T.B. Pasquale

Posts Tagged ‘therapy’

“Opposition is a natural part of life. Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.”

STEPHEN R. COVEY

I am very happy with Bindu Wiles new post today over at her blog and her wave of creative zen she has been perpetuating with her 21.5.800 Challenge which has been (to my great joy) extended!  In the vein of extending I am trying a new plight to post daily.  That means 7 days a week.  Even if one day is lighter than the next I want to be able to be consistent in the mayhem of life with posts and with post themes.  I am, with this 7 day a week dedication, have decided to try out a new format which I have been mulling over for a few months-days of the week themes.  I am actually very excited.  It is both like the writing exercise of a writing prompt and a motivation and clarification of what is important to me to cover on this blog moving forward into the next 100 posts and beyond!  I would love to hear your feedback on the new formula.

I am very excited about this personal challenge as well as continuing with Bindu’s wonderful 21.5.800 Community of Challenging.  If you have an interest in joining go to her site to join in the fun (yoga, writing, and challenge, oh my): www.binduwiles.com . I will be beginning the 7 day format by the 4th of July weekend.

I would begin sooner but I am in the process of becoming an impromptu foster mama of another abandoned puppy (beagle baby we have named Gambit–like X-Men), quitting my job (last day is next week), dealing with some revisiting by my endometriosis and her pain (grr), and working on some fun projects…including fiddling with a new look and new features for this site!  So, please look for the new format beginning July 4th weekend and some interesting updates and posts coming up in the interrum…including a potential expose on Mr. Gambit with the cutest smile and quite the bounce in his leaps.

I have found that life has given me ample opportunity for facing challenges lately.  Some I have faced with grace, some with panic, some with anger, and some with great clarity.  I appreciate them all (often in retrospect) and I am glad to give myself space and room to stretch and grow.  In this blog and in my life.  What ways are you able to stretch and grow heading ahead in life and into your summer?  Sometimes we forget to challenge ourselves and often that is when we need it most and when life gives us unexpected presents in the form of life’s confrontations.  This has definitely been the last few months for me.  What will be next?

CHECK OUT THE NEW BLOG SITE FORMAT BELOW.

MONDAY: Trauma, Eating Disorders, & Addictions: A Clinical Vantage Point w/a Personal Bent on Surviving & Thriving

TUESDAY: Creative Expressions: Letting Art Inform Your World View (art, dance, writing, reading, music, etc.)

WEDNESDAY: Animals: Relationship, Metaphor, & Musings on the Furry World

THURSDAY: Yoga: Finding Ways to Embody Health in Life

FRIDAY : 10 Things: Life Perspectives in List Format

SATURDAY: Bliss & Rejuvenation: Self-Care, Reprieves, and Finding Room to Breathe

SUNDAY: Faith: Spirituality, Contemplation, & Ritual in A Healthy Life Sphere

**INTERVIEWS will be inserted in the place of daily content when new ones come to fruition.  I hope to have many more wonderful interviewees to come.**

“The secret to humor is surprise.”

Aristotle

I want to say a sincere thank you to everyone reading this blog and to everyone who has passed through the last, almost, year.  When I began this blog 100 posts ago last August I knew there were going to be seismic shifts in my life–newly married, relocating to Florida from NJ, and beginning new work in a new stage of life, state of the nation, and state of mind.  Much has happened that I expected but most that I never could have fortold.  Which is why, as I always tell my clients, don’t project or ruminate on what may be because, as I am continually learning, whatever our brains could imagine is nothing even close to the life we are given.  Day by day I am surprised, for better or worse, in lessons I wanted to learn and especially those I needed but never wanted, how much of life is surprises and how little works out how we choreograph it in our minds. 

At my 100th post, on the verge of a year “on the air”, virtually speaking, and with a plethora of surprises on my plate of life (good, bad, and really ugly) I marvel at life and am reminded that while Hollywood continues to churn out excellent fictions, the real stuff is the best script of all.  I am trying, difficult as it is with a work schedule that seems to bleed into nights and weekends (at least for now), to get back into my creative landscape and start seriously chipping away at the chapters of my book. 

I have many added rich layers of content especially following my recent visit with Shelley Rosenberg and Nancy Coyne in Arizona and I have still one more installment of my series of posts on my adventures with them–complete with boundary goat and all.  My book, as my life, has taken many surprising turns on this journey, morphing into something unexpected and new at every turn–although my once optomistic deadline of New Year’s 2011 for completion may have been a bit on the ridiculous side as I discover the layers and nuances in writing book-length prose. 

