Imagine Hope Counseling Group Blog
Inspiring Hope for Life & Relationships
Clients tell me all the time, “I hate the holidays”. There are many stressors as people are attending family gatherings and trying to meet everyone’s expectations for the season. This week Imagine Hope wants to share these blogs again that were originally posted last year. We hope this helps you stay focused on making this holiday season less stressful!
Keep your emotional boundaries firm
Being with family can often trigger old wounds, cause you to fall back into past roles from growing up, and end up with hurt feelings or fights. Because of this, it is key to set emotional boundaries. This is when you protect yourself emotionally from a person who isn’t safe for you. This could be someone who is overly critical and judgmental, creates emotional tension, or someone who triggers emotional pain or stress.
When setting emotional boundaries, you are surrounding yourself with an invisible shield of protection from the unsafe person. This includes lowering your expectations. You should expect them to be how they have “always been” and do what they have “always done”. If you expect it, it won’t hurt as bad. You have predicted the pain- so it has less of an impact. Lowering your expectations for the unsafe person to be somehow different this time will also help your shield to be stronger. This is a process of grieving that relationships may never be what you want them to. If you set your hopes too high that they won’t do what they always have done, then you are sure to be disappointed. It is common to say to yourself “Of course they did ____. That is what they do” when you have good emotional boundaries.
Stay tuned this week as we cover more ways to decrease stress, including financial tips, ways to not take on too much, and how to beat the need to have everything be perfect! Enjoy- and Happy Holidays!
Teri Claassen MSW, LCSW is a licensed therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Teri enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, couples and relationship counseling. Teri also does family counseling, child counseling, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Zionsville, and Westfield.
Posted in boundaries, Christmas, Codependency, coping skills, Family Issues, Relationships | No Comments »
So far this week, we’ve heard some funny and wonderful Thanksgiving memories from the ladies of Imagine Hope. We hope this has sparked some great memories for you as well!
My favorite Thanksgiving memories aren’t from growing up– they are from a tradition that was started by my sister and I about 4 years ago. Both my sister and I have always balked at the “Black Friday” tradition. I mean, who would want to get up at 3:00 in the morning and stand in line for hours in the freezing cold, just to get a good deal?! Several years ago, my sister and I were going through the advertisements in the newspaper Thanksgiving day, when the “bug” hit us, too! We were unknowingly plotting and planning out our course of action the following morning in painstaking detail. Feeding off of each other in the excitement, we set the alarm and decided to do it! More than anything, it has become a humorous experience, watching the “stampede” of shoppers and joining in with them to hunt out our own deals. The whole experience is filled with the rituals of getting the newspaper, going through the ads, planning out where we will go first, standing in lines and fighting the crowds while using teamwork, having breakfast and heading home. My sister and I talk about how it’s not really the shopping and deals, but rather the idea of setting the time aside and planning the yearly event that makes it so special. We have some great conversations and “bonding” time catching up on each others lives, which neither of us would trade for anything!
So, what are your Thanksgiving traditions and memories? We hope you’ve had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday!
Joleen Watson, MS, NCC, is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. She enjoys doing marriage counseling, relationship counseling, couples counseling, and individual counseling. Imagine Hope also specializes in family, child and adolescent counseling and serves Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Noblesville, Zionsville, Westfield, and Fishers.
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I just went from awwwwing at Teri’s entry to laughing out loud at Tammy’s Thanksgiving memories! I hope you are enjoying them, too. I don’t have a food drive or a flying animal story- my favorite memories of Thanksgiving are good ole fashion “To Grandmother’s house we go!” My Granny used to host Thanksgiving every year at her small home. I just remember walking in and smelling the WONDERFUL smells and walking into a kitchen where her little 4 ft. 10 inch stance was creating a masterpiece! She is from the deep south and literally, could have had her own restaurant. She is amazing!!!! All the grandkids would pile on top of each other in her little living room. We would laugh, poke fun at each other, and catch up on what was going on in each other’s lives. The parents would sit around the table and talk. I loved watching the football games because that meant the start of Christmas commercials!!! I would watch for my favorite toy to come on TV.
Since my Husband and I have had a home, we have started a tradition of giving back. Now every year we are blessed to have both sides of our families come together and eat at our home. My mother helps with the cooking and we invite Granny. It is our way of giving back to her for all those years of cooking. This year I have a surprise for her. I have tried to master her chicken and dumplings!! I hope they pass the test. Though they will never taste like hers, I have tried to get really close.
