Gate Healing Mental Health Blog
Fight Right: Effective Conflict Management in Relationships
Couples and Marriage Counseling In any relationship, conflicts are bound to happen. However, it's not the absence of conflict but how we manage it that truly matters. As a Level II trained Gottman couples therapist, I'm here to share some insights and techniques rooted in…
Maybe the Squeaky Wheel Shouldn’t Get the Grease
Personal developmentWe've all heard the saying, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." It suggests that we tend to focus on things that are not going well. While this can be good advice, it's not always the best approach. Sometimes, we pay too much attention to the…
How Couples Counseling Helps
Couples and Marriage CounselingImproving Communication in Relationships
Conflict is inevitable in any relationship. However, what if you could avoid unnecessary tension and conflict by feeling heard and understood at the beginning of a disagreement? If you feel like your…
How to Have a Healthy Relationship
Couples and Marriage CounselingHow Happy Couples Manage Conflict and Communicate Effectively
As a couples therapist, I’m often asked how happy couples make it work. The answer is consistent: when they disagree, they know they can talk about it. In this article, we’ll…
Talking to kids about tragedy
Family and ParentingHow to Help Your Children Cope with Tragedies and Scary News Stories
As a parent, you may feel the need to protect your children from the darkness in the world. It's wise to limit their exposure, especially to scary-sounding news stories on…
Feeling Stress vs Being Stressed
Stress ManagementThe Difference Between Feeling Stress and Being Stressed
When you feel stress, it moves through you without getting stuck; it informs you of your circumstances (bills piling up, or having a sick kiddo on a day that you have a deadline at work,…
Calming the Anxiety Storm
AnxietyHow to Effectively Manage Anxiety: Simple Techniques to Calm the Storm
One of the most common questions that people have is how to effectively manage anxiety. The nervous thoughts are bad enough, but the physical symptoms only make things worse…
How to Beat Fear of Relationships and Intimacy
AnxietyOvercoming Fear of Relationships
In a previous post, I addressed the topic of Fear of Relationships (Romantic Anxiety). In this post, I will discuss how counseling can help you overcome this fear. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a type…
Why Men Don’t Want to go to Couples Counseling (and how to talk about it)
Couples and Marriage CounselingWhy Men Are Averse to Couples Counseling
It is a common misconception that men are "less emotional" than women. The truth is that men experience emotions just as much as women do, but they may express them differently or keep them to themselves.…
How to Relax and Unwind
Stress ManagementBenefits of Learning to Relax
People sometimes say that learning to relax can be easier said than done. And frequently, that's because we overthink things. It's rather cyclic. But the cycle of stressful thinking can be broken. Here are some…
Types of Traumatic Stress
Crisis, Trauma, and PTSDUnderstanding Acute, Chronic, Immediate, and Delayed Traumatic Stress
In case you haven't read my other posts on Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS), let me clarify that going through trauma doesn't mean that someone has a "disorder" such as Post-Traumatic…
How to Stop Being a Martyr
Stress ManagementStop Setting Yourself on Fire to Keep Everybody Else Warm
Have you ever felt like you're constantly putting out fires in your personal or professional life? Do you find yourself sacrificing your well-being and happiness to make others happy?…
Sleep Procrastination and How to Break the Habit
Stress ManagementSleep Procrastination: Understanding the Causes and Solutions
Discover why we engage in sleep procrastination and learn effective strategies to overcome it. Here are ten common causes of sleep procrastination:
Stress from daily procrastination
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Why do I hate my parents?!
Family and ParentingWhy Do Teens Often Feel Resentful Toward Their Parents?
As a teenager, it's normal to feel irritated, annoyed, angry, or even resentful towards your parents. They can be overprotective, and suspicious and may not understand that you're not…
How Successful People Leverage Failure and Rejection
Personal development“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
—…