You can contact our Houston therapists by phone at  713 - 591 -3612 , via email at nancy @ wilsoncounsleing. org or visit the Wilson Counseling website at  www.wilsoncounseling.org   to find out more. Help is just a phone call away!

Science is cool. It teaches us many things including how to live more joyful, healthier lives. Being a therapist, I get really excited when I learn about the science behind what makes people happy. This sounds like flaky stuff, but to me, it is some of the most worthwhile stuff of life. Scientists are confirming something that we inherently know on an intuitive level. Hugs are good for you! Okay, this is not exactly breaking news, but what is interesting is how healing hugs can be and how many benefits you get from this simple, beautiful gesture. According to the National Institutes of Health , when you hug someone, it triggers the brain to release a pleasurable chemical called oxytocin. "Oxytocin does more than make us feel good.  It lowers the levels of stress hormones in the body, reducing blood pressure, improving mood, increasing tolerance for pain and perhaps even speeding how fast wounds heal.  It also seems to play an important role in our relationships....

With my Houston clients who are coming in to deal with disordered eating, I always do a body image and weight history.  This helps us get to the root of what may have caused their disorder. When I asked one of my anorexic clients, Claire, about her earliest memories of her body, she recalls being 10 years old when her mom took her to a weight loss clinic. Claire's mom wanted to lose weight, and felt that Claire could stand to lose a few pounds as well. So, they both went on diets. Claire commented that this is the first time she realized something was wrong with her body, and that her mom would be happier if she was thin. For her, being thin meant being beautiful, and being accepted. Claire became hyper health conscious. Nine years later, she is at a point in her life where she feels guilty if she even eats something like fruit, because "it has too much sugar." She thinks about food, exercise, and weight obsessively. People who know her would probably describe he...

Houston Eating Disorder Specialists is hosting an eating disorder conference which will focus on realizing recovery. This is a great opportunity for  family members, those struggling with eating disorders or eating disorder professionals to learn more from some of the foremost experts in the field. The conference is right around the corner on February 28, 2015 from 8 am - 5pm. It is for both professionals and the public. Speakers will discuss the importance of nourishing the self for both client and clinician. What are the principles of healing and how do we incorporate them? How do we help our clients stay connected to a deeper meaning and purpose and how do we do that for ourselves? How do we bring ourselves into our work with clients and how does our work help us to heal and to grow. I am particularly excited about our keynote speakers, Carolyn Costin and Anita Johnston. Carolyn is one of the pioneers in the treatment of eating disorders and has a wealth of practical inf...

One of the reasons I think people find counseling so helpful is that they find acceptance even when revealing the parts of themselves they may feel ashamed of. Most of us are not very honest about our struggles because we don't want to be rejected or judged. It is a brave and difficult thing to open up, so most people choose to just keep their problems to themselves as long as they can. But, struggle and brokenness are a basic part of being human. When we keep our struggles to ourselves, our problems feel like a secret, or even a defining character flaw. The result is often isolation and shame. If you never have the courage to share your struggles with someone you trust, you will never have closeness. True intimacy comes through honesty. One of the wonderful things about my job is being able to see the lightness people feel when they share their struggles, at first with me and then with someone one else in their lives.  This type of courage about personal struggle was exh...

image:laweekly.com Sometimes I like to pass along things that I find inspiring. If you have spent time with me, you know I encourage people to learn to live authentically and to embrace and celebrate the person they were created to be. Researchers who study happiness consistently have found that people who live authentically are more likely to experience happiness and feel a general sense of wellbeing. When I talk about living authentically, I am talking about living in line with your values, ideals, sensibilities, creative instincts, etc. image:advancedstyle.blogspot.com I recently watched a documentary entitled Advanced Style . "Advanced style" It is a term used by photographer/blogger Ari Seth Cohen about the stylish older women whom he photographs. The pictures on this post are from the women in the documentary or from the blog of the same title. These are women in their late 50's to 90's.  In our society, we have so few images of beautiful ...