Category / emotional intelligence / therapy
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Why Being a Therapist is So Much Easier than My Real Life
As a therapist I was taught to have “unconditional positive regard” with my clients. According to Carl Rogers, unconditional positive regard involves showing complete support and acceptance of a person no matter what that person says or does.The therapist accepts and supports the client, no matter what they say or do, placing no conditions on this acceptance. That means the therapist supports the client, whether they are expressing “good” behaviors…
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Please Stop Reading Books
Don’t get me wrong- I love reading. If you are on Good Reads (FB for books) you may have set a New Year’s goal. I committed to 30 books this year. I am always reading 2 on my Kindle- one fiction and one professional and listening to one in my car. Now that my kids are big, I actually have a fair amount of time to read and it is…
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Into the Marriage Votex
I love doing marriage work. It is deeply rewarding to be trusted with a couple’s most valuable resource at a time of fear and hurt. For 15 years I have studied the patterns, the stages relationships go through. I see how they get built, how they break down and how they heal. I ask people to give me months. I have to walk them slowly out of a mess that…
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You can’t move forward without letting go
There isn’t enough money to be made in research for happiness and long term relationships so we often have to borrow from research that is done to make sure we all spend a ton of money on Black Friday on crap we don’t need. Status Quo Bias is a theory on how we measure worth, value and happiness. Status quo bias means that we place a higher value on something…
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What’s Next? I’m Bored!
The Expo was a huge hit. Because I told everyone how stressed I was last week, everyone made sure I got a lot of appreciation and a lot of hugs. (Funny how easy it is to get what you need when you let people know.) Success at the Expo is measured by all of the amazing conversations that happened, in workshops, with birth providers and therapists, with yoga teachers and…
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Sending the kids off to school….Now what?
Labor Day is here! The kids are all going off to school and parents everywhere are doing the happy dance. If you’re an old momma like me, you’ve been down this road before. September I get the house back, I find a few extra free hours and I don’t have to feed them over and over again. Even though I work full time, my kid’s summer schedule highly disrupts my…
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Thanks for putting up with me- it’s been 7 years!
On August 21, 2008 I had the crazy/brave idea to start Notes from a Marriage Geek. (September 2009 I started the FB page.) Most Thursdays I waiver between inspired and freaked out about getting this out to you all. 7 years of writing have given me both a voice and an audience. I love how much I have been challenged and grown since that first post. Here it is- an…
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Asking is Super Scary
Left to my own devices I can get pulled into the abyss that is my own thinking so I listen to library books on my phone. I like having someone else’s voice in my head while walking and driving- especially someone inspiring and entertaining. I just finished Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking-How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help. Amanda is rock star, crowdfunding pioneer, and TED…
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Change might be scary but the alternative….?
Status quo bias is an emotional bias; a preference for the current state of affairs. The current baseline (or status quo) is taken as a reference point, and any change from that baseline is perceived as a loss. Status quo bias means that we place a higher value on something that we have then on some future thing. What we have is important to us and we hate giving up…
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Everyone Else Seems to Have Their Shit Together
Everyone on Facebook seems so happy. They don’t fight with their kids or get frustrated with their partners. Their mothers don’t make them crazy and they still fit in their jeans. The people on Facebook pay their bills on time and eat home cooked, nutritious gourmet meals every day. And they have clean bathrooms… ok, maybe nobody has clean bathrooms on FB…but they sure look like they could have clean…