I also have a tradition each year of writing in my journal what I am most grateful for that year. I have so many things to be grateful for this year- including all our clients and readers! Thank you all that you trust us with your deepest challenges and bless us with your lives. Thank you to our blog, Facebook, and Twitter followers that don’t even know us! We are blessed that you find us helpful and give us such great feedback.
We wish you the most blessed Thanksgiving you could imagine! God bless!
Written by Natalie Chandler
*Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville.
Tags: Thanksgiving
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Tammy’s Memory
Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday & always held at my parent’s house. I love the gathering of my family, the smells of the food and fun games we play once the tables are cleared. I do have two memories that immediately stuck out when we decided to do this blog. Both include flying animals, and I’m not talking about the turkey!
When I was around 10 years old I remember on the very day of Thanksgiving some baby Turtledoves hatching in a nest in our front window awnings. I was so amazed at this new birth and showed everyone as they came to our house for dinner that day. I somehow felt they were a gift to us that day and that they were ”mine” to take care of and watch over. I can remember walking out on our front porch several times to check on them and make sure they were doing alright.
This next memory isn’t so warm and fuzzy. It happened just a couple of years ago as I was helping my mom with last minute cleaning before setting out dishes. As I looked up at the ceiling of my mother’s kitchen, I saw something small, black, and strange affixed to the ceiling. “Mom, what is THAT?!” We quickly came to the conclusion that it was a bat. Yes, you heard me. A cave dwelling, shouldn’t-ever-be-in-your-house bat! After appropriately freaking out, we called a man who traps “exotic” animals and releases them back into the “wild”. (Thankfully, we celebrate Thanksgiving on Fridays at my mom’s, so we were able to get a hold of this man!). Come to find out the bat likely came in through the chimney a few days prior.
Who knows what this Thanksgiving will bring? Perhaps a flying squirrel? I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for reading. Have a blessed Holiday!
Written by: Tamara Wilhelm MA, LMHC
*Tamara enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, & couples counseling at Imagine Hope. We also specialize in family counseling, child & adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Noblesville, Zionsville, Westfield & Fishers.
Tags: Thanksgiving
Posted in Family Issues, Lighten up | No Comments »
This week Imagine Hope is sharing our thoughts and memories about the Thanksgiving holiday season! Enjoy our stories as you create some of your own!
Teri’s Memory
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays! I like to look at it’s meaning by breaking the word apart into “Thanks” and “Giving”. I am all about gratitude in life. I think that focusing on what you are thankful for develops a positive attitude that can see hope in even the bleakest situations. But my memory is surrounded by the “Giving” part of this holiday. I was active in student government while in high school. Every year we would sponsor a food drive during the month of November that my high school, made up of about 700 students, would get involved in. During my time there, we really wanted to tap into people’s competitive spirits, so we created the “turkey trophy”. If I remember correctly my class might have won at least once. The home room who brought in the most won and got some sort of reward, like doughnuts or a pizza party. People went crazy over this. Classes were taking trips to discount stores and filled up their rooms with food. We would generally sponsor close to 20 families and take them each a turkey and 4 or so large boxes of food depending on how many people were in the home.
Being in student government each year of high school, I was given a pass to collect all the food, sort it into food groups, put together the packages for the families, and make the deliveries. This was one of my favorite days of the whole school year. We had a blast all morning organizing things, but the real joy came for me when I saw the look on the people’s faces when we knocked on their door. Many families were in utter shock that a group of high schoolers were knocking on their door with food. I went into many homes who had very little and some that I was shocked by what they called home. I left each home with joy in my heart that we could help someone out there have food for the holidays. But I also left with a thankful heart. I would go home to my nice, warm house and look in my full refrigerator. I had so much more than those families. This experience put so much in perspective for me. I saw that even though my life was far from perfect, I should be thankful for my blessings and not take them for granted. These experiences founded my desire to give back and passion to help people in need. I am grateful for all this memory taught me!
We wish you all a safe and enjoyable holiday! Keep reading this week for more!
Written by Teri Claassen MSW, LCSW
Teri Claassen MSW, LCSW is a licensed therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Teri enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, couples and relationship counseling. Teri also does family counseling, child counseling, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Zionsville, and Westfield.
