When trouble arrives

"We've seen that whenever trouble arrive at our doorstep, we're presented with a series of choices.  We start at the crossroads and see three paths: beaten, bitter, or broken.  Do we surrender to God's will or chart our own course?  Do we withdraw into ourselves or accept the Lord's invitation to move into a deeper relationship with Him--'If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in' (Rev. 3:20)?

"When trouble arrives and we don't understand why, there is yet another decision we must make.  If we know Paul's secret, we can be confident of making the right choice.  I believe the secret is simply this:  Accept what's happened even if it doesn't make sense, and trust that God is in control." - Jim Daly in Stronger

When trouble arrives, and it will, how we deal with it can help or hinder us.  We don't want to be beaten, bitter, or broken.  We sometimes want to avoid the trouble rather than facing it.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

Shame recovery

"An injury to one's sense of self forges some bonds.  The self-injury becomes part of the fabric of the relationship and further disrupts the natural unfolding of the self.  When this involves terror of any sort, an emptiness forms at the core of the person and the self becomes inconsolable.  No addiction can fill it.  Not denial of self will restore it.  No single gesture will be believable.  Only a profound sens of the human community caring for the self can seal up this hole.  We call this wound shame.

"This part of your recovery agenda looks at how the relationship forced you to devalue the self, and plans for self-restoration to the human community.  Start by making a list of how the relationship devalued you.  Think of  times you felt unworthy, embarrassed, flawed or ashamed.  Make a list of ten sources of shame in the relationship." - Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D. in Betrayal Bond

Shame recovery is hard.  We get used to hurting ourselves then get into relationships that are harmful.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

Self harm and deprivation

"'What are you doing to take care of yourself?' is one of the most often asked questions in recovery.  Self neglect is one of the common causes of relapse, and it is true that children whose parents neglected them have difficulty taking good care of themselves.

"This part of your recovery plan looks at those areas of your life that have gone beyond neglect of yourself and become compulsive deprivation or even compulsive self-harm.  First you need to identify forms of compulsive deprivation or self-harm that existed in the relationship(s) that you worry about." - Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D. in The Betrayal Bond

Compulsive deprivation and self-harm comes in many forms.  Anorexia, sexual anorexia, compulsive saving or hoarding. compulsive cleaning, cutting or hurting self, hair pulling or skin picking, body piercing or excessive tattoos, compulsive exercising, compulsive debting or compulsive saving, compulsive working are all example of depriving and hurting oneself.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

Parent's paradox

“Attempting to usher a young person (or adult) entrapped in substance abuse ‘over the hump’ until he or she ‘gets it’ will turn a well-intentioned mother or father into part of the problem, not part of the solution.

“Our first instinct as parents has always been to protect our children.  We guided them as toddlers away from the hot stove, the steep stairs, and the traffic in the street.  Preventive guidance worked then, but no longer.

“Here’s the cherry on the top: while marshaling your best efforts against the chaos, you, Oh-Well-Meaning-One, are aiding and abetting a destructive course.  Though every instinct you have exercised as a mother or father is driving you to do anything and everything to derail an emotional and physical train wreck, the ‘conductor’ on this careening ride is the addict.  The more you scramble for solutions, the more you, the parent, are enabling the addictive behavior to progress!  Without realizing what is happening to you and your family, you have morphed into an anxious, frantic, crazy person, embroiled by a condition that you did not cause, cannot control, and cannot cure.

"Welcome to codependency.  You have now become part of the problem, not part of the solution.  As if this weren’t enough, you good intentions amount to sticking your nose into someone else’s business–the business of the daughter/son you are trying to rescue.  Even smoothing the rough spots for your child can provide only a temporary fix.  Like applying a Band-Aid to a boil, treating the surface problem cannot reach what is going on underneath.  The core of the problem continues to fester and grow.”  – Barbara Victoria in It’s not about you, except when it is

Parent's paradox is when helping the child is actually hurting them.  They want to help but helping in the wrong way can be detrimental to their child.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

Pornography use is a relationship issue

"As sex and relationship therapists, we know that pornography use is a relationship issue.  Porn affects the user's inner life (the relationship he has with himself), as well as the interactions he has with his partner and other family members.  Regular porn use often interferes with a person's ability to maintain good self-esteem and experience manually fulfilling sexual intimacy with a partner.  Dealing with pornography is not solely about stopping a behavior or overcoming an addiction.  It also involves reclaiming a sense of personal integrity and manifesting attitudes and behaviors that promote healthy sexual intimacy.  Nothing we found in our research discussed pornography use and its repercussions with this type of emphasis." - Wendy Maltz, LCSW, DST and Larry Maltz, LCSW in The Porn Trap

Sexual addiction is an intimacy disorder, not about sex but about an emotional issue.  Regular porn use lowers the ability to feel good about themselves and their intimate relationships, so they withdraw which increases the emotional disconnect.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

Body and aging

Natural Healthy You ‏@healthyUdoterra

The body doesn't wear down because of age; it wears down because of what we do to it.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

The problem with porn

"But our view on pornography began to change in the mid-1990s.  It was then that we started seeing a troubling increase in the number of clients coming to us with porn-related problems that were interfering with their ability to maintain healthy relationships.  It soon became clear how easily sexual interests and desires could be twisted by pornography, away from real intimacy, and toward technological devices, people and situations that didn't actually exist.  Porn's emphasis had moved from helping couples becoming more sexually intimate with each other to arousing the user to have a sexually relationship with it.

