Buffalo seasons Awareness in life
Tis’ the Season: Tips on Getting Ahead of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
As the days get shorter and colder, some people experience more than just the typical winter blues. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that follows a seasonal pattern, often occurring during the fall and winter months in the Northern Hemisphere. According to the American Psychiatric Association, SAD is considered a form of major depressive disorder with a seasonal pattern, primarily impacting individuals in higher latitudes where winter days are shorter and sunlight is limited (American Psychiatric Association, 2017). Understanding SAD can help us recognize its symptoms and find ways to manage it effectively.
Hurricane Helene Resources & Crisis Support
Offering Hurricane Helene resources and crisis support information.
Being Cancer Aware, Every Day
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a time dedicated to raising awareness, supporting those affected, and encouraging action toward early detection and prevention. While Breast Cancer Awareness Month aims to promote education and support, it can be emotionally triggering for some patients. Media attention, pink ribbons, and public discussions may evoke feelings of anxiety, fear, or even survivor’s guilt. Those in remission might feel the return of emotions they had worked hard to manage, such as the trauma of treatment or the uncertainty of their health’s future. Additionally, for those who have lost loved ones to breast cancer, the month may bring back painful memories, exacerbating grief and feelings of helplessness. In the spirit of awareness, this blog post honors anyone who has been touched by breast cancer, their struggles, their resilience, and their spirit. It also honors anyone who has been touched by any type of cancer, their struggles, their resilience, and their spirit.
To be all-inclusive, I suggest that as a society we adopt Being Cancer Aware, Every Day in an effort to support everyone impacted by cancer.
Surviving Hurricane Helene: Self-Care Tips & Volunteer Efforts
In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, communities in Western North Carolina are in need of assistance. During natural disasters, self-care is crucial for maintaining mental, emotional, and physical well-being. The chaos and uncertainty of such events can cause high levels of stress and anxiety, making it easy to neglect basic needs like sleep, nutrition, and emotional balance. Practicing self-care ensures that individuals stay resilient and able to cope with the demands of the situation. This may involve setting aside moments for relaxation, eating regularly, staying hydrated, and reaching out to loved ones for emotional support. Prioritizing self-care not only helps in managing immediate stress but also strengthens long-term recovery, enabling people to better support themselves and others during these difficult times.
This blog post provides tips on reducing stress due to a natural disaster and provides real-time volunteer opportunities for those wanting to help Western North Carolinians.
Reducing Anxiety through Paradoxical Intention
Viktor Frankl's concept of paradoxical intention is a therapeutic technique in which individuals intentionally engage in or exaggerate the very thoughts, behaviors, or symptoms they fear or wish to avoid. By doing so, they break the cycle of anxiety and anticipatory tension that typically makes the feared outcome more likely. The principle behind this approach is that fear often intensifies when we try to avoid it, and by paradoxically embracing or confronting the fear, the emotional response weakens.
A Jungian Journey Towards Transformation
Jung's analytic psychology is essential for therapeutic healing and unfolds in four distinct stages: Confession, elucidation, education, and transformation. Each stage serves a unique purpose in helping individuals discover their sense of wholeness and autonomy, which leads to integration and individuation. This blog post delves into these stages to explore how they facilitate personal growth and healing.
Making Friends with One’s Anxiety …
Managing anxiety can be approached with a variety of techniques that help externalize and reduce the mental load. Engaging in mindfulness can significantly reduce anxiety by fostering greater awareness and acceptance of the present moment. Through practices like meditation, deep breathing, and mindful observation, individuals learn to observe their thoughts and emotions without being overwhelmed by them. This shift in perspective helps break the cycle of anxious thinking, allowing for a more grounded and calm response to stress. By cultivating a non-judgmental attitude toward thoughts and feelings, mindfulness empowers people to respond to anxiety with compassion and clarity, rather than fear or avoidance, ultimately leading to improved emotional well-being and resilience.
Tips for Parenting Behind the White Walker Wall.
