Invest in some therapy to clean out your emotional cobwebs and have a fresh start. Therapy is fantastic because you can use the therapist as an objective sounding board and they won’t judge. No matter how good a friend/work colleague/sister  is as a listener, eventually they might use something you shared in confidence against you. (and they do judge!)

The benefits of therapy are:
1. To be truly heard (without having to listen to someone else in return). You feel then that you have some room for something else instead of having to squeeze it into an already full YOU.
2. A chance to brainstorm all sorts of options that you daren’t share with someone you know in case they would react personally .You can then discriminate which options are rational/make sense and then put them into action.
3. A chance to vent your irrational feelings. We need to have an “emotional enema” frequently so that when a real crisis occurs, we can go into the eye of the storm and keep our cool.

Richmond Hill Psychology Clinic has psychologists, counsellors and hypnotherapists who can help you spring-clean your mind! Read the rest of this entry »

Why is Christmas a tense time for some families?
Too much excess – busy-ness (social occasions, kids concerts, cleaning the house, buying presents), spending money, keeping kids happy, pretending that we like our family…
and NOt enough – time, money, good will.What’s the most common cause of family feuds at Christmas?
In planning who does what there are opportunities for a power struggle ( eg people would prefer to come to me because I do it better) and rejection (eg you can come but don’t bring – your partner, your new partner’s kids etc).
On the day it’s about the rush to make it happen. Too much to think of and to do. We are exhausted before we even start the food and drink and presents. This can make us tense and overact to any perceived stress.

Have families become more testy over the years?
Actually I think they have become more accomodating. We talk about our skeletons in our cupboards to our friends and share a common realisation that no family is ideal. We all want Christmas to be a time of connection and a chance to Imagine a world of peace -even to folks who think it’s Christmas humbug.

What’s the best way to avoid confrontation at family Christmas parties? Read the rest of this entry »