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balance, Anxiety, Encouraging, Stress
Gretchen Flores
COVID-19 Are You in Your Emotional Window of ...

Life has thrown us all some unexpected turns recently with the rise of COVID-19. The question to ask yourself is how do you stay within your emotional window of tolerance? When you are in your window of tolerance you feel secure or safe. You feel that you can handle your emotions as they surface, and you can find your sense of direction. Your responses are congruent with the situation at hand and you feel open, curious, and present. Feelings of empathy remain intact and you are able to maintain healthy boundaries. However, a stressful event can lead to movement out of your window of tolerance.

COVID-19 Are You in Your Emotional Window of Tolerance?
Nutrition, Health
Gretchen Flores
How to Stay Healthy During Flu and Virus Season

Some years ago I noticed a higher number of cancellations due to the flu than other seasons. This year the Corona Virus is putting fear in many hearts. People are stockpiling toilet paper and essentials to have around the house and some offices are preparing to have their employees work from home. Vacation plans are being canceled as fear rises like the tide. Around 7 years ago I started on a quest for natural health

How to Stay Healthy During Flu and Virus Season
Parenting, Stress
Gretchen Flores
Guest Article: Physical and Financial ...

Once you’ve experienced the shock and euphoria that accompanies the news that you’re having a baby, your thoughts move on to the physical and financial preparations that need to be made. There’s a nursery to be assembled as well as equipment and supplies to be acquired so you’re ready to go when the big day arrives.

For parents who find they’re expecting a child with a physical or mental disability, the shock they experience is of a slightly different nature.

Guest Article: Physical and Financial Preparations for a Disabled Child
Gretchen Flores
The Holiday's Stink!

Tis the season for intensified feelings of grief, despair, and loneliness. The feelings of sadness of the loss of a loved one increases exponentially during the holidays. The memories of past holidays together can flood the mind and intensify the feelings of loss. When our lives aren’t perfect and we look around at everyone else’s seemingly perfect lives, despair sets in with feelings of inadequacy. The feelings can spin around in our minds like a tossed salad with too much dressing, “They have an intact family, they have money to go skiing, they don’t have financial problems, their kids have good grades…

The Holiday's Stink!
Encouraging
Gretchen Flores
Patience

I have learned that it takes around 3 years for a bamboo plant to be fully established once it is planted. It will have long periods in which the plant doesn’t appear to be making any growth progress.  It is during this time that growth is occurring underground within the root system.  The roots are actively growing and pushing water up to the plant above ground.

Patience

Worry

Is it Just Worry or Generalized Anxiety Disorder?

In today's world we have a lot to be worried about; job loss, bill payments, rising grocery costs, keeping our children safe, and keeping up with everything on our plates all while maintaining a smile in public.  Some of us are chronic worriers and some not.  Generalized Anxiety Disorder is a condition of chronic worry.  It occurs when our worries never seem to subside.  An ongoing wave of anxious thoughts and behaviors invade our lives daily and we may struggle to let go of them.  My counseling intern, Jill Oulman, Unlicensed Psychotherapist, who will be completing her counseling degree in the next few months, wrote a few thoughts on Generalized Anxiety.  I thought that I would share them with you.  

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

By Jill Oulman

It can be easy to confuse Anxiety for Depression.  Both affect one’s ability to concentrate, both affect mood, often both anxiety and depression affect sleep, and with both disorders one can appear agitated or restless.  Because anxiety is a part of natural human existence, it can be something many individuals brush off as normal.  When it begins to affect their daily lives, they assume it must be something more severe than anxiety.  Many people assume they are depressed and seek help because they cannot deal with their feelings of hopelessness.

By properly assessing the condition as Generalized Anxiety Disorder, the therapist can work to teach the client tools to reduce anxiety and feel in control again.  Human beings are programmed with a fight-or-flight mechanism.  In an individual with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, that mechanism can be faulty and the body is not able to restore itself to a decreased state of adrenaline once that mechanism has been activated.  Often the feelings of anxiety are automatic and not controlled by the client.  Using relaxation techniques can be an effective management tool for the client to restore order to their day.  

