How can we live in this world and not of it? Various spiritual traditions discuss this idea of attachment in different ways. I ask myself what is my biggest worldly attachment? The answer: my husband Harold plain and simple (sorry kids, I love you but you’re not first in regards to attachments). We’ve been soulmates together since I was 16 so its hard to remember not sharing my life with him. What causes us such suffering in life is not people, but our attachment to people or things. Detachment is an inward letting go- not of the person necessarily, but of the attachment to that person. I often say to myself, I could lose my house or be bankrupt, but I’m ok as long as I have Harold. Yet with attachment, there is no freedom or ability to love even that person… or anyone else for that matter freely and purely. With detachment some things may fall away that are meant to, otherwise our relationship to them becomes transformed more authentically in the process. I had a realization two weeks ago that I’ve been attached to my business-feeling that that is where I’m meant to be because I LOVE it and I never feel like I work in a single day. Working with my clients is a pure joy for me. Yet through my attachment, what I couldn’t see was the larger picture… my loving husband and life partner’s business was suffering and I was ignoring that when I knew I had tools to help him. When I really saw this, I realized that I was attached to how supporting and giving service to others had to look. I chose to make a shift in my business to allow for me to be able to support my husband in a new way in his company. In just a short time what a difference that shift has made for him professionally and for both of us in our marriage. Do you have the courage today to identify your biggest worldly attachment? Just becoming aware of this can loosen the clenching grip we have on others and in the world.
Newtown Family Therapy & Wellness
I’m not sure I can say that opening Newtown Family Therapy always meant eventually having it evolve into a wellness center. The idea was always there, but I was completely unsure how this venture would go and what the need and response would be to it. I don’t think I could have imagined that a year and nine months after opening our doors we would be where we are today. What started as one office and one therapist is now 4 offices, 3 therapists, 1 massage therapist, and 1 acupuncturist. As with many things, it was in the evolution that it became clear to me why it was working and what was needed to move forward.
I remember vividly the time in my life when the word wellness suddenly came to hold a deep meaning for me personally. It was when I needed it the most and when I understood it the least. I was young and felt “unwell” due to a life lived going full speed ahead and never stopping to properly breathe or care for myself. Without going into the gory details of my own evolution I feel charged to share that without the things I feel so passionately about now, namely therapy, acupuncture, healing touch, meditation, and connection, I would be lost. Wellness to me speaks to the life long process of understanding yourself physically, spiritually, and emotionally. It goes beyond seeking a “quick fix” to cure all that ails you to starting the journey to truly understanding yourself and what you need to be well in all areas of your life. Dr. Bill Hettler, co-founder of the National Wellness Institute, developed an interdependent model of wellness that includes 6 categories necessary to balance and wellness: Occupational, Physical, Social, Intellectual, Spiritual, and Emotional. It’s easy to be doing well in one of those areas and suffering in many of the others. What happens then is unbalance and unrest internally.
I believe we can’t do this alone. Any of us. Wellness is a team concept. One that needs connection and honesty to thrive. It is this belief that brought me to turning my private practice into a wellness center. I was seeing clients and constantly looking for other ways to help them and connect them to resources that they needed. My dream of being able to do that all in one place came to fruition as did opening Newtown Family Therapy & Wellness, I knew it was time and the doors opened up in front of me as I pushed on them.
The first step towards wellness starts with owning your story, knowing you want to feel better overall, and taking responsibility for your life. The minute you do that the doors will open for you to begin creating change. I hope we can help in more ways than one. In addition to therapy we now offer online therapy for those who can’t make it to the office, acupuncture, cupping, and massage therapy.
Contact us for a free consultation and to see where your journey to wellness can begin.
Top 10 Reasons To Jump Into Psychotherapy
Psychotherapists can help people of all different ages and lifestyles live happier, healthier and more productive lives.
1) Better Communication. We need to learn how to communicate better. Period. Regardless of whether or not you grew up in a healthy family with excellent communication skills or not, we can all benefit from learning better communication skills.
2) Stress/Anxiety/Depression Relief. Psychotherapy sessions provide an opportunity for individuals to be able to discuss the causes of the stress, anxiety and/or depression in their life as well as gain valuable tools from a professional.
3) Objectivity. Psychotherapy provides a supportive environment that enables one to discuss his/her issues openly with someone who is objective, neutral and nonjudgmental.
4) Chronic Pain Relief. According to the study of bioenergetics, we humans hold emotions, trauma and stress in our bodies. Through the use of psychotherapy to relieve stress and anxiety, clients can experience a reduction or complete eradication of their pain symptoms.
5) Self Care. Through the work of psychotherapy, clients can begin to see ways to take better care of themselves emotionally, mentally, and physically that will result in more balance in their lives.
6) Combat Self-Defeating Thought Patterns. Psychotherapists help clients peel back the layers of the client’s inner self, while helping him or her identify and replace negative thought patterns that stand in the way of their living happier, more satisfying lives.
7) Healthier Marriages/Relationships. Even the most united couples sometimes need assistance to maintain healthy communication with each other. Psychotherapists can work to help couples identify and move beyond roadblocks through various methods to enable them to love and respect each other more fully and find more fulfillment in their relationship/marriage.
8) Happier Families. We all just want to get along! But sometimes family dynamics can be challenging and too difficult to overcome “in house”. Psychotherapists are trained to help family members identify and learn how to meet and respect their own needs and the needs of family members in order to create a more loving family environment.
9) Parenting/Discipline Issues. Psychotherapists can work with parents to help them to create healthy boundaries with their children and work through other challenges of parenting, offering tools to help foster better parenting skills and hence healthier and more satisfying parent/child relationships.
10) Joy! Once a client begins to believe and trust in the therapeutic relationship, he/she can have confidence that they will work toward successful issue resolution that will also serve as a model for other healthy relationships. Once clients can truly engage in this process, they begin to recover the child-like joy for life within themselves that was always part of them. Often this joy is buried under stress, trauma, worry and the inability to provide a release through beneficial communication with another person.