Mood Improvement

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Where In the World
Will I Feel Alive?

A lazy part of us is like a tumbleweed.
It doesn’t move on its own. Sometimes it takes
A lot of Depression to get tumbleweeds moving.
– Robert Bly

Feelings of gloom, hopelessness, fear, numbness, boredom, mania, and anxiety are signposts on our journeys. They signal a need for change. They let us know we need care. These strong emotions, exist for self-protection. They gather to bring us information. They speak about our human longings and the tragedy of unmet needs. They use both a neurochemical and a cultural language. A crushing headache, a gut that gets queasy, or aches and pains in the body all share the neurological superhighway to bring us the message that something just ain’t right. When our moods flash big red warning lights along the fast lanes of our lives, these eelings ask for our most careful attention.

Psychotherapy works to identify the roots of debilitating thoughts and emotions. As road workers together in therapy, we follow the signs to new life. Working toward mood improvement is rewarding and pleasurable. Sometimes, the hardest part is just looking for the right companion with whom to walk through the gloom. You may previously have received a medical, educational, or insurance label such as bi-polar, anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, or explosive anger management problem. Those labels may have alerted you to the need to find the right approach, with the right person, to ensure that you live fully and are not limited by labels.

Every living being deserves an integrated system–body, mind, and spirit–that allows us to live more of our lives with joy and less with undesirable moods. Therapy offers practical ways to change moods. In the very first session, you can expect to learn some of these.

We may have walked through some fog. We may have raced blindly down the alley. The rush of the other cars on the highway may sometimes be the only noise we hear. Yet moods are ever changing. “Now is the winter of our discontent,” said William Shakespeare, hinting that a different season, a different mood, is possible also. The friendly companion in dark moments will lend a hand and help find the sunshine. One thing we know for sure, there is sunshine to be found. Several hundred years after Shakespeare, the French philosopher and writer, Albert Camus, shared: “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer”. A brighter mood will be yours.
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The mind is its own place, and in itself can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven. - John Milton
The mind is its own place, and in itself can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.
– John Milton

Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all. - Emily Dickinson
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.
– Emily Dickinson

The unconscious is a process not a location or thing. - Alan Watts
The unconscious is a process not a location or thing.
– Alan Watts

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At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.  - Albert Schweitzer
At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
– Albert Schweitzer

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At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities. - Jean Houston
At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.
– Jean Houston

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Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love. - Rainer Maria Rilke
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.
– Rainer Maria Rilke

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