When patients can be taught techniques to help themselves, it brings the focus of control from external to internal.  That may be the most important skill as often patients feel as though the source of their anxiety is beyond their control.  This lack of control is what worries them the most.  Enabling clients to have control over their treatment can be a first step in healing.  The therapist can allow the client to focus on controlling their environment instead of the other way around.

Many individuals live with anxiety but it can be

by Gretchen Flores

The Worry Box

Worry is a constant struggle for many of us.  Sometimes our mind will latch onto a concern and not let go.  It's as if worrying will somehow solve the problem.  If we obsess, we reason, we will figure out a way to solve the problem eventually. 

Worry is often linked to feeling out of control of something.  It is a fear that something "horrible" will happen and we will have no control to stop it.  I often call it living in "what if land." We ponder; "What if I lose my job," "what if my son gets in a car accident," "What if the dog throws up on the carpet," "What if I don't like my new job."

Many worriers have trouble falling asleep.  It can take an experienced worrier hours to fall asleep sometimes.  Often, a worrier will be awakened at 3 am stare at the clock helplessly while the redundant list of worries cycle through; 3:00 am, 3:15 am, 3:45 am, 4:30 am.  Sometimes even though we know worry doesn't help anything we still do it.  It just is a hard habit to stop.  

A well known sleep specialist described the worry box as a method to combat nighttime obsessions.  I have been pleasantly surprised by

by Gretchen Flores
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Let Go of Worry

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UNEXPECTED SITUATIONS

I remember a story one of my pastors told me that when they had invited guests over during the winter, they had prepared a casserole beforehand for their guests and set it out on the back porch to cool. When their guests arrived, and it was time to eat, they went out to get the casserole. Much to their dismay, the dish was empty, and apparently cleaned as if there never had been a casserole. Wondering what had happened, they looked around and noticed their sweet Labrador had also been outside, and was now contentedly licking her lips and looking for a nice spot to take a nap. They had forgotten she was outside.

If you were in this situation, I ask, would you be able to laugh about it with your guests, or would you panic and believe it to be a catastrophe? Would you worry about what your guests thought about you? Would you convince yourself that it was horrible that you failed to provide them with a home-cooked meal, or would you accept your disappointment and figure out from where you might order in?

I admit there was a time in my life that I would have seen this as a total catastrophe. I would have been horrified and ashamed. I would have needed lots of reassurance. Thankfully, I think I would cope with it better now. I have worked hard at shifting my inner thoughts and have reserved the words horrible or awful for things that really deserve it. It doesn’t always come easily, but if I work at it, I can do it.

GOD’S COMFORT

We all worry about things from time to time. It is natural to have concerns, and it is important to be realistic about life’s challenges. However, if we allow our fears to invade our daily thought life, we are robbed of enjoyment and freedom from fear. It is the enemy’s goal to rob us of things that God has given us. One of the things he wants to rob us of is peace of mind. Worry and peace really are incompatible. God comforts us and assures us that peace comes from Him and that we can possess it even in the midst of awful circumstances. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7). His peace guards us and surrounds us, even in the darkest of times.

There are times in our lives when anyone would be confounded by our peace, but God gives it to us in an eternal perspective, and it is wrapped in His love for us. We know that even when things on earth go wrong, we will be with Him one day, free from the pain we endure on Earth. “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:16–18).

The most important thing to do when wrestling with the problem of worry in our lives is to explore what Scripture says about worry:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

—Matthew 6:25–26

We are of great value to God, and He promises to take care of us. Recognizing our value to Him soothes the worry wart inside of us. When we worry we need to remember how much God cares about us.

*Excerpt taken from The Journey Out, Chapter 3, The Weed of Worry vs. The Fruit of Peace

Blessings to you, Gretchen

by Gretchen Flores