drlisa.says

07/07/2025

Want to level up your life? Here are some ways how.

First, define what “leveling up” means for you. Would it be improving your health or your relationships? Would it be personal growth or career advancement? After you’ve defined it, set specific attainable goals, e.g. earn a title bump and raise by year end, strength train three times a week. Working on goals that reflect your priorities gives your life direction and creates meaning.

Second, improve your habits. Small daily actions drive big change. Replace one ineffective habit with a productive one. For example, replace mindless scrolling with reading 10 pages or practicing a language on Duolingo. To increase awareness of your habits and decrease the likelihood of default to ineffective ones, record them in a journal or habit-tracking app.

Third, prioritize your health. Physical and mental energy fuel progress. Exercise regularly, eat nutrient-dense foods, and sleep 7-8 hours. Practice mindfulness to manage stress. A strong foundation amplifies everything else.

Fourth, take calculated risks. Personal growth requires stepping outside your comfort zone. Apply for that stretch job, start a side hustle, or have a tough conversation. Assess risks vs. rewards, but don’t wait for perfection—action builds momentum.

Fifth, learn from failure. Setbacks are opportunities to learn. Analyze what went wrong, adjust, and try again.

Sixth, surround yourself with growth-oriented people. Your network shapes your mindset. Seek mentors, join communities, and connect with people who challenge you. Avoid toxic or stagnant influences.

Seven, regularly review your goals and wins, no matter how small. Use a spreadsheet or app to log milestones. Celebrating your progress reinforces your motivation to continue.

Stay consistent, and you’ll see exponential growth over time. What area do you want to level up in first?

05/27/2025

Are you objectively successful but feel like a fraud? Do you worry that it’s just a matter of time before someone figures out you’re not really that smart, skilled, or knowledgeable? If so, you may be suffering from imposter syndrome.

SO what causes imposter syndrome? Negative beliefs about the self, e.g. “I’m a failure,” “I’m incompetent.” These beliefs are developed and maintained through biased information processing or thinking errors. A common bias in imposter syndrome is black and white thinking. This causes people to view their performance as either a success or failure, rather than falling along a continuum of excellence. As a result, the individual’s threshold for failure is lowered and they experience failure more frequently.

Another important thinking error is confirmation bias—the tendency to focus on evidence that supports your beliefs and overlook evidence that contradicts them. This explains how someone can believe they are a failure despite considerable evidence to the contrary. They may attribute their successes to luck or minimize the significance of their accomplishments, e.g., the test was easy. As a result of biased information processing, they cannot internalize their successes. This inability undercuts self confidence and belief in the ability to perform.

So what’s the key to overcoming imposter syndrome? Savor your successes. To offset for the tendency to minimize or overlook accomplishments, keep an accomplishment log organized by year. Record your personal and professional accomplishments for each year, starting with this year and working backwards. Take note of the important things you forget to include—that’s powerful evidence of your information processing biases! Once your log is up and running, be sure to periodically update it. And the next time you find yourself thinking you’re an imposter, take out your log and remind yourself of who you are! You just may find you feel a little more confident and a little less stressed.

04/28/2025

Invalidation is inevitable in life. People don’t always acknowledge us or appreciate our contributions. They may dismiss our emotions and points of view. For these reasons, it’s important to know how to self-validate.
When we self-validate, we acknowledge how our own emotions, thoughts, or behaviors make sense considering recent events, developmental history, emotional support, vulnerability factors, and beliefs. For example, it makes perfect sense that you’re annoyed if your takeout order is late after a long day of work and you’re starving. Or, that you don’t speak up when someone else’s remarks offend you because assertiveness was discouraged by your parents when you were a child.
Keep in mind that self-validation is NOT approval. Your behavior may be understandable AND problematic at the same time. For example, your reluctance to assert yourself as an adult can pose problems. Saying no to what you don’t want and asking for what you do, can make life easier and more fulfilling. Or, it makes sense that you cope by avoiding everyone that makes you anxious if you’ve never learned other ways to cope, AND you need the skills to face your fears. In other words, self-validation doesn’t prevent change or commit you to continue doing what your’e doing.
Unfortunately, many people have never learned to self-validate. In fact, if you were raised in an invalidating environment as a child, you may tend to self-invalidate as an adult, i.e., dismiss your own emotions, thoughts and behaviors. You tell yourself it doesn’t matter what you feel, you must be reading the situation incorrectly, or you’re overreacting. And self-invalidation only makes change more difficult. You can’t regulate emotions you wont acknowledge, or change thoughts and behaviors you dismiss.
So, the next time you catch yourself self-invalidating, try telling yourself how your thoughts, feelings and behaviors, even if they’re problematic make sense. And remember, self validation doesn’t prevent change it creates a context in which change is possible.

