Do You Feel Tired and Lack a General Enthusiasm For Life? You May Be Experiencing Depression.

Depression can wreck havoc in one's life on many different levels - affecting sleep, work, focus, reading, eating, libido and just enjoying life in general. It can last briefly or for years. One may feel generally ill at ease, mildly unhappy to totally despairing. Functioning normally may seem impossible.

Psychotherapy can be a gateway out of the chaos of depression. Professional counseling can help shine a light on the deepest causes of the psychological nightmare of depression.

The articles below provide some information about this most common disorder that manifests in many psychological and physical symptoms.

December 11, 2014 by Virgil Roberson

Anxiety: Are You Anxious?

Do you have a vague, nagging feeling eating away at your attempts to be happy? Are you tormented by what you perceive to be an uncontrollable life and circumstance? Do you find “fear of death” thoughts threaten your peace? Do you feel intimidated by every day social interactions, worried about daily challenges, uneasy about anticipated and seemingly unavoidable problems? Is your physical health hampered by anxiety? Are you plagued with nervousness, phobias, pressures, compulsions, sleeplessness, indigestion, physical and emotional tension? Have past traumas left you expecting and waiting for “the other shoe to drop”? Do you dread what new problems the day may present? Does the future look bleak to you despite your greatest efforts? These are just a few of the feelings that may describe your anxiousness.

How Do We Cope With Anxiety?

Anxiety is something we all experience from time to time – although for some it can be all too often and thus require help of a professional. Where does anxiety originate? How do we free ourselves from its clutches? We try to distract ourselves with work, activities, and various forms of entertainment. Yet, while these methods may work temporarily, these very same activities may actually provoke panic. Even when distractions work for the moment, eventually the feelings of anxiety and apprehension slowly creep back in.

Is It Truly Possible To Be Free Of Anxiety?

Anxiety counseling is a means of getting to the roots of anxiety. Without addressing the cause, its effects just keep cropping back up in our lives. Through counseling one can examine the thoughts, beliefs, phobias, assumptions, expectations, traumas and perceptions that form and create the basis of interpretations that result in these feelings of apprehension.

How Can Counseling Stop Anxiety From Arising?

We all too often feel like prisoners of our worlds. Our circumstances seem to rule our days, emotions, feelings and experience of life. We think and assume the problem may be the job, social encounters, relationships, finances, the weather, politics or whatever else appears to endanger our sense of safety and security. But what if the problem is really our feeling of powerlessness and a sense of not knowing how to regain or be aware of our inherent strength? Usually we have no control over making life’s complications disappear. However, we do have the power and ability to determine how we will interpret and face life’s challenges – perhaps even define those “challenges” in a new way. We have the ability to approach our lives with a different and changed attitude. Counseling for anxiety can help make that change happen.

Which Way Do We Go?

Counseling for anxiety provides a means to re-establish and re-discover one’s inherent strength. It guides the way to living life mindfully, opening the door to a new, freeing way of perceiving life. Worldly and personal events do not control our attitudes and feelings unless we allow them to. Counseling teaches us to how to take back our power of decision. We learn to choose our feelings, interpretations, reactions and goals. Through counseling we can meet the challenges of life’s ups and downs, as well as anticipated problems. We learn to be happy from the inside out rather than letting the outside situations determine our state of mind. Counseling can teach us the ability to be calm and centered even in the midst of external chaos and apparent suffering, while also becoming more aware of habitual expectations of anticipated “future” threats.

Are You Ready to Step Away From Anxiety?

The first powerful decision is your own. Choose to regain your strength and learn to be free of anxiety today. A choice for anxiety counseling is a first step in the right direction – because you can and deserve to be happy. A cloud can cover the sun but not obliterate it. Likewise, anxious thoughts can cloud our happiness but not eliminate our peace. The dark cloud of anxiety cannot permanently put out the light in our own minds that merely awaits discovery. When observed with a professional counselor at our side, the means to lifting the cloud of anxiety becomes clear. The power of choice for peace, freedom and tranquility is yours!

Photo credit: DTTSP

December 4, 2014 by Virgil Roberson

Grief Counseling

Is Loss Taking Its Toll On You?

Where do we go, what do we do and how do we cope when we are faced with excruciating loss – whether it be through illness, death, divorce, retirement, job loss or other life circumstances? Grief takes its toll. It is not only the sense of isolation that hits us, but a complex barrage of emotions – feeling lost, hurt, confused, worthless, abandoned, hopeless, despairing, angry, fearful and terrified. These feelings can leave us paralyzed – believing we are unable to go on living or lacking any motivation to do so.

