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Chris Thayer
Balancing College Life Successfully

College life is a pivotal time for academic exploration, personal growth, and making friends, and it can also be an exciting experience. However, many students find themselves overwhelmed as they try to balance academics and their social lives. In this blog post, we'll explore ways to help you maintain this balance, making your college years rewarding and enjoyable.

Balancing College Life Successfully

anxiety

Drifting in Traffic: How To Stay Grounded In The Midst of Chaos

Drifting in Traffic: How To Stay Grounded In The Midst of Chaos

I find myself driving to work, sitting in traffic, my mind swirling with non-stop thoughts. This happens often when I am sitting in the car alone, or heading to work. I have a barrage of thoughts on my mind. To be honest, it's more of a to-do list for the day, week, or month. Is this overwhelming? Or is this normal? Either way, it can be exhausting.

I do find it interesting that we have the capacity to zone out of one event that can cause anxiety and angst but allow our minds to dive into the stress elsewhere. For example, while we have the ability to tune out the stress of traffic, our minds have the ability to spiral out of control with other worries.  It can be challenging to stay rooted and centered in such moments.

What Is Anxiety?

What Is Anxiety?

If you are reading this blog post, you have most likely been experiencing symptoms for many years. The national average for a person to reach out for help from the time they first noticed symptoms is eleven years (nami.org). Reaching out for help can be difficult. The idea of sharing personal fears with a counselor can feel uncomfortable, which is why people wait so long to reach out for help. However, a good counselor understands the value of building a strong relationship with their clients in which they will feel comfortable sharing. When seeking help from a competent professional, one can expect to receive genuine care and understanding while being helped to build the necessary tools needed to reduce anxiety.

Emotional and Spiritual Well-being During COVID-19

Emotional and Spiritual Well-being During COVID-19

A lot is going on right now with the COVID-19, and it seems like it is creating a lot of anxiety and worry in regards to health, finances, relationships, etc. Is it really creating anxiety or just revealing what already exists beneath the surface? We can often arrange our lives in a way to cover up our fears, and we are addicted to control. As a part of my counseling training, I was required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and Al-Anon meetings. I found it interesting in the meetings that the family members of alcoholics typically liked the alcoholic in their life better when they were drinking. Why? The real person is revealed when they don’t have the alcohol to cover up whatever they’re using alcohol to cope for. We use control to cover a lot of what we are dealing with and pretend everything is ok.

Catching Z's

Catching Z's

Although I’m no longer in school, when the kids go back in August, I like to think that I’m about to start a brand new year too. I’m a big fan of summertime fun, but there is something to be said about new routines, more set schedules, and back to business attitudes that come with the start of a new school year. When I was younger, I remember my mom used to make my brother and I practice having an earlier bedtime about a week or so before school started. Rob and I always found this to be a bummer, because it was our last week of freeeedom, and we wanted to soak up all the playtime we could get. But alas, mom always knows best. If we did not prioritize a good bedtime beforehand, that first week back definitely felt like a drag.

My Story

My Story

I often get asked “what caused you to want to be a counselor?” or “why addictions?” Often in this field one has either “been through the ringer themselves” or has personally experienced seeing someone they love struggle.  This is my story:

The day I met Kyle (Dec 16,2007) forever changed my life. We met at a bar, shocker! His roommate was the first to approach me and his arrogance immediately turned me off. He must have noticed he was losing my attention because immediately he stated “did you meet my roommates?”. That was when I met Kyle.

Dealing with Anxiety

Dealing with Anxiety

Breathe in… Breathe out… Breathe in… Breathe out…

Now, I know you probably just read that and didn’t actually focus on your breath and breathing! Take a moment before continuing reading to take four deep breaths with your eyes closed, concentrating on the pattern, then proceed.

Anxiety has such a way of taking us out of the present moment and making us disconnected with ourselves. Our minds race, thinking of every possible thing we need to get done, everything we could have done, should have done, would have done, you name it! Before you know it we’ve completely lost the present moment and have no idea what happened. All we know is we feel a tightness in our chest, heart racing, nervousness, irritability, discomfort and racing thoughts. If this is you, you’re not alone!