Good Morning Blog Friends~

Every once in a while, I read a blog that is so good it is worth reproducing for the benefit of all society,  Pastor Mark Tidd of Highlands Church Denver wrote an excellent blog the other day  titled, “I got a little bit of ugly on me this week”.  One of the things we all need a little more of as human beings is humility.  We need to know that we don’t have all the answers, we are all hurting, and often times we are flat out wrong.  Marks’ demonstrated humility and humor blended with his excellent advice on communication in relationships makes this an EXCELLENT ARTICLE.  His to the point 6 steps in communication are superb advice for any couple wanting to conflict in a more healthy way.  These steps force us to deal with our own ego of needing to be right and learning the superior skill of learning how to understand.  As you read this article ask yourself the question, how am I doing in the steps with my loved ones?  It takes a lot of practice (and failure).   I would love to hear your thoughts.  If you or a loved one are in need of counseling services to work through communication issues like these, feel free to contact me at www.centerforhealingandchange.com

I got a little bit of ugly on me this week.
 ”One of our staff conveyed a concern about Highlands Church that they had heard this week from a Highlands parishioner. The staff person was discreet and kept the name of the person anonymous but also encouraged the person to share their concern with me directly, and I hope they will. And the staffer was not sharing it as a criticism per se but saying how it revealed what a wide span of theological beliefs are held by many at Highlands. We have folks who were raised in the church since they were a zygote and folks just learning about Jesus for the first time. We have theological conservatives and liberals. And by the grace of God, we have been able to become a church that doesn’t require everyone to believe all the exact same things in order to nurture our union in Christ and pursue together the mission of God to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God.
       But on this particular day when I was told this particular concern, I was less than brilliant. If there are 6 steps to hearing concerns or criticism in the right way, I did them all wrong and got some ugly on me. I was a textbook reactionary. Instead of 1) actively listening, 2) asking questions, 3) seeking understanding, 4) clarifying assumptions, 5) discerning what parts of a corrective comment may be right and helpful and 6) being grateful for the chance to grow since “iron sharpens iron.”, I just reacted.
            Reacting is a lot faster than remembering all those steps and being concerned about what the other person is saying. By reacting, I was able to quickly assess that 1) the person was wrong, 2) they haven’t been listening to what I’ve been saying week in and out, 3) they ought to just be profoundly grateful there even is a church like Highlands 4)  who made them the boss of me 5) I have more important things to be thinking about so they should just get over it and if not 6) don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.
            Reacting is not unlike the sick pleasure of feeling sorry for yourself, which, as I pointed out in a message a couple months ago is like wetting your pants in the winter; it’s a very warm feeling for a very short amount of time.
            I apologized to our wonderful staff and I apologize now to whomever the person is who cares enough about our church to say something. And I thank God that through the forgiveness of our sins which we receive through Christ alone, all our ugly can be washed away.”
Grace and peace,

Mark

Thank you Mark for your lessons on life,

Gods Blessings to you~

Kelly Johnson, MA

Here I am in my house, watching baseball and just about to head off to a friends cabin for the holiday weekend.  Both my daughter and I are coming down with colds, and I’m trying to get caught up on work.  My husband just said to me, “Kelly, you never rest, just rest for a little while.”  Its ironic because on one hand, I feel like I never rest, but on the other hand I feel like I am one lazy son of a $%^#$ sometimes.  hehe.   Anyway, enough rambling. 

I am not really good about celebrating holidays other than the main stream holidays; eg. Christmas, Easter, etc.  This weekend we are celebrating Memorial Day.  When I think of the purpose of Memorial day I think of the importance of honoring our military and fallen soldiers, for the  price they have paid for our freedom is high.  We live in a culture where “out of sight, is out of mind.”  Its hard to really understand what our soldiers go through when they are over seas taking on the call of our country. 

 I recently saw a movie called “Brothers”.  The older brother is in Afghanistan serving in the war.  It was unbelievable to see what he went through as a prisoner of war.  This movie shows just a glimpse of the intense suffering, pain, and turmoil that our soldiers go through to fight for our country.  May we take some time out of our schedule this weekend to bless our soldiers, honor them, and pray for them.  

