

Untherapy – Compassionate Conversation and Holistic Treatment for Emotional Wounds






















Many blessings for peace and happiness,


addiction, alcoholic, anxiety, chronic pain, depression, fibromayalgia, health, holistic, insomnia, mental health, mental illness, psychology, relationships, self-help

The Importance of Balance in our Lives

If any of you are old enough to remember The Karate Kid movie, you may remember that the teacher always was telling the Karate Kid about balance.

This was not just balance on his feet or in his body. This was about balance of life. The karate kid was practicing constantly and was giving up everything else in a major effort to train his body and his mind for the contest that was upcoming.

The teacher found a picture that the karate kid had. That was a picture of the beautiful teenage girl that had a crush on the karate kid. She wanted attention from him but he was too focused on his training to even realize this.

The teacher showed the picture to the karate kid. He told him “Balance, You need the balance”

It  is very typical for a lot of us to lose the balance in life. I think that some people naturally maintain a basic level of balance easier than others.

Some people that are able to maintain the balance have pretty predictable lives, without a lot of variation. That is not necessarily the best thing either. It  really depends on your personality.

Certain people have a particularly difficult time maintaining balance in their lives. People with chronic pain , like myself, have a hard time with balance.

I am thinking of this example because I have such a high level of pain in my neck and spine today that I have already repositioned myself and my laptop 3 times during this post.

There is extreme pain in my neck, radiating up into my head and down my arms. My fingers and hands are going numb because the nerve is so severely pinched by the herniated disc in my cervical spine today.

So this is a high end bad pain morning. If I stretch it could help. The feeling of disappointment and feeling disheartened by the level of pain today is overpowering.

People that have chronic pain have trouble maintaining balance because the pain takes over their thoughts.

Anything that dominates your mind on a regular basis will tend  to dominate your life.

When there is something that dominates your thoughts, the other things in your life get pushed aside.

Recovering alcoholics are more aware of the importance and value of the “little” things in life than a lot of people are.

They have learned the lesson that some people never ever learn.  Life must be balanced.  When something gets 90 percent of your time and attention then something else is being neglected.

Workaholics will get so dominated by work that they neglect their loved ones. Shopaholics will become so obsessed with buying that they neglect balancing their finances.

People with mental illness will become so overwhelmed by intrusive thoughts that they will neglect the needs of their bodies and minds.

When our work lives become neglected, we will lose self esteem about our jobs and our ability to make a living.

If we neglect everything else but work, we will lose our emotional support system of family and friends.

No matter what is taking the majority of our attention, we are sacrificing some other aspect of our needs.

Everyone has certain areas of their lives that need attention. There is the work or whatever is generating income.  A frequently neglected area these days is physical health. Mental health is affected by physical health and visa versa.

You also need something that you enjoy outside of work and family. Something that helps your self esteem, like yoga, art, golf, gaming, writing , singing or some other activity.

We humans are built to have various aspects to our lives. We need to work for shelter but we also need to love and be loved.

We need to be healthy and we need self-esteem. We need spirituality of some kind to give us direction and hope.

Balance is a constant juggling activity. The balance is bound to get off, sooner or later. If we are in tune with it then we will notice. When we notice something is being neglected we can take measures to rebalance things.

So just be aware. If you feel overwhelmed by life then it could be that tipping the scales a bit will help. Sometimes simply adding in some time to meditate, go out to lunch with a friend, or do a fifteen minute stretch in the mornings will help.

Other times we have a huge balance problem such as an addiction or a severe mental health issue. One of the ways to help ourselves is to make very small changes that are tolerable. Just make a small change such as stopping to eat breakfast at a diner once a week.

Take care of yourself and take care of your relationships.  Pray for balance in our lives. Write down your areas of life.

What hats do you wear?   Teacher, Mom, Dad, brother, boss, student, artist, team mate, co-worker, fishing buddy, blogger.

Think of them in a pie pictograph, like a pizza with slices. Put one important area of your life in each slice.

Which is the smallest slice? That is the one to work on.

Is one slice taking over the pie and squeezing the others out? That is your area of dominating thoughts, addiction or obsession.

