Surviving The Holidays Sober
I hate to be dramatic, but the holidays can be a lot. They can be filled with unresolved family conflict, pressures to be everywhere at once, financial burden associated with traveling and buying the best presents, and people pleasing our way to burnout. But for those who are early in their sobriety or those who are trying to navigate a better relationship with alcohol, the holidays are also full of the endless holiday parties, outings, and events. It’s the most ‘spirit’ filled time of the year, in more ways than one.
Whether you have decided that sobriety is best for you, or you are simply just reconsidering your relationship with alcohol, the holidays can be a tricky time to stick to this goal for yourself. Here are seven tips to help you not just survive the holidays without drinking, but thrive this holiday season without drinking or drinking less.
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Why Do We Argue About Small, "Stupid" Things?
In a potentially conflictual conversation in a relationship, there are so many ways that it can go off the rails, which is why so many couples have trouble with it. One part of a conversation that has a huge impact is the startup – how one person begins a conversation. A harsh startup, a phrase coined by John Gottman, is – as he puts it - the first sign of a couple that is unsatisfied, or even headed for divorce.
What does a harsh startup sound like? It's an aggressive or confrontational tone, starts with sarcasm, criticism, or contempt, and includes very shut down or volatile body language among a number of other ways we can start off on the wrong foot. Another way to tell if it's harsh is if there's exaggerated language – specifically using words like always, never, or constantly.
A soft startup is approaching the other person in a way that will get your concern across, but will (hopefully) not make the other person feel attacked or criticized. There are a lot of ways you can make your startup more soft, with tone being one of the most important.
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3 Sexual Desire Poisons & How to Resolve Them
Despite being in a society where sex is everywhere, it's rare to have an open, vulnerable conversation about it – even between partners in a committed relationship. Certain feelings we have can easily turn into sexual poisons when we're unable to communicate about them, and this can become a very vicious cycle.
Usually when we think of sexual roadblocks or turn-offs, we might think of certain positions, bad breath, etc. These certainly are valid, but aren't sexual poisons like we'll get into here.
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Hard truths: Accepting them sucks, but it can make life a little easier
Although everyone’s experiences and stories are unique, as a therapist, you start to notice some overarching patterns in conversations with clients. Oftentimes, conversation leads to a piece of truth that is hard to swallow. These truths don’t have a work around, an alternative option, or an easy answer (in fact, to offer one would often feel quite invalidating). Those are what I call the hard truths. When it comes to hard truths, I’ve found radical acceptance to be the most helpful option. Although it is certainly not easy in the short term to accept these truths, doing so can prevent on-going suffering. The most important thing to remember is that radical acceptance does not mean that you approve of or have appreciation for something. It simply means accepting something to be reality in order to save yourself the harmful impact that resisting or not accepting it could cause. Here are some of those hard-truths:
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How to Make Sense of your Response to SCOTUS Overturning Roe v. Wade
First and foremost, it’s important to recognize the overturning of a nearly 50-year precedent protecting the right to abortion for what it is: a traumatic event. The loss of human rights and freedom of choice over one’s “own” body is traumatic. When one experiences such a loss, especially one that they themselves had no control over, it strips away the feeling of safety and security. It is only natural to feel anxious, worried, overwhelmed, rage, or all of the above in response to this event.
What we do in response to our many emotions will look different for each person. Some people may write to their state legislators, while others may march and protest in the streets. You may feel inclined to donate to organizations that protect human rights and women’s reproductive health. Others may take the time to educate themselves and start discussions within their workplace, friend groups, or family. Others may jump to begin planning their departure from the US to live in a different country for fear of their rights being further stripped away. Others may silently process the news on their own, feeling overwhelmed with what to do next. And while we each have our biases and may see the benefit and importance of one response over another, there are valid reasons for why we may respond, feel, and act in the way that we do in the face of devastating world events.
The lack of safety and fear of uncertainty leads to a stress response within our bodies. Our biological stress response is our brain’s means of keeping us alive. Our stress response is automatic; the alarm system in our brain, the amygdala, goes into hyperdrive putting our emotional brain, known as the limbic system, in control. This shuts down your prefrontal cortex, the decision-making part of your brain, and leads you to reflexively act in whatever way your brain thinks will help you survive the current situation…
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How to Cope with a World on Fire in 5 Steps
Let’s face it, nowadays it feels like the world is literally always on fire. Here we are in 2022, hopefully heading to the end of a global pandemic, and halfway across the world, a senseless war on innocents begins in Ukraine. Before this, the urgency of climate change, the #MeToo movement, the Black Lives Matter movement, wildfires ravaging the United State’s west coast and many parts of Australia, and many other conflicts and disasters were blasted all over our television screens and social media news feeds. It feels like hearing and seeing the harrowing details of tragedy is inescapable, especially now that we have minute-by-minute news at our fingertips, and tons of it.
