Alicia Falzon Counselling in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia | Counsellor

Alicia Falzon Counselling

Locality: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Phone: +61 400 221 719

Address: 341 Gregory Tce Spring Hill 4000 4000 Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Website: http://www.aliciafalzoncounselling.com.au/

Likes: 190

Add/Update information

Reviews

Tags

• Businesses
• Medical and health
• Therapist
• Family therapist
• Counsellor

21.01.2022 Telomeres. What are they and how can we grow them? Take a moment and picture the plastic tips on shoelaces they protect the ends and stop the string from fraying. Thats one way scientists describe telomeres caps of DNA at the ends of chromosomes that protect your cells from aging. These caps naturally wear down over time. Each time a cell copies itself, telomeres shorten. They get shorter and shorter until they can no longer protect the cell. The cell then either stops ...Continue reading

20.01.2022 I have the honour of being asked to speak at The 2nd International Conference on Bowen Family Systems Theory in Hong Kong in May. Below is my abstract. Alicia Falzon, MCoun, MMH (FT) Anxiety in the work place and service delivery through the lens of Bowen Family Systems Theory...Continue reading

19.01.2022 Here is a link to Jennifer Hudson being interviewed on RN and ABC news about anxiety in children. Jennifer Hudson will be speaking at our Annual Conference later this year in June. http://www.abc.net.au//new-study-draws-link-betwee/9200940

19.01.2022 Dating well. How do I find the right mate? In the world of emotional connection and, falling in love, I want to explore what Bowen Theory can add to this? Som...e people will come for therapy and say, I wasnt happy, it did not work out, or we just grew apart. The focus can be on being happy. Is it possible to focus on other things in the relationship than being happy? These days the online dating market has exploded. In our busy world this works for some. However, I feel that it is important to hear the voice experience and to not get too close to the person too fast. This simply means, to talk to the person and hear their voice, connect with their voice, as well as their words on the internet. This gives time to practice having the ability of being yourself in a relationship. This can take time as we tend to open up in varying degrees. To do this you need your principles about dating. Do you spend 3 years with someone who you know you will not marry? Be consistent and clear about what you want. An example would be a person who is 33 years old and dates for a person for 3 years without asking whether they want children or not. Know who you are and represent that person. So what does Bowen Theory offer beyond the couple? Some topics of discussion would be: Does the person you want to be with have kids? What does this mean for the relationship and what do they bring to the table? Keep in mind that you are dating someone with a family of origin. It is helpful to do a genogram to see who is in their family. This can also be challenging. How often I have said to myself, I am not like the rest of my family, I am different. Others will say, that sounds too complicated and so unromantic. Have you been told you are being too picky. However, with a genogram we are looking for the facts of our own family and to know the sensitivities of who we are dating. Are you different or similar? How did your family fight? How much fighting went on? But you need to look at the family you are getting into. What are the day to day life functions or activities that are important to you? For example: Do you prefer order. Do you like to exercise everyday or not at all. What are your food preferences and sleep patterns? What does respect look like to you? How much attention are you expecting? How much time apart/alone do you need? It is important to know how to be by yourself when you are single and to know how to be by yourself when you are in a relationship. How much is too much and how much is too little? Is there a difference in religious beliefs? Is so are you/can you attend church on your own? This is about getting practical and interested in the many differences and habits that people have. Other questions to think about are: What did you not like about your past in your family of origin (FOO) or past marriage that you do not want to repeat? What is the position of importance of the person, in their FOO, that you want to spend your life with? For example; was this person the eldest, the one who was always admired, or got everything? What happens when this position is not upheld in their new family and how will this person manage themselves? How are you both going to work this out? Family visits are important to talk about. When do you go to visit your family alone and when do you both go together? Do other people have a problem with the in-laws. What happens in peoples FOO is really important, and dating is a time to pay attention to these issues and judge if they are acceptable with your values and beliefs. Part of dating well is to have knowledge of yourself, what I know and want in a relationship. So as to be resilient in the pressure from important others in your life. You may bring a person home that you are really interested in, but not sure. Your family admits to you how much they like him/her. This pressure can change your opinion on what you want. Or your best friend says, he/she is too tall or too short, this opinion could change your liking for him/her. Hence, pressure can change your focus on what you want; you can find yourself backing into the pressure. Peace and agree, accommodate, adapt to please, all to keep the peace are not habits founded on successful relationships. Can you hold yourself in the face of fusion without using any or all of the above habits? To know what you think and believe. The core dating process begins with the self. (adapted from Kathleen Cauley)

