Stop Stress from Stopping You
When trying to make changes, such as starting a new diet, trying to quit smoking pot or introducing an exercise routine, it is important to consider how everyday stressors impact your ability to achieve your goals. The first step of making behavior changes is to try and increase your awareness of yourself and your world. […]
The Best Attitude for Change
If you are thinking about changing a behavior pattern (like overeating, smoking, spending too much money, drinking too much etc), it can be helpful to take stock of your attitude as you approach the problem. What do we mean by attitude? Our attitudes predispose us to respond positively or negatively toward certain people, issues, objects […]
How Do My Substance Use Choices Influence My Child’s Choices?
If your teenager or young adult is beginning to experiment or use drugs and/or alcohol, you may be wondering what you can do to help them make healthy choices. While there are a variety of ways you can reinforce certain behaviors over others (coming home after school clear-headed instead of high) and put consequences around […]
Practicing Self-Compassion
Have you ever said to yourself, “I shouldn’t be so mad about this”, “I should be able to handle this and it’s pathetic that I can’t,” or “I can’t handle feeling so lost”, “or “I should be able to just get over this and move on.” These statements may be all too familiar if you […]
Facing Your Anxiety Tiger
When we find ourself struggling with negative feelings or mood states, like stress, fear, anger, boredom etc…we tend to want to make them “stop.” It’s pretty natural to want to avoid these feelings because we believe having them will make us feel worse. Many of us also believe we should be “happy” or “fine” all […]
Putting a Face on Alcohol Abuse
We live in a country where the attitude about people who struggle with substance use issues is one of disdain, disbelief and disregard. When Jeff Foote and I opened CMC, one of our main goals was to change this. The negative stigma associated with substance use issues, the lack of information about effective treatment options, […]
How to Help: Sifting Through Advice
At CMC, we have lots of family members call us to ask for advice about how to help someone they love who they think is struggling with a substance use problem. We get mom’s calling about their children, husbands calling about their wives, adult children calling about their parent. And one of the things we […]
The Pain of Shame
Shame is ubiquitous among humans…we all can feel it to varying degrees and some of us are way more prone to it than others. Evolutionary psychologists think it is wired into us because we are social animals and shame is designed to correct behavior that steps out of the social norm. When you step out […]
Building Resilience Part III: Sleep, Exercise, and Health
Being resilient means being able to face the stressors that life throws you and cope well enough with them that you recover relatively quickly. And with all that is going on in the world right now, it can seem that the stressors never stop coming (politics, violence, financial strain)…so it is all the more important […]
What Can You Learn from a Lobster about Change?
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][youtube id=”3aDXM5H-Fuw” align=”center” thumbnail=”http://motivationandchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/twerski.jpg” grow=”yes”] Almost every moment of every day requires that we tolerate change. Our environment, our moods, our physical states, and our thoughts are constantly changing, all day long. […]
