#036 - Spiritual/Emotional Growth: The hard way or the easier way

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#036 - Spiritual/Emotional Growth: The hard way or the easier way

I was talking with some friends the other night and we were exploring what it’s like to enter therapy. My friend had a very insightful statement that going into therapy is stressful because it “stirs stuff up.” I had to agree with that! That’s been true in my professional life with my clients and with my own personal journey. And yet my perspective is a bit different than my friends: Yes is stirs stuff up, and this stuff is going to get you no matter what!

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#033 - Making room for Disconnection

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#033 - Making room for Disconnection

Most of my life I have been pretty distant, fairly aloof. I did not want to feel the pain that came from human connection. I developed tools and methods to keep people at arms length. This felt like the best way of doing things, I was safe and they were safe from me. Underlying these actions were deep and powerful beliefs about safety and about my worthiness. On the surface these behaviors and beliefs point towards someone afraid of connection, scared of the closeness inherent in human relationships.  Though on the surface this may be true the deeper issue is a fear of disconnection.

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#031 - You're not broken: At least I don't think so!

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#031 - You're not broken: At least I don't think so!

The folks I have regular contact with in my practice have been well seasoned by life, which is my way of saying they have been through some rough shit. They have been through traumas, addictions, abuse, self-harm, and have also done some pretty hurtful things to other people. So by the time I see them in my office there are big feelings of being broken, hopeless, and unworthy. For the most part this makes a lot of sense to me given what they have been through! And I can completely relate, I too have been seasoned by life, and tenderized, and cook a bit by it! 

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#030 - Therapist Self-disclosure

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#030 - Therapist Self-disclosure

What I have experienced and continue to experience is the profound, and I’m not using that word lightly, healing that can take place through here and now disclosure by the therapist. This is not about sitting around in normal consciousness and chatting about our favorite flavors of ice cream. It’s about dropping into the realm of dissociated parts, developmental trauma, and systemic beliefs together as a way to reintegrate the shattered parts of self many clients come in with.

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#022 - Relationships: When Getting Close Feels Scary

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#022 - Relationships: When Getting Close Feels Scary

Your partner reaches out to you, holds extended eye contact, or even wants to make plans for a few days from now and you get that tightening in your stomach. Your not sure why but there is that jump in your belly and the associated feeling that something is bad or wrong. Logically you see there is no reason to be afraid in this moment, you know this is a good person who would not intentionally harm you, but the nagging feeling of imminent danger or mistrust of this person is very present.  Sometimes you can shake off this brief impulse to run and get away, other times it signals a landslide of panic and fear that takes you over.  

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#019 - Relationships: Room to Come and Go

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#019 - Relationships: Room to Come and Go

Has your partner ever said to you, “Babe, I need some space tonight.”? Then your knee jerk reaction is something like anxiety, anger, dread, or fear? If so, then congratulations you are in a relationship in which you are connected enough to have your core issues arise!  While no one likes to feel these deep issues of abandonment they are often hanging around right under the surface unconsciously driving your behavior. 

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#017 - And We Stop Kicking the Wheel...

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#017 - And We Stop Kicking the Wheel...

Kicking the wheel goes something like this: We notice that our jaw is tight, for example, and then we say, “Oh my god I’m getting TMJ, and this is going to be really annoying and I’m going to have to go to someone to fix it. And you know who else has TMJ?! Mom! This is all her fault, she passes all her crap on to me and now I have to deal with this. Like my hips! One is higher than the other, just like her, ugh! I can not believe she passed this on to me!!” 

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#011 - Love: Can’t live with it, can’t live without it

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#011 - Love: Can’t live with it, can’t live without it

“For even as love crowns you so shall she crucify you.

Even as she is for your growth so is she for your pruning.

Even as she ascends to your height and caresses

your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

so shall she descend to your roots and shake them

in their clinging to the earth.”

-The Prophet

 

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#001 - 5 steps to self-regulation: You want this!

/ Karolina Walsh Psychotherapy/
#001 - 5 steps to self-regulation: You want this!

"Trauma is a word that has been used more and more frequently over the past 10 years to describe various situations that bring about certain symptoms in the people affected. Some of these symptoms include feelings of overwhelm, nightmares of the event, anxiety, depression, rage, avoidance of memories, and disconnection from reality. The curious factor when facing a potentially traumatic situation..."

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