Welcome

In our marketing we sometimes indicate: "unsurpassed training and experience." That's accurate. We don't know of anyone who has more therapist training or more experience in providing therapy to individuals, couples, families or groups.

But quite honestly, there is something that we provide that is far more important.

We have an unwavering belief in your capacity for growth and change. If we are convincing enough in our belief in you, you just might become a believer in yourself. You might become optimistic about you and that's a game changer.

No matter what your life has been or what your circumstances are, you can evolve to a higher level of well-being. We believe in you and our belief in you is usually infectious.

Believe in yourself. Believe you are evolving. Take some risks. Try out some new behaviors. Get healthy. Grow and get excited about your growth.

Imagine the possibilities. Evolve!

Would you like to be fully present in the here and now, not feeling bad about the past, or worried about the future, being able to make emotionally intelligent choices, being self-aware and great at emotional self-regulation and self-management? See Chapter 8. 

Being mindful simply means paying attention. It's tuning in with all your senses, calmly deferring action or judgment while you observe what is, what’s going on within you and around you this moment. It’s not having to do anything immediately. With a calm shift to full and focused awareness of internal thoughts, feelings, and physical states, as well as awareness of everything occurring around you, you become able to consciously and purposely participate in your reality in a powerfully positive and realistic way.

Mindfulness skills require practice and the cultivation of four of these skills can continue for a lifetime. The skill of awareness is about learning to focus attention on one thing, rather than many things, while becoming aware of everything going on within you, such as your thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations, as well as everything your senses are telling you. The skill of nonjudgmental observation is about noticing your experiences without judging them as “good” or “bad.” The skill of staying in the moment is about paying attention to, and participating in, the here and now, rather than being preoccupied by memories of the past or expectations for the future. The skill of beginner’s mind is about observing things as they are without preconceived notions or expectations, while being open to a multitude of possibilities.

Our well-being coaching is transformational. We systematically guide you for exciting personal growth in 10 mindful choice areas — or you can choose to have coaching in one specific area.

These Mindful Choices were not chosen at random. Each choice area is full of opportunities for establishing “Keystone Habits.” These are habits that have far-reaching consequences and trigger the development of powerful and positive habits in very different areas of your life. You’ll discover that progress in one area readily results in progress in other areas as well.

Yes, you can make choices that will empower you to overcome stress, anxiety, and depression, but you can also choose happiness. You can make choices today that will contribute to your sense of happiness and life satisfaction tomorrow – and the day after! And you can systematically practice these new choices until they become solidly a part of a new and fulfilling life. Imagine developing a vision, actively pursuing that vision, making values-based choices, receiving precise and frequent feedback, actively practicing new behaviors, and steadily growing along the continuum “from dis-ease to well-being.”

Psychological Flexibility is a term that comes from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap, defines psychological flexibility as: the ability to adapt to a situation with awareness, openness, and focus and to take effective action, guided by your values." This is a life-changing mindset based on the six core principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. The principles are:              1. Defusion. Thoughts are just thoughts and you don't have to let self-limiting beliefs and harsh self-criticism control your emotions and behavior.           2. Expansion. This is accepting or making room for unpleasant feelings or sensations rather than trying to suppress or avoid them — which only makes them stronger and more disturbing.       3. Connection. Anxiety tends to be about the future while depression is about the past. Connection means living fully in the present moment, in the "here and now."                                                                  4. The Observing Self. This is being an observer of difficult thoughts and feelings rather than being overwhelmed and controlled by them.      5. Values. You will be happiest and living a meaningful life when you are living your values — reflecting on what is most important at the core of your being. Values are what you stand for and they give you direction and encourage.                          6. Committed Action. You create a rich and meaningful life by taking action based on your values. Repetition of such committed action creates the positive habits central to our work.

The first four principles collectively are mindfulness skills, also central to our work.

"Of all the virtues we can learn, no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge."
                        Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi, author of Flow

Many of our clients spend their lives trying their best to avoid pain, and they succeed instead is living a life that feels empty of meaning. 