Peace and love and balance to all of you,




Accepting Yourself Thich Nhat Hanh Quote



They limit our potential.
They limit our possibilities.



anxiety, depression, health, holistic, insomnia, mental disorders, mental health, ocd

Living with Insomnia / The Strange World of the Night

Insomnia probably sounds like a minor problem to those who do not suffer from it. But for those of us who do, it is like a huge , unclimbable mountain to get over.

People suffer from insomnia for many reasons. Each insomniac could tell you a different story but in the end we all suffer from our sleep being less than normal.

The origin of our insomnia may be different but we all end up having to compete with people during the day that have slept a normal sleep cycle the night before. We feel less than normal and somewhat disabled compared to other people.

We insomniacs usually do not reveal our problem to most people due to the fact that they would not understand. What’s worse, they offer lots of junk help.

By “junk help” I mean unsolicited advise and suggestions that don’t help and make us feel worse. They say “just take a sleeping pill”, “go see your doctor”, “try a cup of nice tea before bed”, “play some soft relaxing music”, “take a bath” or my all time favorite “just try to RELAX at bedtime”.

If there is nothing else insomniacs have in common it is the lack of being able to follow the advice “Just RELAX and stop worrying and you will fall right asleep.”

Holy crap, don’t you think we’ve tried that?

So you try hard to be polite and say, “ok, I’ll try some tea and I will relax and I’m sure that will fix it.”


My mind races so fast at night , there is no way to slow it down. Tea tastes great but does not relax me. Besides I usually find that it is way too much effort to make a cup of tea. As far as the bath idea goes, I do usually take a shower at night. But the reason for that is that I know I will oversleep in the morning and barely have time to get out the door to work on time.

It becomes a horrible cycle that snowballs out of control. On my usual insomniac schedule , I fall asleep around 3am.

When I have extra anxiety in my “daytime life” then 3am turns into 4 or 5am. When there is extreme anxiety in my life then I am awake until 6am or worse, for weeks at a time. Once it sets into that cycle , then I would give anything to go to sleep “early” again, meaning 3am.

Then I wake up late and have to rush. I feel guilty that I overslept and am determined that I will go to sleep on time in the future. I feel like there is something wrong with me. I tend to feel this way when I wake up.

At night I feel ok and I sometimes just accept my insomnia and “go with it.”
But tomorrow morning I will some amount of shame that I can’t get it together like other people.

It feels like the chemistry in my brain is very different at night than in the morning
( meaning noon or later) when I wake up.

I am tired when I first get home from work at 11 pm. Then over the next hour , something happens to my brain and I suddenly am wide awake. Then I am afraid to wait until the morning to get things done, because I am always too sluggish in the morning.

My brain is not fully functioning when i wake up. So I feel as though I have to get things done right now, in the middle of the night, while I have the chance.

If I don’t take the trash out, do the dishes and make a you-tube video right now, I will miss my chance.

I become so anxious that the important things won’t get done that I start doing them, and doing them and doing them.

I decide that tonight I will have a cut off time of 2am before I sleep. But one thing turns into one more thing and just five more minutes… Suddenly it is 4:30 am and I have no idea how it happened.

I have tried to control it. It is easier said than done.

I truly believe that my brain and my body work their best between 12pm and 3am. I am afraid to miss that time zone because I fear what in world would happen if I only did things when I am barely functional.

I feel most productive when the household and the neighborhood is asleep.
It may be to the point of a phobia of going to sleep too early.

My OCD will kick in around 12:30 or 1:00 am and I will feel a compulsion to get things done in my house and things related to my work and my future.

I think about what it would be like to get up early and get stuff done. But when I think of it, I have this fear of the morning. I can’t explain it but I just don’t want to get up and be busy, especially out of the house and dealing with bright eyed , bushy – tailed people. YUCK!

Who are they? I can’t relate to them at all.
I like to go grocery shopping at 2am because it is not crowded and I feel less stressed by the other people in the store.

I wonder if the majority of insomniacs are introverted like me. Sometimes I feel like I just don’t want to be around people all the time. I can have solitude and peace at night , in a way. Only my own brain gets in the way of my peace.

