Family Counseling Archives - Page 2 of 11

When You Don’t feel OK at “the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”

by Emily Phifer, M.S. MFT A Mixed (Gift) Bag While the holidays can be a time for joy, connection, inspiration and delight, they can also be a time fraught with despair, loneliness, discouragement and compounded losses. To truly prioritize mental and emotional health in our lives and communities, we must acknowledge both realities. If you find yourself feeling burdened with difficult emotions this holiday season, you are certainly not alone. Merry, Bright, and Burdened Sometimes our self-imposed holiday expectations can accentuate when we are feeling less than: merry, magnanimous, productive, content, excited, bustling, prepared,...

Embracing the Mess

by Emily Phifer, M.S. MFT Adjusting Your Background Living through this pandemic has brought new meaning to the concept of work-life balance, and the conundrum therein. If you’ve ever found yourself hurriedly relocating piles of folded (or heaped) laundry off the bed to ready your “background” before an impending zoom meeting, you know what I’m talking about. For all of us, pandemic life has required rearranging our lives, shifting priorities, pivoting our operations, adjusting our family life and flexing our professional work environments. Wizards Behind the Curtain As I recently hefted my own laundry...

When in Doubt, Try Kindness

By Emily Phifer, M.S. MFT Be Kind Many of us have heard the saying, “Be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle”, attributed to Scottish minister, Ian Maclaren. But even if we’ve heard this message in the past, it bears repeating. How often do we gain an insight or learn a life lesson only to promptly forget it and go on with our lives, until we are faced with the same learning opportunity, yet again? We are all lifelong learners in this regard. Pandemic Ripple Effects So too are we still learning...

The “Highlight Reel” Pitfall

By Emily Phifer, M.S. MFT Getting Likes Social media at its best can be terrific. We keep up with friends and social groups, follow our interests, and utilize platforms for professional development. But in these settings, we understandably--and most often-- tend to highlight our accomplishments, our shining moments, our best sides, and our wisest insights. Plus, whenever we get “likes”, we simultaneously get a strong hit of dopamine, the chemical neurotransmitter in the brain associated with stimulating our neurological pleasure center- because, well, we’re liked! And we like feeling good. The Highlight Reel The...

BLACK SHEEP: When you’re the only one in your family who’s ready to heal

By Natashia Saunders, MFT Trainee Let’s face it, breaking harmful generational patterns in your family is hard. It feels like they might break you before you break them. The boundaries you’re setting with family—even the ones you announce nicely—are offending people. But you don’t want to divorce your family. Or do you? Well, let’s be honest, you’ve been thinking about it, but you keep coming back to your bottom line: They’re my family. But something needs to give, right? To change. Your family can change for the better, can’t they? Wouldn’t life and...

When You Don’t feel OK at “the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”

Embracing the Mess

When in Doubt, Try Kindness

The “Highlight Reel” Pitfall

BLACK SHEEP: When you’re the only one in your family who’s ready to heal

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