Christmas and the holidays are cause for amazing celebration and contemplation as we look back on the year we're leaving and ahead to the one we're greeting.

I know you're in the middle of yet another transition; one where things are in limbo, uncertain, new, undefined and unfamiliar. It's disconcerting as you walk this thin, even swerving line between the old "normal", the in-between of now, and the new "normal" yet to be established. This is part of every trauma (and this IS trauma in case you're doubting it) and this chronic uncertainty wears on your mind -- your thoughts, mindset, and your brain.

You've been on my mind so much this surreal season in our lives. It's unprecedented, unexpected and unwanted. However, it can also be unmatched if we learn to see the gifts with in it. They're the only things that we can't be quarantined from. I hope this helps you feel reconnected to the truth that we can (and will) overcome this together because no disaster can overcome a community united together in our fight against it.

This is undoubtedly a stressful time for everyone in very unique ways. When even buying toilet paper and the most basic things in life requires a strategy or lengthy internet search, we know we’re in a time of great concern that necessitates being ready for a multitude of possibilities: Hearts race, blood pressure rises, everyone has a slightly wider gaze in their eye, all the while trying to pretend to go through a "normal" day when the truth is that it's anything but normal.

Trauma is one of those words that should've had four letters because it's often so taboo or misunderstood that it's avoided or just not mentioned, especially as something that happens to us. But with an estimated 70%+ of us being affected by it, it's time to break the silence around this topic that's impacting our lives, our relationships and our culture.

Weekly conversations to build and grow your counseling private practice…

There’s a running dialogue in your head that’s a kind of “white noise” undercurrent accompanying you as you fly from meeting to meeting, text to text, conversation to conversation. Not in the sense of “hearing voices”, of course…at least not voices other than your own and those of people/experiences of your past.

Have you ever heard someone say that had reached their max when it came to love in their life? Have YOU ever felt so full of love that you couldn’t take any more? “I have enough love in my life already, thanks. I don’t need any more”…said no one EVER.

It’s that time of year again when so many of us are in the midst of trying to achieve our New Year’s resolutions. Perhaps on day 22 of 2017, though, you’re exactly where you said you didn’t want to be already — sliding on the slipperiness of New Year’s resolutions that felt so possible in the intoxicating haze of goals set amidst holiday euphoria.

I am a pretty private person. I was raised in a home that was more English than exhibitionist, more dignified discretion of Downton Abbey than clandestine candor of the Kardashians. Yet I’ve been reminded that being real allows relatability and that even though I may suffer from the “impostor syndrome” at times, it’s in the very revealing of that fact, that I allow you to hear me, to know my heart and know that I’m real, authentic, and very much a work in progress.

Deck the halls with boughs of… obligations invitations, expectations, solicitations, requests for donations, writing salutations…even graduations galore! It’s supposed to the most wonderful time of year, and yet it’s often the most wonder-LESS, stress-FULL and overwhelming time of year and leaves us with nothing else on our own Christmas or holiday list other than the wish for it all to end (or at least an emergency “eject” button that will catapult us into a blissful, secluded sleep from which we would awaken with it all a bad dream).

No matter how you feel about the results of the election, this week has been fraught with painful “conversations” in the worst forms — protests, hate spewing, anguish, gloating, bullying.

With whom do you cast your belief, your faith, your “bet”, your trust? Who gets your vote in this election we face every day, sometimes every minute? In the barrage of ads and comments and opinions and “right answers”, how do you decide on which side of the aisle you’re going to sit?

Certain events in life tend to wake us up out of the coma-like stupor in which many of go through the busyness of our daily grind. These events are the kind which jolt us – sometimes pleasantly and sometimes decidedly not so pleasantly.

Connection. We hunger for it, crave it, get energy from it, build our schedules and lives around it, and with good reason.

How many of us have one thing in our lives that is left unsolved, a need unmet, a search unrealized? Just one thing that is lingering out there on our “to do” or “goals” lists that we just can’t get to happen no matter how hard we try, and the bruise on our foreheads feels black and blue from endless pounding against the wall of this THING that won’t seem to budge!

The first year in private practice for Amy Van Slambrook was a slammin’ success thanks to her running a low-cost weekend retreat through her church.

I’ve found that often in life when God is trying to tell us something or we have something to learn, that we are inundated with messages focused on that theme from EVERYwhere. Do you?

Tis the season for bathing suits, long beach days and doing things in general that bring out the inner child in all of us. We play more, laze more, lighten up, brighten up and even seem to show more, especially more of our…skin.