Finding Your Safe Place

What makes us feel safe? Is it when one of our country's enemies are killed or captured? Is it knowing we have a job & therefore a way to care for our family and ourselves? Or is it internal...something felt within. Having the knowledge you are able to cope with whatever life may throw your way?

I recall a neighbor as a child who built a bomb shelter. They
felt after it's completion that they were prepared if the cold war had escalated to an attack on the USA. This morning the "talking heads" are discussing how one door may have closed for our country...an attempt to make our country feel safer. So many times at the conclusion of therapy clients say they feel better able to cope with stress & attacks on their self esteem. Many in our country feel happy & relieved this morning as a terriorist has been eliminated.

How can you feel safer?

1. Many times you cannot control what happens in life...
only how you react to it. Your values will make a huge
impact on your dealing with issues that come up. If they
are totally inflexible it will many times be harder for
you to tolerate situations in which you may find yourself.

2. Claim what you can control in your life to make
yourself more "fit" physically, emotionally & psychologically.
Working on your body and mind through self help, exercise, classes, groups and counseling to acquire & practice coping skills.

3. Sharing with your children the ability to make good choices
and decisions. Teaching them these skills from a very young age will not only help them feel safer, but lower the stress level of you as a parent knowing you have helped them to be prepared for situaitons they will face.

4. Many put off dealing with people or partcular problem for years.For many making a good plan, a choice and following through on it can revitalize a safety for an indiviudal...do away with a big, gray cloud that has stolen their emotionaly energy.

Safe life travels to you all!


Jodi H. Underhill MEd. LMHC Licensed Mental Health Counselor & Certified K-12 Guidance Counselor License #MH9166 Phone: 386.747.7148 Fax: 407.264.8289 www.junderhilltherapy.com

A Life Reflected

I have often heard it said that how we face death reflects how we have lived our lives. A cancer patient of many years recently signed up for HOSPICE and even as she did her spirit was undeniable. Friends who saw her in her last days remarked that other than the oxygen and needing alot of naps..our friend was herself until medication & her illness made her no longer consciously aware to those who visited her.

She lived with such energy & flare...guess we all thought she might go kicking and screeming, as she loved life so. But over time
it appears she had made peace with her next journey. As she invited
HOSPICE into her home she reflected on her FB account how "good
drugs" would be coming her way and how her appetite was still in
good working order...finding positives still in the life she was
so preciously living, day by day.

Perhaps it is because this incredible lady had fully lived during the few years of her "terminal" illness that she could go "quietly into the night"?

Jodi H. Underhill MEd. LMHC Licensed Mental Health Counselor & Certified K-12 Guidance Counselor License #MH9166 Phone: 386.747.7148

Spring Cleaning of the Soul

"Spring cleaning" is a ritual in many homes. Our houses collect dust and things over the winter and many feel compelled to clean them out and refresh the surrounding in which they live.

Perhaps it is a good time to cleanse ourselves of what has built up in our hearts & minds. Then our souls can rise again to love & live our lives.

Here are some ideas to spring forward:

1. Are you holding onto grudges? The
energy it takes not forgiving is only
draining you and keeping you from
living your life fully.

2. Exercise - now that the weather is so
good...it is a great time to start walking.
Not only will it help you get in shape
you can become reconnected to the beauty
that is Spring.

3. Clean out the cobwebs in your mind...
"should" "ought to" "never" "always"
are great ones to start with!

Happy Easter to you all!


Jodi H. Underhill MEd. LMHC Licensed Mental Health Counselor & Certified K-12 Guidance Counselor License #MH9166 Phone: 386.747.7148

Coming of Age

At what age does a parent give their child the label of adult?
When is "maturity" a given, at what age? Is it fair to a
twenty something to look at their lives through the Dr. Phil quote of "the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior"...or at some point does that become null and void? At twenty something does the young person deserve a new "predictor"?

Many parents tell me they remember the moment their child grew up, others tell me they wonder if they ever will. When one changes as they mature, do only time & good choices demonstrate an individual is no longer a child? At what point is it no longer fair to predict maturity still looking through the lens of teenage decisions & actions? In our society today is there truly a "coming of age"?


Jodi H. Underhill MEd. LMHC Licensed Mental Health Counselor & Certified K-12 Guidance Counselor License #MH9166 Phone: 386.747.7148 Fax: 386.738.0599 www.junderhilltherapy.com

Therapy: Change or Reflection?

As a therapist my belief is that a counselor needs to
be a change agent in the lives of clients. To provide
a safe place, in which hopefully over time, people will
feel strong enough to risk the changes they were seeking when
they came through my office door in the first place...helping them to cope, so they can navigate their lives is a less stressful way.

A few times however I have found,after challenging clients' beliefs in order to help them affect change that they do not desire change at all. What these clients are wanting out of our therapeutic time together is someone to listen and commenserate. More than once to my amazement, a client has pushed back hard against the challenge of change, asking only to come to my office weekly to have someone listen to them. They just want to be heard. Makes me wonder if one can affect change by providing a reflective pool?


Jodi H. Underhill MEd. LMHC Licensed Mental Health Counselor & Certified K-12 Guidance Counselor License #MH9166 Phone: 386.747.7148 Fax: 407.264.8289 www.junderhilltherapy.com

Rx: Mediation for John Boehner, Harry Reid?

As our country leaders struggled with the budget this last
week, the two parties reminded me of a married couple continuing a long standing argument....one where the differences are not really ever addressed or solved. Why one might ask? Like our government both "sides" are more interested in pushing their agenda or "winning" the argument, than in reaching a compromise that is best for the "famiy", (our country's citizens)?

Perhaps some couseling in listening skills is in order? Or maybe conflict resolution? What a mediation might do for the leaders of our two policial parties...a counselor can only dream.


Jodi H. Underhill MEd. LMHC Licensed Mental Health Counselor & Certified K-12 Guidance Counselor License #MH9166 Phone: 386.747.7148 Fax: 407.264.8289 www.junderhilltherapy.com

"Clean You Room"

Amazingly most parents of children with ADD/ADHD believe they
can just tell their kids a list of things that equal a clean
room and they will be able to do it. Like being able to follow
directions at school, (or not), children lose focus after
a short time or after about the second thing their parent is asking them to do. Many of the children I see in my practice call what their parents requests "rapid fire" or tell me
that it reminds them of the sound of a machine gun.

All children, not just those with ADD/ADHD can retain directions
best when they are short and concise. Some do better with a short
list that they can see and cross off the parts as they complete
them while others need to be verbally told or physically shown
1-2 things at a time, and then be given the opportunity to complete the tasks, prior to being given another.

Another component to a clean room, or any other chore completion is breaking the task down into "edible bites",like a large cookie broken into pieces...so that the child can understand
and carry out what is being asked of them. Some children can
digest more directions than others, which can be picked up by
an observant parent.Once aware, each time a chore or task is
assigned parents can give it to their child in pieces they
understand & reasonably carry out.

So the next time you say "clean your room", remember the
indidual tasks and actions that go into it! Perhaps starting
with "pick up your clothes", praising the results and then
giving another mini task to the end of a clean bedroom,
will not only lead to what you as the parent desire, but
with alot less stress on you and your child!





Jodi H. Underhill MEd. LMHC Licensed Mental Health Counselor & Certified K-12 Guidance Counselor License #MH9166 Phone: 386.747.7148 Fax: 407.264.8289 www.junderhilltherapy.com