Power of Vulnerability

Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown

https://youtu.be/iCvmsMzlF7o


Renee Madison is a counselor in Colorado with offices in Westminster (Denver area) and Fort Collins (Northern Colorado).  She can be reached by phone 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928.

Speak negatively or positively to self?

"Here is the key: you've got to send your words out in the direction you want your life to go.  You cannot talk defeat and expect to have victory.  You can't talk lack and expect to have abundance.  You will produce what you say.  If you want to know what you will be like five years from now, just listen to what you are saying about yourself.  With our words can we either bless our futures or we can curse our futures.  That's why we should never say, 'I'm not a good parent.  I'm unattractive.  I'm clumsy.  I can't do anything right.  I'll probably get laid off.'

"No, those thoughts may come to your mind, but don't make the mistake of verbalizing them.  The moment you speak them out, you allow them to take root.  There have been plenty of times where I've thought something negative and I'm just about to say it, but I'll catch myself and think.  No.  I'll zip it up.  I'm not speaking defeat into my future.  I'm not speaking failure over my life.  I will turn it around and speak favor into my future.  I will declare, 'I'm blessed.  I'm strong.  I'm healthy.  This will be a great yer.' When you do that, you are blessing your future." - Joel Osteen by I declare, 31 Promises to Speak Over Your Life

Speaking negative increases the outlook of a negative day and future.  We have to train ourselves to look and speak positive.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a licensed counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

To save a life - movie

A very thought provoking movie:

To save a life

http://youtu.be/1o56pazEh-Q

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a licensed counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

Last Ounce of Courage - movie

Last Ounce of Courage - movie

I found this to be a very touching illustration of patriotism and family.

http://youtu.be/askgwNOjkeI

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a licensed counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

Porn can change your brain

People who use porn wonder, "'How... can something that isn't a drug, isn't an extra-marital affair, isn't actually sex with someone else, cause such devastating problems as divorce, getting fired, and not being able to get sexually aroused by a real live partner.'

"The truth is, using pornography can make you go blind-- blind to the power and control it can eventually have over your life.  Though we might stare intensely at it, we don't see, often can't see see, how and why it is so powerful.  Did you know that porn can actually rewire your brain?  That's one reason why some people who use porn become preoccupied with sex, develop problematic sexual desires, and experience sexual functioning problems.  And if your brain has been changed, it can be difficult to see clearly exactly what is happening and how it's affecting your life.

"Porn is an extremely alluring and compelling 'product,' capable of delivering sexual pleasure while at the same time setting one up for the great pain.  Porn is like other controlled substances, such as alcohol and cigarettes, that promise good times, sometimes deliver them, but can end up causing much more damage than pleasure.  And unlike booze and tobacco, no one warns us of the potential side effects." - Wendy Maltz, LCSW, DST and Larry Maltz, LCSW in The Porn Trap

Porn can change your brain.  Porn can become an addiction to the user.  I work with addicts, spouses and their families everyday whose lives are being severely affected by pornography.   Devastated, in fact, nearly in every area of their lives are having side effects.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a licensed counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

Movement is vital for children

Children love movement.  Regular movement activities not only help children stay healthy, also it enhances their learning abilities and sets a solid foundation upon which more complex movement skills are established.

Adult used to deal with obesity but it is now prevalent in the school age and preschool populations and is increasing at alarming rates.  Regular movement helps children decrease the chances of becoming obese and thereby avoid disease like  heart disease and Type II Diabetes.  Movement and exercise also helps them teaches them a lifestyle to stay healthy well into adulthood.

Movement is necessary to learning.  Children use movement to learn about and explore their environments and the properties of objects.  They stimulate most areas of the brain, especially the center responsible for maintaining focus and paying attention when they move.  It is in movement that their brains release neurotransmitters that enhance short-term memory.

In addition to health and learning, movement is necessary for learning new motor skills.  Through repetition a child's nervous system is changed every time they do movement activities.  Movement stimulates the nerves in the nervous system such a way that nervous impulses pass along the nerves with increasing speeds and efficiency.  The repetition allows the movements to be more automatic and the movements are further perfected with each repetition.

Movement is important to the health, education and development of children.  So, help your children to affect their future in a big way and get them moving!

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a licensed counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928.

Financial stress may hit your brain and wallet

A thoughtful article on financial stress in the Reporter-Herald:

"Being short on cash may make you a bit slower in the brain, a new study suggests.

"People worrying about having enough money to pay their bills tend to lose temporarily the equivalent of 13 IQ points, scientists found that when they gave intelligence tests to shoppers at a New Jersey mall and farmers in India.

"The idea is that financial stress monopolizes thinking, making other calculations slower and more difficult, sort of like the effects of going without sleep for a night.

"And this money-and-brain crunch applies, albeit to a smaller degree to about 100 million Americans who face financial squeezes, say the team of economists and psychologists who wrote the study published in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

"Our paper isn't about poverty.  It's about people struggling to make ends meet," said Sendhil Mullainathan, a Harvard economist and study co-author.  'When we think about people who are financially stressed, we think they are short on money, but the truth is they are also short on cognitive capacity.'

"If you are always thinking about overdue bills, a mortgage or rent, or college loans, it takes away from your focus on other things.  So being late on loans could end up costing you both interest points and IQ points, Mullainathan said.

"The study used tests that studies various aspects of thinking including a traditional IQ test, getting the 13 IQ point drop, said study co-author Jiaying Zhao, a professor of psychology and sustainability at the University of British Columbia.

"The scientists looked at the effects of finances on the brain in the lab and in the field.  In controlled lab-like conditions, they had about 400 shoppers at Quaker Bridge Mall in central New Jersey consider certain financial scenarios and tested their brain power.  Then they looked at real life in the fields of India, where farmers get paid only once a year.  Before the harvest, they take out loans and pawn goods.  After they sell their harvest, they are flush with cash.

Mullainthan and colleagues tested the same 464 farmers before the harvest, and their IQ scores improved by 25 percent when their wallets fattened.

"'It's a very powerful effect,' said study co-author Eldar Shafir, a Princeton University psychology professor.  'When you are dealing with budgetary finances, it does intrude on your thinking.  It's at the top of your mind.'
"in the New Jersey part of the study, the scientists tested about 400 shoppers, presenting them with scenarios that involved a large and small car repair bill.  Those with family income of about $20,000 scored about the same as those with $70,000 incomes on IQ tests when the car bill was small.  But with the poorer people had to think about facing a whopping repair bill, their IQ scores were 40 percent lower.

"Education differences can't be a major factor because the poor scored worse only when they were faced with big bills, Safir said.  The more educated rich may have learned to divide their attention, but that wouldn't be a significant factor, he said.

"The study's authors and others say the results contradict long-standing conservative economic social and political theory that say it is Individuals -- not circumstances -- that are the primary problem with poverty.  In the case of India, it was the same people before and after, so it can't be the person's fault.

"'For a long time, we've been blaming the poor for their own failings,' Zhao said.  'We're arguing something very different.'

"Poverty researcher Kathryn Edin of Harvard, who wasn't part of the study said the research 'is a big deal that solves a critical puzzle in poverty research.'

"She said poor people often have the same mainstream values about marriage and two-parent families as everyone else, but they don't seem to act that way.  This shows that it's not their values but the situation that impairs their decision-making, she said."  - Seth Borenstein


Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928.