"That's an important distinction: unlike many early erotic videos, magazines, and books that were produced to help spice up lovemaking for couples, porn began to offer itself as the object of desire.  Today's porn teaches users to think only about body parts and specific sexual actions, robbing them of the ability to experience romance, passion, and emotional and physical closeness with a real partner.  It competes with partners as a sexual outlet....

"Because using porn often involves high levels of dishonesty and secrecy, those who are caught up in it often say they feel isolated, ashamed, depressed, phony, morally compromised, and even in some cases, suicidal.  Many are angry, irritable, and unable to sleep.  Some tell us porn is leading them on a dangerous path into illegal and risky activities, such as viewing child pornography, having affairs, having anonymous sex at adult bookstores, hiring prostitutes, and viewing porn at work.  What we have found really troubling is that many of our clients confide that they are unable to stop using pornography even when they are aware of the negative consequences it is having on their lives.  As with alcohol, drugs or cigarettes, this is one of the signs of a true addiction." - Wendy Maltz, LCSW, DST & Larry Malts, LCSW in The Porn Trap

Porn can be an addiction.  It can mess up those lives who are involved with it.  Being a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist, I deal with these broken lives every day in my counseling office.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

The latest and greatest blueberry band by SHEL

fun video!  The Latest and Greatest Blueberry Band by SHEL

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=126773561668&set=vb.47899422780&type=3&

video_source=pages_video_set

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

Traumatic bonding

"So she was mystified as to why she still had these feelings for someone who had hurt her and her loved ones so badly.  I told her that the feelings are normal.  In the language of addictions we call them cravings; they do not go away simply because you understand.  Many get to the point of understanding but get pulled back in by the emotional reactivity.  The key is to dismantle the reactivity and the other trauma solutions that support traumatic bonding.  The relapse prevention plan you just completed focuses specifically on the relationship life itself.  Now we need to focus on how reactivity, arousal, blocking, splitting, deprivation, shame and repetition are used in that relationship.  Only then will you have sufficient distance to recognize that the feelings are not about reality.  They are like the Sirens of the ancient Greeks who seduced unwary sailors off course, where they crashed on the rocks hidden under the sea....

"Survivors of terror tend to react in extremes.  Their "alarm system" is set to hypersensitive.  The result is inner turmoil, personal chaos and relationship dysfunction.... By finding healthy ways to manage the internal reactions, you will be less vulnerable to those dysfunctional coping strategies.

"Start by listing ways that you underreact and ways you overreact in the relationships you are concerned about.  Give a description of what the reaction is, what the feeling is and the behavior that results from it.  Describe a specific event in which that happened.  Then describe an appropriate response strategy and what probably would have happened had you done that." - Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D. in The Betrayal Bond

Working through traumas is important to your mental state and emotions.  We can react in unusual ways in our lives  when we have trauma bonded.  Traumas need to be worked through and new ways of living identified.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

Praising

“Kind words can be powerful motivators–but only if you praise the right things.  Praising someone’s ability to work hard is more effective than gushing about how brilliant she is.  Research shows that kids who are praised for their intelligence do not try as hard on future tasks.  Praising smarts breeds the belief that things should come naturally–and when they don’t, kids thing they are no longer bright.  Or they choose unchallenging paths so as not to be exposed as ‘frauds.’

“‘Being praised for effort or other aspects of performance directly under your control leads to resilience, while being praised for being smart or for other innate abilities can lead to feelings of helplessness or self-doubt when a set back occurs,’ says psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson, associate director of the Motivation Science Center at Columbia University.  The ideal is to help someone think positively but realistically about achieving goals while praising their hard work.  When praised for persistence, those who think the path ahead will be difficult invest more effort.

“How praise is delivered counts as much as what gets praised.  Praise should be specific and sincere–and given generously especially at the office.  Workers asked to learn a task performed better at the end of the first day, report Japanese researchers.  To the brain, receiving a compliment is as much a social reward as being given money.” – Mary Loftus in March/April 2013 Psychology Today

It does matter how we give praise.  We need to tell those that do well what they do well in not just a general, blanket statement.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

Hold Fast by MercyMe

http://youtu.be/uWejcH0JWTc

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

You are more

[youtube=http://youtu.be/IwtcwQwgdsA]

Tenth Avenue North - You Are More

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

Hold truth to be more important

"We must always hold truth, as we can best determine it, to be more important, more vital to our self-interest than our comfort.  Conversely, we most always consider our personal discomfort relatively unimportant and indeed, even welcome it in the service for truth.  Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs." - M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

Hold truth to be more important.  When we are not truthful our mental health is in jeopardy.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

Validating statements

"'It's hard when your friend has a sleepover with someone else.  I'm guessing you feel left out.'

"'Of course you're scared about going to a new school.  Anyone would be nervous.'

"'I used to feel jealous of my sister too.'

"'I know that you really love that outfit.  In my opinion the colors don't go together well.'

"'Your friends are upset because you're not passing the ball to them when they have open shots.  I know because the coach told me they have complained about that.'

"'When you scream like that, I have trouble listening to you and don't want to do what you are asking.  I know you are upset, and if you could tell me in a lower voice, I could listen and possibly help.'" - Karyn D. Hall, PhD and Melissa H. Cook, LPC in The Power of Validation

Validating statements are caring.  Caring for the emotions of other.


Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928