DEBORAH COX BLOGS
No Judgment Here: 10 Things I Love about Group Fitness
No Judgment...but lots of Very Cool Surprises. Group fitness bears a huge resemblance to group therapy. Who knew? I did not. But doing group fitness at The Bodysmith has changed my life and now I can’t stop talking about it. It helps me recover more quickly...
Food=Love: Attachment Trauma & Eating Problems
Food, Love, and Attachment Trauma Eating is fraught with complications these days. I’m not a nutritionist, but I work with people who have food issues….People who binge and then feel ashamed and worthless, people who starve and then binge, and people who eat...
Maturity and Leadership to Change the World
Maturity = Self Awareness + Self Knowledge + the Courage to Engage. Watching recent TV news of the presidential race, I started thinking about maturity and how desperately we need leaders (governors, teachers, therapists, ministers, parents) who help us evolve toward...
Differentiate and Help your Parents Grow Up.
Depression and Stuckness Lately, my fifteen-year-old tells me I am too rigid and he no longer believes in anything I believe in. It makes me a little weepy to hear this, but it challenges me to let go of my pre-planned images of how he would grow up. If I tried too...
How Exercise, Story, and EMDR Heal Trauma
You have a story to tell (and it lives in your body.) As you know, I recommend writing as a way of healing. When we write story, we turn pain into beauty, even if we’re spinning complete fiction. Writing forces us to transform bits of disconnected ideas, pictures,...
Keep it Moving: Exercise for a Body/Mind Makeover
I have a dream coming true. It involves exercise, EMDR, and the blending of health and creativity. I’ll soon open an office downtown. In a Pilates studio. More details to come, but here's why I think it makes sense to do my EMDR therapy in a fitness studio, surrounded...
Investment in Healing: Why Pay for Therapy?
Hello, I think I need some therapy..... How much does it cost? When can I expect to feel better?....... Will I need therapy for a year? Three years?....... Why won't you take my insurance?............ Investment in my health????? We call in distress, needing help...
EMDR can help you Achieve: Be a better athlete, singer, or cowgirl.
We all want to achieve something. When I was eight, I wanted to be a cowgirl. This never happened, but if it had, I imagine EMDR would help me achieve my team roping goals and stay fit for the arena. EMDR therapy helps people recover from trauma, relationship stress,...
Managing the Mirrors: How to Stay Calm When the World is in Chaos
People ask me, “How do you do what you do and stay calm? How do you not go crazy with all the stories you absorb from people who are hurting?” I say, “Sometimes I do go crazy.” I’m not immune to people’s stress and it can make me crazy tired…..Which is why I...
How to Know when it’s Time to Say Goodbye
I have trouble letting go. Mostly when it comes to saying goodbye to unbalanced relationships. You know, the kind where you feel you should be helpful but no amount of help seems to make a difference? So here are some thoughts about change and letting go of what no...
Hands are Not for Hitting: Let’s End Corporal Punishment
Hands are Not for Hitting (and not for Shoving, Slapping, Swatting, Pinching, Jerking, or "Spanking"). We read this book to my son when he was three. Hands help and love and wave goodbye. Hands paint and cook and communicate. But some adults still use their hands for...
I Must be a Bad Person: Recovering from Religious Abuse
Something tells me I'm a very bad person. Under the bridge.....beneath, “It’s my fault,” lives a more troubling idea...It hides in us like a troll under a bridge. Anyone who's survived religious abuse knows the old thought-training dies hard. Jim teaches art to...
What is Dissociation? Part 2: Me, Not Paying Attention
Yesterday, frost covered my car as I rushed out to go to my wonderful cardio boxing class. My mind overflowed with dilemmas to be settled at work AND all sorts of exciting connections lit me up because of deep family conversations I’d had the night before. I talked...
It Must be My Fault
“It Must be My Fault” Beth gets the guilt like a reflex if anything goes wrong…..Especially if it involves her partner or her kids. “If Stuart’s in a bad mood, I assume it has something to do with me.” She feels responsible for her divorce. “If I had been calmer and...
I’m Thankful for You.
Every time I see you, I say a little prayer of thanks that you’re in my life. You help me more than you know. I’m thankful….. …..for the new ideas you bring to me. …..for your smiling eyes that greet me even though your heart is full of pain. …..for your honesty that...
What’s an emotional boundary and where can I get one?
Therapists talk a lot about boundaries, but we don’t often stop to define them. So this week, as I catch more than my usual number of despairing text messages (maybe it’s the weather?), I need to give myself a refresher course. Hopefully you’ll get something out of...
On Being Completely Overwhelmed: Let’s tackle this together.
Too Much, Everything. Please, Make it Stop. I get this way when I’m overwhelmed. When my calendar gets so tight I can’t find room for lunch with a friend, something has to give.
What’s Your Spiritual Story? (And why it matters to your life.)
I purged my childhood belief system and started over. I ran to psychology. It explained everything, including all those simple minds who still drank the Kool-Aid. Near the end of the purging process, I said to a wise friend, “I am an atheist.” He just smiled. My...
How can I tell if my relationship is abusive…And what to do about it?
Is my relationship abusive? We all behave badly at times. We all stumble into feelings of frantic need or despair. We all say things we totally regret later: we yell, we drop F-bombs, turn our backs, and give the silent treatment. And we usually feel terrible when the...
How to Deal with Dissociation
Dissociation takes us out of the moment. Yesterday, I stood in the MSU music building while my son warmed up for a violin performance. All around me, young pianists and violinists practiced their Chopin, their Mozart, in separate cubicles, getting ready to play for a...
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