Your Body and Your Mind Are Connected

We live in a  country where obesity is an epidemic. Every media outlet there is has been telling us for years that we are obese, eat the wrong food, overeat, drink too much alcohol. Once again, I offer my disclaimer; these are generalities. There are healthy people too. This blog isn't for you unless you want to learn how to up your game and get in even better shape. I'm referring to people who know they're overweight and in poor physical shape. Many of you have serious health issues. Your brain needs nutrition, exercise,  and fresh air for you to be able to navigate the psychological aspects of your life. If you don't feel well, don't have energy, feel sluggish, and exercise is a dirty word to you,  the rest of your life probably isn't going so well. Take a look at this website that offers many different options and ideas for getting and staying healthy. https://holistichealthwithholly.com/

Read More ›

Newsflash! You don’t need to Get Away.

Now, If you’re over forty you’ve probably grown out of trying to find reasons to get away from your partner. You’ve come to realize the one you got is actually the one you truly love, so most articles about couples and time apart are written for millennials. However, if any of you feel like it may be bad for your health to spend a lot of time with your spouse, as in “me time,” read on: https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/make-time-your-spouse-couples-spend-time-together-are-happier-individuals    

Read More ›

What’s Your Story?

As a therapist and a writer I know we tell ourselves stories about our lives and who we are in the stories of our lives. They are inaccurate stories because our brains hang on to negative experiences longer or better than positive experiences. We have a lopsided view of who we are. This is an interesting article about changing your story... https://ideas.ted.com/what-old-story-about-yourself-are-you-still-believing-heres-how-to-find-it-and-change-it/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits

Read More ›

Step-Families and Triangulation in General

In Family Systems Theory, triangulation is when any two people form a stronger bond with each other against a third person. There are so many family combinations of mom/mom or mom/dad or dad/dad or grandma/dad and so on that I couldn’t possibly address all of them. When two nouns are needed, I’m going to use mom and dad. When just one noun is required, I’ll say the person, but if it’s two, I’ll use mom, dad, and child/ren. You can apply your own labels suitable for your family system once you see the pattern. Here is a list of some of the possibilities: Child and mom form a stronger alliance than mom’s alliance with dad, which drives dad away. One spouse, after the divorce, deliberately communicates messages to the child that indicate the other parent is inferior or the first parent is so much better, loves the child more, etc. A child cultivates a relationship with the biological parent and shuns the stepparent. A stepparent shuns the child and cultivates her relationship with her new partner. Grandma and child against grandma’s child, the parent. This example covers much of what triangulation is all about. It is a family system where...

Read More ›