Avoiding Emotional Tailspin

One year, on Independence Day night, I believe I ended up within about 50 feet of one of our estranged daughters. I chose to keep it from sending me into an emotional tailspin. First, let me explain how this came to occur: Our local Independence Day fireworks show was held that night. Renee and I […]

Taking Your Thoughts to Court

Let’s look at an exercise from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is perhaps the most widely-used counseling intervention today. For your consideration, let’s try this exercise called “taking your thoughts to court.” We can use this when we’ve had negative automatic thoughts (NATs) that say horrible things like “I’m a failure” or “I’m a bad parent.” […]

Progress is Not Linear

I’ve been a baseball fan, and a Texas Rangers fan in particular, for decades. If you’re following the team at all, you know that sometimes they do far better than expected, but they also falter. My experience as a fan has taught me to resist the urge to have a knee-jerk reaction to this. The […]

Guilt

A Buddhism lecture I attended made an interesting point: To think and speak negatively of yourself is non-virtuous. That means it is lacking in honor or integrity. I also think about how that negative self-talk is often connected to guilt. Guilt is feeling bad about what we’ve done. One group member describes guilt as being in […]

What We Cannot Control

Letting go of what we cannot control is a crucial part of coping. Whether your particular framework for moral guidance is Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Stoicism, or countless more religions and philosophies, there is an emphasis on understanding what you can control and what you cannot. If you choose to fret about something outside of your […]

There Are No Miracles

I make a point as a counselor to be clear with my patients: There are no miracles here. People come to a counselor or a support group because they’re experiencing distress. Does the counselor wave a wand and make it disappear? Absolutely not. In fact, much of the change that can occur is due to […]

Creativity as Therapy

If you’re a creative person, you’re welcome to share something of yours in group. Whether it’s a song, a poem, a quilt, a painting or anything else, being creative is good therapy. The song I’m performing is about fathers, sons, and sunsets, and we may have some family and friends on hand for support. The song […]

Bravery

On top of taking classes and such for my CEUs (continuing education units), I also spend no small amount of time reading and seeking additional pertinent information to continue to sharpen my tools. This is fascinating work, and I feel blessed to do it. So yesterday I was reading, again, through Complex PTSD: From Surviving to […]

Purposelessness and Permission

We’ve talked about how having an EC (estranged child) can result in an identity crisis. If you’re not MOM, DAD, GRANDPA or GRANDMA, what identity remains? Similarly, I wanted to touch on two similar, interrelated topics: Purposelessness and permission. Just like the identity issues that can arise from estrangement, we can struggle with a core question: What […]

Denial

We discussed the word DENIAL in a recent meeting. Some ECs assume that we are denying our part in the circumstances leading to the estrangement. Are we? Does a person reading this feel that they are 100% without error or blame? I doubt it. However, with the same analytical approach, can we in good faith assert that […]