Articles

If you plan on shopping for some killer deals on Amazon, maybe you could throw a little extra something in your cart for your mental health? Why not?

Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict into Connection by Drs John and Julie Gottman

Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants to Much by Jen Winston

Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills: Practical DBT Exercises, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotional Regulation & Distress Tolerance by Matthew McKay PhD, Jeffrey C. Wood PsyD 

Healing Trauma by Peter Levine

Anti-Racism Starts With Me (A Kid's Coloring Book) by Kadeesha Bryant

The Queer and TransgenderResilience Workbook: Skills for Navigating Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression by Anneliese A. Singh PhD LPC, Diane Ehrensaft PhD

The following are resources to aid you on the journey of “Reparenting.” This process can be quite empowering and life changing.  As you are doing this work, keep in mind that it will be emotionally taxing. I recommend that you avoid doing this work if you are in a high-stress season. If you cannot wait for a later time, make sure to plan adequate self-care for yourself. In fact, that is part of the re-parenting process! 

Books

How to Be an Adult: A Handbook for Psychological and Spiritual Integration by David Richo

Buy Yourself the Fucking Lilies & Glow in the Fucking Dark by Tara Schuster

How to Do the Work & How to Meet Yourself by Dr. Nicole LePera

Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Tawwab

The Financial Feminist by Tori Dunlap

Podcasts

The Reparenting Revolution

You Need to Hear This with Nedra Tawwab

The Happiness Lab

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Apps

Fabulous

I am

The queer community is disproportionately at greater risk of developing religious trauma and/or adverse religious experiences. This probably comes as no surprise with most religious spaces being unwelcoming (quite an understatement) of anyone identifying as queer. Being told that you’re bad and unacceptable because of who you’re attracted to tends to leave quite the negative impact on a person, instilling especially deep feelings of shame. Other symptoms of religious trauma can also include anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, body image issues, perfectionism, and a lack of boundaries in relationships. Other not so obvious symptoms can include feelings of anxiety or panic when confronted with anything relating to religion, fear of hell, fear of death, and also lack of planning for long term living (ie: retirement, creating a will and testament, senior age living plans). 

Even though reading a list of symptoms (aka damage points) one can receive from religious experiences can feeling incredibly daunting and discouraging, there absolutely is hope. Trauma recovery can't erase the negative memories that you have, but it can help with the way you and your body respond to them so you no longer sink into negative feelings and reactions when they come up. Therapy can help you reclaim and heal those hurt pieces of yourself. It can also help you decide what mold you want to shape for yourself, instead of being forced to fit into a mold someone else made for you. My hope for you is that you grow to love yourself deeply and ardently and when you look at yourself in the mirror, you love what you see. 

If you’d like more information about meeting with me for individual therapy sessions, you can contact me for a free 15-minute consultation via email at amanda@amandalynnecounseling.com or fill out the form on my website at www.amandalynnecounseling.com. 

The Enneagram: Nail Down Your Number

1. Understand Why It’s so Hard to Find Your Type: The purpose of the Enneagram is to uncover your hidden drives. It helps us to understand WHY we do what we do. Our internal motivation is often a mystery to us. Taking an assessment is a great start but is not always definitive because trying to determine our subconscious drives is tricky business.

2. Take a Test. Taking a test online is a great way to point you in the direction of your type but it may not be your final answer. Take an assessment that will give you break-down of your results and not just the number you scored the highest on. The RHETI, available on the Enneagram Institute website, is a wonderful resource. If you’re looking for a free version, try the one on Truity.

3. Take a Peek at ALL of the Types. When we get our results, we can be tempted to just read our top scored number and call it a day. One problem with that is that we truly have some parts of all the numbers within us. The other problem has to do with the following...

4. Make Sure You Didn’t Get Your Stress Point. This has happened to myself and a few others I know. The Enneagram is useful because it shows us our typical way of being (Your Type), our way of being under stress (Disintegration Point), and our way of being when we’re functioning at our best (Integration Point). For example, Type 2 is normally a person who will “go along to get along.” However, under stress, they can become domineering like a Type 8. When they are healthier, they will become more authentic about their desires like a Type 4. If we take the assessment when we’re under stress, it makes sense that our score might reflect that. When you get your results, find your top number and then read the brief descriptions of the Disintegration Point and Integration Point.

5. You May Not Fit the Caricature. The Types are often described in a somewhat exaggerated way. However, we are complex and the Types are like colors- think of how many shades of blue there are! You may have a difficult time finding your number because you don’t fit the typical description. There are three subtypes for each number that illustrate this nuance. See the work at the Narrative Enneagram for more information about this.

6. Share With People You Trust. Partners are usually a great sounding board for this! See if others who have been in your life for a long time see this as your number.

7. This is Meant to Be a Journey. The Enneagram is meant to show us our False Self. Our Type is a description of the game that we’ve been playing throughout life in an attempt to protect ourselves from our Basic Fear. For example, the Basic Fear of Type 3 is failure. Type 3’s will go throughout their whole lives striving to achieve more and more. The point of the Enneagram is to show us that we no longer need to play that game. We can discover new ways of living that aren’t driven by fear. However, if we’re not fully ready to stop playing this game, discovering our number can just be like any other personality typing system. We can just see ourselves as part of the “Type 7 Club” for example and choose not to take it any further. This is a choice for each of us to make. However, if we don’t take the time to seek-out our number, we may mistype ourselves.

8. Try it On. You may mistype yourself and that’s ok! Hold your number loosely and just try it on for a while. Read-up, listen to podcasts, talk to others with that type. See if it sticks. If it does, you’ve found your number! 

9. Contact a Coach. If you’re feeling really stuck but want to experience the transforming power of the Enneagram, contact a coach or a therapist who is knowledgeable. It’s worth it! 

If you’d like to schedule an appointment with me to discuss your Enneagram journey click here.