CBT | Julia Kristina Counselling

3 Mindless Social Media Habits that are Causing You Harm.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:42-07:00March 15th, 2017|General|

This social media thing almost seemed to come out of nowhere. Well, not really, I guess it all kind of started years ago with MySpace. Myspace, do you remember that one? What ever happened to MySpace? I guess they became the Nokia of the social media world...I can’t help but feel sad, for both. But this social media thing, that’s not really a thing, but has pretty much become a way of life. Within a few short years, we've morphed in to a culture of pictures, posts, likes and shares, but none of it came with a rule book [...]

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How to Reduce Your Stress, Deal with Anxiety and Keep Yourself From Losing Your Sh*t!

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:42-07:00March 13th, 2017|General|

This is a big reason why we get overwhelmed, stressed out, anxious and I talk about how we can start dealing with stress, and how to relieve stress and deal with anxiety by setting boundaries. Did you know many of the biggest signs and causes of stress, and many symptoms of anxiety come from a lack of healthy boundaries in our lives and in our relationships? And we definitely experience some of the biggest effects of that stress and anxiety when we're not protecting our buffer zone. We go a whole lot deeper [...]

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The Danger Of Taking On Other People’s Problems.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:42-07:00February 13th, 2017|General|

Have you ever found yourself ready to pull out your hair because “that person just won’t listen to my advice,” or because “don’t they see how much they are hurting themselves by doing that,” or because “I can’t fathom how someone could be so irresponsible – it’s just too much!” But getting all akimbo and kerfuffled like this is almost totally unnecessary. And we do it because we feel responsible for other peoples' problems. We feel like we have to solve their problem or their life for them. We feel like we can’t possibly let [...]

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3 Unintentional Habits that Are Killing Your Confidence.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:42-07:00January 19th, 2017|General|

Bad habits. Sometimes they are things we don’t even know we’re doing, but are having a negative effect on our self-confidence nonetheless. Now we could go on to hypothesize as where and why and where we picked up these bad habits in the first place, but we’ll save that for another day. For today, let’s just draw our attention to them, and make a concerted effort to get rid of them. Saying sorry all the time. Of course I’m not talking about apologizing if we’ve hurt, offended, inconvenienced, or upset someone (whether intentionally or not), but those [...]

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Why So Much of the Self-Help Advice Doesn’t Work.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:43-07:00May 26th, 2016|General|

There is A LOT of mental health and self development advice out there and it seems like everyone is a personal growth expert these days. But the thing is, a lot of what people are telling us to do to feel happy, fulfilled and content in life is kind of useless. But not because of WHAT they are saying, but because of HOW they are saying it. And if you don’t know well enough how the human psyche typically works, you would have no idea that your advice, although true, probably won't make any kind of real difference. Here’s [...]

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Why Some People Irritate Us SO Much.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:43-07:00May 12th, 2016|General|

Why do some people irk, irritate, or get under our skin while others don’t? And furthermore, why do we find certain people so totally annoying while someone else may think that same person is perfectly fine? Well, I’m going to tell you, but you may not like it. It’s because Carl Jung (one of the grandfathers of modern psychology) found, through his lifetime of work and research, that the reason some people irritate us so much is because they embody something of ours called the Shadow Side. The Shadow Side is the parts of ourselves we don’t like. The [...]

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How to Deal with Social Anxiety.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:43-07:00April 28th, 2016|General|

Have you ever gone to a party, event, or social gathering where you didn’t really know many people and as soon as you walked through the doors felt extremely uncomfortable? I mean so uncomfortable that the only thing you could think about in that moment was what kind of excuse you'd be able to come up that would justify your intense desire to turn right around and high tail it out of there? And did that feeling stay with you to the extent that next time you were offered an invitation to an event, you were [...]

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Don’t Bother With Your Daily Gratitude Practice – It’s A Waste of Your Time.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:43-07:00April 4th, 2016|General|

You’ve heard it, I’ve heard it, we’ve all heard it: One of the biggest and most significant contributors to genuine happiness and fulfillment in life comes from being intentionally grateful. Have an attitude of gratitude (if you will). And once word got out around the power of gratitude, the whole thing became all the rage. Everyone started following the trend of taking on a daily gratitude practice that typically goes a little something like this: “Start or end your day with 3 things you are grateful for and it will change your life.” Well, yes and no. But mostly [...]

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Why You Get Super Stressed Out & Sometimes Lose Your Sh*t.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:43-07:00March 29th, 2016|General|

Have you ever witnessed that classless human being at Starbucks who yells or snarks at the barista for putting whole milk in their 1% latté? Or the crazed maniac who gets cut off in traffic and then lays on their horn, rolls down their window and screams totally appalling words at the hurried perpetrator? Or the sub-par parent who yells and their child in the grocery store line up for whining about not getting to eat every single chocolate bar on the stand in front of them? Okay, truth time. Have you ever been [...]

