June 26, 2019
I recently had the occasion to contemplate forgiveness. I bumped into the complexity of it while struggling with an old issue between me and my adult son. Curiously at the same time, a deep, old shame of my own kept floating to the surface. I found it odd that this 30-year-old memory would come to haunt me at this time in my life. Thinking about it, and wondering about the significance of the shame memory, it occurred to me like all the highway lights blinking into view one at a time, the dots connected and there it was – my inability to forgive myself. If I can’t forgive myself how can I extend that type of compassion to another? If […]
May 28, 2019
There comes a time in everyone’s development (hopefully, and sadly) when the idealistic and childlike perspective of who our parents are changes, somewhat dramatically. As children, we think our parents are heroes. We think they are invincible. Well we need to don’t we? In order to survive in the jungle we need to believe that our parents are strong and capable of protecting us from the lions and snakes and tigers. Some of us though, don’t have strong and invincible parents and I think on some level we as children figure that out. Enter anxiety … because of course you will feel anxious if you are no match for a lion or tiger, and you have no one protecting you. […]
April 30, 2019
A few years ago my husband and I went on a trip to Cape Breton where we cycled the Cabot Trail. If you don’t know, the Cabot Trail is just a wee bit challenging. On the going down side of things, with traffic driving beside you, you smell the strong scent of car brakes overheating for those who don’t down shift. On a bike you feel like an ant, flying down this huge mountain, while the scenery distracts and boggles the mind. But first there’s getting up that hill! You’re in first gear all the way, positive that you are actually going backwards rather than forwards. What a mountain that was to climb!! Our guide warned us ahead of time […]
March 29, 2019
Studies have show that when you change your answer on a multiple-choice exam, you usually find out your original answer was right. Where does that first voice come from? We have an answer but we hesitate, we doubt ourselves, but our original voice is so often correct! So many times people have said “At first I felt like this wasn’t a good idea (relationship, job, event, answer…) but I went and did it anyway – and it turned out wrong for me. Why do we have such a hard time listening to that first voice? Because, whether you know it or not, that first voice is YOUR voice. It’s your intuition. It’s your wisdom talking. It’s the things you learned […]
March 21, 2019
It’s pretty standard fare to have clients come to my office because of anxiety. I’d like to talk about one small (not small) aspect of anxiety. In Martha Beck’s wonderful book Finding Your Own North Star, she talks about how we all have an essential self and a social self – and that the further “apart” these two selves are, the higher and more intense the experience of anxiety. The Essential Self is the ‘you’, you really are on the inside – the one who has dreams and passions and a vision of what their life could be. The Social Self is the ‘you’, you show the world – the one who accommodates others’ expectations of you, the one who […]
March 4, 2019
What defines you? Your past? Your present? Your future ambition? For those of us who have had a rough start in life with our families, we can sometimes fall into a trap of being defined by what happened to us. We grow up into adults with a story – and yes, while that’s the case for everyone – some of us stay a little stuck in one story. We don’t necessarily grow out of a story, we don’t move on to a new one. What I find is that those of us who haven’t yet “processed”, “resolved”, “come to terms with” our story, have a tendency to find ourselves trapped. We recycle the same narrative, same thoughts, same feelings that […]
February 8, 2019
I would like this blog post to begin a conversation among (but not limited to) clinicians/therapists/psychologists about the impact of culture on our selves and in turn, our clients. It’s a conversation that is long on questions and not so long on answers. This is so vast and broad a topic, it’s impossible to cover it with any depth in one post, or two or five. So I’ll begin somewhere…. As an example of what I am talking about… if you were born and raised in Quebec, are you aware of the impact that the Quiet Revolution in Quebec had on our culture and by extension on you? How do you imagine the new sense of independence and freedom from […]
January 21, 2019
Most of us show up in therapy because of complicated and painful family relationships. Sometimes it’s about our family of origin – the one where I was a child, and sometimes it’s about the families we have created where I’m the partner and/or parent. Family relationships are tough. Those of us that have grown up with dysfunction – addiction, violence, divorce, mental illness – have had to figure out how to tease apart what is healthy and what isn’t when it comes to relationships. A common problem I often see is “wanting to help” – our alcoholic parent, our mentally ill child. We want to end their suffering. We want to stop feeling “held hostage” by their misery. We want […]
January 4, 2019
What happens to us when our feelings feel too big to handle? When we are not sure of what the expression of what’s inside should look like? I would like to share a story that shows how unexpressed feelings can push behavior. I’d like to introduce you to Levi. Levi is 8 and a half. He is truly the apple of my eye. He’s bright and funny and let’s just say perfect! (I know, I know but I’m his grandma!) I have just spent the past month with him out West. It’s our last day. We are meant to have a quiet morning together before we leave. Levi is bouncing off the walls. He is making a ruckus. His mom […]
December 31, 2018
Hello and Happy New Year Dear Reader. I hope January 1, 2019 finds you happy, excited about all the possibilities before you, and surrounded by those that encourage you to bring the best of yourself forward. At this time of year, I think all of us are tempted to consider great changes in our life, the turning of a new page onto which we project all the wishes we have for ourselves – how we might be better, wealthier, stronger, thinner, happier, more industrious .. God knows the list goes on. I find many of us have a tendency to overwhelm ourselves with the grandness of the change we are seeking …. probably why a lot of that initial energy […]
December 23, 2018
