Help for Middle-Schoolers

I’ve mentioned many times over the last few days that there is help at school for parents and for students.  A friend of mine wrote a book that I want to share since I unexpectedly began a series on the beginning of school for teachers, parents and students.

Because I always want to help, here’s my tip for you!  This book is a keeper and I’m not just saying that!  If you have Middle-schoolers, this is a great book for you!

From tears and fears to cheers—the adult guide for middle-schoolers… Twenty of the most common issues that drive emotional middle-school students to the school counselor’s door are told in story form based on real-life confidential meetings, phone calls, and interventions. Stories include practical life lessons and inspiring solutions for such problems as anger management, eating disorders, peer pressure, bullying, divorcing parents, failure spirals, broken friendships, gossip, sexual harassment, and test and performance anxiety. The stories also provide insight for challenges with parents, teachers, or siblings, and they help students deal with being new at school, death and major change in the family, and friends who are desperate or hurting themselves. Each of the chapters details the process of taking these educationally disruptive issues from emergence to resolution in a format perfect for use by school counselors, teachers, and parents. Additionally, each chapter offers discussion and reflection questions at the end to help promote insight through discussions with individuals, groups, or in classrooms. This full range of school counselor programs, professional resources, and responsibilities is the perfect read for the school counselor wanting new tools and strategies, or for the graduate student wanting an understanding and guide for the career they have chosen. And for the parent or teacher, this book will help them support the social and emotional growth of their middle-school children with an understanding of their emotional needs.

Click here to see the video of her book!

Click here to buy a copy for yourself!

Join Behind the Counselor’s Door on Facebook!

Shine On!

xo

Emotional Pain as a Comfort Food? It’s not what you think!

 Do you choose emotional pain as a comfort food?

I know, this is a shocking and controversial question.  But it begs to be asked ~ and answered, by you and by me.  I’ve been watching way too much tv the last few days because I’ve been sick.  Nestled on the couch with kitty and remote, I’ve observed and napped through several shows.  I had thought it was wasted time until I came across this little nugget that has made me start to think differently ~ and that has made it all worth-while for me.

There was a woman who was traumatized ~ emotionally, physically and sexually abused who had trouble in her relationships.  As the show progressed, one observation came out ~ she was more comfortable with her emotional pain than she was in the unknown that lay before her in order to heal.  Does that make sense to you?  Think about it.  If you’ve endured any type of abuse, do you find that living with that familiar pain is somehow more comforting to you?  Does it allow you to understand when you’re feeling trepidation in trying new things?  Does it act as an excuse, a way to bend the rules for yourself and to allow certain actions or thought processes because you’ve been mistreated in the past?  Is it an automatic anchor of “why I think/act/am this way?”  Have you’ve learned how to live with this pain so well that you function despite it?  Do you hoard it away, allowing it to be your own secret excuse as to why you’re not getting what you want out of this life?  Because I’m damaged?  Because I was hurt/wronged/abused?  Does any of this sound familiar to you?

Before you get too far into wanting to strangle me for what I’ve written, I want you to take a minute to see if/how/why you are reacting so strongly towards it because that was my first inclination as well.  It took meditating and sleeping on the thought overnight before I realized how my strong reaction to ‘of course I act this way because of x, y, z happened’ mellowed with the vision that it’s my strong-willed emotional pain that I use as a comfort food when I am too afraid to break the bonds that have bound me for so long.

Think about it.  Are you using your own emotional pain as a comfort food?

Are you ready to choose light over pain as a comfort food?

Shine On!

xo

How to Survive Bad News

Bad news.  Good news.  Still news, but boy can any type of sudden news cause a huge blip in life!  Stop for a moment and imagine getting good news ~ feel the euphoria of it, bathe in the sunshine warmth of happiness that perfumes the air.  You feel good, right?  High, happy and you are smiling.

Now imagine getting bad news, feel the drop in your stomach, the curdling of worry, the intense whirring in your head, the prickling of tears in your eyes and the wallowing that often accompanies sadness.  Tears, fears and stress abounds.

Highs and lows.  They come into our lives.   We are like a radar blip in the universe ~ sometimes our blips are high and sometimes they are low.  Sure I’ve heard all the cliches about how the pendulum swings and you appreciate the highs by experiencing the lows.  Nobody gets a smooth ride and without that high/low thing, we wouldn’t appreciate the experiences of life.  I’m not advocating a boring straight line of life without highs and lows.  Far from it as I’ve experienced them both and I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to go with the flow, appreciate the highs and the lows for what they are, for what they teach us about ourselves and each other and all the amazing insight we gain from them.