Has Loss Turned Your World Upside Down?

We have no control over the fact that loss has occurred in our lives. The only power we have in this situation is our ability to change our minds. With the comforting support of a grief counselor we can transform how we judge the life- crushing event that has turned our world upside down.

Do You Want Peace?

Grief counseling is a kind choice we can make for ourselves. Sometimes we need assistance and guidance to wade through the river of emotions that flood over us in times of loss. A non-judgmental grief counselor helps to bring to our awareness another way of looking at the thoughts that tend to repeat and obsess in our minds – the thoughts that block out every opportunity to return to peace and love.

Are You Ready To Regain Your Strength?

The pain of grief can become so intense that asking for help may not seem feasible and yet grief counseling can provide the power, stability and strength of mind needed during these most trying times. While we may feel helpless in the face of grief it is only because we are not in touch with the one power we cannot lose – the power to decide how we will face our grief even while accepting that we cannot reverse the devastating loss.

Are You Willing To Ask For Help?

When death, in its myriad forms, touches our lives and the ensuing grief strikes, a period of deep questioning may follow. Grief counseling helps us to examine, with professional guidance by our side – the nightmarish thoughts, ideas, fears, self-hatred and frustrations that may rise up and seem to trap us in an unending cycle of despair. Sometimes we need help to look at our pain differently – a way that may not seem accessible to us who are caught in the clutches of grief. However, a grief counselor can help us step back and look at the suffering, pain, guilt and lack of peace. A grief counselor can help us learn to be kind and gentle toward ourselves, help us move on and forward and find the strength within our minds to do so.

Are You Ready To Take The First Step?

Hiding or repressing our grief only reinforces the pain. Though we may try to push it down, grief can affect our functioning, behavior and actions towards others and ourselves in every aspect of life – home, work, school, and many social interactions. Therefore, it can only be helpful to seek grief counseling. It is our minds, our thinking, and our ideas that must be healed before we can bring meaningful change into the new normal of our lives. Through the feelings we are experiencing and expressing, grief counseling can lead us back to the underlying painful thoughts, the only place where a shift can take place. To be willing to share the burdens of grief with a counselor is to take the first step in freeing ourselves from the shackles of grief. Why not take the first compassionate step toward freedom?

Why not make peace the goal by scheduling an appointment for grief counseling today?

Photo credit: DTTSP

November 20, 2014 by Virgil Roberson

Don’t Dread the Upcoming Holiday Stress

Plan on Preventing the Blues This Holiday

You may feel like you’re the only one coping with the stress of the holidays. However, all those family and friends you see more often around this time of year – they too, are most likely, feeling the same blues you are. How do you stay afloat amidst the collective chaos? The first step is to consider having a plan so you can prevent the stressful, anxiety-filled, depressing emotions that often accompany the holidays. Prevention is key to avoiding the blues. Counseling can pave the way for a smoother experience. Prepare for the holiday blues in order to prevent them.

Feeling Guilty Because You Are Not In The Spirit?

It’s hard to pretend you’re enjoying the holidays when you’ve recently lost a loved one. Maybe you yearn for the presence of someone who can’t be with you at this special time of year. Life is constantly changing and we might find ourselves nostalgic for holidays past or imagining a “perfect” holiday that seems out of reach. Then again, you may be tormented by past traumatic holiday memories. Perhaps certain expectations of self and/or others make the holidays more painful and less joyful. Whatever the obstacles may be to enjoying the moments that present themselves, seeking counseling to prepare for the holidays can help one acknowledge the what and why of these seasonal holiday blues with their associated feelings of isolation. Holiday blues counseling may offer grief support while also helping to devise a plan to meet the unique challenges of this time, face disappointments, and be open to new ways of celebrating. One may need help adjusting to changes in income, energy, expectations or even assessing one’s ability and desire in regards to shopping, baking, partying, or whatever activities you require of yourself during the holidays.

Want To Give Yourself A Present?