In my work with couples, I constantly see couples bicker back and forth fighting about topics.  Couples we’ll fight about things like:

“You never help around the house”

“Your lazy, we’ll you pick up your things!!!”

“Your driving is horrible, we are going to get into an accident.”

Why do you always go out with your friends, stay here for once and hang out with your family”

Do you see the core issue/feeling that never gets communicated?  Let me name a few, feeling… unimportant, inadequate, judged, unloved, criticized, etc.  However the couples will rarely ever let their partner know that this is how they really feel. 

Like I said, couples fight about topics and rarely identify the real issues.  They get stuck in the blame game and cant get past it to see the real issues in the relationship.  In my work with couples I see a theme running through most relationships.  In most situations, the men in the relationship feel unloved and inadequate and the women feel unloved and unimportant. 

The men always get nagged about not doing enough or doing it the wrong way (inadequacy) and the woman constantly compain about their husbands not “understanding” them, “being there” for them, “listening” to them.  In return the men want to be there for their wives emotionally, but do now know how to(inadequacy).  The women feel unimportant because the husband is not meeting their emotional needs and it appears that everything comes before them.  I always get a sense that couples want me to take sides in counseling, (Tell my partner this is all his fault!), however more and more I realize its not about sides, its about understanding and meeting one another’s needs.   

When we can identify our needs in a relationship and communicate those needs to our partner in a direct way, open communication starts to take place. What are your thoughts?

Disclaimer:  Please know these are generalizations and are not true for all couples. 

In life we all need understanding.  We all have a deep need to be understood, validated, and listened to.  I would say lack of understanding skills is the most significant issue I work with in couples counseling.  Couples, get in the blame game all to often and miss the boat entirely on what their partner needs.  Take some time today to do read the article below by  Ursula Young Voigt, Psy.D.  She illustrated eloquently the importance of active listening.  If you are needing couples counseling in Aurora, CO please call us for a consultation.  

Active Listening

Listening to your partner is a skill I teach couples to use before they encounter any problems. There are two types of active listening: silent listening and listening with words. We start out by practicing silent listening first. The drill is for you to listen to each other without saying anything for just one minute each. Once you have mastered that, you can try it for five minutes each. You will not need to do this for the rest of your relationship, only to practice the skill of silent listening. You may want to try this for one week. One partner speaks and the other one listens without distractions. Make eye contact, be present, nod your head, take it all in. Many couples have noticed amazing results from just practicing listening to each other without saying anything!

Next we practice listening with words. This is also very simple. You may want to try it out before you have a disagreement, just for practice. Do the same things you did for silent listening, but now you can say things, like ‘yes,’ ‘go on,’ until you think you understand what your partner has said. Then try to paraphrase what you think you heard and be sure to check to see if you got it right. You may need a few attempts at this. Next, try to imagine what your partner may be feeling and say that to him or her. You don’t have to be a master at this, or be accurate. The point is to make an effort at understanding. Allow yourself to be corrected if you didn’t get it right. Let it sink in.

Here is an example. Partner A says: “I really looked forward to going on that trip.” Partner B, the active listener, says: “You had your heart set on going away. You must be very disappointed.”  Here is another example: Partner A says: “My job is awful. I had one frustration after another all day long.” Partner B, is tempted to say: “Why don’t you get another job,” and wants to make several suggestions, but partner B practices being a good listener and says simply: “You really had a hard day today. You probably feel angry and sad that you have to put up with all that stuff.”

If you still want to give advice or offer helpful suggestions, wait a while until you communicated to your partner that you heard what he or she said and that you understand the problem from your partner’s point of view. The same holds true if you are having a difference of opinion. Before you can state your own point of view, communicate to your partner that you understand where he or she is coming from. That means that you temporarily have to focus on your partner’s side of the argument. You do not have to agree with what your partner says or wants, but you will need to understand your partner’s position in order to communicate effectively.

The second secret in effective couple’s communication is attitude.

Attitude

Picture the following scenario: You see hair in the sink and you think to yourself: “How awful that I have to put up with this mess. I live with someone who just doesn’t care about me! I always have to do everything around here!” How would you feel after entertaining such a train of thought? What kind of attitude would you have?

