Maplewood Counseling

Attitude is Everything

Anxiety, Depression, Grief, Relationships

Changing Your Attitude

How it Can Change Your Life
Get in Touch

Attitude is Everything in Helping You Cope with Life

Are you a glass half empty or half full person? Working on your improving your attitude can help reduce the suffering you experience.

Is this you?

  • You’re feeling defeated and ashamed of a a failed relationship. divorce or breakup
  • You’re very sad about getting older and feel like your life is behind you
  • You feel like a failure in love and struggle with grief over being alone again
  • You or a family member is facing difficult health issues
  • You’re the care giver for a family member who is seriously or chronically ill
  • You did not get into the college you wanted
  • You did not get the promotion or recognition you feel you deserved
  • You got fired or were lost your job

 

Working with Your Attitude About Failure

Novelist Samuel Beckett ‘s famous quote  “Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better” is the topic of many lectures, talks and most recently this I listened to this book by Pema Chodron, which I recommend if you’re looking for help trying to change your negative thoughts and attitude about your situation.

Reducing the Negative and Increasing the Positive

Reducing the Negative and Increasing the Positive

Becoming more aware and conscious of your negative thinking and thoughts and replacing those thoughts with more positive can help you start working on changing your attitude. I often listen to this Sounds True free video “Advice for Difficult Times: A Short Film of Teachings from the Heart” . This short film has offerings from different spiritual teachers about how to get through difficult times. In one section it talks about reducing the negative and increasing the positive with the analogy of pulling weeds and planting flowers, among many other helpful ways to cope with difficult times.

What connects us all as human beings is the suffering we experience at times. What we can do is slowly, over time, when dealing with these challenging experiences is be with what’s there and learn how to reduce the negative and increase the positive. Attitude is everything and training to embrace and allow the experience you are having and working on the attitude about those experiences can make a huge difference in the amount of suffering you experience.

Need help changing your attitude?

Get in Touch with Maplewood Counseling in NJ

Relationship or Marriage Problems?

Gay Issues, Relationships, Therapist

Marriage Problems?

Not Sure What to Do?

Contact Maplewoood Counseling

Ongoing Marriage Problems Causing Stress?

Are you and your spouse or partner struggling in your relationship? Have you tried unsuccessfully to fix things on your own? Are there certain recurring problems that never seem to get resolved?

Is this you?

  • You or your spouse had an affair and you cannot seem to repair the damage the cheating cause to your relationship
  • You and your spouse or partner have an ongoing pattern of not responding to one another emotionally
  • Anger and disappointment is getting in the way of you and your your spouse or partner feel like you matter to one another
  • You feeling alone most of the time and it feels like like your spouse is not there for you in very important ways
  • You feel like you can’t count on your partner or spouse to be there when you really need him or her

 

If you’ve been struggling for a long time in your marriage or relationship, things can go to a very painful and lonely place for both people. Walls go up and fights get more escalated. Or both or one of you ends up withdrawing because you don’t know what else to do. You are feeling stuck.

When it comes to the most successful and loving relationships, partners respond to one another emotionally. Some people know how to respond emotionally, but don’t want to because of angry or hurt feelings. Others need help understanding how to and why it is important to respond to your spouse or partner.

Get Help with Marriage Problems

Need marital or family therapy in Essex County, NJ? Call Maplewood Counseling at 973-793-1000 or email for help with marriage problems now and let us know how we can help you.

Resist or Yield to Painful Experiences

Resist or Yield to Painful Experiences

Anxiety, Depression, Gay Issues, Grief, Relationships, Therapist

Coping with Painful Experiences

How to Manage

Do you Resist or Yield to Painful Experiences?

We all go through difficult experiences in our lives that can cause deep and intense physical or mental pain. Some struggle with the tragic death of a loved one, others a serious, chronic or terminal illness.  Then there are people that struggle with a child, spouse or parent struggling with issues, a very painful divorce or another catastrophic life event.

When things are so intense and painful that it makes sense (at least temporarily) to run from, resist and fight the reality of the situation. Even though nothing is permanent, it feels as though things will never change. It seems you’ll be stuck in this painful place forever when you are going through it. “This shouldn’t be happening”, blaming others or ourselves for where we are at. Many can feel stuck in anger, resentment, and bitterness, wanting to find ways to escape the painful experience. Running from the extreme discomfort can ultimately make us all suffer even more, turning damaging behaviors to avoid the painful reality of our situation.

“Not getting what you want, getting what you don’t want” quote from Pema Chodron in Coming Closer to Ourselves

We all have to face events like these at one time or another in our lives. It is a part of life and what it is to be human. Even therapists have to cope with tragedies, serious health issues, struggling family members and other painful life events. We all, unfortunately, suffer more when we run from the pain rather than finding ways to accept, allow and work with the emotions that come up. Accepting and allowing our experience can help us attain more wisdom and a deeper sense of compassion for one another.

It takes a tremendous amount of bravery to be open to and allow the experience, and accepting and working what is and trying not to make things worse.  Going through a catastrophic event that seems insurmountable?

It has been a tremendous help to me personally and professionally to read and listen to the following books and teachings of The New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle, When Pain is the Doorway by Pema Chodron,  Full Catastrophy Living by John Kabat-Zin, Wherever You Go You are There by John Kabat-Zin and a recent Facebook course on UDemy Freedom to Choose Something Different with Pem Chodron, Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better by Pema Chodron, Walking the Walk by Pema Chodron as well as other books.

These videos may be helpful to some…

“Not getting what you want, getting what you don’t want” quote from Pema Chodron in Coming Closer to Ourselves| Super Soul Sunday | Oprah Winfrey Network

 

We hope you find this information helpful.

 

Letting Go of Anger and Resentment?

Relationships

Help with Anger and Resentment

NJ Family and Couples Therapy

Contact Maplewoood Counseling

Need help with Anger and Resentment?

Aer you struggling with intense anger and resentment? Is this you?

  • You’re angry at your spouse for hurting you and you just don’t know how to let it go
  • You resent a family member because they’ve done or do things that really upset you
  • You have so many angry feelings, you can feel how it negatively affects your health
  • You can tell how bad hanging on to these emotions hurts you, but you don’t know what to do

We all experience difficult times in our lives that can bring up very harmful and negative emotions.  Sometimes there are so many triggers that cause certain reactions and it is very difficult to control your response. Someone it feels like focusing your anger and resentment is helping you – like some kind of outlet or release. You think the anger is warranted because the other person has done something “wrong” or to annoy or bother you. And in some cases, the other person should know they are hurting you or know what they are doing is causing you pain, but they actually may not.

Where we all see it most often is with a break up or divorce.  The intensity of angry, bitter and hostile emotions causes people to do a great deal of harm to others and themselves. Hanging on to the anger and resentment is hurting everyone. Most people want to hurt their exes because they feel betrayed, abandoned, sad, disappointed and/or shocked. But what most people don’t realize is how that negativity really hurts their own physical and mental well-being.

I’ve seen (and maybe you have as well) many people who have gone through a painful divorce and have fought bitterly ever step of the way to get back at an ex. Hanging on to the negative feelings for years and years.

I have also seen many of these exes come to peace over the years and let go of the anger and resentment. They have come to an understanding, and their siutations in more accepting ways, leading to more compassion and less anger and resentment.

Do you need help understanding how to let go of your anger and resentment? See how acceptance and forgiveness can really benefit your life and the lives of those around you.