The chapters of my book, and the chapters of my life, reveal new material with every page, with every day and I am left thinking and quoting (as I have before) the punk rock song line, “All I know is that I don’t know.  All I know is that I don’t know nothing.”  My blog, as with everything right now in my life, is beginning a metamorphasis and a facelift of sorts.  I have branched off of wordpress.com and their free blog into an exciting and daunting self-run (eek) wordpress.org blog!  I am excited for what comes although bear with my learning curve on the nuances of a page run by these tech-savvy-less hands. 

I hope to explore so much more in the world of mental health, trauma healing, and mind, body, and spirit wellness in the next 100 posts.  Here is a quick teaser of a few of the fun things on the horizon!

• Interview with Margaret Burns Vap of Big Sky Yoga Retreats & Cowgirl Yoga!
• Interview with Elizabeth Plapinger, lawyer, Columbia School of Law professor, and co-creator of the Yoga for Mental Health & Wellness program at The Breathing Project in NYC!
• Interview with Michael Stone, co-founder of Center of Gravity Sangha, author, yogi, psychotherapist, and international lecturer on yoga, buddhism, and mental health!
• And my upcoming speaking and posts about the Florida NASW Conference (June 11th), Region 5 NARHA Conference (August), National NARHA Conference (November), and my upcoming E-Course at WISHSTUDIO on self-care!  Feel free to come and join for any of these events if you happen to be in Florida, Alabama, Denver, or the virtual world–respectively !

I am looking forward to seeing what the next 100 posts of my life will bring!  Thank you again for all those that are on this virtual journey or the newcomers joining in on the bandwagon of self-care, mental health and wellness, healing from traumatic experience, and dealing with issues of disconnect and finding reconnection in our lives, in our souls, and in our minds!

“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

Charles R Swindoll

Today I went to 6 a.m. morning meditation–yes, I went even though as of Sunday I am a Yoga Teacher NOT a trainee and it is NOT mandatory.  My yoga teacher discussed with great enthusiasm the manure that had been delivered in his driveway this week; leaving him plenty of rich and vitamin-dense poops (for lack of a better term) with which to create fertile soil and grow his garden to a lush jungle paradise.  It got me thinking about “crap” and growth.  Yes, I can find a metaphor anywhere!

This week has been one of the most professionally surreal and personally taxing week of my life in ways I could never have anticipated.  I thought, quite mistakenly, that the conclusion of yoga school would leave ample room to breathe, family time, and some reprieve before the next journey.  Apparently, God, the universe, and karma thought I needed a slap in the face and a real test of my dedication to my path towards complementary therapies, integrative mental health, and bringing education on the matter wherever I can.  I came to a professional crossroads of sorts.  I am having one of those life ultimatums that everyone would be propelled to say (and they have been saying), “Looks like someone is sending you a sign.”  Hmmm.

Everything happens for a reason?  I am still conflicted on this point, but there is something inside of me that tells me what everyone else has been, there is a decision I am being forced to make to follow what I believe in or let it die.   I am not willing to let it die.  So, I find myself on the precipice of a journey, jump started by life and circumstances, into something unknown, wonderful, and frightening.

With that I reveal the newest addition (upcoming) to my website which will be my “PRIVATE PRACTICE” section with all of the treatment modalities I focus on and the unique, creative, and eclectic approach to finding healing and wellness in issues of trauma and emotional distress in others.  I am launching my private practice this month and beginning to work towards what I know to be the path I was intended to be on.

So sometimes we walk out our door to find a pile o’ “crap” has been delivered at our doorstep and realize that much grows in manure–often richer and more lush than it would have in simple dirt.  Hence my metaphor-ing on the matter.  This week I was given some “crap” and found some inspiration for growth.

I have also been given a blessing far beyond anything I could have imagined.  In a moment of flux and uncertainty I found the beauty of being surrounded by caring, self-less souls, who are impassioned about my passion, supportive of my journey and believe strongly in this path I am on.  I have been rewarded with the riches of love beyond my imagining; in finding conflict I also found that in my brief time in Florida I have been given so many kindred spirits who are giving me their ears, their resources, their ideas, and their comfort–what more riches could anyone ask for.

So what began as a somewhat traumatic Monday morning has, with time and perspective, become a rich opportunity for growth in even the most stinky of piles.  As my yoga teacher stated when I told him of my turn of life events, “How lucky you are! What a blessing! God must really love you!”  I am going to try to continue on a path of enthusiasm and optimism and put everything I have into working towards bringing wellness–mind, body, and spirit–to as large a community of persons as possible!

CHECK OUT MY NEW PROFILE ON THE PSYCHOLOGY TODAY WEBSITE!

Om & Blessings!