John Gottman, the famous couples therapist, has an interesting suggestion. He says to look at these small annoyances as evidence that you have someone who loves you in your life whom you love in return. The hair left in the sink is evidence that you are not sad and alone in life. Let’s assume you took that kind of an approach. Would you feel less angry, more accepting? Would your attitude be different?

You can also change your attitude by recalling the many kind things your partner has done for you and by focusing on what you appreciate about him or her.

When you think you have made a successful attitude shift you are in great shape to talk about the problem that seems to be so annoying. You will be able to elicit your partner’s help in finding a solution you can both feel good about.

As a Counselor and a Christ follower I wrestle with how these two fit together.  However, more recently I have come to an understanding of this and it has been a breath of fresh air.  Please hear me loud and clear, I deeply respect all religious beliefs and seek to understand each of my clients’ individual faith perspectives.    I have been successful at counseling Atheists, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Christians, and other individuals encompassing a wide variety of spiritual paths and I LOVE to do so.  My big question has been how does faith impact identity and self esteem?  I do believe there is a spiritual component to things, just like there are behavioral, emotional, and physical components to things.  This is my approach to integration; I would love to hear what your thoughts are.  I integrate spirituality into the counseling realm, simply by a belief system.  This belief is that God LOVES my clients so much and perhaps part of my job as a counselor is to empower my clients to see themselves for how God sees them.  (I do not do this verbally, unless asked, it may simply happen by practicing unconditional positive regard) 

As a culture we are facing epidemic proportions of low self-esteem.  Most individuals struggle to some extent with depression or low self-esteem.  A lot of us were raised in broken homes where we did not hear that we were loveable.  The truth of the matter is God loves us all so much and we deserve unconditional love.  However, according to our life experiences often we have only been shown conditional love.  This conditional love manifests itself through defensiveness, low self-esteem, shyness, anxiety, and other mental health problems.  You see, the problem with conditional love is that we always have to “earn” or “prove” to people that we are lovable.   I believe the truth can set us free, the truth is God made us, loves us, and has given us many gifts, skills, and talents.    But it all starts with the fact that we are 100% unconditionally loved right where we’re at, quirks and hurts intact.   Nothing can change that!   What are your thoughts?  Who knows, maybe I’m wrong.  Faith is being able to admit your could wrong, faith is just a hunch.    If you are interested in counseling services in Aurora please contact us today for a consultation!

Blessings to you~

Daily de-stressing is crucially important for overall emotional well-being.   With my current schedule of working about 60 per week I too can benefit from daily de-stressing.  Try these activities listed below:  Let me know what your thoughts are.  If you are having a difficult time doing this alone, counseling can help.  Please contact the Colorado Center For Healing And Change for an initial consultation. 

1. Daily Journal- do not journal about events, but your emotions regarding different events.

2. Pray

3. Deep Breathing

4. close your eyes and meditate for 10 minutes.

5. Listen to peaceful music

6. Get a massage

7. Utilize meditation

8. Serve

9. Call a best friend and have a heart to heart.

10. Pet an animal, pets are known to reduce significant stress.

11. What are your ideas?  I would LOVE to hear from you!

Kelly Johnson

More recently I have been working with a significant amount of depressed clients.  There are several strategies that I give these clients when there trying to work through their depression.  First thing to note is, depression is a cycle of negative thinking, negative beliefs, and then negative behaviors.   People think they are depressed, then, they start to believe things like “I’m a failure”, ”I can’t do anything right”, or “No one likes me”  Once these beliefs are believed it impacts the individuals behaviors.  “Well if no one likes me, I’m not going to call any one” or “I’m not going out to the game, no one will miss me anyway.”  As you can see this vicious cycle unfold, the more we think negative thoughts, the more we believe irrational beliefs, and then we behave in such a way that reinforces our belief system—  SELF FULFIILING PROPHECY AT ITS BEST!!!  The problem lies in the FACT that the beliefs we believe about ourselves are often FALSE.  They are irrational beliefs or also called cognitive distortions. 

