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Kyle Lawell

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What is the “Understanding Game” and How Can it be Helpful?

March 5, 2021

Kyle Lawell, Licensed Professional Counselor It is common for people in relationships to develop routines and habits that we find familiarity and comfort in. We have Friday movie nights, scheduled Netflix dates, and other ways of connecting that can be incredibly beneficial and meaningful. Similarly, people in relationships slowly develop a cadence in how they communicate and engage with one another. We slowly notice and derive meaning from our partner’s body movement, voice inflexions, hand gestures, pauses…

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What Are Love Maps and Why Are They Important?

February 23, 2021

Kyle Lawell, Licensed Professional Counselor Your partner asks you to pick up some groceries on your way home from work: ice cream, paper towels, cereal, eggs, and flour. You go to the store, quickly breeze through the aisles and grab these groceries before making your way home. Upon putting the groceries away and settling down after a long day of work, your partner comes to you and expresses frustration about the groceries that you bought. While you…

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The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: A Lesson in Unhealthy Communication Styles

June 8, 2020

Kyle Lawell, Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) It’s safe to say that nearly all couples have arguments at some point in their relationship. We may argue about whose in-laws we’re going to see for the holidays, who took out the garbage last week, or what color we should paint the kitchen. In the best-case scenario, these arguments are resolved in an adaptive, healthy, and respectful manner between the two partners. Other times, however, these arguments are filled with…

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It’s Us and We, Not You and Me

June 6, 2020

Kyle Lawell, Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) Relationships, even the best ones, can be difficult. We often make sacrifices in our lives to make our partners happy. We might change our work schedule so we can pick up the kids after school or agree to take on more responsibility with the newborn so that our spouse can go back to work. In these times of need, it is crucial that people within a relationship remember that they are…

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Should We Always Look on the Bright Side? Probably Not!

June 4, 2020

Kyle Lawell, Licensed Professional Counselor It’s common for us to grow up being told to “look on the bright side” or “focus on the positives,” but this mentality may not be as useful as we always want it to. Susan David, instructor in psychology at Harvard University, suggests in her TED Talk on saying yes to negative emotions that the act of avoiding or suppressing our negative emotions actually impacts our ability to effectively interact and deal with…

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Waking Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed

April 12, 2020

Kyle Lawell, LPC There are days where we wake up and know that something is “not right.” From the moment you woke up, there was something holding you back from being your authentic, happy, and caring self. Maybe you had troubling sleeping, maybe it was the shouting from your kids in the back seat of your car as you dropped them off at school, or maybe there is absolutely no identifiable reason for you to feel down,…

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GIVE: The Key to Effective Communication in a Relationship

April 10, 2020

Maintaining effective communication within a relationship can be a challenging task, yet when individuals within a relationship are able to express their needs and wants appropriately, the relationship is much more likely to flourish and prosper. Expressing our desires to our loved-ones, however, can sometimes be difficult due to extraneous factors such as our fear of rejection, disapproval, or embarrassment for wanting something. Marsha M. Linehan, the founder of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and professor of Psychology…

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A Mindful Minute

April 8, 2020

Oftentimes our lives can feel incredibly overwhelming with everything we have to accomplish throughout the day. From preparing your kids for school in the morning, going to that yoga class you nervously signed up for last minute, getting the groceries to feed your family, and remembering to turn in the report your supervisor asked for yesterday, we can become terribly distracted and lose focus on what matters most in our lives. Regardless of whether our lives are…

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