Information overload ignites our fight-or-flight response, which is caused by a little almond-shaped structure in our brains called the amygdala, responsible for the emotional response to danger. Oftentimes, we feel the need to flee, jump into action and fight, or even freeze in place. We have a tendency to over-consume information in order to regain control in what can feel like a very helpless position, especially when these disasters are happening somewhere far away from where we are. Who else is guilty of listening to the news and scrolling through Twitter at the same time, waiting for the next piece of news that makes us feel informed and thus in control?
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You Don’t Need to Love Your Body. Now or Ever.
“The diet industry doesn’t tell us hat 95% of diets fail - yes, 95% of diets fail. They fail for a number of reasons, one of which being that severely restricting your food intake (coupled with intensive exercise) stretches your body beyond its comfort zone, a concept known as weight set point. Research suggests that our bodies work to regulate our weight within a certain range and that this is where our bodies feel most comfortable and healthy. The weight set point range is determined by a number of factors including your DNA, medications, medical history, environmental and lifetime experiences.
This unrealistic standard of beauty has been glorified in the media through TV shows, movies, magazines, billboards, and now, more so than ever, through social media. For those of us who have struggled to feel worthy based off of how we feel in our bodies, we’ve felt the devastation and self-loathing of body hatred. Many believe that in order to finally feel confident or satisfied in our bodies, we have to love our bodies. And in order to move from hating our bodies to loving our bodies, we need to change our bodies. So, we can either hate our bodies OR we can love our bodies through either making them “perfect” with weight loss or by pretending that we love them with body positivity!…”
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6 Ways Pets Support Mental Health
‘Playing with a pet elevates dopamine and serotonin - hormones that elevate/stabilize mood, elicit satisfaction, and make you feel good. Touching your pet can offer grounding and sensory stimulation which contributes to stress relief and reduction of anxiety. Having to take care of your pet’s needs can benefit those with depression to engage with life and serve as a reminder to care for themselves by caring for another. Brushing down a horse can offer a moment of stillness and quiet intimacy which can be respite for an anxious or overwhelmed mind. For kids (& adults), pets can help with separation anxiety, emotional regulation, companionship, building empathy, and learning about responsibility…”
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10 Tips to Help You Heal After a Break-Up
Breakups are hard. This is obviously not news. But even though we already know that to be true, what we still often get hung up on (even if we’ve been through multiple breakups before) is: how in the world do I begin to get over it, move on, and heal after a relationship has ended? Here are some real tips, beyond making sure you “eat, shower, sleep, repeat” that will help you on your journey to reconnecting with yourself as an individual post-breakup.
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How to Find the Right Therapist for YOU
Let’s be honest, the past few years have been exhausting. Between the ever-changing landscape of childcare and work dynamics to the feelings of isolation and desire to return to some degree of normalcy, you may have found yourself thinking: “I should probably talk to someone.”
Yes! It is so crucial to remember that mental health is just as important as physical health - and talking with a therapist is a great place to start. We may be biased because we are the owners of The Therapy Group so you could say we love therapy. Here’s the twist, both of us went into the field because we had such negative experiences going to therapy ourselves! Yes, we’re sure those therapists were a great fit for other people, but they weren’t for us. We know first hand that it can feel exhausting finding the right fit and also how important it is to find a therapist who you connect with. In fact, the relationship you have with your therapist is the most important predictor of therapeutic success. Check out these five tips to finding the therapeutic support you are looking for without wasting your time, money or vulnerability.
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How is Mental Health Comparable to Physical Health?
We tend to take physical health much more seriously than mental health. It’s more openly talked about, and physical healthcare (although also very flawed) tends to be more accessible. The truth is though, they are so connected. They are also much more similar than they are different. I’m hoping that by seeing their similarities, we can begin to start seeing them as two sides of the same coin.
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10 Ways to Increase Intimacy in Your Relationship
Intimacy and vulnerability are an essential part of a healthy relationship. Our day to day lives are ridden with stressors that easily create a barrier to maintaining and cultivating connection in our relationships. Check out The Therapy Group's 10 tips to increase intimacy in your relationship with your partner.
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Stop Saying “This is a Safe Space”
“This is a safe space” is a phrase heard far and wide across therapy offices, yoga studios, classrooms, workplaces, relationships – pretty much anywhere there are humans. It’s a trendy phrase. Often it is uttered to encourage people to open up in one way or another to a therapist, to an experience or to a class of their peers. People say this with the intention of signaling that they are capable of holding whatever the sharing person needs to express. While seemingly positive and reassuring, what fails to be considered in saying this is the actual experience of the person being asked to share. Only that person can determine if a space is safe. A space isn’t safe just because a someone else says so.
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12 Types of Emotional Abuse That Aren't Physical Violence
It is imperative to also note that in addition to physical injury and assault, domestic violence can also be emotional and psychological, but is often minimized as not being “that bad,” because it did not cause physical harm. In fact, emotional and psychological abuse is substantially more prevalent than physical abuse, yet is not as often identified and addressed. Explained further below are twelve types of emotional and psychological abuse that do not cause physical injury.
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