Karin Kempf Counseling and Therapy

08/08/2025

Are you focusing more on your eulogy accolades, or your resume accomplishments? What will you be remembered for? (And that’s different from what *will* you be remembered for) At the risk of stating the obvious, behave as you want to be remembered.

08/08/2025

Sometimes it’s time to move on. Not all relationships are built to last forever, even those that helped to create good memories ❤️‍🩹

08/08/2025

This is not just about what to look for. It’s also as much about who to be. 🌱🌿🌳⬇️

07/08/2025

Trochu info o rozdílech mezi psychologem, psychoterapeutem, psychiatrem a šarlatánem. ⬇️

Ne každý, kdo nabízí pomoc s duševním zdravím respektive duševní poruchou, je odborník. Jak poznat rozdíl mezi psychiatrem, psychologem, psychoterapeutem a šarlatánem – a kde opravdu hledat podporu?

06/08/2025

Here’s an essential summary from Huberman’s talk with Anna Lembke about how our dopamine system works.

It’s not only relevant for people who struggle with addiction, but for all of us. We’re all influenced by dopamine reward release, and nearly all of us are susceptible to addiction, or at the very least over-using some type of substance or form of activity. It’s just how we’re wired.

Understanding *how* the dopamine reward system works can help us to better deal with addiction, addictive tendencies or simply to be more aware of our behavior and how to manage it around things that suck us in.

If you enjoy this excerpt, I recommend you listen to their whole conversation (you can look it up where podcasts are found) and also reading Dr. Lembke’s book, Dopamine Nation. 👍🏻

Podcast Episode · Huberman Lab · 26/06/2025 · 37m

06/08/2025

Just loving isn’t enough. You need skillz in order to build a relationship that can support both of you ⬇️

06/08/2025

When your *even adult* child is trying to talk to you about their childhood,your job (if you want to actually rebuild or simply build a solid relationship) is just to shut up and listen. Now is *not* the time for explaining, unless they specifically ask you about it. Now IS the time to start building trust and safety with them, and that us done by LISTENING to them, and making sure that you understand what their experience was like. THIS is front and center, and takes WAY MORE time than just 5 or 10 minutes before you launch into justification or explanation ⬇️

05/08/2025

We are hurt in relationships, and we heal in relationships…

A friend of mine posted one of my quotes, a list, about reminders if you’re starting to date again. One of the reminders was that you do not need to be fully “healed”. I looked at the comments section and there were a few outraged by this particular one. “Of course you need to be healed to be in relationship” followed by some 🤦🏻‍♀️ face palm emojis.

I thought we might break it down here.
Of course it’s not an invitation to be reckless. If you’re raw and haven’t done any healing work, you may want to spend some time tuning in. But that’s not what I’m talking about here.

We are never finished. Full stop. If you think you need to be fully healed (what does that even mean?!?) then you’re going to be waiting a very long time. Sure you may want to know yourself well, know how to do some emotional regulation, and have some understanding of your past pain and how it’s showing up, but the idea that you can’t have any mess feels problematic.

Here’s the less subtle piece. Relationships are what wound us. Everything is relational. The wounds, pain, and trauma we carry is relational. And because of that, it does require relationships to help with our healing. Of course there is plenty we can do on our own, but awareness is not enough. Integration requires practice. That means being in relationship and having to navigate what comes up in that dynamic.

So, friends, of course I am not suggesting to get into a relationship with the hope of blowing some stuff up. I am suggesting that we stop with the narrative that we must be at some fairly tale destination before we give it a go. You can do beautiful healing work in your own, but relational dynamics will be a part of the healing no matter how much you beg to differ.

30/07/2025

I really like this post because it talks about the foundations of what emotional health are. You might be able to get there on your own, maybe therapy can help you get there. This is for all of us, therapists and other people alike. 🌳❤️