So with ALL of this being said you can see their lies a huge problem, so how does the depressed person get help?  A treatment plan must be created where they are changing their BEHAVIORS every day.  In doing this the beliefs, and thoughts start to change as well.  For the depressed person, they cannot choose what they will do or not do in a day because of their FEELINGS, feelings come and feelings go.  They need to force themselves our out of the door.  Here is a list of the top 5 things people can do to help them curve their depression.  Please note, this does not substitute regular therapy.  If you are interested in Aurora Depression therapy please contact the Colorado Center for Healing and Change. 

1. Exercise EVERY DAY.

2. Take a multi-vitamin and eat at least 3 well balanced meals per day.

3. Pray/serve in your community- (through prayer and service we get outside of ourselves.  Naturally with depression were focused on our selves, through these 2 acts we get outside of ourselves and think about others needs.  When we do this we typically feel better about our own situations.

4. Journal your feelings and thoughts.

5. Establish healthy relationships and cultivate them regularly (daily!)

Share with me your successes and struggles, I want to hear them!

Be blessed.

Kelly Johnson

Sometimes we all go through seasons of life that we are not happy about.  We do everything we can to suppress, change, quelch, contort, or manipulate the situation we are going through and it ends up taking longer than normal.   I encourage you to try something different.  I would challenge you to try an exercise called RADICAL ACCEPTANCE.  Yes, you heard me correctly, radical acceptance consists of not only tolerating the particuler season, but radically accepting the stage you are in.  When you do something like this try to:

1. Start a thanksfulness journal regarding the situation.

2.  Try and see what lessons you can learn from this season.  Come back to this list regularly and see where you at.

4. Come up with 3 daily goals to attain right when you wake up in the morning.

5. End your day with a prayer of thanksfulness about where you are what you have been given.

Thoughts?  I would love to hear them!  Remember, do not just tolerate the season, radically accept it and embrace it, it will go by much faster.  If you are needing life coaching or counseling please call us today for a no obligation consultation. 

BLESSINGS!

Kelly

3.

Good Afternoon!

How is everybody doing on their new years resolution?   Consider embarking on a journey with a Professional Life Coach at the Colorado Center for Healing and Change.  As a life coach I can help you maximize your potential in life and achieve your goals.  Life is to short to live in fear- Live it well, we can help.  Here are some of the issues we can help individuals with in regards to life coaching.

Long time no blog, my apologies about that.  Life has been extremely busy over the past couple of months.  I guess busy is a good thing, right?  My husband and I went home to Minnesota to spend time with family.  It has been rewarding to see family and see our first child connect with grandpa and grandma.   As I look back over the last couple of months I have learned many things, one of which I would like to reflect on with you all, my readers.   I have learned a lot about how my faith impacts my profession as a counselor.  I love God and enjoy sharing Gods’ love and letting others know how much God loves them.  I also deeply respect people’s faith and seek to understand people from all faith perspectives.  As a Christian and also a counselor I often wrestle with how these two interact with one another.   Yet what I have realized is that they complement one another wonderfully, more than I would have anticipated.  

God loves each one of my clients deeply; I believe God gives each of his children unconditional love, which is incomprehensible and scary.  As human beings we are most often given conditional love in our relationships based off of merits, performance, and conditions.  As an adult, when we recieved conditional love as a child, we are afraid to admit weaknesses or faults because in our mind we interpret that as failure and a behavior that does not warrant love.   So the results are constant minimization and blaming of our personal problems on others and becoming defensive of at the drop of a hat.   When I can unconditionally accept and love my clients for who they are and where there at, their defenses start to come down and they can see themselves for who they really are, exposed- This is when the healing process begins.  Through giving them unconditional positive regard I essentially love them like their heavenly Father does. 

If you are reading this and asking the questions, how can I get help?  The first step is admitting you have a problem, grieve the loss of not experiencing unconditional love, share with your loves ones how you have developed maladaptive ways of coping with that, and lastly, seek our help from a professional counselor to help you deal with this loss.  Through counseling you can learn tools to reintegrate the gift of unconditional love and improve your sense of identity.   This is the beauty of integrating my faith into the counseling realm, its not an artificial link in the least, it’s the real deal.  We all need unconditional love, and when we don’t get it we suffer deeply.  The lord does love us doesn’t he?   I would love to hear your thoughts, agree or disagree, chime in! 

Aurora Colorado Counseling