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I came across this list and it reminded me of the power of gratitude and the importance of having the right perspective:
Early Wake-ups=Children to love House to Clean=Safe place to live Laundry=Clothes to wear Dishes to wash=Food to eat Crumbs under the table=Family meals Grocery Shopping=$ to provide for us Toilets to clean=Indoor plumbing Lots of noise=People in my life Endless questions about homework=Kid's brains growing Sore and tired in bed=I'm still alive! What are you thankful for today?
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 "The Plano Award Program's purpose is to support and offer public recognition of the contributions of businesses and organizations in and around Plano. This recognition is a result of dedication and efforts to help build the business."
We continue to strive to be a counseling center that offers high quality care to meet the counseling needs of Plano and surrounding cities. "While 1 in 5 people will experience mental illness over the course of their lifetimes, everyone will face challenges that can and will affect their mental health. Mental Illness Awareness Week seeks to raise awareness of mental illness, fight discrimination and provide support" (American Counseling Association).
The pandemic has certainly impacted the youth mental health crisis but new research shows that the mental health of youth was well underway even prior to Covid-19 (Youth Mental Health Was Declining in the U.S. Long Before Covid-19, Brian Mastroianni). Get help today and set up a free 15 minute consult. We welcome Shana Avery, LMFTA to Counseling at Cornerstone. She is a fantastic therapist who has a broad range of interests/expertise in seeing clients of many different ages (children-adults) and treatment levels (individual, couples and family).
Her clinical experience, coupled with her drive to be a life time learner and honing her craft in the therapeutic setting, makes her a therapist you should feel comfortable in seeing. Shana offers a free 15 minute consult--if you are interested, please reach out to [email protected] to set up a consult. As posted by Psychology Today:
Research suggests that psychological flexibility is essential for mental and emotional well-being. It helps people navigate distress and create a meaningful life. What does psychological flexibility entail? 1) Awareness: noticing what's happening in the present moment and the thoughts/feelings that emerge. 2) Openness: allowing for difficult thoughts and feelings--without needing to change them before moving towards a decision. 3) Valued Engagement: knowing what matters to you and taking steps towards your goals. ---- In order to operate in a place of awareness, openness and valued engagement, one must be able to self-regulate their own emotions, and have healthy boundaries within oneself and others. When trauma presents itself however, attachment injuries may show itself in various ways, thus making self-regulation even more challenging. It's said that the answer is always in the middle. In terms of parenting and discipline, too much kindness without firmness may become permissiveness and too much firmness without kindness may become excessive strictness.
It may seem like an arduous task to find a balance in our discipline, and it is! Part of the reason is because our parenting style should always adjust according to the child's developmental stage. For instance, for children between the ages of 0-12, we should tell them what to think, whereas for an adolescent (12-19), we should teach them how to think. But if you told an adolescent what to think, you should expect rebellion. It is because developmental, they are in a stage of exploration of independence/autonomy. That is not to say that we should parent without no boundaries. But we should consider how to collaborate with our teens, and at times provide options within safe boundaries. How can we love our children through proper discipline and boundary setting? Ask for feedback from your children and loved ones, always consider the question of how 'discipline is building up your child.' Most important of all, you need to 'know' your child in order to provide intentional parenting. Those with multiple children know how different each child's temperament--what may be effective for one child may be ineffective for another. Above all, parenting and boundary setting is a question of love: how can we love our children to build them up according to their personality and development. The shooting in Uvalde has drawn communities around the world to grieve the lives of those lost. Here are 4 things to remember:
Identify: Reading the news or seeing images on social media of the tragedy, can elicit various feelings and thoughts. Be sure to name and identify the emotions you're experiencing. Be cautious of a tendency to stuff emotions. If you find yourself increasing distractions, it may be a red flag that you are experiencing deep emotions that first need to be identified. Express: It's important to verbalize your feelings. You may have heard it said that whatever does not come up and out through words, will come up and out through actions--and often unhealthy ones. Find support through friends, family and your community to express and process what all you're feeling. Annd if you are a parent and caring for your children, make sure you provide yourself space to process and grieve the events before you provide a space for your children. Remember that your children need a healthy. model of how to express negative emotions in a healthy way. It's okay to tell them where you are in your journey of grief. You don't have to have it altogether. In fact, your children often need to know that you don't have it altogether. Set Limits: With continual updates, interviews and images of the lives lost, make sure to be aware of where you are in your journey of grief and sadness. Be compassionate to yourself in knowing what you need. Take Action: As you continue to grieve, how can you move towards a healthy expression of such emotions? It may mean pressing into your faith, it may mean being more proactive/present in spending time with your children, it may mean engaging in your creative expressions of art and music. May is mental health awareness month. Society has come quite a long way towards normalizing the need to take care of our mental, emotional health. We still have a long way to go but we are making progress. I believe it's because individuals are recognizing the harmful impact a lack of addressing mental health issues can have on an individual, a family and community.
Here is a resource that you may find to be helpful as you decide when you need to seek professional help. After completing the test, you will also be sent resources. https://screening.mhanational.org/screening-tools/ "Healthy self-esteem is created within an individual who knows that he has inherent worth that is equal to others. The codependent individual relies on others to determine his worth or gets it from comparing himself to others, so his self-esteem fluctuates between feeling worthless and better than."
1) People who are codependent do not know who they are. They have difficulty recognizing and defining their own reality. Reality is defined as the following 4 aspects: 1) The body: how we look and how our bodies are operating, 2) Thinking: how we give meaning to incoming data, 3) Feelings: appropriate expression of our emotions, 4) Behavior: what we do or don't do. Not being able to own our reality is experienced on 2 levels: I know my reality and I won't share it or I don't know what my reality is. Codependents then, must make up a personal identity and reality out of what they think they should be. 2) Difficulty acknowledging and meeting our own wants and needs: Everyone has basic needs and wants. One may fall into these 4 categories: 1) Too dependent: expect others to meet our needs completely, 2) Anti-dependent: I alone can meet my needs, 3) Needless/wantless: I am not aware of my needs or wants, and 4) Confuses wants and needs: attempts to meet needs with wants." *Taken from 'The Meadows, Summer 2002 Good Morning America highlighted autism awareness month with a segment on Tommy and Dee Hilfiger's experience with raising children with ASD, as well a segment on adults with autism. Click the link of GMA above You may also find interest in checking out Eric Garcia's book, "We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation."
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