Therapy Blog
Coping strategies for stress, anxiety & addiction.
3 Mindfulness Strategies to Reduce Anxiety
At best, anxiety is an underlying worry. At worst, anxiety shows up as racing thoughts, a pounding heart, and tightness in your chest. You are exhausted and looking for strategies to get back to happy+healthy you. Here you will find three mindfulness coping strategies to try.
What Your Therapist Wants you to Know about Ending Counseling
There are very few rules about how to “do” therapy correctly. However, one thing I know for sure is that therapy ends. Here you’ll find some questions to help you walk through the process of ending therapy.
Interview: Jessica Blackwell, eVillageHealth
As you know, mental health and physical health go hand in hand. For this reason, I am so excited to introduce you to Jessica Blackwell and eVillageHealth. She specialized in providing personalized primary care.
Why I Chose a primarily Private Pay Counseling Practice
For many years, I was a participating provider for several insurance companies. As time went on, something didn’t feel authentic. You know... when your gut starts letting you know that something isn’t quite right?
Online Counseling for Anxiety: Strategies to Improve Your Experience
Telemental Health (virtual) counseling provides effective therapy services with more flexibility and convenience. But… Interruptions and technology problems will decrease your satisfaction with the experience. Read on for tips & strategies to help you make the most of your virtual therapy session.
Beyond Insurance: Paying for Anxiety Counseling
You’ve located a new therapist that seems A-mazing only to find out they are not a provider for your insurance company. Fear not, here are some options!
Questions to Ask Your Insurance About Paying for Anxiety Counseling
Navigating the insurance system can feel daunting, overwhelming and time consuming. Here are some questions to ask your insurance and tips to make things go a little smoother.
Questions to Ask Yourself AFTER a Consultation with a New Counselor
You’ve come so far… You’ve done the research, located a few counselors that look promising, and met with those counselors for a phone for 15 minute telephone consultation. Now, it’s time to decide who you want to begin therapy with! Here are eight questions to help guide your decision.
Important Questions to ask a New Counselor
As a result of recognizing that stress, overwhelm and anxiety have taken their toll, you’ve made the decision to begin therapy. You’ve found some prospective anxiety counselors in Spokane that seem promising based upon their website and headshot. The hard work is over, right?!? Almost, but not quite…
How to Find an Anxiety Counselor in Spokane, WA
As you start the process of finding a counselor, you may find yourself immobilized by questions that feel impossible to answer. I hope this information will help answer some of those questions and make it a little easier as you start this journey!
Hammers: The destroyer of Self Esteem
Most of the time, we’re not thinking about what we are thinking about. Which can be especially damaging when it comes to self-esteem. Every time you think badly about yourself, it’s like you are taking out a hammer and beating yourself up. Over time, this has devastating effects on your self-esteem…
How to Reduce Anxiety with Optimism
I love being able to share little stories that pack in a big lesson. As the listener of these stories, we’re often able to connect with the message, apply it to our own lives and get new insights. This story is no exception! Here is a story of identical twins. One is a hope-filled optimist who always saw the good in everything and the other is a sad and hopeless pessimist….
12 Days of Self-Care
A fun twist on the traditional song The 12 Days of Christmas what helps us to focus on taking care of ourselves.
Reduce Anxiety by Embracing Mediocracy
As a highly capable individual who is quick to achieve, you’ve been inundated from a young age with messages about your potential and excelling to peak performance. Of course, encouragement in and of itself isn’t a bad thing! Or is it…?
The Basics of Self-Care: Treat Yourself Like a Dog
You’ve heard it a hundred times… YOU NEED TO TAKE BETTER CARE OF YOURSELF! And, you probably agree with that statement. Then all of the ‘yeah, buts’ come flooding in…
Letter to an Advice Column (a.k.a Take Your Own Advice!)
I bet you are amazeballs at giving advice! As a goal-oriented problem solver, you are able to look at a situation and objectively provide the best answer - for others. It’s so much more difficult to do this for ourselves. Read on to learn a strategy that will help you to “take your own advise” …
The Ham Story: Quit doing things that aren’t serving you
Trying to do everything increases anxiety and makes us feel crappy about ourselves because we are constantly failing to meet the underlying expectation of perfection. So, if there isn’t enough time to do everything, we need to be choosy about what we are doing.
Two of the best treatments for Anxiety: MBSR & CBT
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), are two of the leaders. Read on to find a little information about each of these therapies and why they are helpful in the treatment of anxiety.
Silent Meditation Retreat: AFTER
It's been several months since I attended the six-day silent meditation retreat at Cloud Mountain. While I would love to say that I've been meditating daily and that I feel a sense of calm pulsing through my body, that would be a lie…
Silent Meditation Retreat: DURING
The day has finally come... My first silent mediation retreat is to begin in just a few hours! My friend picked me up from the airport and we went to lunch. I will be honest, I freaked myself out a bit and there were tears shed…