The Yogi Therapist

           Welcome and welcome back! A few weeks ago I published 'Improving Your Relationship through Conflict' and it just didn't feel complete, so I wanted to go back and revisit a few things. I encourage you to check out the original if you haven't, but here's a few things to note: the way you and your partner interact during conflict affects your entire relationship; your personal well-being affects the well-being of your relationship (and vice versa); and the most important things to remember during a conflict are to prioritize loving kindness for yourself and your partner and to stay relaxed. Essentially, it boils down to a spinoff of Winston Churchill's famous saying, 'keep calm and be kind to yourself and others'. That's all true. Now I want to get a little more specific about some important behaviors during conflict and why it matters.  The Concept There is a scale specifically designed to measure the presence of a variety of behaviors that ...

       Welcome and welcome back! The title might sound a little counter-intuitive. It might even go against your beliefs about relationships and how they work. Conflict is a bad thing, right? That means we're arguing and angry. Conflict means our relationship isn't going well. Have no fear! Over the next couple of minutes, we're going on a roller coaster ride through false information about relationships and on to destination peace and harmony.  The Concept      Everything I talk about here is going to be directed at adult romantic relationships; however, the same principles can be applied with only slight modification to friendships, coworker relationships, family relationships, and so forth even down to your grocery store cashier. At its core, 'relationship' is just a word that means there is some type of connection between two things. According to Robert Sternberg, adult romantic relationships ideally consist of three things: passion (sex), com...

    Welcome and welcome back! I'm so glad you've taken time to explore one of my all time favorite topics! In my opinion (and this is a blog, so that's okay), this is probably the most important topic. The key to stress management. The key to healthier relationships. The key to experiencing inner peace. Apparently lots of doors have the same lock. For real though, stick with me here and I hope you'll see how revolutionary this topic is. The Concept     Let's just start by defining the word. Simply stated, a boundary is a point of separation. It separates one thing from another. Imagine the boundary that separates North from South Korea. Heavily armed armed and guarded - no one comes in and no one goes out. No communication. No relationship. Now imagine the line between Maryland and Pennsylvania. If your GPS didn't say, "Welcome to Pennsylvania", would you even know you crossed over? There are different laws in the areas, and when you move from one to t...

     Welcome and welcome back! It’s the remix to ignition! Nah, I’m just kidding – but that’s a good song though. Anyway, this is kind of like Stress Part II: Armed and Fabulous. Okay, enough with the obscure pop culture references. This is a follow up to the discussion we had about stress – stress management. The Concept                 If you haven’t had a chance to read through the stress 101 post, I recommend that you do that to help get a basic understanding of what stress is before diving into managing it. Alright, that’s done. Welcome back. Okay, stress management is a set of activities to decrease the negative (bad or undesired) effects of stress on your body, your relationships, and your quality of life.   Stress management is specifically focused on chronic stressors, those situations that are pretty constant for awhile. It’s about helping your body to continue functioning at its...

Welcome and welcome back. How many times a day do you hear the word "stress"? How many times do you find yourself saying that you're "stressed out" or "stressing"? We live in a stressful world! But what does that really  mean? And do we have any control over it? The answers to these questions and more next on....The Yogi Therapist. (I hope you read that in a TV show announcer's voice). The Concept    Okay. Let's just start by defining stress. Definitions matter, especially for everyday terms like stress, because it's a pretty vague term and I want to make sure we're all the on the same page. So, for our purposes, stress is the physical/mental/emotional experience of challenge. A stressor is something that causes that experience in us. For example, imagine you're a caveman hunter. You see a lion. You run super fast to escape said lion. In this example, lion = stressor, and running = behavior or action. The "stress reaction"...

    Welcome, come in, take your coat off and stay awhile. I'm kidding, I know this is a blog. But welcome new folks and returning folks. Thank you for choosing to spend some time and energy with me. I want to dedicate this post to a model of therapy called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). DBT was designed to be used with people who are experiencing symptoms of borderline personality disorder, and especially those people who engage in non-suicidal self-harm (such as cutting). Over time, research has supported it as an effective intervention not only for borderline personality disorder, but also for PTSD, substance use disorders, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, and others. It's okay if you aren't familiar with these diagnoses. Suffice it to say, DBT is effective for people who feel overwhelmed by their emotions and do destructive stuff because of that. The Concept:     Let me just start by saying, DBT holds a very special place in my heart. The more I learn ab...

    Welcome new folks, and welcome back returning folks. I wanted to dedicate some time and energy to talking specifically about emotions. You may have noticed in my post about mental health that I did not really include emotions as a symptom for any particular disorder. That was intentional. As humans, we experience a full range of emotions. That is healthy. That is normal - albeit uncomfortable. So let's talk about emotions. The Concept:     Let's just start with the obvious. Emotions are hard. They're confusing. They're overwhelming. And a lot of times they're uncomfortable. But what are emotions? This may sound strange, but an emotion is a label for a state of mental and physical being. First, let's separate emotions from feelings using the example of sadness. So let's say you're feeling sad. How do you know  you're feeling sad? What is it that made you draw that conclusion? Maybe your body and/or your heart feels heavy, maybe you're tired or...