17.01.2022 Well Christmas has passed and I now have time to pause and reflect on how I managed myself during this this busy, sometimes stressful domain of family relationships. I noticed differing degrees of relationship stress from relationship sensitivities, financial anxieties, the process of gift giving and the fact of just being so close to one another in one house. My goal was to try to stay in my own skin. For me this means: 1. To try to not take personally others reactions and ...words. I am aware that others have their own stuff to deal with. My job is to stay as calm as I can and to not withdraw. To be present and accounted for. 2. To endeavour not to do all the tasks and then complain after that no one was helping. My effort this year was to ask for help when I needed it and to politely delegate other jobs. 3. To accept the partners that my children have chosen. I need to be respectful and considerate to them. If I like them and love them, then that is a bonus. This is a way of describing differentiation of self. 4. It is what it is. I am not the keeper of the happy togetherness family on behalf of other family members who are sensitive to me. It is my responsibility to give other family members room to work on their own stuff and to not fix it for them. My plan was to try manage my own anxieties, these include the happy anxieties as well as the negative anxieties. This would also mean to not drink too much, take my exercise and vitamins, get good sleep each night. I also know that I need timeout for myself. I think I did better this year than I did last year, although there is always room for change and improvement. I feel that my sensitivity to strong emotional reactions are still there, but I withdraw less. I don't have to take on others upsets. I can still stay connected. These are just small steps and changes that I attempted to make to change the climate of our holiday gathering.

16.01.2022 I like this extract from The Family Systems Institute. It says so much about how one person can change their family by looking at self and changing that part of me that is contributing to the problem. I think that if this was easy more of us would be doing this type of self examination on a daily basis. However it seems that is is easier to see the problems of others and in others. How often do we think if we criticise my partner and children that they will just stop, self r...egulate and not take my criticism personally. This back and forth pattern of communicating can become habitual. 'The concept of differentiation in Bowen Family Systems Theory has to do with self, not others. When people are able to turn the focus back on themselves and see the contribution they are making to maintaining the relationship disturbance they can change the part they play in keeping the problem alive. A person motivated to examine and work on their position in the reciprocal interactions in a family can help to change the system. If any member of the family can become calmer he/she will be able to lead the family out of reactivity and toward solutions.'

15.01.2022 For the past while I have been thinking about what unresolved emotional attachment means and how this is played out in my life and in my childrens lives. I think that everybody has some degree of this in his or her family. So what is this? Firstly, it has to do with the amount of differentiation each of us have. Some of us have more of this and some of us have less of this. Bowen (1978, p.335), defined differentiation as the degree to which people are able to distinguish ...between the feeling process and the intellectual process. People with better or more differentiation are more able to distinguish between subjective and objective feelings. They are further able to know what they are thinking and what they are feeling and have the flexibility to choose in any given circumstance. He also defines it as, the degree to which one fuses or merges into another self in a close relationship (Noone & Papero, 2015,p.46)'. This is where the individual is lost and the weness is more obvious. Unresolved emotional attachment is about the immaturity of the adult child and the maturity of parents, and how the blame game is tossed around. The lower the level of differentiation the greater the amount of unresolved emotional attachment to the parents and the more intense are the tools to deal with this. Well differentiated people have much more resolution than less differentiated people. Some examples might look like this. 1. When the adult child goes home for a visit and always feels like the parents do not approve of him/her. 2. They feel like the parents treat him/her like a child. 3. The reciprocal part to this is that the adult child plays the part of the child but is angry and blaming. 4. On the other hand the adult child may look for the parents to solve their problems for them when they are quite capable of solving the problems for themselves. 5. It can also be when the adult child goes home and feels like he/she must solve the parents conflicts or anxieties for them. Again, issues that the parents can do or work on themselves. Lastly, I find this phrase very helpful. WHEN IS HELPING NOT BEING HELPFUL? See more

