Life is hard and increasingly more complicated. When crises come knocking on your door uninvited, what do you do?

Finding the right therapist is a big deal and probably the hardest thing to do when you are vulnerable and need help.  It puts you in a position where you can grab at the first person that is there and end up frustrated and even more depressed if it’s not a good match.  I know.  I’ve been there.

Over the years I’ve had to go in for tune ups and from unexpected crises.  As a professional, it’s even more difficult to find the right fit because of what I expect in the field from another professional.  Also, it’s important to find someone who is older and wiser.  At least that was how I felt.  I didn’t want to go to a same aged peer.  I didn’t trust they would be able to lead me thru my circumstances because they probably were facing similar issues at that point in their development as a human.  I wanted people to have walked through the swamp and dealt with the alligators snapping at them.  The fear and anguish is real and can be paralyzing.  I didn’t want someone working from a workbook as an intellectual exercise rather than from the hard knocks of real life itself.

There are many ways to get out of a bad situation or circumstance.  Depression for example, can be treated from a cognitive behavioral level which deals with controlling and retraining your thinking patterns.  There are other techniques that put you in touch with your body so that you can allow the problem feeling to work its way through your physiology and find release.  They are two different approaches.  One controls, the other releases.  Both have validity and work well.  It is the job of the professional to listen, observe, watch and offer you options.  It is up to you to make the choice to determine which path feels best.

There are also specialized techniques that focus on integrating your brain functioning to repair trauma.  These methodologies are incredibly exciting to me as a therapist.  To actually recreate neuroplasticity, elasticity and flexibility in your brain functioning is a technology that was previously only dreamed of.  Great things are happening in the field of psychology and neurobiology.  Science is now firmly planting it’s feet in the field of psychology, the mind and human behavior.

Finally, the complexity and stress of our world is increasing.  It takes more work, more focus, more time and energy to be centered and happy.  With all of our exciting technology, we have pushed expectations of ourselves and others to levels never previously expressed.  This current evolutionary shift has resulted in unrealistic expectations both of ourselves and others.  We now push ourselves to ridiculous levels and eventually we crack.  We expect our partners to be everything to us; our best friends, lovers, confidants, problem solvers, fixers, consolers, our never-ending supportive coach that we expect to love us unconditionally even when we are immature and hurtful to them.

Further, we expect our partners to be soul mates and spiritual guides which was a role that spirituality and religion used to play.  Now we expect all of these skills, wisdom, unending love, appreciation and forgiveness to come from one person for the rest of our lives!  We promise each other that we will live happily ever after till death do us part.  When the facts show that there is a 50% divorce rate this fantasy is not reality.  This myth has been sold to us by savvy marketers and movie makers.  Honeymoons don’t live forever.  Eventually in every relationship, we normalize the excitement and life becomes routine.  At some point one of the partners may find the relationship is flat, boring, and they feel increasingly distant.  Or worse, they engage in infidelity.  Then what do you do?  Throw the baby out with the bathwater?  Some do.  Some don’t.  Interestingly, there is now more shame associated with partners who chose to stay in the relationship and work through the infidelity.

In order to keep yourself elastic, flexible and interesting as a human, we need somewhere to go to hash out our conflicts, frustrations and feelings.  Where do you go for mentoring?  Where do we find wisdom now; online, in chat rooms?  Do we have any face to face time with elders or do we check our Twitter feeds instead?

These are just some of the issues in life that keep me open minded and willing to change myself to become a better human…even if it hurts.  What do you do?

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Have an awesome day!

Sonya