Uncategorized - Stillmind Blog

If you wonder what a series of CBT/Couples Therapy sessions looks like, here’s a general guideline for four sessions.     Continue reading…

Step 1: What can you control?     Continue reading…

One of the most important principles we use in therapy can be summed up in this one idea - Flexibility.     Continue reading…

CBT is a neuroscience-based therapy that provides you with skills, tools, and strategies to change how you think, feel and behave. Many of these strategies are based on brain research conducted over the last 10-30 years. There’s been much research into brain processes over these decades, but one of the most powerful findings is that brains are adaptable, changeable and that they build new neural pathways.     Continue reading…

Social anxiety -- which at its worst can be a social phobia -- is feeling fearful around people. While some may feel a little nervous in social situations, people with social anxiety feel intense and irrational fear when interacting with others.

The three core aspects of social anxiety are:

1. The fear of being judged negatively by others.
2. Excessive self-focus or being extremely self-conscious of how one is perceived.
3. Avoidance of most social interactions and quickly escaping social situations.

    Continue reading…

Do you worry all the time about being alone forever? Do you continually think that you’re just not good enough or that you’re not worthy and deserving of love? This article is about what 30’ or 40’s women can do when they worry about being alone forever - because they think there’s something wrong with them.     Continue reading…

Let’s say you can’t control your unpredictable feelings. Those feelings are wrecking your life. You end up doing things you would normally never do. As a logical person, the natural response is to control your feelings even more tightly than before. It’s totally logical, right? Controlling things always worked before, but now, you just have to work twice as hard at controlling things.     Continue reading…

One way (and possibly the best) is to use your breath as an anchor. When you do this, you can start to move away from your thinking and anchor yourself into your body. There are dozens of breathing exercises – but it’s good to start with abdominal breathing.     Continue reading…

The things we worry about are important, uncertain, or unpleasant. If you find yourself worrying about things that are trivial, almost certain, or pleasant, you’ll want to take note.     Continue reading…

How do you cope when you feel out-of-this-world, anxious, and jumpy? How do you cope when there are people everywhere and you’re emotionally stretched and ready to snap? You don’t need to be delving deep into your feelings. At that moment, you need something powerful that works in an instant. I’ll bet that you’ve tried a breathing exercise. If it didn’t work for you, read this.     Continue reading…

Your anxiety is very real. Everything you feel is real. Everything that affects your thoughts and behavior is real. If it has a real effect on your life, how could it not be real? Some people feel like they shouldn’t experience anxiety. That’s nonsense. Everyone experiences anxiety to some degree. For some, it’s an apprehensive feeling when they go to the dentist or have an important meeting. For others, it’s much more severe. Either way, it’s real, and while it can be a real problem. It doesn’t mean you’re broken and it doesn’t mean you’re stuck.     Continue reading…

If you are feeling depressed, you will notice that you feel continually sad. You may also feel lonely, and when you think about the future you may feel hopeless or helpless. When people feel depressed they tend to think negatively about themselves (self-criticism), the world (hopelessness) and their future (helplessness).     Continue reading…

To change the behaviour, simply make as many changes as you can. Experiment with different changes until you find a strategy that works for you. Change as many antecedents as you can: change the environment, change what might be triggering the behaviour, change what people say or do or change the activity.     Continue reading…

To understand more about your thinking, rather than examining the thinking itself, have a look at when the thinking happens.     Continue reading…

Sometimes it’s useful to think about the accuracy of your thinking. Sometimes it’s not. Much of your thinking is simply not referential to your external world. Instead of considering the accuracy of the thought, a more useful question to ask is whether your thoughts are actually working for you.     Continue reading…

Your thoughts are the result of your creative and meaning-making brain. Your thoughts are the result of your problem-solving brain. But what do you think about your thinking?     Continue reading…

Learn how to use positive and negative reinforcement to change behavior in yourself and others.     Continue reading…

Anxiety can affect people in many different ways — you may feel frightened, uneasy, unhappy and sometimes even desperate.You are likely to feel anxiety in your body, and it will affect your thoughts, emotions and daily activities.     Continue reading…

Sometimes all you have to work with are the parts of you that have been around for a long time. These parts are the things inside of you that have gotten you through the tough times — the times when you thought you might not cope and the times when you struggled (even if others did not notice).     Continue reading…

Thoughts. What are they? What am I supposed to do with them? Which ones should I listen to? Which ones do I need to let go? Why do particular ones keep happening? Will I ever be free of them? Will they always hold me back?     Continue reading…

People usually talk to me about situations and stressful events long after they are feeling overwhelmed or really unhappy about them. Long before they come for help, they have tried to work through issues, and often their attempts to manage things can work for weeks, months and even years.     Continue reading…

When you think that you need to be fixed/undo the damage/repair the broken bit/work on making changes to yourself, and working hard to do any of these things doesn’t seem to help.     Continue reading…

Understanding what you value in life and what is important to you can provide you with an underlying ‘guide,’ allowing you to make important decisions and move closer to a life that is meaningful and fulfilling for you.     Continue reading…