What your life will become his reflection of what fears you are willing to confront, what worries you will overcome by embracing what you truly care about, and by choosing the right struggles.

"There is only one road to true human greatness; the road through suffering."
                     Albert Einstein 

Much of our work is about helping you remove obstacles. As we often tell our clients: "Therapy is not about creating a new you. It's about helping you become who you were meant to be and believing fully in your capacity for meaningful and positive growth and change." 

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't — you're right."                                                                                  Henry Ford 

We help you be aware of self-limiting beliefs and debilitating self-criticism, and we help you choose grit and resilience — taking responsibility for your choices, choosing to accept pain and hardship, transforming that pain and hardship into wisdom and growth.

If you're looking for sound nutritional advice and coaching on developing great healthy eating habits, we are well equipped to help. Also, we have had for decades of experience working with eating problems such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating.

One way that we have found to help people have a positive relationship with food is mindful eating. We see mindful eating as a metaphor for mindful living.

This Mindful Choice is about your relationship to food, and more importantly, your relationship to your life. If you speed mindlessly through your meals, there is a good chance you’re speeding mindlessly through your life. If your eating is more about cravings and habits rather than real hunger awareness and conscious choices, we’re betting that large areas of your life are lived on autopilot.

Why bother eating mindfully? Apart from the need to avoid overeating and unwanted weight gain, the practice of mindful eating constitutes a powerful arena for practicing stress-relieving and healthful mindfulness skills.

It turns out that practicing slowing down with awareness is a keystone habit that has far-reaching influence over other areas of life. Since we all eat, with most of us eating mindlessly, we have a perfect opportunity to regularly practice living in the NOW. Also, since eating is the most basic voluntary human activity, choosing to appreciate and savor your food seems to be a natural way to practice slowing down to savor and appreciate your life.

Think about it. How fast do you eat? How aware are you of your eating? Virtually all of us eat mindlessly some of the time. Some of us are mindless eaters virtually all of the time. How about you?

If you’re like most people, you’ve loaded your fork for the next bite before you finished chewing and swallowing the previous bite. Again the metaphor – are you living life one bite ahead?

You may not think it’s important, and you may not think the way you eat has much to do with the quality of your life. You may be wrong.

See Chapter 7.

Perhaps you’ve heard the expression: “a sound mind in a sound body.”  This is the English translation of a famous quotation by the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Thales (624 – 546 BC) proclaiming the close relationship between physical exercise, psychological balance, and the ability to enjoy your life.

This has been a common theme throughout the ages.  The English philosopher John Locke wrote: “A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this world: he that has these two, has little more to wish for, and he that wants for either of them, will be little better for anything else.”

Does exercise affect the mind?  Is there a psychological and emotional benefit when it comes to managing stress, anxiety, and depression?

The answer is an emphatic yes!  The evidence for a “sound mind in a sound body” is clearly there.  In recent decades there has been an explosion of scientific studies describing the power and intricacies of the “mind-body connection.”

Numerous studies have shown exercise to be as effective as medication in treating depression, and more effective than medication in preventing relapse.

 See Chapter 12.

Our relational coaching is for individuals who are fully committed and motivated to bring their very best self to their most important relationship. Our systematic self-training program can make you fully conscious, intentional, and effective — truly masterful — in how you show up in your relationship. Imagine what that would be worth to you in overall life satisfaction.

We call our method "Mindful Choices Therapy," or "Mindful Choices Training" in the corporate world. The “mindful” part of Mindful Choices Therapy refers to training in moment-to-moment self-awareness, a vital component of making lasting changes. You can't change anything you're not aware of, and most people lack awareness with the result that emotions and habits dictate their choices.  

The “choices” part of Mindful Choices Therapy refers to the fact that moment by moment, we all have choices in how we respond, and we can learn to respond consistently with awareness and emotional intelligence— In the "now," in the present moment. The therapy part of Mindful Choices Therapy refers to the systematic development of solid positive habits through our “habitualizing” process.

See Chapter 11 and also visit our website: 

www. Beingtherightpartner.com