Posts

Self-Trust

Last week, I celebrated 5 years since opening my private practice, Malta Counseling.  In reflection of this journey, I’ve been thinking a lot about my path of developing self-trust (an ongoing process), which allowed me to choose to start my own business. Five years ago, when I opened Malta Counseling, I took a big risk as I left a stable government job which offered me job security, a good salary with the potential of regular pay increases, good health benefits and perhaps even the eventual possibility of career advancements.   I had thought about the possibility of leaving agency work before, but for all of those previously stated reasons, I never really considered it in a serious way.   It had always seemed to be a bit of a "pipe dream"...an option that was only really possible for people with a lot of external resources or safety nets, and a level of internal strengths and capacities that I perceived were far greater than what I had to offer.   For several years

Letting Go

Some of the most important intentions that I've set for myself have been intentions for letting go. Letting go can be an incredibly difficult intention to manifest and like any good intention, it will often need to be reset over and over again. As human beings, we are wired to cling to that which we find pleasurable and to push away that which we find unpleasant. Being creatures of habit, we also become conditioned over the course of our lives to automatically react to certain stimulus with clinging or pushing away patterns. This allows us to efficiently maximize the likelihood of pleasure, (the feeling tone associated with acquiring valued resources and satisfying needs) and minimize the likelihood of displeasure (the feeling tone associated with unmet needs and with encountering obstacles to valued resources). These feeling tones of pleasure and displeasure are an evolutionary function intended to motivate us in directions (approach or avoid) that increase our chances of s