Archives For Body-Mind-Spirit
Have you ever had a fear that no matter what you do, you’ll never get what you really want? You’re not alone! I talk to people every day who have similar fears.
One of my favorite parts about being a psychotherapist is that I get to be part of people’s transformation. It’s very exciting to witness people who were once anxious or depressed when they begin to empower themselves and take back the control of their lives.
I dearly love what happens when my clients start getting what they’ve always wanted in their lives. It’s pretty amazing to be present when that happens! I’m going to talk today about what it takes to get what you really want, so stay tuned!
A few months ago I wrote a blog called “How to Heal Your Body, Mind and Spirit,” which included a book review of Dr. Lissa Rankin’s recent book “Mind Over Medicine.”
Today I’ve got a special treat for you. Dr. Rankin has given a TED Talk that I want to share with you. In it, she presents wonderful news for all of us about the fascinating connection between our minds and bodies.
The talk is just 18 minutes long. Find a time when you won’t be interrupted and then sit back, relax and ENJOY! I know you’re going to love it!
As human beings, we are very powerful! By utilizing the power of our unconscious minds, we can create amazing, incredible lives for ourselves.
When we find ourselves in difficult, challenging times, we can learn to turn it all around by choosing to focus on what we really want. Yet, in my work as a psychotherapist, often I find that people are not aware of the tremendous power that is available to them.
Because of that lack of awareness, I’ve put together some information that you can utilize to make your own life better. If you practice these principals even for a month, you will see amazing changes happening in your life!
If you want to become a healthy, happy person, it’s important to learn about choosing the ‘growth path.’ The ‘growth path’ offers you a life of learning and growing, rather than just tolerating the life you already have and surviving.
Of course, the ‘growth path’ is filled with obstacles and challenges, but fortunately, you’ll find that behind every obstacle is a valuable life lesson that will help you become more authentically your real self.
So how can you follow the ‘growth path’ when things feel challenging and overwhelming around you? Great question! You see, life is full of choices. Every choice we make takes us closer to our happiness and fulfillment or further away from it.
Continue Reading…
As a psychotherapist, I regularly hear clients tell me they don’t want to cry. Many clients believe that by simply talking about the challenges in their lives, things will improve somehow.
When I hear a client say she (or he) doesn’t want to cry, I know my job for the moment is to help her feel safe and comfortable. I want to help her open up and express her feelings, in whatever way those feelings need to be expressed.
But even though I can’t tell my client what she (or he) is not ready to hear, I know in my heart that when I help her express her true feelings, her honest expression will almost always lead to laughter.
Gratitude is a very important part of being a healthy, happy person. When we learn to be genuinely grateful, it opens the door for more happiness and prosperity to come into our lives.
It’s important to be grateful not just for the basic things in our lives, like health, family and job; but also for the more specific moments that are really special to us, like a good talk with a dear friend, a new inspiring insight or a refreshing walk on a beautiful day.
Gratitude for Our Challenges
Being thankful for what we’ve already received is wonderful, of course, but often we forget to also be grateful for our challenges. Our challenges are the learning tools that help us grow into bigger, better human beings.
One of the things I love to do is to share books that I find inspiring with people that I care about. That’s why I have a special treat for you today.
It’s a beautiful book that just came out last week by a non-conventional physician named Dr. Lissa Rankin, called Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself
Getting off of Medications
Dr. Lissa Rankin started by healing her own body. When she began her research, she was taking 7 medications, getting weekly allergy shots, and she had undergone surgery on her cervix.
Yet, despite all the medical interventions, her blood pressure was still out of control, her allergies were so bad she could hardly leave her home, her heartbeat was skipping and her cervix was still showing precancerous changes, even after her surgery. She described her condition as a “hot mess on the way to an early heart attack,” and says that her doctors didn’t know what to do with her.
I attended a Counseling Training for Attitudinal Healing last weekend. As I listened to the speakers at the training and what they offered, I thought of you, the lovely readers on my blog. I thought that you might enjoy hearing more about Attitudinal Healing too.
Dr. Jerry Jampolsky, a psychiatrist from Tiburon, California, founded the International Center for Attitudinal Healing (ICAH) in 1975. The center was based on the belief that LOVE is the most powerful healing force in the world.
Attitudinal Healing
Attitudinal Healing is a self-healing method that allows us to remove self-imposed blocks. It focuses on letting go of our fearful attitudes, like our judgments of ourselves and others, that hinder our experience of love, peace and happiness in our lives.
As a psychotherapist, I’ve found that it’s very important to support my clients in developing a spiritual connection. When you’re working to heal the past, there are always days where you really need help and guidance and there isn’t anyone available on the human level to give you exactly what you need.
You can develop your spiritual connection in many ways. Praying for help and guidance always works great, in whatever spiritual tradition you are in.
One of my favorite ways to pray for spiritual help is to ask my angels for help and guidance. Remembering to ask my angels for help has gotten me though many challenging times in my life. Hearing my angel’s guidance always feels like an incredible blessing to me.
Who Are the Angels?
Angels are messengers of God’s incredible, unconditional love for us. They are sent by God to help us and guide us whenever we remember to ask for their help.
Healing yourself emotionally is undoubtedly the biggest gift you could ever give to yourself. It frees you from the past and allows you to become the person you’ve always wanted to be.
