Beyond Intention Setting
When I learned about intention setting over 20 years ago, I thought they were something simple to say or think because they seemed so obvious, but as I have turned to them in times of need, intentions are one of the most powerful tools we can turn to in a crisis. I’ve written about intention setting before, but as a recap, intentions are something that everybody does subconsciously. For...Learn More
Are You a Doer or a Viewer?
An interesting topic popped up in a process group this week about being a doer or a viewer. How would you answer this? I often wonder if our tendency to explore our world or simply watch it stems from the family we grew up in. Did your family of origin tend to sit and watch the television or were they active? When I grew up, I played all the sports and went to baseball and basketball games...Learn More
Rebuilding Self Worth
In 28 years, I’ve seen my fair share of broken people. Many of which I treated in an 11-year span at a Mental Health Urgent Care where I saw over 7,000 people! Across the country, 20% of the people have a mental illness that warrants serious treatment. How many of these get treatment? Only a handful. One thing I learned is that we are all the same. To some extent we all suffer from something,...Learn More
The Year 2000 – Revisited
This was a very interesting week at Basic Steps Mental Health. With all of the talk about WWIII and nuclear war, I was reminded of the panic that hit everybody with the Y2K. If you weren’t old enough to remember what was going on back then, the main computers in charge of all the critical systems in the country were not equipped to switch to the year 2000. Fearing nuclear meltdown at the time,...Learn More
Book Writing 101
Okay, I admit it. I am an addict. Addicted to writing. In a recent intervention from family and friends, I had to admit that I was powerless over the pen. Writing has some deep roots with me. Ever since I was a teenager I lived across the street from Ray Bradbury, the science fiction writer. From this moment I was stung with the writing bug. Yeah, that’s right, I’ll blame my addiction on him....Learn More
A Tribute to my Father
When I was five years old my mother divorced and married her soul mate – if there is something like that – my stepfather. Who knew that he was going to make such an impact on me? My natural father was an angry and bitter man who exhibited daily fits of rage. Not Les, Les was a kind soul that was genuinely happy, loved being around a lot of people, and always had something memorable to say or...Learn More
Why Can’t I Just Fix This On My Own?
The answer to the question above is you can, given the know-how. When I graduated from High School, I was depressed, anxious, and didn’t know a thing about life. I did pretty well in school, with what was taught there, but nobody taught me about what was really important – how to keep myself emotionally stable. At that time, my family didn’t deal with my emotions. If you acted out you were...Learn More
Visualization – A Fun Exercise
Visualization is a great tool to use to take a break from normal life and feel at ease. Psychosynthesis, which is the first Spiritual Psychology approach from the early 1900s, used visualization as a way to center a person, and bring them good feelings. Do you feel a bit adventurous? If you need a pick me up, then follow the instructions and just go with them. This is usually done in a closed...Learn More
Three Foot Tosses for Mindfulness
We play a basketball game in our program where people are asked to take three shots from a marker that is three, six, nine, twelve, or fifteen feet away from the basketball hoop. When you sink a basket, you make positive points, if you miss, you make negative points. The point of the game is to make the most positive points you can. Each marker is equivalent to the number of points you make....Learn More