03/31/2025

The Florida CBT Association is pleased to offer a professional training webinar on Motivational Interviewing this Friday featuring Dr. Lori Eickleberry!

As a leading trainer in Motivational Interviewing (MI) and a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT), she will provide a comprehensive introduction to MI, an evidence-based approach that enhances motivation and behavior change.

Whether you’re a mental health professional, healthcare provider, or simply interested in learning more about MI, this webinar is an opportunity to gain valuable insights from one of the field’s top experts. Don’t miss it!

RSVP to: intake@cbtdbtassocs.com
Best,

Lisa

03/17/2025

02/17/2025

The Florida Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Association is pleased to offer a webinar by Dr. Jonathan Abramowitz, renowned OCD expert. Whether you’re just learning the basics of exposure therapy or an experienced ERP clinician, please join us on February 27th at 3:30! Registration is required by emailing intake@cbtdbtassocs.com.

01/31/2025

Ever feel self-conscious? Most of us do from time to time. But for some people, it feels like an imaginary audience is scrutinizing their every move.

The term “imaginary audience” was coined by psychologist David Elkind in 1967 to describe the feeling that a crowd is watching your behavior or listening to what you say. The net effect is hyper self-consciousness.

And while Elkind was describing the experience of adolescents, people of any age can experience the imaginary audience.

In fact, this is the case for adults with social anxiety, a condition marked by an excessive fear of negative evaluations by others. For example, you’re driving to work and imagine other drivers are judging you as you sing to the radio. You arrive at a party just as laughter breaks out and imagine the guests are laughing at you. You pause briefly while you’re speaking and imagine others think you’re incoherent.

SO, if you’re looking for ways to ditch the imaginary audience, here are some tips.

First, challenge the assumption that others are thinking about you or even paying attention to you. The good news is most people are self involved and thinking about themselves. If you doubt this, test it out. The next time you feel as if all eyes are on you, look around. Is anyone actually looking?

Second, shift the focus of your awareness away from yourself in social situations. When you are socially anxious, there is tendency to reflexively shift the focus of awareness away from others and to yourself. Intense self focus—focusing on what you look and sound like, only increases feelings of self consciousness. So, shift the focus back out! Focus on what is happening around you, your surroundings, and what the other people are doing or saying.
Regular mindfulness practice will enhance your ability to shift the focus from yourself.

So, the next time you feel like your every move is being scrutinized, try some of these tips and you just may find you’ve ditched the imaginary audience.

10/28/2024

When it comes to mental health, studies consistently show you need to disrupt rumination—the loop tape of negative thoughts that repeat in your mind without beginning or end. While some repetitive thinking can be productive, leading to problem solving or insights, too much is unproductive. Thinking about your problems over and over can be depressing and rehashing worries is anxiety provoking.
Rumination not only contributes to the development of a variety of clinical conditions including depression, generalized anxiety, and OCD, it also helps to maintain them.
So, why do so many people ruminate despite its negative effects on mood? One reason is that many people have positive beliefs about rumination. They believe it helps them with problem solving, enhances performance, and increases understanding.
Another reason is that rumination enables people to avoid activities and emotions they would rather not deal with. For example, by lying in bed thinking in the morning you can avoid starting your day and the associated fears. By thinking about problems over and over you can avoid taking steps to actually solve them. By thinking about the future you can avoid emotions in the present.
The good news is there are ways to break the rumination habit. Here are some tips:
First, cultivate awareness of the situations that lead to ruminating. Many people ruminate in the morning after awakening or during the commute home from work. Then, plan a couple alternative activities to do in those situations to disrupt rumination, e.g., listen to music, get out of bed and exercise.
Another tried and true way to disrupt rumination is practicing mindfulness. Shift the focus of your awareness away from the repetitive thoughts in your head and anchor is some aspect of present experience, i.e., the sounds you hear, the sensations you feel, the things you see.
If you still find yourself ruminating, try the 2-minute rule. After 2 minutes of ruminating, ask yourself these questions: Is rumination enhancing my understanding of a problem or situation? Am I making progress in solving it? Do I feel less depressed? If the answer to all of these is a resounding no, stop ruminating!