Counseling around and before the holidays could be the greatest gift you can give yourself. You may need help to allow yourself a break, some gentle quiet time to re-charge and stay in touch with what you must do to remain peaceful, calm, and stress free. Should you find yourself unable to sleep, overindulging in food and drink, complaining, endlessly worrying, feeling sad, lonely, despairing, irritable, joyless, overwhelmed, angry and miserable – consider professional counseling. You can prevent holiday madness meltdowns with the sane and calm guidance of a therapist. Therapy can provide the support and comfort you seek. In addition, therapy encourages you to take care of YOU first, to stay in touch with your real desires, needs, routines and whatever else is truly important for you to pay attention to during the holidays. Your therapist may help you to see different alternatives and options that may not have occurred to you, thus, paving the way for a positive and perhaps even surprisingly delightful ne w experience of the holidays. In the season of unreasonable expectations and demands and crazy pressures, make this holiday different by giving yourself the gift of sanity. Your happiness and peace are the only gifts worth having!!!!

November 14, 2014 by Virgil Roberson

Is Your Insomnia A Cause Of Problems Or An Effect Of Them?

Insomnia Therapy Defined

Seeing a therapist for insomnia may not be the first thing one thinks of when experiencing the inability to sleep. Many people turn to various physical remedies and aids for relief – but let’s consider the definition of sleep – (The American Heritage Dictionary) – “a natural, periodic condition of rest characterized by unconsciousness and lessened responsiveness to external stimuli.” Without relaxation one can hardly expect to turn off the external stimuli in order to sleep. What unconscious blocks can be sabotaging the ability to sleep, relax and rest?

What Can Improve with Insomnia Treatment

Insomnia or sleep therapy, the treatment of this disability, can provide tools to address the debilitating effects of insomnia. As we know, chronic sleeplessness impacts lives dramatically beyond the fatigue factor – weight gain, depression, mood swings, stress, bipolar disorder, paranoia, pregnancy, anxiety, brain fog, headaches, irritability, focus, tension, even gastrointestinal disturbances. Added to this endless list of complications is the chronic worry about sleeping itself. What thoughts prevent relaxation and contribute to the insomnia? Uncovering and examining these unconscious thoughts is a necessary course to achieve a quieting of the mind and an unraveling of the maze of worries, stress and depression that prevent restful sleep.

Far Reaching Effects of Insomnia

Lack of sleep prevents rejuvenation of all systems of functioning in the body – the immune system, as well as, the nervous, skeletal and muscular systems. In turn, each system is intricately and holistically connected with all organ systems and the underlying emotions that interact with these organs and systems. Consequently, insomnia can have far reaching effects on the entire body, psyche and quality of life in general.

Getting help for Insomnia

Therapy for insomnia may be necessary to help process emotions, thoughts and feelings that block one’s peace and potential to relax. When it seems impossible to “turn off” the distractions and thoughts about apparent burdens of life, it also becomes impossible to fall asleep and process each day’s challenges. The stress, worries and anxieties end up building up to the point of overwhelm. Fatigue, exhaustion, and overload ensues. When the mountain of unconscious and unaddressed issues can begin to be too difficult to face alone and insomnia feels impossible to overcome on one’s own, consider the choice to work with a professional therapist. Insomnia therapy can help silence the chaos and clutter in the mind, restore a sense of focus and centering, and regain a sense of well being and peace. As we saw in the definition of sleep – it is natural – and therefore, possible and achievable!

October 20, 2014 by Virgil Roberson

Do You Need Therapy for Depression?

There are many signs and symptoms of depression. It can manifest as low self-esteem, a general lack of interest in life and an intense or persisting sadness. Depression can strike at any age. Often depression accompanies other diseases – both mental and physical. It can accompany debilitating illnesses such as stroke, Parkinson’s Disease, cardiovascular disease and any other degenerative or chronic diseases. Children may become depressed and exhibit moodiness, irritability, as well as insecurity and clinginess, or they may become very demanding. You may be suffering and struggling with one of the following symptoms or a combination of these most common forms of depression. You may find that some of these emotional states are often part of your daily experience –

Anxiety
Isolation
Despair
Feeling traumatized
Fatigue
Having suicidal and death thoughts
Hopelessness
Boredom
Feeling stressed or burnt out, or defeated
Nervous
Fearful
Panicked
Feeling worthless
Paralyzed – unable to work or participate in daily routines
Helplessness
Guilt
Self-hatred
Holding on to regrets
Low libido issues
Headaches
Digestive problems
Weight loss or gain

Do Your Problems Seem Insurmountable?

Once depression seems to take hold of you, it tends to permeate every avenue of life – family relationships, friendships, work and school. You may feel that your experiences are rife with negativity – the side effects of financial burdens, changes in the workplace, life transitions, difficult relationships, illness – your own or a loved one’s, care-giving responsibilities, eating disorders, abuses of any kind, sleeping too little or too much, endless worrying and/or obsessing over problems. Unavoidable circumstances may cause you to feel like you are barely coping. We rarely can control what is going on outside our minds in the world, but we can take control of what is going on inside our minds.

