get unstuck
Lifestyle
Medicine
We all get stuck in patterns when it comes to our health - patterns around sleeping, what we put into our bodies, how we eat, social connection, movement, social media use, and stress management. And if one of these areas is out of balance, it’s likely the others will be as well.
Thanks to the internet and social media, we are constantly bombarded with endless contradictory messages on how to care for our bodies and what it means to be healthy.
Sometimes the list of things we think we should be doing gets so long we freeze.
All patterns, including health or lifestyle patterns, involve repeating cycles of thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and behaviors. Often we get so tangled up in all these moving parts, we lose the ability to see the whole situation clearly.
Here’s where I can help.
I can help you develop the capacity to clearly see the whole situation and from this place of clarity, create a vision for moving forward on a path towards changing lifestyle patterns to promote whole-person health and well-being. In my work, I bring together various psychological theories of human change with an integrative, holistic health approach. I am not a medical practicioner who will tell you what to do. I am here to walk alongside your health journey, help you make sense of it all, and support you in making changes at your own pace.
I am also trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) an effective, and side-effect free treatment for chronic insomnia and sleep difficulties.
How to change health and lifestyle patterns? I start here:
Change begins with understanding the Why?
This health pattern has a function. Why is it here? How did it develop? What purpose does it serve? Even though this problematic health pattern may feel frustrating, I work from the belief that this pattern initally developed in order to achieve some helpful goal in your life, (even if it has never been effective at achieving that goal). I value curiosity over the judgement and harshness we usually see when it comes to reaching short-term health goals or diet yo-yoing.
We are made up of many interconnected parts. This health pattern you wish to change is only one part out of many that make up you. Different parts of you may feel differently about this health pattern. It is important to understand the whole picture and how all the different parts fit together.
What we see on the surface is only a little part of the story. There is likely a lot more going on underneath the behavior or pattern you’re trying to change. For example, say you have a very tenacious pattern around sleep or eating; that is just the tip of the iceberg with a lot more going on underneath.
I seek to understand the roots of the pattern as opposed to only trying to fix to the leaves or branches of the problem (a.k.a the easily visible, superficial signs, of a larger, deeper problem, we see on the surface). Focusing on the leaves or branches of the problem does not address the underlying cause of the problem and thus does not enable long-term change.