Tags: Thanksgiving
Posted in Faith Based Living | No Comments »
Hopefully, you’ve had a chance to read our earlier blog posts from this week discussing some of the most common roadblocks to having a healthy sex life! Some additional roadblocks are:
Erectile Dysfunction- Erectile dysfunction can be an extremely frustrating issue for couple’s to face. It can cause embarrassment for both partners, which can also create difficulty in both partners openly discussing their feelings and solutions to the problem. Even with the increase in commercials for different medications that treat erectile dysfunction, there can be so much shame and embarrassment in taking the next step in talking to your doctor about what you are struggling with. Many times, men (and women, too!) feel like they should just be able to “push past it” or blame themselves for the issue and instead of talking about it, they retreat or withdraw from sexual activity to avoid the embarrassment. This can cause the woman to feel unattractive and devalued, which causes her to retreat and withdraw… When she withdraws, the man feels more ashamed of not being able to perform or satisfy her, so he withdraws even further. During this process, the man can develop a lot of negative self talk when sex is initiated. This may cause him feel a lot of internal pressure to develop or maintain an erection, which causes both stress and anxiety– and only exacerbates the issue. You can probably see the potential pattern here as a roadblock to having a healthy sex life! Erectile dysfunction is easily treatable in most circumstances, whether psychologically or medically, but only if you can be open enough to name and address the issue you are facing as a couple. Be open to bringing up the topic, but be gentle in your presentation. Addressing the issue as an issue of the couple, instead of “his” issue can help promote and foster a supportive and loving environment.
Infertility- Couples who struggle with infertility issues can face many different stresses that impact a healthy sex life. Sex may become focused exclusively on trying to get pregnant, which can put a damper on the feelings of intimacy and bonding in a couple’s sex life. Depending on the stages of infertility and possible infertility treatment, couples face rigorous schedules, medications and shots, as well as physical symptoms from the treatments that become both overwhelming and exhausting. Many times, couples face the loss of sexual attraction and/or desire, due to feeling objectified or feeling like sex has become “mechanical”. Also, depression is common among couple’s struggling with infertility, which can negatively impact sexual intimacy and desire. Finding out you aren’t pregnant and the “letdown” that happens each month can take it’s toll on both partners. Finding a good support system with other couples or individuals who have (or are) experiencing the same difficulties can help relieve some of the emotional pressure in the relationship, which can be renewing to the relationship. Make sure not to lose your relationship and connection with your partner in other areas of life that don’t include getting pregnant– if it does happen, you still need to have a healthy relationship! Maintaining your intimate connection outside of the bedroom can also have a very positive effect within the bedroom! Also, as difficult as it might be, try to incorporate sexual activity that isn’t focused on the goal of pregnancy. This can help to maintain the sexual passion and intimacy in the relationship and remove some of the pressure both people are probably feeling.
Poor communication about sex- Communicating about the important areas of a relationship is like making an investment in the health of the entire relationship. It’s just as important to be able to openly discuss the topic of sex as it is to discuss issues such as money and finances, child rearing, planning for the future, career issues and other “big life things”. If you can’t share your likes and dislikes regarding sex with your partner, you are more likely to feel unfulfilled and not enjoy sexual intimacy with him/her. Your partner can’t truly know what you like (or don’t like!), if you don’t tell them. Without this open dialogue, couples can fall into a pattern of avoiding or withdrawing from sex. Additionally, having sexual intimacy that you dislike (or feeling unfulfilled) can cause pent up frustration and resentment, which can impact other areas of the relationship. It’s important to take time to share the things that bring you sexual fulfillment and make you feel more connected to your partner.
It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is right around the corner! Next week, Imagine Hope counselors will be sharing our favorite Thanksgiving memories. As always, thank you for reading and we hope you will join us again next week!
Joleen Watson, MS, NCC, is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. She enjoys doing marriage counseling, relationship counseling, couples counseling, and individual counseling. Imagine Hope also specializes in family, child and adolescent counseling and serves Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Noblesville, Zionsville, Westfield, and Fishers.
Tags: erectile dysfunction, infertility, sexual intimacy
Posted in communication, Imagine Hope Counseling Group, Marriage, marriage counseling, Relationships | No Comments »
Isn’t it interesting to see the Roadblocks to a Healthy Sex Life? I think oftentimes it is easy to know we are struggling in our sex life but to not really know why. Hopefully this week is showing some things that might be hindering you and your partner from having the sexual relationship that it was intended to be. Here are more roadblocks:
Seeing sex as a duty
It can become very easy, especially as women, to see sex as a duty or another item to be checked off our list. This is usually because so many demands have been added to our plate over the past few decades and very little has been taken away. We are working, still running a household, raising children, and trying to have a healthy marriage. Unfortunately, because a woman’s body is wired differently than a man’s body, sex is usually not a priority for us. So it can be seen as a duty. Then it can become like most duties, where we hurry up to get it done to check it off the list to move on to the next thing. It is important if sex has become a duty for you, that you refocus what sex means to you. What kind of a connection can it create? What does it mean to your partner? How can you actually enjoy it and get into it? Don’t let it become a duty.
