Wilson Counseling: The Armchair Chronicles

"Meaningless, meaningless. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless under the sun. What do people gain from all of their labors at which they toil under the sun? I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, all are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. " Ecclesiasties 1 Does anything really matter Since Hurricane Harvey, I have been thinking a lot about these words from King Solomon in the Christian scriptures. It's a bit nihilistic, but nihilism comes easily in the wake of such quick destruction. A house that may have taken years to build was flooded in a matter of hours. All of the time spent choosing paint colors and fixtures and displaying art, all became irrelevant in a matter of hours. Possessions you spent a lifetime collecting and curating are flooded, soiled, swelled up, gone. When you go through something like that, a natural reaction is to ask, what's the point? Does any of it matter? What is really important to me? Home being to...

Wilson Counseling would like to welcome our new associate Ashley Giles! Ashley is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and specializes in helping her clients resolve problems in their relationships, low self-esteem, sexual issues, depression, stress, and anxiety. She enjoys working collaboratively with couples and individuals to address the sources of distress in their lives. Ashley received her Masters in Social Work at New York University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting with a minor in Gender and Women’s Studies at Southern Methodist University. Ashley’s goal is to assist her clients in finding healing, happiness, and empowerment in their lives and relationships because no one is given a guidebook on how to master relationships with others or with themselves. Her experience treating individuals and couples in New York City and her trainings in couples, sex, and cognitive therapies have prepared her to successfully guide her clients to fill-in-the-blanks that leave them...

You become untethered from the routines, the comfortable spaces and the people who make your life feel normal When Harvey came to Houston, overnight people lost their homes, their cars, their belongings, but more than that, the floods took their sense of security and displaced their communities. Overnight people became untethered from the routines, the comfortable spaces and the people who made their lives feel normal.   I talked about our Harvey experience at my church in this video .  Stories From Harvey: Nancy Wilson from City Church Houston on Vimeo . Before I came up to speak, singer/songwriter Sandra McCraken sang her song "Refugee."  The chorus "Welcome home, gather round. All you refugees come in." It is a reference to coming home spiritually, eternally, but it speaks to what all of those who are displaced long for - the comforts and sense of belonging that you get from coming home. We wander, like refugees, till we can get back hom...

Hurricane Harvey has caused enormous damage and suffering. My heart goes out to all of you have flooded, were evacuated, faced loss and fear. It has been devastating on so many levels for so many in our city. If you or home sustained damage or flooded, you have a long road ahead. Remember it is a marathon and not a sprint. Please take care of your psychological health along the way. Your body, mind and spirit will all suffer if you do not. Going through disasters is traumatic There is a trauma that come from going through this kind of disaster. Give yourself time to get used to the changes that come with it. Give yourself compassion to experience and feel what you need to. There is a sense of loss in all of it. That is normal. You may go through the stages of grief You may find you go through the 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Accept it for what it is and don't judge yourself as you cope. Let people help you Allow...

I get a lot of questions about parenting. One of the categories of questions I get is about how to help kids become healthy eaters and avoid disordered eating and poor body image. One of my most read blog posts is entitled " How to Not Screw Up Your Kid's Body Image ." I also have another more recent post entitled " Children and Eating - Developing Non-Disordered Eating Habits " and one entitled " How to Not Screw Up Your Kid's Body Image - Developing Healthy Eating Habits in Children ." One of the resources I have enjoyed recently is Julie Duffy Dillon's LOVE, FOOD Podcast .  It is a good listen for those of you who need helping making peace with food and learning to be more intuitive eaters. Dillon is a nutrition therapist and an eating disorder specialist. She wrote a helpful article called " Helping your large child thrive in a fat phobic world ." I recommend it for all parents, not just parents who have children with l...

You are only as happy as your saddest child There is an expression, "You are only as happy as your saddest child." Oh how true that is. As parents, our lot in life is intrinsically tied to our children, even when they become adults.  I sometimes work with parents who are trying their best to parent adult children. Increasingly those adult children are living in the home with them. In fact, living with parents is the most common living situation for adult children ages 18 to 34. Fifty three percent of 18 to 24-year-olds live with their parents.  Most of these parents agree to allow their adult children to live with them without a plan or any discussion of expectations. As a parent, you help because you have always helped. You help because there is a need. Because that is what parents do.  But without a plan and good boundaries, the best intentions often lead to broken relationships.   Stuck in a cycle of resentment and dread I had clients,  D...

