Re-Issue of Notes from the Cornerstone, Vol. 1 Issue 4

Building a Better Tomorrow |Volume 1, Issue 4, June 2022

Happy Summer!

Somehow I have blinked and half a year has passed! It seems like I was just wishing you all a Merry Christmas not so long ago, and yet here we are on June 21st. Summer has been upon us here in sunny South Florida for some time. With it, the intense heat has also arrived. This past weekend, in particular, it was, as our practice manager is wont to say, a ‘scorcher’. I mention this because over the past six months, the air-conditioning in my house has been slowly failing, but I didn’t to notice it until just a few short weeks ago. Finally, this past week, it died. Kaput. That’s what got me reflecting on how small things, minute changes, can go unnoticed, but eventually lead to larger changes or problems later.

We’ve all been there. You used to eat as a family everyday. You’d all sit down and partake in conversation. Then once a month you had a work meeting run late. Eventually, it was once each week. Then you started going out for drinks with colleagues and friends one evening each week also. Your kids have soccer one day a week and your eldest got a job and he works during dinner time most nights. You may not have realized it until after, but six months later, you’re rarely eating as a family. It wasn’t planned, and it wasn’t your fault, but somehow those little things added up and now you’re very far from the goals you set for yourself.

It's just like my air conditioning. I didn’t notice that sometimes it wasn’t blowing as cold, or that occasionally the electric bill was creeping higher. I associated that with warmer weather that’s typical for March and April. We as humans tend to not notice the smaller changes in life, or we think of them as simply minor. Another example of this is how when you get a new car, everything is immaculate, but often, when you sell it, it isn’t. It’s no ones fault, per say. Small things happen to us all the time, and we adapt to them. We’re built for it. Human beings are one of the most adaptable species on the planet after all.

But that adaptability can often lead to us going significantly off course from where we want to be. And, just as with any trail, when we’ve gone so far off the path that we can’t seem to find our way back, we often need a map and a compass, or in worst case scenarios, a trail guide to help us navigate back onto the course we originally set out on. That’s partly why I established Cornerstone: to help those who maybe didn’t intend to but somehow ended off slightly off course and were in need of some course correction.

What can you do? Reflect on where things are at. Have you had to adapt to any small things that over time has left you more than a little off course from where you want to be? If so, you don’t have to make one ‘big’ change to counter it. Set yourself back on the right path by making changes to your course now so you can end up at the destination you planned. Start having dinner as a family once a week, then clear your schedule for twice, etc. ]

It's my hope that this summer, you find yourself ever blessed, reflective on what matters most to you and your family and your loved ones. As always, we are here for you. Please feel free to reach out to schedule an appointment. My team and I are more than happy to help you overcome the obstacles in your path.

Wishing you a happy and joyous summer,

Justin McManus, LCSW, CAP, SATP

Making Changes and Getting on Back on Course with Roma Cheeré Mateo

Hey folks, Mike here! This month, I sat down with Roma Cheeré Mateo, our newest addition to our team here at Cornerstone, to discuss how clients get back on track.

Roma Cheeré joins us from the University of Florida, where she completed her graduate training. Roma Cheeré is a South Florida and Palm Beach County local, who is happy to be back in Palm Beach and looking forward to serving the community that she grew up with. She is also a part of the same cohort as another team member, Rachel.

Roma Cheeré Mateo, M.Ed, Ed.S - Cornerstone Counseling (cornerstonecounselingpb.com)

Mike:

Thank you for taking the time to talk about the question of change and getting back on course. So, with clients that come to you because they want to make a change, how do you help them to approach it?

Roma Cheeré:

Thank you for taking the time to put this together.

That's an interesting question. Every client is different and unique and there are so many reasons for wanting to seek change in your life. With each person, that approach is going to look a little different, right?

I've had clients who have come in who already know the type of changes they want to make. Oftentimes, the work then becomes, meeting them where they're at. What is surrounding these choices? What is the client attached to that can make making this change really hard? For example, it could be, let's say, an oldest child who is now transitioning into the role of being an individual instead of being an oldest child providing for the family.

So the attachment of that role of being an oldest child might be holding them back, but maybe that's affecting why the change they want to make is difficult. It could also be behavior, could be relationships. It could be beliefs, and it could be feelings.

Then there's also clients who have a sense that things aren't going well, that something's off. So then my work that I hope to do with them is really leaning into that discomfort of not really knowing what's there, but kind of getting a sense that there is something off. There can be a little bit more exploration in that space and through that interaction with them, sorting them, kind of going through their process, now with a therapist, somehow along the way, they do find that sense of ‘I feel like I have control to make this change in my life'.

So sometimes therapy does look a little bit more abstract and other times it’s very practical. Sometimes it’s like a ‘Where’s Waldo’ kind of thing where you’re searching for that piece that is missing. In an attempt to find that one important item that they need to make a change for the better.

There are also clients who have been told to make changes by someone else. Then we need to try to get to the root of that. What does that reflect in your life? And what does that mean? Is there a change that you want to make? And that’s when some individuation can happen, and we can do the work together

Mike:

There seems to exist within humanity an endless capacity to adapt to their environment and to adapt to whatever situation presents itself. And sometimes that can be good in that we can use that adaptability to cope with negative situations. And sometimes it can be bad where we fall into habits that lead us into a place where we did not want to or expect to go.

How do you help somebody, maybe, who's trying to figure out the conundrum of ‘Hey, I've ended up in this place. This is not where I want to be.’ And how do you approach them or approach that adaptability?

Roma Cheeré:

One of my favorite quotes is from one of my favorite books called The Alchemist Paulo Coelho, “people are capable at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of”.

I think your point about adaptability can be turned around so we can ask, ‘How do we take what they have used as adaptability and take that into this new change they want to make?’ And what’s important to understand is how a person comes about understanding something needs to change is a unique process for each person.

I believe that there's a purpose for every part of each person's story. Every coping mechanism, every adaptive behavior, has been learned and adapted by a person for valid reasons for their environments in the past that led them to the now. And something about now is invoking a sense ‘something needs to change’.

The thing about change is, and we know this intuitively, if we want to change, we know we have to do something different. To get something new, we have to do something different. If I want something to happen, I need to do something to make it happen. I need to make choices that are different. And that often is the uncomfortable part. That's where that exploration of what is the attachment? What is your relationship with being attached to this type of behavior, this type of coping, this type of adaptive behavior? What is so strongly tied to that for you? And then we work on exploring that and figuring out how to navigate back on the course they want to set for themselves.

Mike:

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat about this. We'll continue this discussion for a future blog, but for now, I really appreciate your taking the time to share.

Roma Cheeré:

Of Course! Thank you so much.