Daniel Davis, LMFT

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What is Conscious Marriage?

June 2, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT 6 Comments

Do you want to feel good about your relationship?  Love can dazzle us – baffle us!  We often learn about love in film, music, and books.  We talk about love a lot, but we are typically only discussing infatuation or falling in love.  Love is complex, mysterious, and happens in every society on earth.  Love is far beyond mere romantic infatuation or sexual attraction.

Amancer

“To wake up and see your smiling face
is such a pleasure and a privilege to me

To seek the light in the brilliance of your gaze
(the way she looks at him)
is to awaken with love

To see the sun nestled in your hair
and daybreak hiding in your smile

To see that my verse now has rhythm and color
is such a pleasure

To awaken with the importance of knowing
that I am yours that I only belong to you
that never again my dreams will feel cold
It’s to have a future now
To wake-up and see that I have you next to me

To wake up and see your smiling face,
that which I have for so, so, long, sought to have
It is a pleasure, a privilege to me”

Recorded by Luis Miguel
Written by Manzanero

 

When the woman I love calls, I feel wonderful.  When she doesn’t call, I feel sad.  I would call this experience of falling in love, a positive projection.  We often idealize people as teens, seeing them as more powerful, charming, or talented than they actually are.  One can worship a public figure (actress, singer, politician, teacher) or older family member, wanting to learn all about them.  I remember falling in love and thinking that I would feel exactly the same bliss – forever.  Yet over time, we begin to see that the one we love is imperfect – has flaws.  Our feelings change.

With the process of falling out of love, I have a chance of changing.  I can see the person whom I love more accurately.  I may still feel deeply connected to them and even joyful, yet I can see their faults, more clearly.

When we fall out of love, we gain the opportunity to take our projection back.  For we see exaggerated in others that which we fail to see in ourselves.  The very things we love about the other person are qualities ripe to be developed in us.  I fall in love with a socially gifted and funny woman and, in time, may find it important to develop my own social skills.

This is where conscious love begins.  Then we can see each other more as we are, we can choose to love even though we both have faults.  I can learn about the brokenness of my beloved as well as my own with respectful communication.  In this reality lies the great potential of love and intimacy to help us become more mature.  In this video, Manuel Costa, MFT, author of “A Path to Life’s Fullness: A New Perspective on the Teaching of Jesus,” describes healthy marriage.

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What is Conscious Marriage?

Filed Under: Blog, Marriage and Intimacy Tagged With: Amancer, love, Manuel Costa, marriage, positive projection

How do I fall asleep and stay asleep?

May 26, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT 2 Comments

One of the most frustrating things is to have time to sleep and to lie awake in bed, starring at the ceiling.    Look around you if you are in a crowded room – the person on your left sleeps well.  The person on your right has trouble sleeping.  Sometimes, it is the demands of work, school, or children that keep us from getting enough sleep to feel rested and alert.

Before the electric light was invented in 1879, most people slept 10 hours a night.  People in countries free from demands of modern industrialized society, typically sleep 10 hours a night.  Americans on average sleep just 6 hours and 24 minutes sleep at night.   Successful people sleep 8 hours and 24 minutes a night.

Good sleep energizes the body and enables our brains to think and remember better.  Thirty percent of high school and college students fall asleep in class at least once a week.  Without enough sleep for long periods of time, we can become physically ill with health problems such as diabetes.  Most mental health problems are related to sleep.  We can become so deprived of sleep that we do not know what it feels like to be wide awake.

Here are some suggestions to improve sleep:

*Keep a regular schedule for going to bed and getting up

*Don’t drink or eat caffeine (coffee, caffeinated tea, or chocolate)

*Don’t smoke, especially near bedtime or if you are awake in the middle of the night

*Avoid alcohol and heavy meals before going to bed

*Get regular aerobic exercise (not to close to bedtime)

*Minimize noise and light where you sleep (quiet and dark help)

*Keep temperatures moderate-not too hot or cold

*Spend the time 30 to 60 minutes before be relaxing (quiet music, meditation, pray, stretching)

Using simple movements, natural to us as children that we have been taught to suppress as grown-ups, Laura Lund offers us ways to fall asleep and stay asleep.  Laura Lund is certified as a Somatic Counselor and Educator with Zapchen Somatics.  In this video, Laura Lund demonstrates techniques to help us sleep.

