How the Light Gets In

Beyond Fear

Sandy Andrews, PhD is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist in Austin, Texas

She practices Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT

Happy Is As Happy Does

We're all in search of happiness and nothing makes this more certain than a search of recent research in the field of psychology.  Lots of studies looking for ways to increase our feelings of happy.

A Washington Post journalist spoke to Shawn Achor, a Harvard trained expert on positive psychology.  Achor recommends several exercises to increase feelings of wellbeing, including.

(1) Gratitude.  Spend two minutes every day thinking of three new things you appreciate, enjoy, or are thankful for.
(2) Positivity. Spend two minutes every day recalling a positive experience from your day.  Recollect every detail you can think of and let yourself feel the pleasant feelings associated with each detail.  This can be as simple as observing a beautiful flower or seeing a dog chase a frisbee.
(3) Exercise.  Fifteen minutes a day of high energy physical movement.  Get your heart rate up AND your feelings of happiness.
(4) Breathe.  Here's the magic time again, two minutes.  Push away from your keyboard, silence your phone, turn off the tv, sit under a tree, lay beneath a ceiling fan.  For two minutes, just listen to your breathing.  That's it.  Just listen and stay focused on the sound of the air moving in and our.
(5) Kindness.  Each day send an email or text someone a message telling them how much you appreciate something about them or something they have done.  According to Achor, this is one of the most powerful happy-getters.

You can read the Washington Post article and interview in full, here.

--Sandy Andrews, PhD 

Clinical Psychologist

Austin, TX 

Meditating with Visual Aids

Think about changing the channel that' plays mindlessly in your head.  Change your thoughts away from the thousands of stress inducing thoughts that permeate your thinking toward calm, pleasant, physically soothing thoughts and you can take your body toward a more physically healthy space.

One way to do this is with visual aids.  In this case, pictures of highly pleasurable scenes.

Take a look at the pictures posted on Bored Panda, below.   Take time to really let the images sink in.  Enhance the experience by taking long, slow inhales followed by long, full exhales, while you will your body to relax with each exhale, while simultaneously enjoying the pictures.

22 Unbelievable Places that are Hard to Believe Really Exist

 Let your mind luxuriate in the sensations you might feel if you were actually present in the picture.  Imagine the sounds you might hear, the smells.  What might you see in the scene if the picture were expanded to include what is behind you?

Pictures of beauty found in the nature are highly inspirational to me.  They help me refresh and appreciate the world around me.  Others find works created by visual artists inspiring:  paintings, collage, sculpture.

What inspires you?  What kinds of images do you find pleasurable, refreshing, or relaxing?  

Cognitive Therapy as Commencement Address

A commencement speech given by the author, David Foster Wallace, to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College.

Though Mr. Wallace was addressing college graduates, his words of encouragement are promoting CBT skills and can apply to all of us, in every moment of daily living.

Thanks to the person who suggested I listen to this video.  You know who you are.

A Murmur was Seen Through the Crowd

The crowd of birds, that is.  Starlings, to be specific.

I can't get enough of the videos gone viral of bird murmuration.  The most dramatic to me is the first one I ever saw.  It was captured by canoe paddlers Sophie Windsor Clive and Liberty Smith.

With so much news on the television about tragedy caused by nature, I find my faith in the natural way of things restored when I watch birds flying in a sort of random harmony.  When it's put to calming music, it becomes something of a meditation.

Last one:

Inspirational Meditation

"Inspirational meditation with original art and reflection, created by Melanie Weidner, Quaker artist and spiritual director. "  You can explore more of Ms. Weidner's ideas and suggestions by visiting her blog, Listen For Joy.

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See the Stars

When it gets dark enough, you can see the stars.

Charles A. Beard

It may come as a surprise to few that many people present for therapy during the darkest of times.  New patients may feel powerless to change their circumstances, hopeless to overcome their problems.  We clinicians like to point out that, through therapy, people often gain the tools necessary to first cope and then to feel stronger, maybe stronger than ever, and then ultimately to overcome the difficult obstacles they face.   

It can help to believe that dark points in our lives may be fulcrum moments, the very point at which we gain the help we need to make substantial life changes.  To find the power within ourselves to take action and change.   

It would be foolish to suggest that we should look forward to low moods and hardship.  But it is worthy to suggest that when they arrive we can learn to accept them  as temporary turning points.  Maybe even necessary turning points.  To embrace the potential adversity presents.  As an end to stagnation.  The pivotal shift we need to grow.   Stronger.  To learn. To succeed.  To  flourish. 

As this quote suggests, we can learn to look beyond the clouds.  Look into that darkness.  Look for the stars.  We might just find incredible, life fulfilling opportunity.  

freedom

There are many reasons I am a big proponent of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Chief among them is the freedom to overcome the unhappy elements of our past.

Freedom to decide that, at this moment, change begins.

Freedom to let go of our former selves.

Freedom to let go of patterns that bring us distress.

Freedom to move forward into wellness.

Today marks 20 years of another, equally profound, form of freedom. Freedom from political oppression.

Twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall came down.

Twenty years ago today 16 million people were united with the west.

How is Germany celebrating?

A long string of dominoes mark the former placement of the wall. Germans will line the colorful wall and watch as the dominoes fall, one by one.

An angel watches over the Berlin dominoes:

The celebration began one month ago when giant marionettes walked through Berlin:

You can see more pictures documenting the event, here.

Congratulations, Germany! Wir gratulieren!