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helenebrenner.com https://helenebrenner.com Psychologist Helene G Brenner, Ph.D. Counseling and Psychotherapy in Frederick, MD Wed, 30 Nov 2022 16:20:23 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.7 https://helenebrenner.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Favicon.jpg helenebrenner.com https://helenebrenner.com 32 32 Embracing the Fear: 4 Tools for Soothing Anxiety https://helenebrenner.com/embracing-the-fear-4-tools-for-soothing-anxiety/ https://helenebrenner.com/embracing-the-fear-4-tools-for-soothing-anxiety/#comments Wed, 30 Nov 2022 16:20:11 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=37590 Everybody talks about anxiety these days. But what exactly is anxiety? While there are many ways to define it, we like to use a single, simple definition: It’s the feeling of feeling unsafe. When we talk about fear, or feeling afraid, it’s almost always a fear of something specific and tangible. You’re afraid of the dark, for example, or public speaking, or death, or spiders. But anxiety is a…

]]> https://helenebrenner.com/embracing-the-fear-4-tools-for-soothing-anxiety/feed/ 2 Four Tips for Creating an Emotional Safety Net Around You https://helenebrenner.com/four-tips-for-creating-an-emotional-safety-net-around-you/ https://helenebrenner.com/four-tips-for-creating-an-emotional-safety-net-around-you/#comments Wed, 30 Nov 2022 16:17:59 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=37596 The best way to feel safe, secure, and “whole”—capable of facing whatever challenges life may bring you—is to have emotionally safe people in your life. That’s a basic part of our blueprint as human beings. Emotionally safe people are people whom you can turn to when you feel vulnerable, and with whom you don’t feel afraid to be yourself. Unfortunately, when people feel chronically emotionally…

]]> https://helenebrenner.com/four-tips-for-creating-an-emotional-safety-net-around-you/feed/ 1 Lower the Emotional Temperature this Thanksgiving in Six Steps https://helenebrenner.com/lower-the-emotional-temperature-this-thanksgiving-in-six-steps/ Mon, 21 Nov 2022 23:00:06 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=37576 Thanksgiving is this week and many of us are planning trips to be with our extended families. And with all the tensions that tend to arise within many family gatherings, you may be thinking, “Please just let me survive this.” After the last two years of the pandemic and the rising polarization in our country, it’s easy to feel estranged from our family members. Our emotions are raw…

]]> How to Deal With Your Uncle Frank This Thanksgiving https://helenebrenner.com/how-to-deal-with-your-uncle-frank-this-thanksgiving/ Mon, 21 Nov 2022 22:54:51 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=37580 You’re heading to your traditional Thanksgiving family gathering for the first time in three years and you’re (mostly) looking forward to seeing everybody – except Uncle Frank, the conspiracy-mongering zealot who’s bound to say something that’s going to drive you up the wall. Which is a sad thing, because he used to be one of your favorite relatives. You could simply change the subject…

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]]> Emotional Safety: What it is and Why it is so Important https://helenebrenner.com/emotional-safety-what-it-is-and-why-it-is-so-important/ https://helenebrenner.com/emotional-safety-what-it-is-and-why-it-is-so-important/#comments Thu, 10 Nov 2022 21:57:58 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=37568 “Emotional safety?” exclaimed George, one of our clients. “What are you talking about? No one’s got a knife here. No one’s carrying a gun. No one’s about to fall off a ledge. You can’t walk around worrying about getting your feelings hurt all the time. That’s not the way life is!” George has a point. Emotional safety does sound rather “soft.” Life isn’t easy, people aren’t always nice…

]]> https://helenebrenner.com/emotional-safety-what-it-is-and-why-it-is-so-important/feed/ 5 What Fuses, Washing Machines & Cars Can Teach us About Emotional Resilience https://helenebrenner.com/what-fuses-washing-machines-cars-can-teach-us-about-emotional-resilience/ Fri, 23 Sep 2022 13:58:43 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=37535 We’ve talked a lot in this blog about how to understand feelings (your own and other people’s), and how to deal with feelings and work with them when they get difficult or overwhelming. Some of what we’ve written may have come across as a bit “dense” or technical. So this week I’d like to keep it simple and introduce to you my three theories on how to become more emotionally resilient. They are…

]]> Taming the Dragon – What to Do When Your Anxious Partner Lashes Out https://helenebrenner.com/taming-the-dragon/ https://helenebrenner.com/taming-the-dragon/#comments Fri, 09 Sep 2022 15:09:07 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=37504 Has something like this ever happened to you? You’re having what you thought was a casual conversation about possibly buying a house in the suburbs in a year or two when your husband suddenly hisses, “Oh, why are we even married?” Or. . . You’re running late to a wedding. As you pull out of the driveway, your wife says, “Did you have to talk so long on the phone with your mother?

]]> https://helenebrenner.com/taming-the-dragon/feed/ 9 The 7 Habits of Emotionally Successful People https://helenebrenner.com/the-7-habits-of-emotionally-successful-people/ Thu, 18 Aug 2022 20:39:58 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=37476 What does “emotionally successful” sound like to you? Is it the ability to maintain grace under pressure? To walk into all kinds of social situations calmly and confidently? To find and keep a really healthy, loving relationship? To have emotional balance through all the ups and downs of life? These all sound like great ways to be. Who wouldn’t want to be like this? But how do you get there?