I am also afraid of the morning because I have this fear that I will use myself up too soon. Then what will happen near the end of my work shift? How will I keep going if i am so tired and still have to work until 11pm.

Anyway, it is 1:15 am now. This is about when I will take my shower and then attempt to go to sleep by 3am. That would be an improvement over how bad it has been lately.I will try to resist starting a load of laundry although I put it in the bags, ready to go, just before I started this blog.

I always feel behind and that I am not keeping up. Maybe writing this blog at night will help to calm me so that I can sleep earlier. We will see what we will see.

I am interested in what other people do in the middle of the night when they can’t sleep. Feel free to leave that in the comments below.

Good night,

anxiety, depression, empowerment, holistic, mental disorders, mental health, psychology, suicude

Mental Health Issues vs. Physical Disease / It’s not ” All in your Head”

“There is NOTHING wrong with her! She is JUST depressed. ”

“There is absolutely nothing physically wrong with her. It is just psychological.”

Have you heard this? I have heard a nurse actually talk about a patient this way. I have heard people tell me their therapist told them that their anxiety issues were only “emotional” and not biological.

First of all, depression is a real condition and if someone is clinically depressed , it is not true that “nothing wrong with them.” Depression is as painful and as much of a threat to someone’s health and their life as any “biological” illness”

Second of all, there is no such thing as any disorder or disease being only “emotional” or only “biological.” The mind is part of the body. A very important part , I might add.

Every function in the entire body is regulated in some way by the brain. Emotions are also a function of what is happening in the brain.

Changes in the brain affect emotions, and changes in emotions affect the brain.

When a person has a physical disease or disorder, there is an emotional reaction to it. Furthermore, a person’s emotions relating to their illness, have a direct correlation as to whether or not they overcome the illness and how fast they get better.

I have cared for stroke patients with similar levels of a stroke. The ones that had positive feelings about physical therapy got better. The patients that felt angry or depressed did progress nearly as well in physical therapy.

An emotional disorder has a direct affect on a person’s brain and biology. A person that starts to have depression and/or anxiety develops patterns of feeling certain emotions in response to specific stimuli. These repetitive patterns create actual connections in the brain.

Any habits or behaviors become connections in the brain. Once connected the brain regulates the fact that anxiety or depression is triggered by certain stimuli. So, when someone says, “there is nothing wrong with them. It is just psychological,” it doesn’t ring true.

Once patterns are set into the brain that cause mental suffering, it becomes a biological disorder. People with depression, anxiety, OCD and other mental suffering have as much of a right to be recognized as people with typical physical illnesses.

Tendency of people to discount mental suffering as “it’s all in their head” is very hurtful and dangerous to the people suffering from “emotional” problems. Truthfully it is, in fact “in their head” meaning that it is in their brain.

If this blog does not do anything else, my intention is that anyone suffering from depression and anxiety will feel validated. The condition is real. It is worthy of being treated as real. You have a right to be sick just as much as someone with a physical disease has the right to be sick.

It is unfair that people with anxiety and depression must suffer in silence. It is not an acceptable excuse to call out of work. It is not an acceptable excuse to cancel an appointment.

When someone has severe anxiety about doing something that they know will be a trigger , they should be able to ask for help and have someone do it for them or help them. It should be the same as someone with a broken leg asking for help to get into a car.

Doing the things that trigger the brain to cause painful, disabling emotion are frightening and dangerous. A person should be able to ask for help.

It feels like an invisible disease to the people who have it. They have to do things that will make it worse. The reason for that is because people’s families, friends, bosses, teachers and even nurses and doctors do not understand mental illness.

If you are suffering in silence, please know that you are not crazy. You are not alone. Your condition is painful and sometimes terrifying. It is not your fault. It is not something you made up to get attention or to get out of things.

You know when things are painful or too much for you. There are many of us with the same fears and disabling difficulties at doing the simple things that most people take for granite. We can support and validate each other. You are not alone.

Thank you,
I hope this helps someone,


Doing Nothing



















I believe in each and every one of you.

Take a step outside the box.
Take a walk outside the lines.





My prayers are with you.

Save yourselves.







