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When: Friday, May 13th from 11am-2pm

Address: 3996 Clairmont Rd. Chamblee, GA 30341

During stressful times, you might be connected with only your negative parts, and your positive ones lie dormant. It is easy for these negative parts to feel like they are taking over, causing a barrage of negative thoughts such as:  “I am a failure,” “Why do I keep doing this?,” “What an idiot!” and feelings of dread, confusion, anger or nervousness. These feelings can be obvious or they can present themselves covertly through pain, muscle tension, sleep disturbances, etc. Individuals go to great lengths to “get rid” of these symptoms from over-expression of the negative parts.

Unlike negative parts, positive ones (represented by curiosity, joy, happiness, peace, fun, courage, assertiveness, generosity, forgiveness, etc.) fill us up and give energy, vitality, closer relationships, trust, balance, etc.  These parts are healing psychologically and physically.  When connected to these positive parts, they tend to feed into more and more positive experiences and opportunities.

Frequently, when individuals are distressed, I will ask help them to identify their parts. The parts become clear through the types of thoughts that are happening. In fact, the theme of the thoughts is what “feeds” the part. For example, if a client tells me that their internal dialogue includes, “You are so stupid!”, “You don’t know anything”, and “You can’t even remember where your keys are, you are such an idiot!” This might be an expression of an angry or self-doubting part. If this part is fed (by allowing more thoughts with this doubting/angry theme), it is likely to cause anger, sadness, low self-esteem, amongst other problems.

Alternatively, if someone is stress-free, they might tell me that their internal dialogue includes, “You did such a good job!,” “You tried your best and it paid off,” and “You can’t remember where your keys are, silly you!” This might be an expression of an encouraging or light-hearted part. These thoughts are likely to at best, increase self-esteem, happiness, and energy. At worst, they might cause a smile or laughter at losing one’s keys.

So, cognitively, this is easy to understand. Feed the positive parts! In practice however, it is much harder and less compelling to feed the positive parts. It’s similar to creating and sticking to a healthy goal of quitting smoking. Like smoking, we get addicted to our negative parts and we forget how to think in positive ways. Quitting smoking and negative thinking takes mindfulness, discipline and some work. It takes the choice to do something differently, such as choosing to not listen to those negative thoughts or challenging them. Afterwards, it takes the choice to insert positive thoughts (or exceptions to the negatives) to feed the positive parts.

In order to have happiness in our lives, we need not eradicate the negative emotions (that go along with the negative parts), but allow them to work in harmony with our positive ones. Concern and anger can be appropriate and helpful in some contexts, and devastating in others. If we are mindful of what’s going on with our emotions and thoughts, we can choose which part will be most helpful to feed.

Like medications, counseling also serves to alleviate these same symptoms. There are many different techniques that counselors use to help individuals with each of the above concerns.
This brings up a question: “Why bother with counseling?”

Whether or not one is taking medication, there are many reasons to seek counseling. One reason is that you can learn why you might be struggling with certain symptoms. It is possible that some of your distress is biological or genetic, but often there are environmental reasons (possibly beyond your current awareness) from your past or current situation that cause some of your concerns to arise. If you are only taking medication, and it is (hopefully) working, you might have a lack of desire to learn about the underlying reasons for your distress. And when things in life get stressful, those same distressing symptoms could flare back up and you find yourself “without a leg to stand on.” If you are engaged in counseling, you learn the reasons for the distress. With this knowledge, you can learn skills (tailored to your particular situation) that you can use to cope with distress during the difficult times, and you find yourself more in control.

Another reason to seek counseling is self-knowledge. Even though you are somewhat aware of what is happening in your head, it is certain that there are some secrets inside that you’d really like to know about. One way that you learn about yourself is by bouncing your ideas off of another person. Counseling is a great opportunity to do this with someone who is trained to pick up on your “blind spots” (things you might not be aware of). Another way you learn about yourself is through another’s feedback. Although you can gain feedback from anyone, sometimes friends are uncomfortable giving you the truth. Think about it. How do you feel when someone asks you to give them your opinion on their behavior, when you know your truthful answer will hurt them? Isn’t it just easier to tell a “little white lie”? One of the greatest things I do for my clients is ensure my honesty in my feedback with them. My clients are coming to me for my help, so I think a little lack of comfort is a small price to pay for a real chance at learning and growing. Medications can help calm symptoms so that it is easier to do this work, but they cannot replace this work.

Still another reason to seek counseling is self-esteem. I think engaging in counseling is like becoming a self-made woman or man. It is taking the pen back in the writing of our life story. When we successfully work on ourselves psychologically, it results in not only the alleviation of symptoms, but also in a sense of accomplishment and pride. It was hard work, but we did it! And this means we are capable of learning and changing and are in control of our lives. And this recognition often affects other aspects of our situations for the better. If medication is all that is utilized, we might never realize our potential and consequently not give ourselves the credit we deserve.

Finally, counseling inevitably affects relationships for the better. When a therapeutic relationship is initiated, it can be a model for other relationships in our lives. Frequently, people come to counseling hurt, fearful, and uncertain about their relationships. Therapy gives individuals the opportunity to experience an unbiased, supportive, trusting, and safe environment to explore relational and personal dynamics that are not working. Although couples work is usually most helpful to relational distress, individual work can uncover possible unhealthy relational patterns and help us learn helpful skills. Medication can certainly help people cope with relationship distress, but it assumes that the person taking the medication is the problem. In my experience, it takes two to tango and placing the blame on only one party makes the situation worse. Additionally, without the knowledge gained from counseling, the dysfunction will likely continue.

Although my technical knowledge of different psychotropic medications is limited, I know that they can be helpful and sometimes necessary for certain individuals. I am supportive of most of my clients who seek to take psychotropic medications. Although they certainly have their merit when used alone, when taken in conjunction with counseling, progress is typically made faster and more efficiently. Furthermore, there is not a drug that can replace personal growth.

I think some of us don’t have a clear understanding of meditation, but we have a “feeling” about what it means, and it doesn’t seem like it would be helpful. Alternatively, some of us have tried it and found it to be difficult and without apparent reward. So what is meditation anyways?

Meditation is a very broad term for a practice of creating stillness within oneself for some benefit. Some people practice meditation for spiritual enlightenment, some for mental clarity, some in order to generate more compassion for others, and others for stress relief. There are many other reasons that people use meditation in there lives.

There are also different methods used when meditating. One method is to concentrate one’s mind on a single aspect of themselves (e.g. their breath) or a single object. Another method is to use their awareness to gently bring themselves out of their heads and into what is happening in the present moment.

Now that meditation has been defined (in extremely simplified terms), why is it important? Well…let’s check in with you really quick. While you are reading this article, are you having any other thoughts? Ruminating about the past? Worrying about some event in the future? If not, good job! You are focused on the present moment and you are in some sense of the word, practicing meditation. If you are thinking of the past or future instead, welcome to the human condition. Most of us live outside of the present a lot of our time, and we are not even aware of it. So meditation is important because it brings us to the present moment and strengthens our ongoing ability to come back to the present moment. When we are in the present, we are not holding on to that person who cut us off on I-85 this morning. We are not worrying about that big presentation next week. Imagine a life without all of those thoughts. How peaceful would THAT be?

So, I think about that quote “I don’t meditate because I’m not patient enough.” Well, wouldn’t it be nice to create more patience in our lives? Try meditation!