Neil Wolfson, Mental Health Therapist

08/05/2022

https://www.neilwolfson.com/blog/gottman-method-for-couples-counseling

Guidance and support in learning how to improve your relationship with your partner using the Gottman Method for Couples Counseling

17/04/2022

Spring Holidays!

17/04/2022

Happy Spring Holidays!

11/04/2022

Looking for a Way to Relax? Why do We get Stressed and What Can We do About It? There’s Actually a Lot We Can About It! Read To Find Out More.

How to reduce your stress by using a simple yet very powerful breathing exercise.

11/04/2022

“Sometimes we put up walls not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.” -Socrates

29/12/2021

RAIN: How to Manage Stress, Anxiety, and Other Difficult Emotions

What do you do with powerful and uncomfortable emotions? Do you fight them? Do you avoid them? Often times, people do one or the other. The problem is that these approaches only lead to a cycle of even more pain—deeper depression, greater stress and anxiety, or more anger. There is a way to practice stress management and manage other uncomfortable emotions, to even work with them in order to transform them into something greater. What we resist, persists. What we fight only grows stronger. Avoidance is just another form of resisting, so both coping strategies lead to more of the same, but worse.

RAIN is an easy to remember mindfulness acronym to help you identify what you are feeling, to work with it, and to put yourself in a position to do something about these emotions that is more productive than fighting or avoiding them. It’s a very simple acronym to use and the more you practice it, the easier and more effective it becomes. You will see your mental and emotional wellbeing increase.



Here it goes:

R- Recognize: recognizing and identifying what you are thinking/feeling. It is helpful to put in terms like: “This is anger” or “I am feeling depressed” rather than “I am angry” or “I am depressed.” You can do the latter, but it can lead you to feeling more stuck in those emotions. The former helps you to objectify the emotions, to make them a thing separate than who and what you are. This approach to identifying your emotions alone can provide a powerful shift in how you relate to them.

A- Allow/Accept: instead of fighting the emotion, embrace it, accept it’s presence; don't run from it, but rather stay with it, allow yourself to feel it. You can even think of yourself giving a hug to your emotion like it’s a child needing support and compassion. In fact, that’s what it is, a younger part of you that is acting out because it is hurting. You can begin to make yourself feel whole by giving that part of your self what it needs—patience, love, and kindness.

I- Investigate: look inwards, look at what is behind these emotions, doing so nonjudgmentally. Our emotions serve a purpose. They are information that we can act on. After you recognize and allow/embrace your difficult emotion, then it’s helpful to explore what’s behind the feelings as well as any steps you can take to help soothe this feeling. Maybe it’s writing in a journal or talking to a loved one or going for a walk or listening to relaxing music. Use any of the helpful coping strategies you have learned (and there are many more to learn, besides). The more you do this, the better you will understand where your emotions come from and how to manage them. Instead of feeling like you are at the mercy of your emotions, you will start to feel more empowered. There are many coping strategies that I can teach you to utilize when you get to this point.

N- Non-identification: this means to recognize that while you feel these feelings, you are NOT these feelings... they are temporary sensations in the body that are the result of your perspective about the situation you are in. Another way to think about the N is Not My Story. In other words, these are your feelings, but they are not who and what you are. You are much more than an emotion. Imagine you’re watching a horror movie in the theater and forget that you are an audience member, but instead begin to see yourself as the victim being chased by the monster. Through non-identification, you can remember that you are not just experiencing your life, you are also watching it happen. This perspective gives you a greater viewpoint from which to experience your moment-to-moment life, which includes your difficult emotions like anxiety, stress, depression, and anger (among many others).

Practice using this mindfulness exercise when you find that you are having a tough time with your emotions. The idea is to not run from the emotion, but to settle the body down and see it for what it is. This can be very empowering. Try RAIN for week and notice the changes in your life!

How to manage anxiety, stress, anger, and other difficult emotions through a simple acronym: RAIN. Improve your emotional wellbeing.

21/12/2021

Miracle Question

If you are looking for a way to get out of a rut or how to make a difficult decision and move forward in your life, the Miracle Question is for you.

Often times we can get stuck in our lives feeling as if we have tunnel vision. “What do I do next?” “Where am I going?” “How I do I get to where I want when I’m not even sure what I want or what to do?”

If these questions sound familiar to you, then you are far from alone. It can be very easy to stay stuck in a rut, in a deficit-based mindset— that is, focusing on what we aren’t doing rather than what we can do?

So, how do you move from the deficit mindset and move forward? How do you enlarge your perspective to help give you greater clarity and vision for your future?

There is a mental exercise we can use that will tap into your power of imagination. Imaginations are limitless, only bound by your beliefs. And thus, your limiting beliefs can also hold you back from making the decisions that will improve your life, as well as act on them. What often happens is that people have already put up the obstacles in their way even when they get a glimmer of what it is they truly want, and thus stop before they even start.

So, using the power of your imagination, please consider the following scenario (remember, this may sound like a strange question, but it helps put you in a place of a purely creative mindset):

Imagine that tonight as you sleep a miracle occurs in your life. A magical wand is waved over your sleeping body and all of your problems disappear... You are not aware that his miracle is happening. You are merely sleeping as it happens. But it occurs nonetheless.

