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The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 —Robert Frost

Techniques

Here are some of the ways clients have resolved difficulties and removed barriers. By having a variety of techniques available, you have the opportunity to use an approach that works best for you. What works for your unique situation might or might not be the best approach for someone else.

Mental Health:

Mental health or illness often relates directly to how we think and what we think. For some people, their brain has learned to think in a way that creates distress like anxiety or depression.  For many of these people, mental health and wellbeing involves teaching the brain to think differently. It may sound simple but for those of you suffering with depression or anxiety it can be very overwhelming.  You might feel hopelessly stuck. Using different techniques and sometimes nutritional supplements, I have helped many people make this shift and release old habits that were causing them difficulties. I use other techniques as well to help people make change permanent. The use of Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), Hypnotherapy, Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), offers an opportunity to see a problem from many perspectives allowing a person to identify what changes will bring them closer to mental health. My experience with all kinds of mental health issues allows me to develop a personal treatment plan for each individual.

Life Coaching:

Life coaching is really just that. Coaching. Some issues are not about mental health so much as about a person’s ability to see through the current impasse with clarity. Coaching can help a person gain understanding of exactly what they want and then help formulate a plan to achieve the desired end. I think about the typical sports coach who can see the whole playing field when the player can only see with their limited view of other people in the way and lots of activity around them. As an objective listener, a coach can sometimes have just the right perspective to shift your direction into alignment with your desired destination.

Career Enhancement:

Athletes or performers, business people or stay-at-home mothers; we all have a desire to be the best we can be. It is everyone's goal, either consciously or otherwise, to live the best life we can live and to achieve our full potential in life. Oftentimes past events block our efforts at achieving this potential. Identifying and removing these blocks will enable a person to move easily and comfortably into their next level of experience.

Addictions:

Addiction is quickly becoming a top priority for most mental health agencies. Individuals with both an addiction and a mental illness (commonly referred to as dually diagnosed) are challenged in dealing with both issues concurrently. For most of these people, standard addictions treatment is not enough support for abstinence from substances or behaviors that they are trying to change. Behaviors such as gambling, sex, spending, or binge eating are climbing the list of complaints for people seeking help. I have almost 15 years of experience helping people with dual diagnosis recover and lead healthy, productive lives.

Trauma:

By definition, a traumatic event is any time you were physically harmed, threatened with physical harm, saw or was aware of someone being physically harmed or killed, and you reacted with fear. These types of events include domestic or childhood violence against yourself or someone else, abusive relationships, traffic accidents, sports or recreation related injuries, and prolonged emotional abuse. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a set of symptoms that some people develop as a result of these events. Symptoms include nightmares or difficulty sleeping, intrusive thoughts, avoidance of things that remind you of the events, avoiding conversations about the events, feeling disconnected from others, elevated startle response, and hypervigilance. These individuals often over-react to change. There are other symptoms as well that can interfere with people living a fulfilling life.

Bilateral Brain Stimulation (BLS), EMDR, and Other Techniques:

Any activity that alternately stimulates opposite sides of your brain is bilateral stimulation. Bilateral brain stimulation techniques (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing {EMDR}, Natural Flow EMDR, Brainspotting, Eye Movement Integration) are some of the newest and amazingly effective treatments for these many mental health issues. It's not as complicated as it sounds and what's even better is you don't have to understand it for it to work beautifully. I am fully trained in each of these techniques which support the brain in putting old memories to rest, so you truly can "let them go," finally! I have spent most of my professional life working with individuals with trauma or abuse history.

Spiritual Guidance:

How we make sense of the world is critical to how we experience it. Our connection to God, Higher Power, Universe, Collective Consciousness, Mother Earth, and so on, is often overlooked by health care providers in many arenas. I can help you explore for yourself what makes sense to you and how to use this understanding to support a healthy happy life.

Hypnotherapy:

My training in hypnotherapy (the therapeutic use of hypnotic trance) allows an individual the ability to explore issues which are just below our conscious awareness. Hypnotic trance allows an individual to identify and explore unconscious barriers preventing them from making changes. It also allows people to change old thinking patterns that cause stress like excessive worry or catastrophic thinking. Additionally, simple phobias like fear of elevators or spiders can be addressed easily.

Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP):

Perhaps the newest of all psychological frameworks, NLP is a study of the system that an individual uses to store information in their brain. If we look at our brains as very sophisticated computers, we can imagine that we each have our own mega-filing system, different from anyone else. The techniques of NLP identify how each individual stores information and then moves information around in the brain, essentially refilling it, into a more useful system. EMDR, Hypnotherapy, and NLP are all related in that they explore how an individual's brain works, identifies what changes might be helpful, and facilitates making the desired change. NLP is in many ways an advanced form of hypnotherapy. It uses language to change the way information is stored in the brain and hence changes negative core beliefs and unwanted behaviors.