When you heal the emotional issues you’ve stored up for a lifetime, little by little, everything in your life naturally transforms!
The Value and Importance of Healing Your Emotions
Dr. Candace B. Pert, the author of Molecules Of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine, writes about the importance of our emotions to our overall health and well-being. Continue Reading…
Love is magical! Love can open doors in your life, it can take down walls that have been there for many years, it can heal wounded hearts. Love is like sunshine; it brings light into the dark places inside of you.
Love is talked about, written about and sung about more than any other word in our language. Yet, wherever we look, there still seems to be a lack of love in the world.
Longing for Love
When I was young, I had an intense longing for love. Even though I didn’t understand the true meaning of love, somehow I knew that love was the missing piece in my life.
Laughter is a powerful healing force and the most inexpensive medicine you will ever find! Laughter can strengthen your immune system, increase your intellectual performance and improve your cardiovascular flexibility.
Laughter is also an instant vacation. It can help you see the world from a broader perspective, expand your creativity and allow you to feel more deeply connected to the people you love. Laughter helps you release your stress, anxiety or depression and puts you back into the flow of life.
The Many Benefits of Laughter
In 1979, Norman Cousins wrote a book called “The Anatomy of an Illness” where he described fighting a life-threatening illness through humor. His remarkable story of triumph is still inspirational today.
For many years traditional medicine has believed that our genetics are the primary cause of our physical health. In the 1990s, however, scientific research found that our emotions play at least an equal or possibly even a greater role in determining whether we will be faced with illnesses like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, fibromyalgia, obesity, alcoholism, fractures or chronic pain.
Your Emotions Affect Your Health
One of the best research studies available involving the effect of emotions on physical health is the ACE study, which was conducted by the Federal Centers for Disease Control, where researchers studied people who had an “adverse childhood experience” before the age of 18. (www.acestudy.org)
“Adverse childhood experiences” included recurrent physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; growing up in a dysfunctional family where someone was clinically depressed, alcoholic, mentally ill or suicidal; or in a situation where the parents were separated, divorced, or taken away from the child in some way.
When I was 17 years old, I was asked to give a speech at my high school graduation on the topic of my choice. The topic I chose was “What makes people happy?” I chose that topic because at that time, I wondered if anyone was really happy or if everyone was faking happiness like I was.
I quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thorough, Abraham Lincoln and many great philosophers who wrote about happiness down through the ages, but none of them answered my own burning questions. I had no idea at that time that pursuing my own happiness and helping others find happiness would become my life’s work.
Positive Psychology and the Happiness Frenzy
According to Psychology Today (www.psychologytoday.com), there is a ‘happiness frenzy’ going on in bookstores today. Carlin Flora reports that in 2008, there were 4,000 books published on happiness, while only 50 books were released on that topic in 2000.
As we start the New Year, many people are thinking about their New Year’s resolutions. Are you going to focus on getting healthy and working out at the gym? Do you want to be a better parent and spend more quality time with your kids?
New Year’s resolutions are good, but as we all know, they often fall by the wayside when life comes along and throws obstacles in our way. It’s very easy to let them all go and go back to our old negative behaviors. Too often we find ourselves sitting in front of the TV instead of exercising and creating that slim, healthy body we had hoped for.
Love is a topic that is written about and sung about more often than any other word, yet, unfortunately, it is still misunderstood by the majority of people we encounter on a daily basis.
From the time we are very young, we desperately yearn for love and often we’ll do anything and everything to be able to receive it, even if it means giving up who we really are.
What is Love?
In the process of psychotherapy, many people will tell me they don’t know what love is. Often my clients ask me sincerely to define the meaning of love.
It’s very common today to read sayings like ‘Expect a Miracle.’ Since Facebook and social media have become so much a part of our everyday lives, we share these uplifting proverbs with each other regularly.
But even though we may believe these sayings with our conscious minds, how many of us believe in our hearts that miracles can really happen in our personal lives?
Definition of Miracles
People have different definitions of the word ‘miracle.’ Dictionary.com defines a miracle as “an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.”
Although Emotional Healing is a marvelous gift, there will always be days in your healing journey where you feel stuck or depressed and life feels hopeless and overwhelming to you. Those are the days when it’s important to remember to pray for Divine help and guidance.
Divine help is always available to you, even when things look hopeless or impossible. You can never know how the answer to your prayer will come, but, rest assured, when you sincerely ask for Divine help; there will always be an answer.
You’ll find that Emotional Healing often brings about an inner battle between your ego and your spirit. Your ego doesn’t want to lose control of your life, but your spirit wants you to be strong and free.
Sometimes in your healing journey you’ll feel the pull of your ego and other times you’ll hear the call of your spirit.
The secret to the JoyIAm Process is simple. By helping you learn to identify, express and release your natural feelings, it takes you to the root of your emotional issues and helps you to permanently resolve and release them.
The JoyIAm Process is natural; it’s safe; it’s effective; and most importantly, it starts to work immediately.
7 Common Approaches to Psychotherapy
There are 7 common approaches to psychotherapy available today:
- Antidepressant Medications
- Behavioral Therapy
- Cognitive Restructuring
- Positive Psychology
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Emotional Healing
- The JoyIAm Process
Let’s discuss them one at a time.