What If You Could Change Your Perspective?

Depression counseling can provide the tools needed to manage your problems without identifying with them. It can help you function more productively, to have a renewed sense of self-worth and identity. Therapy for depression may include health- promoting recommendations such as support through individual and group therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, exercise, and meditation. Working with a professional can offer techniques that allow you to face life with a renewed ability to solve and manage problems with a changed perspective.

Can You Afford Not To Seek Professional Therapy for Depression?

It may seem natural to feel some of the mentioned symptoms from time to time. However, when these symptoms begin to last for extended periods, become all consuming and excessive, feel out of your control, or difficult to let go of and resolve on your own – it may be time to seek professional therapy for depression. The cost of waiting could take a toll, not only on your general health, but also, on the lives of all those around you – your intimate relationships, your friendships, your work.

Are You Ready to Know Your Real Self?

The non-judgmental presence of the therapist is there to help you look at your thoughts, and discern with you, their validity versus their falsity. If your thoughts are hurting you and making you sad – then they are false, or at least, your interpretations are. Depression is a term that covers a broad spectrum, or many forms, of problems that have a common thread. Every depressing thought puts you down, makes you feel bad, goes against the truth of who and what you are, distorting the truth about your real self. Depressing thoughts are unloving thoughts. Holding on to these thoughts attack your self worth, and often get projected – beginning unconsciously with the attack of others.

Are You Ready To Live An Inspired Life?

Through depression counseling, you can train your mind to be aware of your untrue thoughts so that the truth of your natural, loving, innocent self can be revealed. Therapy for depression assists you in removing the mental blocks of hatred against yourself to allow your real self to emerge – the one who had been buried under the mountain of assaults and self-condemnation. However, you cannot get to the truth about yourself until the untruth is observed and brought to light and even realized. You must observe your very own thoughts that are putting you down. When you realize it is your own mind you use to judge against yourself – you can change your mind. All your power lies in your own decision-making. Depression counseling helps you reclaim your decision making ability, returning you to your right mind and thus, to your true self. That is where your peace is and where you can learn to live an inspired life rather than a pained one. Just as the rays of the sun are never separate from the sun, and the spokes of a wheel are not separate from the wheel itself, likewise, our minds are not separate from the Mind of Love and it is that Mind that we want to turn to, and focus on.

Do You Want To Improve Every Aspect Of Your Life?

Therapy for depression can help with specific types and symptoms of depression while uncovering the habitual thoughts, beliefs and assumptions that are reinforcing the depression. It is important to treat depression to prevent it from escalating into even more serious problems, such as alcohol and drug addiction and even suicide. Therapy for depression improves every aspect of your life – your health, welfare and relationships on every level.

Is Happiness Your Goal?

Everything in this world can either hurt you or help you depending on your perspective. But what can hurt one day and help another cannot be the truth because the truth cannot change. Yet, truth, or at least a reflection of it, must exist. However, truth can only exist within and depression counseling can point the way – back to the mind where only truth can be. Depression therapy is a means to re-focus the mind in the direction where peace and happiness can be attained. To look for happiness outside the mind, where it cannot be found, is a futile search. Seeking the quiet that you truly want, with a guide, your professional depression counselor, you can learn how to let go of all the unhappy thoughts that deny you your true happiness.

Are You Ready To Save Yourself Years of Suffering?

Thoughts affect everything – bodies, moods, emotions, interactions and reactions. With the guidance of a professional, depression counseling helps you look at your painful thoughts, question their validity, and change them. It can be a very difficult process to change your mind on your own. You do not want to reinforce guilt but become free of it. Professional therapy assists you in that freeing process, and can save you years of unnecessary suffering and pain. Though it may take some time to re-learn new ways of thinking, the improvement in the quality of life and relationships makes the work invaluable and truly life saving.

Are You Ready to Live the Life You Really Want?

Though there may be many situations you cannot change, therapy can help you change the way you look at those situations. It returns to your mind a sense of empowerment, freedom and peace, enabling you to think and live your life differently – from a relaxed and centered state of mind. Depression therapy makes it possible for you to live life fully, peacefully and unshackled by limiting ideas.

Make an appointment today to heal your depression so you can begin to live the life you are entitled to and deserve.

Photo credit: John French