14.01.2022 I have in the past worked for large organisations where I found it difficult to be my self or to stay in my own skin. Sometimes the pull to join in the office gossip with other staff members was difficult to resist. I remember at times it was difficult to stay calm under pressure and stress and to be more thoughtful and less reactive. This emotional pull tends to form intense bonds with others in the work place, where the persons individual choices are given up for the harm...Continue reading

14.01.2022 Christmas anxieties Well it is that time of the year again when we start planning for family celebrations. Who is going to be with who, who’s house do we go to this year, and who is going to bring what food? Then there is the conversation that goes like this, ‘do we have to invite uncle Jo this year, I really don’t like him?’ And so, the anxiety of family gathering together, begins. As soon as the family arrive for Christmas lunch you are already on high alert for potential ...dangers and comfortable places or people. You automatically become aware of the sibling or aunt who drinks a little too much and says the wrong thing and you may find yourself siding next to the cousin that makes you feel calm. This behaviour is so automatic that we don’t know that we are doing this. It is like the pilot of a plane that switches the control to autopilot and sits back and gives control over to the plane. This is what it is like to not have a plan and to lose your maturity to your anxious behaviours. Without a plan you will measure how the day is going by: How you feel in the moment. How other family members react to you. However, our feelings as you know, can be helpful one day and overwhelming another day. Further to this, is the fact that we can’t control how much uncle Jo drinks or what he says and we can’t read others minds. This then means that we are much more likely to absorb whatever tension is in the room and react to another’s anxious behaviour. Having a plan is like having your own measuring stick without it you will very quickly lose sight of who you are and who you are trying to be. Here is what a plan might look like: You might look out for the people that you have less in common with and start to find out more about them. If you are used to relying on your partner to guide you in conversation; try not to rely on them so much and think for yourself. Before you arrive, try to think about what you can share of your own life instead of questioning family members to death. This is a type of avoidance. Practice staying in the room when challenging conversation arises. This is your measuring stick. You can measure your objectivity about your behaviour and functioning. It also allows you to see more clearly what you did well and what did not go so well. All this might sound a lot of work, especially when you are meant to be enjoying yourself eating turkey and pudding. On one hand, being anxious at a family function can be exhausting. On the other hand, when you stay focused on who you are and work on being calmer, you will less likely to be hurt when uncle Jo makes a tackless comment. The idea is to have your own thinking and to not borrow others anxious thinking or to be swept away with the emotions in the room. Lastly, what do you know about yourself? What are your go to anxious behaviours at family gatherings? Can you recognise when you have done a little better? Happy Christmas Alicia

14.01.2022 I had the absolute pleasure of being asked to Speak at the 2nd International Conference on Bowen Family Systems Theory in Hong Kong. I would first like to thank Andrew Buchanan for coaching me with my performance, Brent Lammas for the most amazing power point slides and Kyle Kaandorp for coaching with the final touches. Without these people my job would have been much more difficult. All the who's who of Bowen Theory were there in one place. Anne McKnight, Daniel Papero, Vi...ctoria Harrison, Michael Kerr, Kathleen Wiseman, Robert Noone and Jack Butler to name a few. Such a smorgasbord of professionals at the top of their field. The difficult part was to choose which session to attend. So how did Bowen Family Systems come to being? Dr. Murray Bowen (1913 - 1990) was the originator of Bowen family systems theory. He was a psychiatrist, researcher, scholar, clinician, teacher and writer, who had worked diligently towards developing a new way of understanding human relationships and problems, at the time when the Freudian theory and the view of emotional and behavioural problems as arising from individual pathology were the predominant mode of understanding and treating human problems. Bowen theory is a theory of human behaviour and relationships. It was developed out Dr. Bowen's extensive study on biology, evolution, natural sciences and his own research on families. Bowen theory has 8 emotional concepts which describes the emotional processes in families, social groups and the society. They are: differentiation of self, triangles, nuclear emotional family process, family projection process, multigenerational transmission process sibling position emotional cutoff and societal emotional process. Here are some practical steps for enhancing individual and group functioning according to Bowen Theory: 1. To have an observational stance 2. To know the facts- identify what the person is doing instead of what he/she is saying 3. To learn to think systems - see the bigger picture, let go of the 'cause and effect' thinking and blaming others 4. To work on emotional self regulation and self-change 5. To know one's principles 6. To develop an 'I' position to express one's standpoint effectively