When you wake up, what is different?

How would you know a miracle has happened?

What's the first thing you notice as you wake up in the morning?

What would you be feeling?

What would your life look like that first day?

That week?

That year?

What might others close to you notice differently about you?


Take your time to let your imagination run with this. Review the scenario and the follow-up questions at your own pace. Take each question at your own pace. At any point, if you start to think something like, “But I won’t be able to do X because of Y,” remind yourself that this magic wand removed all of your problems— that, too, includes the obstacles (beliefs, feelings, etc) that would get in your way. This exercise can be done more than once. It is a very powerful way to get you to a place of creativity and a sense of freedom and control in your life.

Give this Miracle Question exercise a try. If you have any thoughts or questions, don’t hesitate to ask!

The Miracle Question is a great way to help get unstuck or imagine what the future could be like if all your problems were gone. This is a very useful exercise to help you get out of your head and think about what your life can be like.

23/11/2021

Trauma Therapy- EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. That’s just a wordy way of saying it’s a therapy technique that uses eye movements, the very same as when we dream, to help individuals work through painful experiences. This will be briefly touched on below along with a video if you would like to see how this fascinating approach works.

As with most therapy approaches, EMDR focuses on the individual’s present concerns. The philosophy behind EMDR is that past emotionally charged experiences are overly influencing your present emotions, sensations, and thoughts about yourself. As an example: “Do you ever feel worthless although you know you are a worthwhile person?”

EMDR’s processing helps you break through the emotional blocks that are keeping you from living an adaptive, emotionally healthy life.

EMDR uses rapid sets of eye movements to help you update disturbing experiences, much like what occurs when we sleep. During sleep we alternate between regular sleep and REM (rapid eye movement). This sleep pattern helps you work through the challenges of the day.

EMDR replicates this sleep pattern by alternating between sets of eye movements and brief comments you make about what you are noticing. This alternating process helps you update your memories to a healthier present perspective.

As with most therapy approaches, EMDR focuses on the individual’s present concerns. The philosophy behind EMDR is that past emotionally charged experiences are overly influencing your present emotions, sensations, and thoughts about yourself.

16/11/2021

Mindfulness and Quieting Our Minds

What is Mindfulness? How can it help you? What do you think of when you read this word? Does it make you think about all the things that are on your mind? Does it make you think of meditation? Does it sound difficult? Does it sound peaceful? You may have any of these reactions to the word and all of them. Our minds can be pretty chaotic from moment to moment. It’s as if our minds are in control of us rather than us being in control of our minds. Our minds are meant to be a tool, but somewhere along the way, our brains grabbed ahold of the leash when it’s supposed to be the other way around.

To illustrate, just sit there for even 20 seconds and merely pay attention to your thoughts, and, if you are comfortable, feel free to do so with your eyes closed. Go ahead. Just 20 seconds. When you are done, come back…If you are like most people, you will have noticed that your mind was all over the place. Even for just 20 seconds. Maybe you thought, “Why would I want to do this?” Then, “This is probably a challenge. I accept this challenge… Wait, what’s this challenge supposed to be? Am I supposed to think of nothing? How do I think of nothing? Am I supposed to just be paying attention to what I am thinking?” And by that moment, time was already up. Some of these thoughts may have passed through your mind, or none at all. Maybe a completely different set of thoughts pushed their way into your mind. It’s okay. This is normal. And no, this was not a test, just a way to help you observe. There are no tests with mindfulness. That’s part of the beauty of it: no tests, no should’s, no have to’s, no right’s, no wrong’s, no judgments. Just the practice of being present and accepting what comes into our experience.

Why is this important? Because painful emotions come from being lost in thought, even when we don’t realize we are lost in thought. Our minds are time travelers and just love to pull up the past and future. Our minds are not used to just being present… just being. Think about a recent time you were anxious? What were you thinking about? Probably something in the future. What about a time you were angry? You were thinking about a time in the past or a perceived issue in the future. The mind can play tricks on us in this way. What if we can learn to quiet this all down and, as a result, begin to let go of those uncomfortable feelings and compulsive behaviors that are a result of our time-traveling mind?

Mindfulness engages the practice of quieting our minds through various techniques that allow us to be more present and thus more at ease, more at peace, happier, more joyful, and certainly, less suffering is experienced as a result. We have the ability to use our bodies (which, unlike our minds, do not time travel—our bodies are always in the present) to help us cultivate this state of alert awareness and acceptance. There are different techniques one can learn in order to experience this greater level of peace and stillness. Meditation is one of them, a powerful practice at that. Yoga is another. Breathing exercises, body scanning, and progressive muscle relaxation are still others, and there are more. Mindfulness, in fact, is a way of life that, when practiced, can significantly change your life. In time, you will learn that mindfulness is the most natural thing in the world. Would you like to know more about how and why mindfulness works?

Mindfulness engages the practice of quieting our minds through various techniques that allow us to be more present and thus more at ease, more at peace, happier, more joyful, and certainly, less suffering is experienced as a result.