Sexual Abuse
Unfortunately, sexual abuse can give us distorted views of sex. If someone is molested as a child, they may not view sex as a loving, wonderful act. They may associate it with pain, control, disgust, or many other negative things. It is important to get help for this. Your thinking around sex can actually change but rarely will it happen without quality help and going thru the steps needed to heal yourself.
Mistaken view of sex
Many people were taught that sex is dirty, perverted, or “naughty”. Unfortunately, many well-meaning parents teach that sex is wrong outside of marriage but forget to teach how wonderful it can be in marriage! The message that is sent is that it is all bad. Many people have a hard time making that shift from sex being something they should have shame for into something loving and pure.
Many women were sent messages such as “good girls don’t”. But we aren’t sent the messages about when “good girls do”! Many men are taught that to think about sex and to want it means they are perverted. But they are not taught when it is appropriate to have those needs met and to not feel perverted.
It is important with any of these roadblocks, to remember how powerful your thinking can be. You can change your thinking to let down the roadblocks.
Tomorrow Joleen will share our last roadblocks. Thank you for your time this week.
*Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville.
Tags: mistaken views of sex, sex as a duty, sexual abuse
Posted in Relationships | No Comments »
Isn’t it interesting to see the Roadblocks to a Healthy Sex Life? I think oftentimes it is easy to know we are struggling in our sex life but to not really know why. Hopefully this week is showing some things that might be hindering you and your partner from having the sexual relationship that it was intended to be. Here are more roadblocks:
Seeing sex as a duty
It can become very easy, especially as women, to see sex as a duty or another item to be checked off our list. This is usually because so many demands have been added to our plate over the past few decades and very little has been taken away. We are working, still running a household, raising children, and trying to have a healthy marriage. Unfortunately, because a woman’s body is wired differently than a man’s body, sex is usually not a priority for us. So it can be seen as a duty. Then it can become like most duties, where we hurry up to get it done to check it off the list to move on to the next thing. It is important if sex has become a duty for you, that you refocus what sex means to you. What kind of a connection can it create? What does it mean to your partner? How can you actually enjoy it and get into it? Don’t let it become a duty.
Sexual Abuse
Unfortunately, sexual abuse can give us distorted views of sex. If someone is molested as a child, they may not view sex as a loving, wonderful act. They may associate it with pain, control, disgust, or many other negative things. It is important to get help for this. Your thinking around sex can actually change but rarely will it happen without quality help and going thru the steps needed to heal yourself.
Mistaken view of sex
Many people were taught that sex is dirty, perverted, or “naughty”. Unfortunately, many well-meaning parents teach that sex is wrong outside of marriage but forget to teach how wonderful it can be in marriage! The message that is sent is that it is all bad. Many people have a hard time making that shift from sex being something they should have shame for into something loving and pure.
Many women were sent messages such as “good girls don’t”. But we aren’t sent the messages about when “good girls do”! Many men are taught that to think about sex and to want it means they are perverted. But they are not taught when it is appropriate to have those needs met and to not feel perverted.
It is important with any of these roadblocks, to remember how powerful your thinking can be. You can change your thinking to let down the roadblocks.
Tomorrow Joleen will share our last roadblocks. Thank you for your time this week.
*Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville.
Tags: mistaken views of sex, sex as a duty, sexual abuse
Posted in Relationships | No Comments »
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Imagine Hope BlogosphereBlogs by Imagine Hope Counselors
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Teri Claassen's Blog
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Grief Counseling, Codependency, Marriage/Couples Counseling, Individual Counseling, Sexual Addiction, Group Counseling.
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Natalie Chandler's Blog
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Grief Counseling, Codependency, Marriage/Couples Counseling, Individual Counseling, Sexual Addiction, Group Counseling.
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Joleen Watson's Blog
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Grief Counseling, Codependency, Marriage/Couples Counseling, Individual Counseling, Sexual Addiction, Group Counseling.
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Tamara Wilhelm's Blog
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Grief Counseling, Codependency, Marriage/Couples Counseling, Individual Counseling, Sexual Addiction, Group Counseling.
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