13.01.2022 UNRESOLVED EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT, DEFINING A SELF IN THE PARENTAL TRIANGLE AND ALL IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIPS This is the second part of Selden Dunbar lllicks presentation on unresolved emotional attachment. Dr Bowen describes anxiety as: the automatic emotional reactiveness to perceived threatreal or imagined. This then is broken into two parts. Acute and chronic. Acute anxiety generally occurs in response to a real threat and is time limited and chronic anxiety is fed by f...ear of, THE WHAT IF OR WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN (Kerr & Bowen, 1988). Kerr says that this chronic anxiety and particularly the amount of it is learnt. Dunbar asks the question of whether you are working to manage you own chronic anxiety in your own family system and are you able to move your focus on the other to managing your own anxiety? An important question to ask yourself is whether you have the ability to see your parents more as people rather than emotionally endowed images? There is always a certain amount of unresolved emotional attachment that is running the show in our adult life. The more difficult part in this is to distinguish between what is real and what is imagined threat. This becomes more difficult when anxiety intensifies. When it becomes more difficult to talk to another person the tendency is to talk to someone else about what we cannot, do not or will not talk to directly to and about. Often, we are worried that we are going to offend the other person. This inability to engage in direct talk is driven by anxiety or the emotional reactiveness to perceived threat. WHAT IS YOUR OWN AWARENESS OF YOUR OWN ANXIETIES? THIS IS IMPORTANT IN RESOLVING DEGREES OF UNRESOLVED EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT. Open communication is one key step towards reducing tension in relationships. However, having said that no one ever has a completely open relationship with another. It is our efforts towards this that is most important. This is an interesting quote from Dr Bowen. He says, if you can have an open relationship with your mother, the rest is duck soup! this just means relatively easy. (I do not think that duck soup would be easy to make, but maybe it was back in the day). If we can see our parents as fellow travellers in life trying to do the best one can (Papero), is a useful way of developing a more mature self. Dunbar ends part 2 with her description of the above. She says. after allunresolved functional patterns are the ones that present obstacles to managing ones own anxiety and self in adulthood.

13.01.2022 We recently moved into an apartment. This move has been in progress for years and when the day finally arrived we were all so excited. This was and is the last move we shall make in our life on this earth, so it was important that we got this right. We had also been downsizing for many years. We came from a big house on acreage, into a small rental house and then into a small rental apartment until our final move. With each move came the releasing of stuff we had accumulated... over the years. This felt cathartic, but it did come with a little pain of letting go. I knew that this move would test my patience and my reactivity. I have worked hard at being non-reactive to those closest to me when in highly anxious situations. It is something that I will need to keep practicing. I have noticed that my sensitives extend to my children and work associates as well. There is something about moving that triggered my anxious reactions and judgements to my husband. My normal, well-practiced, thoughtful behaviour seemingly went out the window and in its place was this person I had forgotten was still there. I found it difficult to keep my boundaries and monitor myself and not my husband. I was focusing on his bad behaviour instead of keeping my own bad behaviour in check. This is what is called relationship fusion; a focus or attention on the other, instead of being responsible for self and managing the tension, anxiety within one self. This fusion is always more intense with the people we are close to or have become important in our life. This difficult process of moving extended my personal growth, communication and my desire to distance when things get difficult. The spread of irritability worked its way into other parts of our marriage. I noticed myself thinking that he was the worst culprit here and if he only pulled his head in, things would be a lot calmer. It is my goal to let him be irritated and let me be non-reactive to his behaviour, without merging into each others emotional sphere. I can then have the energy to mind myself and be more responsible. This would have enabled a smoother transition of our moving process. In the end we have moved in and we are very happy. The wait was worth it, and yes we do love each other again.