 

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Filed Under: Blog, Sleep, Somatic Therapy Tagged With: hygiene, Laura Lund, research, sleep, Zapchen Somatics

How do I relax when I am angry?

May 19, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT 3 Comments

If you have some trouble controlling your anger, you are normal. Anger has enormous power that over shadows our clear thinking and our desire to do good. Academic studies identify it as the hardest of emotions to master. Most adults do not master anger until after age 50 – if ever. Anger can lead to heart disease and cancer.

We typically get angry when someone blocks us from our goals, lies to us, or unjustly hurts someone. Fear is an emotional signal that danger is near. Anger is a signal someone is crossing into our territory – physically or psychologically. Yet there is an upside to anger, because anger gets us moving. Anger and depression are incompatible states.

Play is the natural way we let go of our unpleasant emotions and heal. Children naturally play through a conflict they experience. Play is the natural way we let go of tension and heal. During authentic play, we are spontaneous, unselfconscious, and non-competitive as well as lose track of time. Playing is part of what it means to be human. Schiller writes, (woman or) “man is completely human only when (she or) he is at play.”

Using simple movements, natural to us as children that we have been taught to suppress as grown-ups, Laura Lund. offers us ways to cope with anger. Laura Lund is certified as a Somatic Counselor and Educator with Zapchen Somatics. In this video, Laura Lund demonstrates technique to change our emotional state with childlike body movements and sounds – raspberries, horse lips, and stomping.

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“How do I relax when I am angry?”

Filed Under: Anger Management, Blog, Somatic Therapy Tagged With: Anger Management, Horse Lips, Laura Lund, play, Raspberries, Stomping, Zapchen Somatics

How do I calm down?

May 12, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

Think about the most mature and likable person you know.  They are probably flexible, highly skillful, and self-aware in the area of emotions and relationships.  She or he will genuinely and with confidence increase happiness and excitement as well as calm shame and anger inside her or himself.

It is like a thermostat inside of us.  A system of balancing our inner and outer worlds.  Sometimes, this system works very well, increasing our joy, desire, excitement at the best times.  Our anger, sadness, and fear will decrease as needed when this emotional system works well.  When this emotional system is not functioning well, we have trouble with our relationships and getting things done, like homework or tasks at work.

In the book, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” JK Rowling writes: “Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. . .You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.” Experiencing a dementor seems to be like being depressed.

Harry Potter learns to concentrate, with all his might, on a single, very happy memory.  This frees Harry Potter from the haunting clutches of dementors.  Great writers and directors of movies, like J.K. Rowling, William Shakespeare, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, know how to change the emotions of readers or moviegoers.

In order to have healthy, satisfying relationships and learn and work productively, we need to influence our emotions internally.  We can try to use external methods such as food, movies, alcohol, drugs, sex, computer games, or controlling others to calm our upsetting emotions, but they eventually fail to soothe us.

Yet we can also regulate our emotions internally by changing our breathing, physical exercise, self-talk, and focusing on an images of safety, affirmation, and validation.  With healthy emotional regulation, the goal is to be aware of your body and calm unpleasant emotions, not feel numb.  Unfortunately, a vast majority of men have difficulty even sensing the emotions in their bodies and describing them in words.

Emotional regulation is a skill we can learn with practice.  Over time, it begins to happen naturally, just like learning to tie your shoes.  Do you think about it when you tie your shoes?  Put simply, healthy emotional self-regulation is responding to challenges of a situation with a level emotion allowing mature actions.  Affect Centered Therapy teaches us the skills to calm our sadness or fear.

John Omaha, Ph.D., MFT, the creator of Affect Centered Therapy and author of the book, “Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Emotional Regulation: EMDR and Bilateral Stimulation for Affect Management,” is in private practice in Santa Rosa, California in the United States of America.  In this video, John demonstrates the important skill of down regulating emotion.