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3 Surprising Things that Will Make You Happier.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:44-07:00January 14th, 2016|General|

You’ve heard them all before. The things you need to do to become happier. Things like be grateful, count your blessings, do things you enjoy, surround yourself with positive people, find the silver lining in every challenging situation. And so on and so forth. Not knocking those. No, not at all. They are all GREAT things to do and they will make a significant impact on your level of overall happiness. And who doesn’t want to be happier? Aren’t we all, at some point or another, searching for the magic formula that will rid us [...]

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Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:45-07:00December 3rd, 2015|General|

The other day I was with a client and we were working through some self-worth and self-esteem issues. The struggle was big and the struggle was real. And it was mostly due to the laundry list of criticisms and condemnations they had about themselves regarding all the things they believed they were not. And it got me thinking: How many of us find ourselves all caught up in our heads more often than that which is necessary (necessary meaning pretty much never) regarding all the things we’re not, but wish we were. How often do [...]

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Positive Affirmations Don’t Work.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:47-07:00September 6th, 2015|General|

And I’ll tell you why. In a minute. First. Have you ever stood in front of the mirror and told yourself something about being amazing, wonderful, powerful, and strong? And after the quick dopamine rush that any good pep talk can offer, did you feel like a changed person? I mean really, deeply changed? Did that warm and tingly feeling of confidence and self-love last more than a hot second or two? Most likely not. But you don’t have to feel bad, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just that you told yourself a [...]

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CBT May Not Actually Be What You Think It Is.

By Julia Kristina|2022-03-11T14:38:38-08:00July 16th, 2015|General|

Here I talk about what Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is and why, contrary to popular belief, it is NOT the Power of Positive Thinking. Have a Mental Health or Personal Wellness Topic you'd like me to cover in a video? Feel free to leave your suggestions or questions in the comments section below

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One Simple Habit to Help You Overcome Anger & Frustration.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:48-07:00June 21st, 2015|General|

Do you ever have times when everything can be going great and then one little bad thing will happen it’s ALL you can think about? It’s as if all that was going well up until that point gets completely wiped out because of this one tiny flaw. But what about the flip side? Does the same ring true? When everything is going terrible and one little good thing happens, do we allow this one small positive occurrence to take over and sweeten the unpleasant situation? Do we let it come in and trump all of [...]

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9 Destructive Thinking Patterns and How to Change Them.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:48-07:00May 31st, 2015|General|

It can be really hard to feel good when it seems like everything (or even just a few key things) in your life are not going well. And we all have struggles, and we all go through hard times. That’s normal and there’s nothing wrong with that. But there are also times when we make things a lot harder for ourselves than we need to. Very rarely is life perfect. And on the flip side, very rarely is life absolutely awful (even if there are moments when it feels like it is). And if you [...]

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What Is CBT Anyway? (aka Cognitive Behavior Therapy).

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:51-07:00May 12th, 2015|General|

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SIl7SAfo-Y In this video I share an easy to understand explanation of what CBT is, how it works, and why it's effective in treating Anxiety, Depression, Low Self-Esteem and Chronic Stress.

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5 Things That Will Make You More Likeable (to Others AND Yourself).

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:52-07:00March 4th, 2015|General|

I’d say it’s safe to say most of us like being liked. And there are times when maybe we’re not so sure how liked we are and would perhaps like to be a little more liked. I mean really, who doesn’t want to be on the top of the invited-out-for-lunch group at the office? Or the person getting ample calls, texts and emails with requests for weekend plans? Of course, some people are just more likeable by nature – usually those who have a more easygoing or optimistic personality. That said here are some pretty [...]

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3 Lies Perfectionism Wants You To Believe.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:52-07:00February 6th, 2015|General|

We are somehow becoming a society of people who believe, promote, and encourage the idea that if we want to be seen as successful, worthwhile, and valuable human beings we need to be perfect in every way. For one reason or another there's the idea out there (and in here) that in order to feel really good about who we are we need to be outstanding, awe-inspiring, limitless, totally beyond reproach, and flawless. To say the least. Now that is a LOT of pressure. Trying our darndest to prove to ourselves and others we are [...]

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Emotional Offenders: Taking Them on Giuliani Style.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:52-07:00December 18th, 2014|General|

Back in the mid-nineties when New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani embarked on his lofty mission to clean up the Big Apple and tackle its infamously high crime rate, one might be surprised to learn that his strategy did not focus on going after the big time, hardened, or most dangerous criminals. Instead, he began by literally cleaning up the city. He did this by installing thousands more public garbage cans, restoring many run down historical buildings, removing an exorbitant amount of graffiti, and cracking down hard on more minor violations and small time offenders. [...]

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How To Have A Really Bad Day.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:53-07:00November 28th, 2014|General|

1. Compare yourself to others: Really focus hard on what others have that you don't. 2. Criticize yourself in whatever you do: Even if you have a success, tell yourself why it's not good enough and why it should have been more or better. 3. Criticize others in whatever they do: Expect others to be perfect, be able to read your mind, and anticipate all your needs without ever actually telling them what your wants and needs are. 4. Call yourself down for any and every mistake you make… or have ever made: Really focus [...]