13.01.2022 Christmas anxieties Well it is that time of the year again when we start planning for family celebrations. Who is going to be with who, whos house do we go to this year, and who is going to bring what food? Then there is the conversation that goes like this, do we have to invite uncle Jo this year, I really dont like him? And so, the anxiety of family gathering together, begins. As soon as the family arrive for Christmas lunch you are already on high alert for potential ...dangers and comfortable places or people. You automatically become aware of the sibling or aunt who drinks a little too much and says the wrong thing and you may find yourself siding next to the cousin that makes you feel calm. This behaviour is so automatic that we dont know that we are doing this. It is like the pilot of a plane that switches the control to autopilot and sits back and gives control over to the plane. This is what it is like to not have a plan and to lose your maturity to your anxious behaviours. Without a plan you will measure how the day is going by: How you feel in the moment. How other family members react to you. However, our feelings as you know, can be helpful one day and overwhelming another day. Further to this, is the fact that we cant control how much uncle Jo drinks or what he says and we cant read others minds. This then means that we are much more likely to absorb whatever tension is in the room and react to anothers anxious behaviour. Having a plan is like having your own measuring stick without it you will very quickly lose sight of who you are and who you are trying to be. Here is what a plan might look like: You might look out for the people that you have less in common with and start to find out more about them. If you are used to relying on your partner to guide you in conversation; try not to rely on them so much and think for yourself. Before you arrive, try to think about what you can share of your own life instead of questioning family members to death. This is a type of avoidance. Practice staying in the room when challenging conversation arises. This is your measuring stick. You can measure your objectivity about your behaviour and functioning. It also allows you to see more clearly what you did well and what did not go so well. All this might sound a lot of work, especially when you are meant to be enjoying yourself eating turkey and pudding. On one hand, being anxious at a family function can be exhausting. On the other hand, when you stay focused on who you are and work on being calmer, you will less likely to be hurt when uncle Jo makes a tackless comment. The idea is to have your own thinking and to not borrow others anxious thinking or to be swept away with the emotions in the room. Lastly, what do you know about yourself? What are your go to anxious behaviours at family gatherings? Can you recognise when you have done a little better? Happy Christmas Alicia

12.01.2022 Lets face it all couples have conflict in their relationship at some stage or another and some couples tend to engage in more conflict than other couples. But I wonder what makes the difference between the argumentative couple and a couple experiencing severe domestic violence? I think a couple in conflict will want at some stage to end the cycle; to change the part that they are playing in the argument rather than wanting to change their partner or to simply blame them. Ther...e are no hero's and villains in this type of scenario. All this means is that there is an over-focus on the other to the extent that one cannot see what they are contributing to the situation. Some issues to consider that may contribute to tension in the relationship may include: 1. The amount of time, energy and love that is lavished on the children to the detriment of interest in their partner. 2. Not following through on what you have promised. 3. Unfair arguments. Using cultural or intellectual language to gain one over your partner. 4. Walking out, shutting down or talking over your partner when they are trying to express a grievance. It takes one of the partners to stop, listen and hold and to not emotionally react to what they perceive is unfair. To use this holding space to see the ways in which they contribute to the instigation and acceleration of the argument. For reflection on your relationship: 1.How do I respond to the immaturity in my marriage; distance, conflict, focus on a child or to over-function or to under-function? 2. Am I judging or blaming my partner? 3. How can I learn to see how each of us contributes to what is expressed in our relationship? These are some of Dr. Murray Bowen's theoretical quotes I think are applicable: What decreased differentiation: Their use of I is confined to the narcissistic, I want I am hurt I want my rights. They are dependent on the feelings of those around them. So much life energy goes into being loved or reaction against the failure to get love. P 162 FTCP What increased differentiation involves: The difference between the narcissistic undifferentiated self and a differentiating self: The responsible I assumes responsibility for ones own wellbeing. It avoids thinking that tends to blame ones own unhappiness, discomfort or failure on the other. P218 FTCP

