Human beings in general are very good at getting caught in negative thought processes. You might try this activity sometime to illustrate the point: Buy a bag of marbles and carry them in your pocket all day. Every time you catch yourself having a negative thought during the day, take a marble out of the bag and put it loose […]
Negative and Positive Thoughts
Living in the Moment
We all have things that make us anxious. Think about some things that cause you anxiety or stress. Now ask yourself, “How many of them have to do with worrying about events that happened in the past?” It doesn’t matter how recently in the past the event took place. It could have been five years ago, five days ago, five […]
Process Addictions
Emotional aggressors can sometimes become addicted to their gaslighting behaviors. The three major symptoms of an addiction are withdrawal, tolerance, and loss of control. In substance abuse, “withdrawal” manifests in physical and psychological symptoms upon abstaining from the drug of choice. “Tolerance” means that it takes more and more of the same drug to get the same effect. “Loss of […]
How Gaslighting Works
Last week we talked about what emotional aggression is and how emotionally aggressive people often use gaslighting to achieve their goals. Today we’re going to talk about how gaslighting works. We’ll also discuss some common statements used by gaslighters who are being emotionally aggressive. The term “gaslighting” comes from the 1938 play, Gaslight. This was made into a film in […]
Emotional Aggression and Gaslighting
One of the concepts we frequently talk about in Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy is emotional aggression. Emotional aggression and gaslighting usually go hand-in-hand. Gaslighting is used to perpetuate a perpetrator’s emotional aggression. Emotional aggression is the aggressive use of our own emotional states in an attempt to manipulate or control others, or in an attempt to make others be responsible for our […]
Radical Acceptance
Radical acceptance means that you learn to accept yourself and others without judgment. It is a skill that can be learned in an afternoon, yet take a lifetime to master, especially in Western cultures where we are conditioned to strive for certain ideals of perfection. We are told by the media that if we don’t drive the right car, wear […]
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) was developed as a method of introducing the techniques of Mindfulness into psychotherapy. ACT is based on Relational Frame Theory (RFT), which is a theoretical framework developed by Steven Hayes of the University of Nevada. RFT is a way of looking at how language influences behavior, and how behavior influences languages. A corollary to RTF […]
FREE Course: Ethics of Ecotherapy
In our ongoing effort to improve the quality of the courses we offer, we will be applying to the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) to be able to provide LIVE continuing education opportunities in addition to our online offerings. As part of this process we are offering this FREE two-hour course on Ethics in Ecotherapy in June of 2023! […]
Acceptance vs. Change
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” -The Serenity Prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr Many of us are familiar with the Serenity Prayer. It deals with the dialectic of Acceptance vs. Change. This dialectic may be illustrated as follows: One of the skills […]
Being Effective
Mindfulness is the art of being effective. This simply means doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t work. As you continue to hone your ability to focus only on one thing at a time, this skill can be extended to problem-solving. When you become mindfully aware of a problem with the idea of solving it, you have […]
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