Mindful Transitions

When we can accept ourselves and the life around us, things begin to change.  It's the commitment to acceptance and then ACTing that propels us into something new! Check out this metaphor:

Here's an article from the Fort Collins paper discussing how to evaluate your goals for health: Fort Collins Coloradoan

Information on Cognitive Behavioral therapy and Depression .

Fort Collins therapist recommends the following site for information on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and how it applies to Anxiety .

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Restructuring) was originally designed and researched around PTSD and trauma resolution. It is one of the most researched and validated types of therapy currently offered today. EMDR has also been found to be effective in the reduction of anxiety, depression and other difficult emotions. In my experience, people are often able to increase their own awareness of thoughts, behavior patterns and difficult emotions in a way that helps them access their own lives in ways that seemed impossible before. EMDR is in many ways one of the most effective therapies I have encountered in my 11 years as a licensed practitioner. Please learn more about EMDR from www.emdr.com

Radical Acceptance is the acceptance of things as they actually are... This means that we detach ourselves from any wants or desires regarding our life situation and we participate fully in the process of our lives. Radical Acceptance likens itself to taking into account our past and present situation with an attitude that there is nothing going wrong (or right). We are so much a part of the present moment in a non-judging way that we free ourselves from our conceptions, old thought patterns and "attached" emotion. This allows our experience to be fresh and new, even when we don't like how we feel. Just because we accept something, doesn't mean that we don't do anything about our situation, that is resignation. Radical acceptance is allowing everything to be as it is and trusting that our unattached awareness will guide our decisions. This is not easy, but it truly is allowing the doing to come from our true being or essence. In my counseling and therapy pr...

Contrary to movies like The Manchurian Candidate, all hypnosis is actually self-hypnosis. One can not be convinced to do things against their moral code during or after the hypnotic process. Hypnosis simply provides access to an altered state of consciousness where critical thinking is bypassed and the entire body becomes engaged in processing. Self=hypnosis can be used to help visualize success and access stress relief. Many people, once having tried it, love it!!!

EMDR is a protocol developed by Francine Shapiro in the late 1980's and early 1990's to address trauma. It is one of the most studied therapy protocols and been found to be highly effective in treating post traumatic stress disorder and elevating emotional pain attached to past life events. The protocol consists of identification of a target incident, defining the target incidents thoughts, emotions and body sensations, and processing the incident with bilateral stimulation. The therapist leads the session by guiding a client through processing with either eye movements, alternating sound that moves from one ear to another, or hand held buzzers that alternate vibrations form one hand to the other. This provides the bilateral stimulation which is thought to engage more of the nervous system, body and brain in the processing of the target incident. A successful EMDR sessions eliminates the current emotional pain or distress associated with the target. This can have profound...

Jon Kabat Zinn defines mindfulness as paying attention on purpose to the present moment as if your life depended on it. He goes on to say that mindfulness is what comes out of paying attention on purpose to the present moment as if your life depended on it. Which is nothing but awareness. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction or MBSR is an instructional clinic on meditation that teaches individuals the principles of meditation along with the requirement of 45 minutes to an hour or more of personal practice per day. The clinic has shown to be highly successful in reducing stress and many other medical symptoms (psoriasis) through the skilled instruction of mindfulness. Mindful Transitions currently does not offer MBSR but does use many of the principles, ideas and structure to explain and introduce the concepts of mindfulness in order to reduce depression, anxiety or other mental or psychological conditions through access of awareness and the present moment.

Stephen Hayes, et al. defines Acceptance and Commitment Theory (ACT) as a " therapy approach that uses acceptance and mindfulness processes, and commitment and behavior change process, to produce greater psychological flexibility." Stephen Hayes, et al. goes on to explain that A CT consistent interventions include a wide variety of techniques in the general domains of acceptance, defusion, establishment of a transcendent self, being present and mindful, chosen values and building larger and larger patterns of committed action linked to those values. - A Practical Guide to Acceptance and Commitment Theory. My interpretation of this is that ACT counseling and therapy can assist a person in engaging the present moment through mindfulness and acceptance. This allows a persons more choices that if they were just to react and respond to the old patterns of emotions and thoughts. By accessing the present moment and being able to accept and tolerate emotional discomfort, we a...