When you sit up in bed in the morning, what are the first things you do? If you're like most of us, you reach for you phone and check emails, social media alerts, or the news. It's habitual, but it's not an optimal way to start the day. Feelings of Scarcity Create Stress What happens when you start off by checking your electronic device is that you start your day feeling anxious about everything you have to do that day, every email you have to answer, and every problem you have to solve. You start off with a sense of deficit and scarcity. There just aren't enough hours in the day to get it all done.  Your morning routine is the foundation for the rest of your day, and if you start off with stress, you take this posture with you throughout the day.  Short Circuit Your Stress There's a way to short circuit this stress inducing habit, and it's a pretty simple concept. What you have to do is to create a new habit to replace the old o...

You can ask a licensed therapist questions about things you are struggling with (at no cost to you) on the Wilson Counseling website. All questions remain anonymous, so click this link , and fire away with your questions! If it is a question that is likely to be of interest to other readers, I will try to answer it on my blog.

As an eating disorder therapist, I get a lot of questions from parents about how to feed children and how to prevent eating disorders. A great resource for answering some of these questions is the Ellyn Satyr Institute. Ellyn Satyr is a Dietitian and Family Therapist and is recognized as a leading expert when it comes to issues related to eating and food. I strongly recommend her website if you want answers to questions like these: How do you handle a picky eater? What feeding errors can make your child too thin? Should you worry about your child's weight? How do you raise a child who is a joy to feed? What can you do about a child who does not eat fruits and vegetable? How can you raise children who trust themselves and their bodies? What is the role of the parent/child in terms of aiding feeding and exercise? If you are concerned that your child's eating issues are more serious and might indicate an eating disorder, I recommend talking to an eating disorder...

Sometimes sex is about more than sex One of my favorite songs to belt out in Karaoke is Radiohead's "Creep." It is a song I reserve for moments when I feel low because singing sad songs when I'm sad seems to make some of the angst dissipate.  The song came to mind when I was thinking about writing this blog post about what sex means to men. There are many misconceptions about what sex means for men. One of the biggest ones is that men seek sex primarily to satisfy their own physical pleasure. Therefore, when men are rebuffed, it can't really hurt that much because they have just missed out on physical pleasure. Nope.  I have found this to be a harmful misconception because it minimizes the importance of sex for men's identity and self-esteem. Look at the lyrics to "Creep" to illustrate in song what I have found that men can actually gain in a loving sexual encounter with their partner - identity, acceptance, self-worth...

Reclaiming Love: Improving Communication and Appreciation in Your Marriage Struggling to love your spouse well? Tired of fighting about the same things over and over?  Do you miss the spark and warmth you had when your marriage began? Sometimes we get stuck in a pattern of arguing, taking each other for granted, or reenacting hurtful habits. Just because you love your spouse, does not mean you have a perfect marriage. We are all a work in progress and our marriages are a work in progress. Join me and Leslie Peacock, Director of Counseling at Christ the King Presbyterian Church as we lead a for a 4-week marriage counseling group. In the group,  you will learn to: Deal with conflict without hurting your spouse Improve your communication Recover the romance in your relationship Enjoy the benefits of a deep connected relationship We will meet on Sundays from 5:00 to 7:00 at Christ The King On April 2, 9, 23, and 30. The cost is $20...

In my last blog post , entitled "Life With A Narcissit,"I talked about what it was like living with someone who has characteristics of narcissism or even full-blown narcissistic personality disorder. You may have recognized someone you know when reading about narcissism. It can be very overwhelming to deal with individuals who have these traits. Even as a victim, you may start to feel like there is something wrong with you. What can you do to remain emotionally intact? Elly Prior has a great article about this entitled " How to Deal With a Narcissist Partner. " Below is an infographic I created showing some of Elly's top 10 tips for surviving life with a partner who has narcissistic traits. Top 10 Tips For Surviving Life With a Narcissistic Partner One of the most important skills you can use to protect yourself with a narcissistic partner is boundary setting. Setting boundaries simply means you are communicating what is and is not okay. It...