Co-parenting, a collaborative arrangement in which both parents actively participate in raising their children despite not being in a marital or romantic relationship, is becoming increasingly common in today's society. According to recent statistics, approximately 50% of children in the United States will experience their parents' divorce, and a significant number of these families will transition to co-parenting arrangements. The importance of effective co-parenting to children's well-being cannot be overstated. Research consistently shows that children who grow up with cooperative co-parents tend to exhibit better emotional, social, and academic outcomes compared to those in high-conflict or single-parent households. Researchers provide robust data supporting the benefits of co-parenting, highlight how positive co-parenting relationships contribute to a stable and supportive environment, fostering resilience and healthy development in children.
This article provides tips on how to co-parent.
Finding the power in Myth: Hecate, Goddess of Illumination
By embodying Hecate’s attributes and drawing lessons from her mythology, women can find strength, wisdom, and empowerment to navigate their own journeys with confidence and agency. Like all of us in different periods of our life, Hecate stands at the crossroads. Connecting to our inner Self through meditation and active imagination, we can gain inspiration from ancient archetypes and mythological figures such as Hecate as we bravely navigate our own paths, accept the weight of our choices and the responsibility of creating our own essence.
Peering Outside Your Snow Globe, Mindfully
When triggered by certain experiences or interactions, our snow globe can be "shaken," causing a blizzard of emotions and defenses to swirl around us. This metaphorical blizzard can cloud our vision, distort our perceptions, and make it hard to see beyond our immediate reactions. Real Dialogue requires us to recognize when our snow globe is being shaken and to work through the blizzard of emotions and defenses. It requires a willingness to see beyond our subjective lens, to calm our emotional blizzards, and to engage with others in a way that is open, empathetic, and transformative. Only then can we move from isolated snow globes to shared experiences, where real understanding, mindfulness, curiosity, and connection can flourish.
How Are My defenses Impacting My Relationships?
Defense mechanisms can significantly impact relationships, often in ways that are subtle yet profound. Because they operate unconsciously, individuals may not realize how their defensive behaviors are affecting their interactions with others, leading to misunderstandings, conflict, and emotional distance. Recognizing and addressing defense mechanisms in a relationship requires self-awareness and open communication. Partners or family members can work together to identify when these defenses are at play and gently encourage more honest, direct engagement with emotions and issues. Therapeutic support, such as couples counseling or individual therapy, can also be helpful in uncovering and working through these unconscious defenses, allowing for healthier, more authentic interactions.
Why Am I Feeling Prickly? Understanding Defense Mechanisms
Defensive reactions from the unconscious are automatic, often involuntary responses that arise to protect us from perceived threats, discomfort, or emotional pain. These defenses are deeply ingrained in our psyche, typically developing early in life as a way to cope with difficult emotions or situations. Because they operate below the level of conscious awareness, we often don't realize we're engaging in them, even though they can significantly influence our behavior and interactions.
Am I Engaging in Projective Identification?
In relationships, projective identification can lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, and significant emotional distress as individuals unconsciously project their own unwanted feelings or traits onto others. This can create a confusing dynamic where the recipient of the projection begins to experience and act upon these imposed emotions or characteristics, often exacerbating the original conflict. However, this process can also foster a sense of closeness or intimacy, as the projector and recipient become emotionally intertwined, sharing an unspoken, yet powerful, psychological connection.
Understanding and addressing projective identification is crucial to reducing the vast polarization that has blanketed the globe. In the 21st century, countries, states, political parties, corporations, communities, and families are engaging in literal and figurative war. By exploring these unconscious projections, Dialogue therapists and Real Dialogue specialists can help people gain insight into their own internal conflicts and the ways in which they influence their relationships. This awareness allows clients to disentangle themselves from the projections of others, fostering healthier interpersonal dynamics and reducing emotional distress. Ultimately, recognizing and working through projective identification can lead to more authentic and constructive interactions, both in therapy, consultation, and in everyday relationships.