10/25/2024

The Florida Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Association is excited to announce its first Happy Hour event in Miami! Calling all mental health practitioners dedicated to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to join us for an evening of networking and collaboration. See you there!

09/04/2024

Have you ever thought, “I shouldn’t have to do things I don’t want to” ?  If so, you’re not alone. We’ve probably all thought it on occasion.  And for a rarified few, it may be possible to structure life so that it consists solely of the things they want to do. Maybe they can outsource all unwanted tasks. While this might seem enviable, it can also be problematic. Why? Because it seems conceivable that at some point in our lives you will be faced with a situation where we desire an outcome that requires you to do things you’d rather not. And, you can’t outsource it. For example, you want a promotion but don’t want to work longer hours. You want to pass the bar or the series 7, but you don’t want to study. In these situations, it’s useful to have the skill of doing things you don’t want to do. But if there haven’t been prior opportunities to develop this skill, it may not be in your repertoire. The good news is it can be cultivated with practice.

So, the next time you have the thought, “I shouldn’t have to do things I don’t want,” try some of these tips:

First, reframe your “should” statement as a preference: “I prefer not to do things I don’t want.”  Shoulds are often our arbitrary preferences for how life would be if we were masters of the universe. And then, when things are not as they should be, we’re angry.

Second, think about how doing the unwanted thing aligns with your interests and values. And think long. The short-term disadvantages of doing unwanted things may be outweighed by the longer-term benefits.

Third, reframe doing the unwanted task as a choice: “I choose to to get up early, to write on the weekends, etc.” You’ll resent it less.

Fourth, create a hierarchy of things you don’t want to do and then  work your way through it starting with the least aversive task. Make sure to positively reinforce yourself with a reward or self-praise immediately after completing each thing on the hierarchy. This makes it more likely that you’ll stick with it.

Try some of these tips and you just may find you feel a little more empowered and life is a little easier to navigate.

06/18/2024

Every morning there is an opportunity to develop the frame of mind you want to be in for the rest of the day. For this reason, it’s important to develop a routine that is conducive to a positive mindset that will help you deal with the challenges and capitalize on the opportunities each day brings. Here are some suggestions for practices designed to cultivate a positive mindset.

First, start your day by deliberately bringing your awareness to the positive. Try writing a log of positive things and events in all aspects of your life, both personal and professional. This practice is designed to offset your negativity bias—the tendency of our minds to reflexively focus on the negative. Nothing is too small to be included on your log and some items may be repeated daily, e.g., good night’s sleep, good coffee, nice view. With repeated practice of systematically noting the positive, you may find that your thinking become less negative and positive reframes are easier.

Second, practice mindfulness. Whether it’s meditation or simply anchoring your undivided awareness in some aspect of present experience—sounds, sights, tastes, tactile sensations, mindfulness practice in the morning will help you to feel centered and grounded for the rest of the day. It’s also a great way to combat the anxiety that many people feel in the morning. Rather than allowing the focus of your awareness to drift to imagined negative scenarios, anchoring in the present moment will bring your anxiety down.

Third, bring your awareness to everything in your life that you have to be grateful for. You can do this by keeping a gratitude journal or by practicing gratitude meditation.
Lastly, exercise! Capitalize on the fact that the body’s energizing hormones are at peak level in the morning. Exercise, whether it’s running, walking, strength training, tennis, or yoga, clears your head and makes it easier to sit at a desk for the rest of the say and focus your mind.

Try incorporating some of these practices into your morning routine and you just may find it’s easier to face the challenges and capitalize on the opportunities each day brings.