Night and Day- Life by Design, LLC
Licensed Clinical Psychologist in Downtown Denver specializing in trauma, anxiety, burnout and loss of sleep.
Are you a current client looking for a little between-session connection? Or, are you searching for a therapist but don’t know how to make a choice without hearing what the person sounds like?
Are you working on your meditation or self-hypnosis skills but feel like you need some support? Maybe you have tried an app for meditation, but feel you want something more personal.
Read MoreDo you struggle with anxiety? Do you feel even more anxious if someone tells you to calm down? Do you find yourself so dialed into work that you don’t remember how to detach. Do you forget to take breaks? Do you think you wouldn’t be successful if you weren’t anxious? Think about that! So many people I work with are anxious and high performing. Unsurprisingly, many of these wonderful people have unwittingly given anxiety at least some portion of the credit for their success. It is true that some level of stress can drive ambition and performance and success (See Yerkes-Dodson Law). But, as with so many things, there is a point where the benefit of stress levels off and then performance takes a deep dive as the stress continues to climb.
Read MoreAre you a current client looking for a little between-session connection? Or, are you searching for a therapist but don’t know how to make a choice without hearing what the person sounds like?
Are you working on your meditation or self-hypnosis skills but feel like you need some support? Maybe you have tried an app for meditation, but feel it’s less personal than you would like.
If you are looking to boost your mindfulness practice, click below for 20-minute guided visualizations… all from the comfort of your home.
Read MoreDo you ever wonder what you are going to talk about in therapy? Is it difficult to imagine how you will benefit from talking? Do you question how therapy can help if your thoughts are jumbled up in your head? Do you hear yourself saying “what’s the point”? These are common questions I hear from people who are considering therapy or just starting out. Even therapy veterans have a day where they feel like they just don’t know where they are going to go with their session.
Read MoreDo you feel as if nothing is going your way? Is isolation and constant stress making it hard to see any of the good in life? Has the chronic fatigue of 2020 become the norm? Do you feel grateful for all that you have, but often forget what you have because of the strain and distraction of each day? In the season of Thanks do you find yourself wondering, “thankful for what?”
Read MoreAre you an anxious soul? Do you think that sometimes you are busy being upset about being upset? Do you find that you are overwhelmed with stress about something one day only to find that after rest and reflection you don’t know why you reacted so strongly?
Sometimes our creative minds elaborate to fill in parts of a situation that actually makes it harder to cope. The following is a simple, powerful exercise to identify and learn from thoughts that have developed a mind of their own (forgive the pun, please).
Read MoreDo you struggle to fall asleep, stay asleep, or wake up too early? Do you wake feeling non-refreshed? Are you considering therapy focused on treating your sleep? Do you keep reading about how to treat insomnia online and in books and wonder how therapy might be different than doing it on your own? Or, have you just begun treatment for your sleep with me and want a reminder of what we covered in session and where to go from here? Click below for a podcast review of the first stages of insomnia treatment, or keep reading for the podcast transcript below.
Read MoreAre you a current client looking for a little between-session connection? Or, are you searching for a therapist but don’t know how to make a choice without hearing what the person sounds like?
Are you working on your meditation or self-hypnosis skills but feel like you need some support? Maybe you have tried an app for meditation, but feel it’s less personal than you would like.
If you are looking to boost your mindfulness practice, sign in for 20-minute guided visualizations… all from the comfort of your home.
Read MoreDo you live in the Denver Metro area? Have you searched the internet or Psychology Today and become overwhelmed with how many people provide therapy? Did you search for a therapist near you and get a link to someone in a completely different area? Here are top five tips you can use to streamline your search.
Read MoreYou want to be better yesterday. But, what if you set your mind to reducing your burnout just as it came on—little by little, daily, and over time?
Read MoreDo you have insomnia? Have you been told you should get out of bed if you can’t sleep? Is that advice confusing? How are you supposed to get sleep if you’re out of bed? Excellent question…
Read MoreAre you struggling with your sleep and you don’t know where to start? Or, have you just been in to see me and wonder - what was that all about? Are you so worn out from poor sleep that you have a hard time finding the energy to treat your insomnia?
Read MoreDo you worry about your health and the health of your family? Is this worse in the midst of cold and flu season? Is it completely overwhelming when you think about how illness could impact a special event or plans for travel?
Read MoreSo you’ve just had your first therapy session. I hope you are feeling OK. Sometimes it feels good to express how you are feeling and sometimes it feels vulnerable. Is there anything you forgot to mention?
Read MoreThink about the messages you hear about yourself. They might be messages that you tell yourself and they might come from others. For one day, keep track of all of the messages that you receive from others and all of those you tell yourself.
For example…
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In the short-term, how did you feel before the session, and how do you feel after? Sometimes people feel a bit worse after a session because issues are brought to the surface. But, most of the time I’m told that there is a sense of immediate relief. Thoughts and emotions were already taking a toll. Therapy offers a time and a place to investigate issues weighing on you and to reflect on how to change in a way that makes the most sense for you.
In the long-term you might realize that you are thinking about things in different ways. People might start reflecting that you seem calmer, happier, or just different in some way. Another interesting result of therapy can be that you find yourself spending your time in more healthy ways. Symptoms such as anxiety or sadness might be experienced, but you might notice they are far less intense and occur less often.
How do you feel as therapy progresses?
If you had a problem with your gait…the way you walk. This might not be noticeable for a while. Then you might start having random foot pain—bad enough that you aren’t able to do the things you love. So, you see a few professionals. They confirm you are in need of “gait correction”. This does not come in the form of a pill or a surgery. It comes in the form of gradually, consistently working on learning a new way to walk. You work with a professional. You reprogram your brain to understand how the old way of walking was harmful and strengthen your muscles to support a new way of walking. No magic. Lots of work. You start to learn about your body in a new way. You start to feel how the old way has been harmful and gradually nudge your body into a new balance. This new balance seems out-of-balance by comparison. But, you are working with a professional for guidance and you have support. Your brain starts believe that the new gait is the correct gait and you walk this way so often it becomes easy.
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Imagine that your life is a Ferris wheel. Each cart or group of carts represents an element of life that is important and necessary to you. Take a breath and imagine each of the carts filling up with the time and energy you give them. Now, how do you balance your wheel so it keeps moving with ease? Do you have 10 carts next to each other, which are full of work? Then are the cars surrounding those work carts full of the stress from work? How does that wheel turn? Physically, the heaviest carts would drift to the bottom and it would take a great deal of energy to move them up and over the cycle of the wheel. So, how can you calibrate? Some people work best taking everything apart and putting it back together. But, full scale overhaul can be daunting. Another approach is to think about how you might move the heavy carts equidistant from each other and surround them with lighter carts (relaxation, time with friends/family/pets). How does that wheel turn? Does it take as much energy? Is each heavy cart a little less formidable when it is spaced between carts that represent recuperation? So take a moment, take a breath, and balance your wheel.
Fritz is the office mascot. He does not do therapy, but he is awfully therapeutic. Hypoallergenic and a mostly well-behaved 3 year-old schnoodle (maybe), he is literally the most interesting thing on this whole site. Seriously, more people care about where I got Fritz than where I got my doctorate.
Considering who to choose for therapy in Denver? Or, more interested in online counseling from the comfort of your home? Visit my CALENDAR to schedule a consultation at a time that works for you!
Denver Psychologist providing psychotherapy for people with trauma, anxiety, burnout or sleep problems.
50 S Steele St Ste 950, Denver Colorado 80209