Polarizing Conversations, Humanity’s Nemesis
Polarization profoundly impacts humanity by entrenching divisions and fostering an environment where mutual understanding and cooperation become increasingly difficult. It exacerbates conflicts by emphasizing differences rather than commonalities, leading to social fragmentation and the breakdown of communal bonds. In families, polarization can cause estrangement and tension, while in workplaces, it undermines collaboration and productivity. Within organizations and cultures, polarization can erode trust, impair decision-making, and create dysfunction, ultimately stalling progress and innovation. On a broader scale, polarized societies struggle to address collective challenges effectively, as partisan gridlock and resistance to compromise impede the development of inclusive and sustainable solutions. This erosion of social cohesion and collaborative spirit hinders humanity's ability to address pressing global issues, from climate change to social justice, ultimately threatening the well-being and advancement of societies worldwide.
Real Dialogue—a movement to counteract stereotyping, racism, bias, polarization, and dehumanization—is a method of co-facilitated conversation outside the therapy room with the aim of seeing, hearing, and feeling another as a human being with respect. As we gain greater understanding of our human counterparts, we can gain greater respect for our differences.
Putting Your Kids First: The Art of Co-Parenting
Co-parenting, a collaborative arrangement in which both parents actively participate in raising their children despite not being in a marital or romantic relationship, is becoming increasingly common in today's society. According to recent statistics, approximately 50% of children in the United States will experience their parents' divorce, and a significant number of these families will transition to co-parenting arrangements. The importance of effective co-parenting to children's well-being cannot be overstated. Research consistently shows that children who grow up with cooperative co-parents tend to exhibit better emotional, social, and academic outcomes compared to those in high-conflict or single-parent households. Researchers provide robust data supporting the benefits of co-parenting, highlight how positive co-parenting relationships contribute to a stable and supportive environment, fostering resilience and healthy development in children.
This article provides tips on how to co-parent.
The Power of Group
The powerful benefits of psychotherapy groups have been documented for decades, most profoundly by Irvin Yalom, MD—a founding father of existential psychotherapy and group work. Yalom observed, “The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.”
As a group psychotherapist, I have worked with people living with cancer, caregivers, bereaved persons, compassion fatigue, women’s and men’s issues, and existential concerns. In five years, I was honored to have borne witness to the unique aspects of self-discovery, compassion, and personal growth that arise from exploring the human condition with others in a confidential setting. I have been greatly influenced by Dr. Yalom’s work, and I am grateful for the opportunity .
A White Buffalo is born
On June 4th, a white buffalo calf was discovered in the Lamar Valley in the northeastern corner of Yellowstone National Park. The birth of a white buffalo calf with black nose, eyes and hooves is a rare occurrence and holds spiritual significance for American Plains Indian tribes.
The American buffalo, or bison, has a storied history intertwined with the ecology and culture of North America. Roaming the continent for thousands of years, the buffalo thrived in diverse environments from the Great Plains to the eastern forests and as far south as Mexico. With estimated populations between 30-60 million, these majestic animals were integral to the way of life for many Native American tribes. For the Plains tribes, in particular, the buffalo was vital, providing food, clothing, shelter, and tools, shaping their nomadic lifestyle and cultural practices.
Wood & Dragons || Creativity & Resilience
According to the Chinese Zodiac, those born in Year of the Wood Dragon (1904, 1964, 2024) are highly creative and inquisitive beings. In celebration of the Year of the Wood Dragon, I explore intellectual wellbeing, the five elements of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the five Pillars of Resilience.
A New Year Inspiration: How will your wits guide you in 2024?
The Crow & the Pitcher: How will your wits guide you in 2024?
Æsop’s life story emulates the narratives we all hold within and without us. Yet, there is one significant difference: We are neither literary nor historical legends.
Different voices, different narrators, different phases in our lifespan help shape our identity and influence how we come to understand our place in the universe.
Bridges & Boundaries: Relational Wellbeing
Relationships spread across family (parents, siblings, spouses/partners, children, grandparents, etc.); work (co-workers, bosses, supervisors, contractors, consultants, clients, patients, etc.); friends (school, college, sports, arts, etc.); and community (neighborhoods, spiritual / religious, collectives, groups, volunteerism, etc.).
In our post-modern 21st century world—comprised of social media influencers, online gaming, work-from-home opportunities, live coverage of wars being waged, artificial intelligence, and fallout from the global coronavirus pandemic, to name but a few—humanity’s relational wellness has been threatened.
And the threats are real.