But this morning, looking back at the last few days with the highs and lows I’ve experienced due to a lab error on my tumor markers for breast cancer, Lab Error ~ click here for post I can’t help but wonder how it is I am so easily changed by a few words.  Do you know what I mean?  With the retesting of my over normal numbers (read abnormal), I plunged myself into sadness, took a whole day for ‘me’ and even though I tried to continue to be optimistic, I confess I did allow myself a little pity party.  I’m only human.

And then, last night, when the reality that my numbers are back on track, I was happy ~ until I started my monkey mind stinking thinking that perhaps I need a 3rd test to rule out that the ‘normal’ numbers were not a fluke and somehow another lab error.  But then, my brain reminded me that I was fasting the 2nd time and therefore had no other extenuating factors to mar the tests so I can be assured that all is well.

But do you see what I mean?  A little bad or good news and I am like a swing ~ sad or happy.  It was my dear friend Laurie over at Lauriesnotes ~ click here  who with her infinite wisdom reminded me of what I had forgotten.  A lesson which I know, but I had misplaced ~ one that I had to share with you.

“Wherever you find yourself today, remember there is always calm…No need to stop the monkey mind…just find a little whisper underneath…that it is ok no matter what…not sick or well….”

And in the a-ha moment that followed my reading her heartfelt comment, the clarity of the lesson astounded me and for that I am truly grateful ~Thank you Laurie! ♥  No matter the results, I knew I would be ok because that is my only option, to be ok.  To continue to strive to inspire myself, you and anyone else who needs a friend.  Cancer patients, survivors, thrivers, anyone who needs a hand to hold.  I will be there for you ~ and I will be there for myself ~ and you will be there for me as well.  It wouldn’t have been easy, I wouldn’t have been thrilled to have to deal with the huge pain in the neck (and other places) called cancer, I would have fought (and won, again!) and I would have learned whatever life lesson was ahead.

But this life lesson, this one that Laurie’s reminded us of, is one that I tuck away in my heart.  It’s the peace within, the go with the flow, it’s the ‘it’s all ok’ whisper that when we are peaceful, we can hear and obey.  My heartfelt thanks for listening to your hearts, to my heart and for connecting with me.  We are a mighty community ~ a life force of beauty.

Thanks for connecting with me. 

♥ I HEARTily appreciate you! ♥

Shine On!

xo

Help to Slay the Dragon

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

~ Neil Galman

I confess, I believe in fairy tales.  As I shared yesterday, I have experienced the dragons in the darkness.  I have been singed by their fiery breath and I have knelt prostrate in grief in the tunnel of darkness.  I have felt the magnitude of mired thinking drag my soul to the depths of despair.  In the middle of the night, I have begged the darkness to swallow me whole.  But my soul always flickered at the last moment, holding onto shards of light’s vestiges with a tight grip until dawn.

And I am still here.

I can attest that the dragon of despair and darkness can be beaten.  He can be foiled into surrender.  His source can be blockaded and he retreats into the murky darkness.  But once he has been seen, he may lurk in the shadows from time to time, treading eerily, awaiting the opportunity to pounce.  It is our job to keep him at bay.  To dwell in the light of love, happiness, sunlit peaceful presence.  To cast out that blackness which lurks in the belly.  To destroy that eager dragon who longs to return to the castle in our mind.

Slay the dragon of darkness.  Reach for the sword of light to conquer that despair.  Hold your head up high, reach out and connect.  You are not alone.  You are freed from your ivory tower ~ it crumbles and is replaced by the round table of friendship.  Look up, see the shards of light which warm earth, sky, life.  Do not be frightened by the light.  Step into the sunshine.  Feel its reassuring warmth and love.  Be inspired by your senses.

You are loved.  You are worthy.  You shine.

Shine On!

xo

For today’s Daily Prompt, you know what I’m building, right?  It’s a dragon slayer ~ a widget which beats depression, gloom and evil.  It takes whatever darkness which envelopes your soul/heart/mind and turns it into rainbows, sunshine and life-giving hope.  It surrounds the world in a rainbow of love which emits peace, love and understanding.  It restores the light of humanity ~ lost happiness, lost peace within and slays the sadness, fear, darkness and evil in the world.  That’s my widget.  What do you think?

Daily Prompt: World’s Best Widget

You’ve been granted magical engineering skills, but you can only use them to build one gadget or machine. What do you build?

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/daily-prompt-machines/