12.01.2022 Dont forget tomorrow starts the new Facebook rule where they can use your photos. Don't forget the Deadline is today!!! It can be used in court cases in litigation against you. Everything you've ever posted becomes public from today - even messages that have been deleted. It costs nothing for a simple copy and paste, better safe than sorry. I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, messages or posts, both past... and future. With this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tacitly allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. DO NOT SHARE. Copy and paste. Their new algorithm chooses the same few people - about 25 - who will read your posts. Therefore: Hold your finger down anywhere in this post and "copy" will pop up. Click "copy". Then go to your page, start a new post and put your finger anywhere in the blank field. "Paste" will pop up and click paste This will bypass the system. I DO NOT GIVE FACEBOOK PERMISSION TO SHARE ANYTHING OF MINE., THAT I HAVE PUT ON THEIR SITE, . PICTURES, CURRENT OR PAST POSTS, PHONE NUMBERS OR EMAILS.. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING CAN BE USED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT MY WRITTEN PERMISSION OR VERBAL CONSENT.

11.01.2022 The body keeps score. When the mind is thinking about the trauma, the body starts behaving as if in trauma. It is the way you hold your body that predicts your behaviour. Van der Kolk

10.01.2022 Unresolved emotional attachment, or dependency or issues. Part 1 I listened to a presentation by Seldon Bunar IIIick (2018) the other day. I was so impressed with her clarity and the simplicity of relating this difficult concept of Dr. Muray Bowen, I thought I would convey, to the best of my ability, the first part of her presentation. The full title is: Unresolved Emotional Attachment, defining a self in the parental triangle and in all important relationships....Continue reading

09.01.2022 THIS EXTRACT IS TAKEN FROM THE BOWEN CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF THE FAMILY. I THINK IT ELOQUENTLY DESCRIBES WHY WE SOMETIMES HAVE DIFFICULTY SEEING AND BEING WITH OUR FAMILIES. For more on this please google The Bowen Center. Emotional Cutoff... The concept of emotional cutoff describes people managing their unresolved emotional issues with parents, siblings, and other family members by reducing or totally cutting off emotional contact with them. Emotional contact can be reduced by people moving away from their families and rarely going home, or it can be reduced by people staying in physical contact with their families but avoiding sensitive issues. Relationships may look better if people cutoff to manage them, but the problems are dormant and not resolved. People reduce the tensions of family interactions by cutting off, but risk making their new relationships too important. For example, the more a man cuts off from his family of origin, the more he looks to his spouse, children, and friends to meet his needs. This makes him vulnerable to pressuring them to be certain ways for him or accommodating too much to their expectations of him out of fear of jeopardizing the relationship. New relationships are typically smooth in the beginning, but the patterns people are trying to escape eventually emerge and generate tensions. People who are cut off may try to stabilize their intimate relationships by creating substitute families with social and work relationships. Everyone has some degree of unresolved attachment to his or her original family, but well-differentiated people have much more resolution than less differentiated people. An unresolved attachment can take many forms. For example, (1) a person feels more like a child when he is home and looks to his parents to make decisions for him that he can make for himself, or (2) a person feels guilty when he is in more contact with his parents and feels he must solve their conflicts or distresses, or (3) a person feels enraged that his parents do not seem to understand or approve of him. An unresolved attachment relates to the immaturity of both the parents and the adult child, but people typically blame themselves or others for the problems. People often look forward to going home, hoping things will be different this time, but the old interactions usually surface within hours. It may take the form of surface harmony with powerful emotional undercurrents or it may deteriorate into shouting matches and hysterics. Both the person and his family may feel exhausted even after a brief visit. It may be easier for the parents if an adult child keeps his distance. The family gets so anxious and reactive when he is home that they are relieved when he leaves. The siblings of a highly cutoff member often get furious at him when he is home and blame him for upsetting the parents. People do not want it to be this way, but the sensitivities of all parties preclude comfortable contact.

