Tag: coping skills
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People Aren’t Perfect
Unrealistic expectations can damage even the strongest relationships. In this post, you’ll learn how letting go of perfection, practicing forgiveness, and adjusting your mindset can help you build healthier connections with the people in your life.
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3 Ways to Tolerate Stress and Anxiety
At times stress and anxiety can feel overwhelming, leaving us exhausted and drained. In this post, licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Christine E. Dickson shares practical tools for tolerating strong emotions. These strategies can help you move through difficult moments with greater resilience.
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Emoji your Emotions
Emoji your emotions! Make therapy and mindfulness fun. For most of my life, I have thought of my emotions as people. Jealously was a green monster, sadness was a blue creature hiding under my bed, anger was a nasty spike ball, anxiety was an energetic little monster bouncing all around, and happiness was always a…
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9 Ways to Accept Reality
In a previous post, I wrote about the practice of radical acceptance. Radical acceptance is accepting life on life’s terms. It is derived from deep spiritual wisdom that goes back thousands of years. The practice of radical acceptance has helped people thrive during periods of upheaval or change, and has helped decrease symptoms of anxiety,…
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The Practice of Radical Acceptance
Acceptance is the only way out of suffering. For thousands of years, religious and spiritual traditions have advocated acceptance and surrender as a way to manage the challenges and stressors of life. This deep spiritual wisdom has helped people survive and thrive during periods of turmoil and upheaval. As a psychologist, it would be foolish…
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Eating Mindfully: The Cookie Meditation
Eating mindfully is a most important practice of meditation. – Thich Nhat Hanh Today, I thought it would be nice to write a post about mindful eating. Those of us who are familiar with mindful eating have heard about the cookie meditation. However, most people are unfamiliar with the origins of this meditation. It was…
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The Perils of Perfectionism
When I was young, I was proud of the fact that I was a perfectionist. People rewarded me for doing things “perfectly.” It seemed the more perfect, the better. I remember in graduate school that my friends and I regularly joked about being perfectionists. Perfectionism as a concept is not problematic. The idea of striving…
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Communication Strategies for Conflict Avoidant People
Sometimes very successful, intelligent people have difficulty navigating conflict at home and at work and behave in conflict avoidant ways. As children they learned that staying quiet and not expressing what they needed was more effective than arguing or speaking out. Staying quiet and avoiding conflict developed into the personality trait known as agreeableness, which…
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My New Hobby is WORRYING?
Suddenly I realized that my new hobby was worrying about the coronavirus and checking the news several times a day. I also developed what I called a “hypochondriacal corona cough.” But for the past three weeks, I never associated feeling preoccupied, overwhelmed, or abandoning my hobbies with worry. It was only after noticing the changes…
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Working from Home with Kids During a Lockdown
As a psychologist, I’ve identified 8 strategies to help parents more effectively work from home with their children. With children out of school, no sports, no camps, no activities, and no playdates it is a tremendous upheaval and disruption. At first kids will enjoy having no school or activities but in the coming weeks it…