Shelley’s Blog: Get to know Shelley’s expertise, interests, and therapist style.
No Pants Needed: A Snapshot of Body Image and Eating Disorders Recovery
A story of one woman’s body image journey from self-criticism, judgment, and hate to a place of neutrality and peace. Eating disorders are often overlapping with body image challenges and eating disorder recovery is part of the process.
It's Time to Start Therapy: Breaking Free from the Patterns Keeping you Stuck and Anxious….
You’ve already tried all the self-help outlined books, tools, and strategies. You’ve even tried the Tik Tok ideas, and the social media trends. You find yourself still stuck, not taking the action or feeling unsure even where to begin with overcoming your anxiety and stress. 1:1 individual therapy can be beneficial for you to outline Individualized support in a paced approach for results you desire.
The Power of Self-Compassion: Taming Your Inner Critic
Self-compassion and mindfulness practices are skills that can be learned in therapy. These skills provide a foundation for resiliency with taming your inner critic voice. We all have an inner critic voice however if it controls all of our thinking we can experience lower self-worth, lower self-esteem, and low self-confidence. This is all linked with experiencing higher levels of anxiety too.
Five Ways a Therapist Specializing in Anxiety Support Can Help You
Anxiety therapy can help you to feel less alone, have clarity in how to cope more effectively with emotions and anxiety you are experiencing. Anxiety may be normal to experience, however when it’s all consuming or exhausting it can lead to burnout. Help for anxiety is valid and available.
How to Show Up for Yourself After a Binge: Breaking the Cycle with Self-Compassion
Binge eating can trigger cycles of restricting, and it’s driven by guilt oriented thoughts. Showing up for yourself with self-compassion, and mechanical eating are a place to start in binge eating recovery.
Navigating Relationships: 4 strategies of how to deal with difficult people.
Dealing with difficulty people, especially family relationships can be stressful. Having rehearsed strategies can help you feel confident with approaching these interactions to stick with your boundaries.
Why we can’t just shame or criticize ourselves into changing what we want to be different in ourselves.
Making changes with positive motivation rather then self-shaming is a better process for sustainable change.
Understanding Anorexia vs. Atypical Anorexia and treatment options.
Atypical Anorexia and Anorexia are both eating disorders that require treatment. Understand the differences, risks, and treatment options with this blog.
Eating Disorder Psychotherapy and Treatment Options
Eating disorder treatment options, and understanding what is involved with each psychotherapy modality.
Understanding the Process of Therapy.
Starting therapy step by step, giving you an understanding of how it works.
Interrupting Body Checking when struggling with negative BODY IMAGE
Negative body image can feel like it constantly brings down your mood. You may avoid engaging in social situations, and often compare yourself to others. Here are some strategies to help you interrupt thoughts and behaviors that contribute to negative body image.
Starting Therapy? Get clarity on ways you can participate in therapy to make it worthwhile.
Starting therapy can create some anxiety without knowing what to expect. This article explains the process of therapy and overall what to expect to help you feel empowered and ready to start therapy.
5 ways parents can support their child with an eating disorder.
5 ways parents and caregivers can support their child with an eating disorder and participate in treatment.
5 Myths about Eating Disorders
5 myths about eating disorders and the facts that helps us understand more about eating disorders, their complexity, origins, and how to support your loved ones who experience them.
Common Questions Asked about Access to Help for an Eating Disorder
Guest blog post by Paige Brooker, BSW Student @ NEDIC, talking about common questions asked when seeking help for an eating disorder.
3 Reasons people won't attend therapy and what you CAN do.
When someone you care about refuses help. Here’s things you can do.
Sleep. Insomnia. Improving it while having Anxiety.
Insomnia can be influenced by anxiety and stress factors.
How a therapist engages in self-care to sustain helping others.
Therapists require self-care to sustain a helping career. I share some ideas and strategies that I’ve found help me.
10 Ways to Support Teens When Anxiety or Depression Shows Up
10 Ways to Support Teens When Anxiety or Depression Shows Up
Teens tend to socially rely on connections with friends. Whether that be passing by each other in school hallways, in class, by social media messaging, text messages, or the old fashion phone calls. However, the pandemic experience has left some people in a different way of living, experiencing social anxiety, and feeling stuck in how to break the anxiety patterns. This can lead to teens feeling: BORED, LONELY, ANXIOUS, DEPRESSED, SAD, and OVERWHELMED.
Parents can feel a mix of emotions and stress when confronted with the parenting challenges of how to respond to their teens' emotional and mental health needs.
