Colorado Center For Healing And Change

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

I have always said tha marriages take hard work, and they do.  Sometimes we get frusterated becomes things dont feel the same, the spark fades, and frankly…. the sex is boring.  Purposeful flirting even when you are not “feeling” it can be extremely powerful in a marriage.  Remember, feelings come and feelings go, so flirt despite what you are feeling.  Sometimes in marriages like in life, for success to happen you have to “fake it until you make it.”  So flirt away and dont expect anything back for awhile.  Wait and see what happens.  If you need a refresher course on how to flirt, check out this article listed below!

http://www.wikihow.com/Flirt

If your relationship is in needing of some rejuvinating, check out more about our relationship counseling services on the services page.  We would love to serve you!

Aurora Counseling

 Often times in couples counseling I tell the couples that marriage get worse before it gets better.  In the counseling office often times there is trust there and for the first time the couples feels comfortable to take their masks off.  When this happens, secrets come out and other hidden agendas come out that can be extremely hurtful.  Couples wear their masks and play the games so well that when they come into my office there are presenting as strangers.  When I address a hidden agenda or a secret I will hear from one partner, “well that is nothing, I just hid the fact that I went out with a couple of friends.”  What the lie is about is not the issue in this situation, the issue is that their is hiding there.  When we feel a need to hide from our partner we are not allowing ourselves to be fully known.  Just the notion that secrets are there sheds light on the hidden nature of the relationship and the need for authenticity.  Something to think about as you go through out your day.  If you are looking for aurora counseling services please feel free to peruse this site for more information.  We would love to serve you!     I look forward to your comments

In couples counseling, alot of dysfunction comes from the same source.  Do you know what that source is?  Yes, you are correct- secrets, lies, and hidden agenda’s.  Often times couples will fight about different topics but there are deeper issues at bay that never get discussed.   The best thing that you can do for your relationship is get all of the secrets out of the way  (This is often best done through therapy).  Now, this is not an excuse for being disruptive or rude and their still needs to be discernment with what you share.  But this does provide an opportunity to let your partner know what is really going on.  Sometimes in couples counseling, the relationship needs to get worse before it gets better.  Because in counseling, the truth is shown in the relationship for the very first time, this results in increased negative energy and pain.  It is not that the relationship is clearly getting worse, it is just that the darkness is being shown in the relationship and it will take time to heal.  If you feel a need to keep secrets in your relationship, ask yourself the question why?   Let me know what your thoughts are. 

 If you are needing help getting the secrets out in a healthy way consider couples counseling, sometimes a 3rd party can make all the difference. 

Kelly

As a school counselor I see a lot of bullying going on.  It seems like in middle school bullying, clicks, and gossip are such huge problems.  With bulling I have learned that it rarely gets better by just punishing the one who bullies.  To intervene effectively the bullymust feel the emotional pain of his victim.  Asking questions like, “what do you think it feels like to get bullied?” Have you even been bullied?”  Why do you bully?”  How does it make you feel when you bully”  Wow, this boy said, that his life has been horrible since the bullying started, how does that impact you?”  All of these questions attack the root of the problem with bullying.  For the bully, there is either an over-confidence problem or the polar opposite, no confidence.  Provide an environment for your child where they feel comfortable talking to you about what is going on at school.  If your son or daughter is bullying, listen to your teachers, talk to your student regularly and hold you child accountable for treating individuals with respect and dignity.