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When a Prickle’s Just a Prickle.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:56-07:00December 4th, 2012|General|

I’ve talked about this before, but I’m going to talk about it some more. One of the most effective antidotes to a crummy mood is to intentionally turn ones thoughts of woe into thoughts of gratitude. We call this developing an “Attitude of Gratitude.” How catchy. Anyway, I realize I make it sound so simple. That said it is usually much easier to reflect on that which we are grateful for when we are feeling good, and not too too difficult when we are feeling mildly blue. However, NOT so easy when we are feeling [...]

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What’s Floating the Boat?

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:56-07:00November 27th, 2012|General|

A short time ago I was working with a client who was having a hard time feeling good about himself. In one of our more recent sessions, he was feeling particularly depressed because he had been telling himself over and over again how lazy he was, and the more he heard this message the less able he was to get up and get things done, thus confirming precisely what was being said. In our session we decided to devote some time to looking closely at just how lazy he actually was, because in fact, he [...]

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The Meaning Behind the Message.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:56-07:00November 20th, 2012|General|

Here's the Bad Good News: For better or worse and no matter who's listening, what we say about ourselves is how we think about ourselves - or at least it will inevitably become so. ... stay tuned for next week's post where I'll to share a recent and potent example of this from my clinical practice.

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A Really Bad Day: How To Guide

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:57-07:00October 29th, 2012|General|

1. Think about what others have that you don't 2. Criticize yourself in whatever you do 3. Criticize others in whatever they do 4. Call yourself down for any and every mistake you make... or have ever made. 5. Worry about things that are out of your control 6. Make yourself anxious about problems you don't have 7. Think others will reject and shun you if you ever do anything wrong 8. Believe you are worthless and insignificant unless you are perfect 9. Tell yourself that "no" means everyone is against you

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In A Jiff

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:57-07:00October 22nd, 2012|General|

So I’ve recently had it put right there in my face, and it took me more time than it should have to see it happen. There it was: one of the quickest and easiest ways to instantly boost our mood. I was in session with a client recently who was obviously feeling quite low. Right away I asked her what was going on and she said she wasn’t sure, and so we spent the next little while talking about why she may have been feeling how she was feeling. We weren’t having much luck and [...]

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Trail Blazing.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:57-07:00October 15th, 2012|General|

I’m sure most of you know this already, but apparently our brains are plastic. From what I understand, this means that you actually can teach an old dog new tricks. I’m not a neuroscientist, so you’ll bare with me if I explain this in a simplified, and not too terribly precise way. All through our lives the things we experience, encounter, and respond to create neural pathways in our brains. Many of these pathways are formed in childhood based on the world around us and how we were taught to experience, encounter, and respond to [...]

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This Too Shall Pass.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:57-07:00September 25th, 2012|General|

A small but very important multipurpose tool from my toolbox which I find extraordinarily useful to use with my clients, as well as with myself, is remembering to keep our Emotional Reasoning in check. Emotional Reasoning is a cognitive distortion that many of us employ quite regularly – sometimes without even knowing it. It’s the inaccurate belief that how we feel is how things really are, without question. If I feel stupid, I must be stupid. If I feel angry, I must be crazy and out of control. If I feel like I never do [...]

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Chose Your Words Carefully

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:05:58-07:00August 13th, 2012|General|

So further to last week’s perhaps somewhat unsanitary discussion, dealing with a shouldy mess can often be as straightforward as changing the words we chose to express our thoughts and feelings. This might sound too ridiculously simple to be true, but to that I say perhaps not, seeing as we interpret, process, and then respond to pretty much everything in the world based on the specific word choices we use, either aloud or in our heads. Ah the philosophy of language…. And there’s my undergraduate minor leaking through… Anyway, we do have a few of [...]

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A Not-So-Gentle Reminder.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:06:00-07:00June 11th, 2012|General|

I think because I make it a pretty major priority to eat relatively healthy and get a decent amount of sleep, I tend not to get sick very often. BUT when I do, and when it’s bad, let me tell you, it is a whole lot of no fun. I hate feeling awful – funny I say that because I’m wondering if anyone actually does enjoy feeling awful?? Anyway, as awful as it is to feel awful, without fail whenever I feel this way I find myself thinking: “Oh boy I can’t wait to feel [...]

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Practically Perfect in… Some Way.

By Julia Kristina|2017-05-21T16:06:00-07:00June 4th, 2012|General|

As difficult as it may be to wrap our minds around, most situations, circumstance, and experiences we encounter in life are pretty much neutral in nature, and cease only to be based on the meaning, value, and perspective with which we chose to interpret them. Now I’m sure we’ve all had some well meaning person tell us to just look on the bright side and as most of know, this is not usually so helpful – especially when we’re right smack in the middle of an emotional upheaval. Sometimes in life things suck. And that’s [...]

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