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How do I calm down?
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Filed Under: AMST (Affect Management Skills Training), Blog Tagged With: Affect Centered Therapy, Affect Management Skills Training, Bilateral Stimulation, Emotional Down Regulation, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowlings, John Omaha, self soothing

How do I stay grounded and present when I feel fear or anger?

May 5, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

Have you done things you wish you had not?  Do you shout angry words you regret?  Do you withdraw when the one you love is angry?  We have two minds – one that thinks, called the Prefrontal Cortex, and one that feels, called the Amygdala.  It takes as little as thousands of a second for our emotional mind to lead us to shout or runaway.  The emotional mind can hijack the rational mind.  We are no longer seeing reality clearly as our rational mind is high-jacked and our decisions suffer.

How do I stay grounded and present when I feel anger or fear?

We need to learn to stay grounded in our body and connect with the present moment.  This type of mindfulness enables us to respond maturely to challenging circumstances and people. Affect Centered Therapy enables us to change our subconscious responses.  Ninety-five percent of our thinking is subconscious, below the level of the thoughts of which we are aware.

When I get stressed I eat too much ice cream. I cannot stop! I get so mad at my spouse; I shout and later regret what I have said.

Affect Centered Therapy can rapidly enable us to respond differently to our challenges.  We may leave a job that is a poor fit.  We may no longer need marijuana to fall asleep.  We may just walk away when someone shouts at us. John Omaha, Ph.D., MFT, the creator of Affect Centered Therapy and author of the book, “Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Emotional Regulation: EMDR and Bilateral Stimulation for Affect Management,” is in private practice in Santa Rosa, California in the United States of America.  In this video, John demonstrates the important skill of being grounded and present.

Key Words:

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Filed Under: AMST (Affect Management Skills Training), Blog Tagged With: Affect Centered Therapy, Affect Management Skills Training, AMST, Grounding Skill, John Omaha, Prefrontal Cortex, Subconscious Mind

Would You Like to Be Free of Worry?

April 28, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT 4 Comments

Do upsetting memories or trauma affect your concentration? We may lie awake at night with our mind filled with worries about money. A memory of an argument with our child or partner may distract our concentration the next day while trying to concentrate on school or work.

Containing these intrusive worries is an important thing to learn. “Affect Centered Therapy” is a remedy for problems controlling our thoughts and emotions. As a baby, we learn to soothe or calm ourselves from our mother’s love as she holds and caresses us. We then learn to comfort ourselves by sucking our thumb or snuggling with our blanket.

Sometimes, we may have upsetting or distracting memories of which we may or may not be aware. All the time, all our experiences are present in our minds, research confirms.

We can learn the “Container Skill.” By using our imagination as well as valuable techniques to balance the hemispheres of our right and left brain, we can feel calmer and focus on work or those whom we love.

John Omaha, Ph.D., MFT, the creator of Affect Centered Therapy and author of the book, “Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Emotional Regulation: EMDR and Bilateral Stimulation for Affect Management,” is in private practice in Santa Rosa, California in the United States of America.  In this video, John demonstrates the important skill of containment.

Keywords:
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John Omaha, Container Skill 1
Affect Management Skills Training (AMST), Container Skill 1
Container Skill
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Would You Like to Be Free of Worry?
“Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Emotional Regulation: EMDR and Bilateral Stimulation for Affect Management”

Filed Under: AMST (Affect Management Skills Training), Blog Tagged With: Affect Management Skills Training, AMST, Bilateral Stimulation, Container Skill, Emotional Regulation, John Omaha, Worry

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About Daniel Davis, LMFT

I create an environment where clients experience their unique significance, authentic empowerment, and profound acceptance and collaborate with clients to identify solutions to their current crises. For more information on how I can help you, contact me today by calling 408-249-0014 or emailing info@danieldavislmft.com. I look forward to speaking with you! Read More…

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Daniel Davis, M.A., LMFT
Counselor in Santa Clara, CA
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