07.01.2022 Don’t forget tomorrow starts the new Facebook rule where they can use your photos. Don't forget the Deadline is today!!! It can be used in court cases in litigation against you. Everything you've ever posted becomes public from today - even messages that have been deleted. It costs nothing for a simple copy and paste, better safe than sorry. I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, messages or posts, both past... and future. With this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tacitly allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. DO NOT SHARE. Copy and paste. Their new algorithm chooses the same few people - about 25 - who will read your posts. Therefore: Hold your finger down anywhere in this post and "copy" will pop up. Click "copy". Then go to your page, start a new post and put your finger anywhere in the blank field. "Paste" will pop up and click paste This will bypass the system. I DO NOT GIVE FACEBOOK PERMISSION TO SHARE ANYTHING OF MINE., THAT I HAVE PUT ON THEIR SITE, . PICTURES, CURRENT OR PAST POSTS, PHONE NUMBERS OR EMAILS.. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING CAN BE USED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT MY WRITTEN PERMISSION OR VERBAL CONSENT.

07.01.2022 Telomeres. What are they and how can we grow them? Take a moment and picture the plastic tips on shoelaces they protect the ends and stop the string from fraying. That’s one way scientists describe telomeres caps of DNA at the ends of chromosomes that protect your cells from aging. These caps naturally wear down over time. Each time a cell copies itself, telomeres shorten. They get shorter and shorter until they can no longer protect the cell. The cell then either stops ...Continue reading

06.01.2022 This is very clear amd profound.

05.01.2022 I was fortunate enough to participate on a dialogue panel at the Renaissance of Marriage conference. Our panel consisted of a selection of delegates with appropriate and diverse expertise. We were invited to dialogue on the challenges and success of working in our particular field. My point was that although all couples have conflict, disagreement and periods of trials, some couples are not prepared to do the work on self. Work on self begins when each individual is focused o...n their part in it and not on the emotional process between them. The challenge is to be more subjective of who we are. The challenge is to use the part of your brain to regulate yourself in a strained situation. If I can be a little less anxious and not respond to the emotional content in the room then I can be a resource to our relationship that is anxious. When I do this I am able to say what the problem is without the fear of threat. CAN I OBSERVE IT, CAN I MANAGE IT, AND CAN I DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. HOW CAN I DO IT DIFFERENTLY. TO FUNCTION UP SO TO SPEAK. After hearing all the speakers my overall thoughts were that we need the sacraments, marriage preparation, tools and motivation as well as marriage coaching. How will we know if we are on right track? How we will know if we are working towards our goals and making a difference? Football players, basket ball players and swimmers all have coaches to keep them on track. SO WHY NOT A MARRIAGE COACH?

04.01.2022 Another highlight of the conference was one of my hero's in literature.His hilarious introduction by making us all sing a Santana song, softened the some what challenging content of his talk. Phillip Zimbardo's talk was called, 'From evil to hero'. He asked the question, 'what makes good people go wrong.'He created the now famous Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971; which was abandoned after only 6 days. Many of the prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse by those i...n the officers group. Zimbardo said that the prisoners made this worse by living in the immediate present. This means that you limit your freedom of speech association and action. He said a very interesting thing about the by stander effect. He said that if the first person who witness an incident would stop to help, other people would stop to help. However, the opposite is true if the first person does nothing. We can change our world, one person at a time by having the courage to be the first to stop and help. He very eloquently moved from this position to his new research, 'heroic imagination project.' His new book is, I think, a must read, 'Man interrupted.' See more

