Hey Everyone, 
Today we are going to discuss the idea of comfort and how we are currently obtaining and maintaining comfort in an effort to sooth or deal with our stress, fear and loss. We can use a variety of tactics to comfort ourselves, these include pornography, yelling, substances such as alcohol, marijuana or smoking tobacco to name a few. Others may include masturbation, eating or not eating, isolation or over shopping. If we take an inventory and begin to identify what our skills are for comforting ourselves, we may find that there are better tactics that we can use in place of our current tactics that may be more beneficial for our lives. In other words, some of our "bad" or "problematic" behaviors are nothing more than our efforts to comfort ourselves. If we look back at how we were comforted growing up, we may realize we were not shown how to be comforted in a healthy way. After taking an inventory of what you were shown, and how you have been comforting yourself, decide if you would like to learn a new way to comfort yourself that may be more beneficial to your life and to your relationships. This is idea of examining how we comfort ourselves is an important one to look at and examine. 
Take care everyone,  and thanks for reading....

Hello Everyone, 

When you read these words...who comes to mind? When you read the word "them" who do you think of? There is always someone somewhere that is just waiting to be inspired by YOU. No matter what you do in life, what you like or don't like, don't forget that someone out there is just waiting for you to inspire them. So be yourself and be encouraged. If you have not given up and if you are still trying, then believe me...you are an inspiration. If you are trying at all in your life, then give yourself a pat on your back because you are something special. 

Take care everyone, and thanks for reading! 

​

Hello Everyone, 

We often hear the term "healthy relationship" and have no idea what that really means. We know that we need healthy relationships and we hope that the healthy relationships last and the dysfunctional ones end. Here is a great tip that you can use in your relationships to help you set boundaries and to be sure that your relationship is on the path to something healthy. The first rule for any relationship is this...feeling safe. In a relationship we all deserve to feel safe. This means, we need to feel safe in conversations, feel safe emotionally and physically. Conversations are a big part of relationships and if you are in a relationship where you do not feel safe to share in a conversation then that may be something to look at. If you feel that you are walking on egg shells or not able to freely express yourself in a relationship, then that is unhealthy. Likewise, if you cannot express your emotions or are with someone who makes fun of you when you cry, that is also not making you safe in your relationship and that is unhealthy. If your partner has ever, kept you from leaving a room, pulled your arm, pulled your hair, slapped, smacked or punched you or anything that prevented you from obtaining physical safety then that is unhealthy. If you are feeling unsafe in your relationship get some help. Call the domestic violence hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or enroll in counseling. Several areas offer free relationship classes for couples. Please be sure moving forward, that you hold all of your relationships to this standard. "I HAVE TO FEEL SAFE to stay in this." This is true for any relationship not just romantic relationships. Take care everyone and remember safety has to come first and then the rest can follow, if there is no safety, then the rest doesn't matter. 

Hello Everyone,
 
How do you motivate yourself to stay encouraged when you feel like giving up? I recently watched a young girl in a gymnastic class. This young girl was doing the tricks and flips well and was conquering the moves one after another. I noticed something however, after a short period of time she began to look around at what the other children were receiving in terms of feed-back from the instructors and she seemed to not be getting any. After a period of time she stopped trying and was no longer able to complete the same tricks. I could see the doubt wash over her and her confidence left her. It made me think, “How do we as adults stay motivated, how do we continue to try our best when we are not receiving any feedback or attention?” I then began to think about being parents, staying loyal in a marriage and doing our best at work. How do we strive to do better or to try harder when what we initially began striving for seems to be gone or not available? This makes me think that we must live for something higher than ourselves. This world does seem to be fleeting; people, situations and things come and go at such an alarming rate that it seems that if we do not find something more to live for, we will digress and fail. We have to find that higher meaning, that higher purpose than us, more than the people or things around us. Maybe it isn’t about conquering, but about reaching out and never stopping. Never settling for being good enough for those around us, but good enough for a higher purpose like loving and helping. I challenge everyone to find what drives you, and I am hoping it is not a person or a thing. Let it be more, more than your car or your next house. Find the why for your drive and embrace it, check in with it and enjoy your process. I hope this week you have peace and gratitude and that you focus less on the things around you and more on your higher purpose.
 
Take care everyone and thanks for reading…