Holiday seasons are tough on a lot of people. Those of us with “special” families have our share of Christmas horror stories …. too much drinking, too much drama, too much expectation. The media doesn’t help. We are bombarded from mid November on with the expectation that this is a time to be happy, to be connected to family which is supposed to be in and of itself a good thing, that we should buy, buy, buy, … Little wonder why the Help hotlines are overwhelmed at this time of year. Those of us with out of step families feel, well, out of step. We ask ourselves how is it that we don’t have the pie in the oven, the […]
November 14, 2018
Dear Reader… as you may remember, I sent out an invitation for colleagues to be guest bloggers. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would get such wonderful, warm, heartfelt words written to share with you. But here we are! So this month I’d like to introduce you to Terri. Theresa Rindress, is my personal trainer at the NDG YMCA. She is also a group fitness instructor there as well as the coordinator of fitness programs. If you are looking for someone who is devoted, inspiring, dedicated to her career and craft, who will surely bring out the best and the beast in you – then give her a call 514-833-4799. She is a wonderful, wonderful young woman […]
October 28, 2018
I have been approached by a number of women of late, mostly my age-mates (I’m a tail-end boomer, and front-end Gen Xer) wanting to understand what’s happening to them sexually. Some of us seem to be confused. We feel vibrant, energetic, and even young. And yet we are also struggling with a waning libido. Some of us feel that letting go of that part of ourselves is what will define us as “old”. We want to have sex not because we necessarily want it but because we think we should. And please, let’s agree that there is enough variability in the world to know that not everyone feels this way, and not everyone feels that way … enough of us […]
October 8, 2018
Hello Dear Readers! I’m so excited to share with you that after sending out an invitation to a number of colleagues, we have a guest blogger this month! I am thrilled to open up the conversation and add more voices for well-being to the Blog. So let’s begin. Let me introduce you to Tom Caplan, MSW, MFT : (click on the link for more information about Tom) By way of introduction I am a licensed Social worker (OTSTCFQ), Marriage and Family Therapist and Supervisor (AAMFT/CAMFT), and Psychotherapist (OPQ) in private practice who works with individuals, couples, families and groups. I was a consultant to the McGill Domestic Violence Clinic, am the founder of Montreal Anger Management Centre and the Caplan Therapy […]
September 26, 2018
When you stop to contemplate what is in “your bubble” – what occurs to you? On a tough day, for me, it’s often thoughts of my kids and grandkids. I wonder how they are doing, I struggle with missing them, and I sometimes misplace that “missing” into blaming my husband for the yucky feelings. Sometimes that’s the stuff in my bubble. That being said, from Monday to Friday I am offered a fantastic way out of that bubble: my work! I count myself as extremely lucky in that my job absolutely requires me to get out of “my bubble” and join you in yours! So for 6 – 8 hours a day I don’t miss anyone, I am not angry, […]
September 11, 2018
I wonder how we all survived the years before the Internet. Early this summer I was at a “pottery event”. I met old friends, fired some Raku, and generally had a good time – even though at that point I was still struggling with my grief over the loss of my father in April. And also to note, despite that loss, I still posted to the “My Daily Dose” project – meant to share how I get through the tough times by exercising, being creative, communing with nature and so on. Please note – I’m sharing the tool to feel better, not the challenging state I’m in on any given day. During the clay day, the wife of one of […]
August 14, 2018
“The habits you created to survive will no longer serve you when its time to thrive.” Ebonee Davis Do you have memories from your childhood about how you coped? How you coped when you saw your parents arguing? When you felt threatened or overwhelmed or sad? When things felt chaotic? When you had feelings but weren’t supported in expressing them? As I write this I realize I am using adult language, adult thinking, to look back at what we might have experienced in childhood. As children though, we never had the vocabulary to say, “I feel threatened”, or “I’m confused”. So, being the resilient creatures we are, we, as children, developed habits to deal with our environment. So many times clients […]
July 4, 2018
I am not sure where I read it but I learned a while ago – that we all behave in ways and make choices that reinforce unconscious beliefs we have about ourselves. We need to think about the ramifications of that. Oprah Winfrey grew up believing in her child’s magical thinking mind – that God, yes the God, the big guy, was her father. If you grow up thinking that God is your father, and that He has your back, and the He is benevolent and good and loving – then you must grow up thinking you can handle pretty much anything. You must grow up thinking that you don’t really need to be afraid of too much. Now I’m sure that Oprah […]
June 20, 2018
It never ceases to amaze me how on certain weeks most of my clients come in with the same “story”. And it’s not so much that each of their stories is the same, but our conversations are the same, there’s a running “theme”. 18 out of 20 people this past week talked about narratives we have inherited from our family of origin! That’s more than just coincidence no? I get I am the common factor in all these discussions, but I don’t necessarily direct the traffic in our sessions and I find this fascinating. As I mentioned, this week’s theme was about how we sometimes get caught up in our family of origin narratives. By this I mean most of […]
May 28, 2018
Sometimes couple life can get downright hard and ugly. We can spiral down to a place it seems we will never get out of. We find ourselves angry, hurt, and disconnected and it’s lonely. Partners in a distressed couple sometimes describe how they walk on eggshells. When doing so, I am not bringing my full self to the relationship, out of fear. So I hold back in an attempt to manage or maybe even control your behavior. But that never feels good or right, and it never provides satisfactory results in the long term. When we work harder at trying to mitigate a partner’s behavior rather than our own, we know we are in trouble. Some of us use shaming […]