Parents can sometimes relate to the challenges that come with every developmental phase of raising children based on their own personal experiences. However, teenagers can be challenging at times to understand and then for you as a parent,how to feel confident in how to respond when challenges arise. This is normal and help is accessible to learn about options, and practical strategies to support your teen. It’s often on a trial basis of how to best respond.
I often say to both parents and teens, "they are practicing to be adults." This means that they require independence, space to try things out, however scaffolding by those they trust to support their judgement building, and decision making skills. When mental health challenges or even just strong emotional experiences occur, it provides another opportunity for parents to connect with their teens and provide scaffolding to support their teens experiencing stressful times. Here are some tips to translate how to help into actionable steps.
Here’s 10 practical ideas about supporting your teen:
1. Parents can validate how their teens are feeling, and experiencing the situation in their own ways. That starts with actively listening, or imagining what your teen is feeling. Use a statement like this, "I can imagine you feel (fill in the blank, relevant to your teen), because these isolation times have you repeatedly doing the same things, and that gets boring, and because you miss your friends in the usual ways you get to hang out together, like playing sports, or going to the mall. Then listen to your teens' responses, and try to engage in a conversation. Need more tips like this? I'll post a link at the bottom of this post to a website I frequently recommend.
2. Try a new activity together. Yes, your teenager may not want to do said activity. Focus on how you can coach your teenager into the benefits, such as learning a new handy skill (ie. repairing something in the home), or playing a new board game, or going to your teens favourite place to eat or shop. Maybe your teen starts out by rejecting the idea, appears miserable, and then eventually will become interested. If not, then you can at least remind yourself you tried, and remember not everyone likes the same activities. That is totally ok. Don’t give up.
3. Talk to your teen in a collaborative way about what chores they can do and are willing to do to help out, and contribute. Contributing is actually a beneficial skill to improving our mood when we are depressed. If you allow your teen to choose what they want to help out with, it can help them to feel in control. When they complete simple tasks and help out, you can coach your teen on how it will help you build more trust with them, and furthermore, it can help them be more independent - preparing for say University years, or living on their own. Teens benefit from feeling like they can do something right, and to take action towards repairing a conflict situation with a parent in this way.
4. Consider your own perspective of boredom. Teens who express feeling "bored," may just struggle to be present with their thoughts, feelings, and imagination. That can be because we live in a world that is always fast paced, and gives us the constant stimulation, gratification, and fastest way to solve a problem. Remember that boredom is actually considered sacred times, because it allows for us to engage our imagination and think differently when we engage it.
5. Coach your child with positive words of encouragement, and through role modelling yourself to create a new routine. That may mean just doing normal day to day things, and shifting your perspective about it. Or it may mean, creating a daily to-do list, and then talking about what you have accomplished to share motivation with each other. Both ways are just as efficient, and ultimately it comes down to what works best for you.
6. Try playing a video game or doing an activity that your teenager prefers to do. Although parents often don't want to do the things a teen does, it's a great way to participate in "their world", and can create a pathway to open communication together.
7. Encourage your teen to continue socially connecting with their friends. You can also ask questions and engage with your teen about what their friends are doing to cope with the situation, which may spark ideas on what you as a family can do differently. Remember we often learn new ideas from others.
8. Continue to have a family meal together each day. Especially now considering life has literally changed as we knew it a few weeks ago. Family meals allow for connection over food. Engage in a conversation about how each person's day was, ask everyone to share a funny joke, an innovative idea about a world's problem, or something else. Family meal time can become a routine, and is known to help be a major protective aspect in teenagers making healthy choices in their life.
9. Remember that anxiety is often coming out of a feeling of lack of control. Talking to your teen about their feelings, what is potentially contributing to it, can help them build their own self-awareness. Just remember not to lecture, we all remember the times we are lectured and lose interest. When we name something, or label it, that helps us feel more in control by understanding it's real, and it's valid to feel that way.
10. Balance out boundaries with having fun. Teens are still your children, and thrive with clear and consistent boundaries. Remember to balance out being the "serious parent and enforcing the expectations" with also having fun together! Laughter has always been a way to increase the endorphin release, and smiling helps too.
Wanting more information on how to support a child in your home with mental health challenges? Consider scheduling a consultation call today, to discuss how Emotion Focused Family Therapy sessions can help you as a caregiver or your family together!
Let's talk boundaries. Change can begin with us, not them.
Let's talk boundaries. Change can begin with us, not them.