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Real Talk: Anxiety and Depression

September 30, 2021
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Let’s talk about anxiety and depression. I am sure you have heard these words before. What I am about to say might surprise you. Anxiety and depression are not bad things despite what we have been led to believe. Now, I want to clarify that I am in no way minimizing the struggles that anxiety and depression bring. Rather, I am pointing out that anxiety and depression play important roles in our lives, but they can be harmful in excess.

Anxiety. Sometimes just reading this word can make us start to panic, clench our jaw, and furrow our brow. Anxiety can inhibit us from being our true selves for fear of judgement or doing the wrong thing. We can obsess over negative thoughts, feel sick to our stomach, the list goes on. Anxiety in excess can be damaging, but let’s think about the function of anxiety. If we were free from ...

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Anxiety
Depression

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coping

A Vow to Myself

September 5, 2021
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There are many different trainings or theories that I have walked through in my personal and academic life. Each one has offered a unique skillset to help myself and others navigate stormy seas. One of the most recent approaches has stuck in my mind more than others in the past. It is an approach created by Dan Allender and taught to me from an LPC named Matt Kenney under the name of “Story Retelling.” The premise is fairly simple: each person at one point in their development incurred a wound. This wound spoke a message of shame to the child. The child then created a vow to be a certain person or live a certain way so as to never feel that shame again. As a result, a false self is created through which the child learns to interact with the world. This false self is the point of discontentment and battle within the adult.

It begins with a wound. The fallen nature of the world ensures that each person will be hur ...

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False self

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story
trust

Internal Versus External Processing

August 29, 2021
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How do you process information? Do you need to think it over, or do you need to talk about it? People fall into one of two categories for processing information: the internal processor or the external processor. Here is another way to look at it. The external processor will talk to think while the internal processor will think to talk. One of these ways of processing information and navigating life’s challenges is not better than the other They both have strengths and weaknesses, and this is most often seen in the context of relationships when people process information differently. When people understand the way their spouse, friend, significant other, or coworker process information, it aids in promoting effective communication. However, when there is a disconnect in understanding the way others around you process information, it can lead to conflict, frustration, and anger.

External processors are strong in being a ...

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Processing

Tags:

conflict
patience
talk
think