03.01.2022 Communication I am often asked by clients how they can better communicate. Even the word itself conjures up a broad meaning. The dictionary defines it as, the act or process of communicating; fact of being communicated. So what does this really mean? When I observe newly formed couples communicating, it seems so natural and easy. There is lots of eye contact, head nodding and attentiveness. It appears effortless. I have also been privy to couples struggling to achieve the s...ame act with both parties feeling unheard, unloved and wanting to give up. At times it appears that each person is not listening to each other, but thinking about what they are going to say next or what their counter attack is going to be. People develop a sensitivity to each other where an eye brow lift or tone of voice is taken as a slight. This is where people are not listening, in the true sense of the word, but use established patterns of misunderstanding and assumption. They start to withdraw for self-defence and fewer and fewer issues get discussed. Another word for this is emotional fusion. The first strategy I see people use is to change the other person. It is natural to think, if I can just get them to see it my way, then they will be more informed and things will get better. However, the true strategy is paradoxical to this. To become a better communicator, I need to work on myself. I need to observe myself, to see what my own reactivity points or triggers are. The better my observation of my contribution to the process, the better my understanding. This is what I have most control over. Then I need to calm myself. If my emotions are high and I feel anxious I will not be able to think objectively and be able to say what I really want to say. To do my best thinking, stop blaming and criticising, I need to do what calms me. Be it deep breathing, taking 5, read my favourite poem or prayer. I do what works for me. This then creates a space for clear thinking, better listening without withdrawing or shutting down or attacking. The hardest part to this is to take an I position. To say what I want to say knowing that the other person may or may not like what I am communicating. I need to let them have the opportunity to work on their own emotions as I need to. It is my desire to find a way to communicate more calmly and clearly while staying in contact with the person that is important to me.

03.01.2022 THIS IS ANOTHER GREAT POST FROM KATHLEEN . HOW MANY DO YOU TICK OFF? A two-person human relationship is about as steady as a two-legged stool. We often look to family members, coworkers, and friends to calm us down when were angry, disappointed, or confused by another person. When we pull in or focus on a third person to manage our anxiety, we are activating what is called a triangle. When you start to look for triangles in your day-to-day life, youll find them everywhere. ...Continue reading

01.01.2022 Is it, I wonder, possible to recognise the difference between pretending to be more self reliant (separate self) and really being more self reliant. It is the difference between controlling feelings based on suppression, and toning down feelings based on thinking differently about the nature of a problem. Both are very different

01.01.2022 This is a post from Dr. Kathleen Smith, Phd . She is a mental health writer and therapist. I know that I can see myself doing some of these things. she says that change is slow and a life long process. 50 WAYS YOURE OVERFUNCTIONING FOR OTHERS (AND DONT EVEN REALIZE IT) overfunctioning...Continue reading

01.01.2022 In recent times I have had difficulty with strained relationships and have been perplexed with how to manage them. I seem to have this disagreement with myself as to whether I should speak my mind or leave the person to come to a place where they want my help or seek their own help. I feel that I know best and if they just do as I say they will get better or be the person I think they should be. It takes a fair bit of strength to hold back. However, this leaves me in a positi...on where I think I may have failed the person or that I should share my knowledge with them because I could help them. I had other thoughts that I would gather people who agree with me and affront the person so we could talk some sense or get the person to change. This of course, in my view, would be done in love and concern. However, after much pondering and some sound advice, this would have been more detrimental to the relationship and probably would have pushed the person into a defensive position. It also puts me as the judge by saying that I am right and you are wrong and you need to change. I have forgotten that this problem is systemic and encapsulated in all relationships and that we are all part of the problem. It is just that I care so much and want to help so much. With all this focus on me wanting to help, I am forgetting about looking at my part in this. What is my contribution to the problem? How am I keeping the problem alive? I am reminded of the unresolved emotional attachment that abounds in all families and that solving tense relationships, that is generations in the making, will not be resolved so easily. What can I do? 1. I need to still love them while not appearing as the expert. 2. In doing this I can tell them that they are still a part of the relationship. 3. I need to have the courage to vent my concerns without reactivity. What I have to say may not be taken well. 4. In doing this I try to remember to use I language that conveys my thoughts and how I see the problem. 5. I have noticed that it is particularly difficult for me to articulate how the problem has affected me without appearing to know it all. 6. Above all I want to continue a relationship with the person while not allowing my boundaries to be affected or violated. 7. I will use facts about what I have observed while leaving my assumptions alone. I want to be as honest as I can based on what I see. 8. I want to work on my own stresses, anxieties and fears. I believe that if I manage myself the relationship will in turn slowly move into a better place. 9. I want to try to treat each person with respect and equality without personal interventions or convictions. It is each person's choice to choose their own actions. See more