]]> How to Raise Your Emotional Awareness in Five Minutes or Less—Interoceptively https://helenebrenner.com/exercises-for-raising-awareness/ Mon, 04 Jul 2022 05:01:25 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=37264 “He’s really in touch with himself.” “She’s comfortable in her skin.” “He’s all in his head.” Everyday phrases like these show that we all sense intuitively that some people are more connected to themselves than others. But connected to what? The phrases give us a clue: The first two suggest that the people must be feeling something, touching something in their body, while the last phrase…

]]> Emotional Triggers: Why They’re Hard to Spot, and What You Can Do About Them https://helenebrenner.com/emotional-triggers-hard-to-spot/ Mon, 06 Jun 2022 16:00:10 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=37122 “What are you doing?” shouts your current partner from another room. “Why, don’t you trust me?” A moment before you were perfectly happy with your new beau. But suddenly your back has tensed, your breath is caught and your mind’s racing with thoughts about how this is turning out to be just one more horrible, awful relationship. What’s going on when your reaction to something that’s happened is…

]]> It’s Good to Share Your Emotional Reactions (Even When They’re Irrational). Here’s How https://helenebrenner.com/share-your-emotional-reactions/ Tue, 10 May 2022 05:00:50 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=37089 There I was, sitting in a parked car with Larry along a dark street at night Googling something on my phone, when a hand came out of nowhere and pounded on my window, and I screamed. Larry and I were on a weekend getaway in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. While driving through town after dinner, we remembered something we needed to get, so we stopped the car for a short time to look for a pharmacy…

]]> The Five Pathways to Self Awareness https://helenebrenner.com/the-five-pathways-to-self-awareness/ Sun, 30 Jan 2022 21:13:27 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=31617 Your Inner Voice is not something you’re taught, nor is it something someone else can tell you. It arises from your own inner experience. But often, as we grow up and as we face all of life’s demands and challenges, we lose touch with our own inner experience. Just to survive, we may cut out of our awareness what we deeply know to be true, we may ignore what our senses are telling us…

]]> The ABC’s of the Inner Voice https://helenebrenner.com/the-abcs-of-the-inner-voice/ Fri, 21 Jan 2022 19:47:00 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=31613 If you’re like – well, practically everybody – you try to make yourself stop feeling that way. You’ll argue with yourself or try to talk yourself out of how you’re feeling. (“Well, it’s simply ridiculous to get upset over that.”) You’ll try to minimize how you’re feeling to yourself. (“I’m not really hurt. I’m just…a little…bothered. It’s no big deal.”) Or you may even deny the feeling you’re…

]]> Your Most Important Relationship https://helenebrenner.com/your-most-important-relationship/ Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:49:14 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=31603 Relationships make up a huge part of most women’s lives. Whether it’s with their partners, their parents, their children, their friends or their colleagues, most women spend a large portion of their time and energy thinking about and taking care of relationships. But what about your relationship with yourself? That’s a relationship, too. Do you take care of that relationship as well?

]]> What is Your Inner Voice? https://helenebrenner.com/what-is-your-inner-voice/ Sun, 21 Jul 2019 23:45:49 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=31608 People mean different things when they talk about their “Inner Voice.” Some think of it as their intuition, while for others it’s what their “gut” is telling them. Many people talk about it as though it were something akin to their conscience, while still others think of it as guidance they receive from a Divine source. And a lot of people are afraid that if they stopped to listen to their…

]]> The Fundamental Challenge for Women https://helenebrenner.com/the-fundamental-challenge-for-women/ Sun, 22 Jul 2018 03:22:40 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=31655 For years the only acceptable answer was to say there are no meaningful differences. And for most of the past 20 years, conventional wisdom also had it that we were done talking about “women’s issues,” because all of the important problems had been solved and all the real obstacles eliminated. Of course, that was never true, and today, in 2021, it is finally being faced again. And today we can…

]]> 6 Secrets for Becoming Your Most Authentic Self https://helenebrenner.com/3-secrets-for-becoming-your-truest-most-authentic-self/ Fri, 20 Jul 2018 22:15:55 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=32721 YBY MARY GRACE GARIS IN WELL + GOOD That Polonius guy from Hamlet once said, “To thine own self be true.” And though Shakespeare was definitely blessing the world with some timeless truth by writing those words, which place value on being authentically you, putting them into practice isn’t so easy in a Facetime-forward world. Because really, what does it even mean to be true to yourself? And also…

]]> How To Say No https://helenebrenner.com/how-to-say-no/ Sun, 15 Jul 2018 19:08:48 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=32812 By Mary Grace Garis in WELL + GOOD Even if you don’t harbor people pleaser tendencies, learning how to say no can sometimes feel like a Herculean task—especially if you skew toward being an empath. Texting allows some people to find the easy way out in the form of thinly veiled lies like, “Maybe I’ll swing by.” But when someone in your IRL social sphere asks you for a favor (read: a demand) and…

]]> How to Be Yourself, A Conversation With Dr. Helene Brenner https://helenebrenner.com/how-to-be-yourself-a-conversation-with-dr-helene-brenner-on-becoming-an-authentic-person/ Thu, 12 Jul 2018 20:12:40 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=31797 BY NATALIA BORECKA In most of these cases, we do the sensible thing, and proceed to ignore our feelings completely. After all, we’re taught that emotions are irrational, they can be easily manipulated, and that they have no real meaning anyway. It’s better to trust old logic, and logic dictates that you don’t have any real evidence to support any of your gut feelings. But then when the truth…

]]> Resenting Your Spouse https://helenebrenner.com/resenting-your-spouse/ Wed, 11 Jul 2018 20:53:43 +0000 https://helenebrenner.com/?p=31792 By Michael Laser from Parents Magazine Judy Watson-Remy candidly admits what many other women won’t say out loud: She’s angry at her husband a lot of the time. “We both work, but I’m still the one responsible for all of the housework and the kids’ stuff,” says the mother of two from Brooklyn. “My husband does nothing around the house, and that really annoys me.” She has plenty of company: The…

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