Communication is crucial for healthy relationships. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist, Care and Counseling at Baptist Health Florida, says commitment and communication are the keys of relationships.
Teresita Calero, Psychotherapist, Care and Counseling at Baptist Health Florida, explains the Drama Triangle impedes people to develop what they need to survive and thrive in an environment. Spirituality can help with stress relief in several ways: Feeling a sense of purpose, connecting to the world, releasing control, expanding the support network and leading to a healthier life.
The sense of purpose brings back hope, affirms Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida. Waking up with awareness, enjoying every mouthful, giving fast brain a break and activating mind and muscles are simple practices for daily life.
Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, advises always smiling. “Be the first one to smile. Look at a stranger and smile. When you get that smile in return, that can just be so powerful to people,” she says. Stress is a part of daily life. Not always It’s a bad thing, sometimes it can be good, but sometimes It’s not handled well, says Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida.
Rev. Guillermo Escalona, Director of Pastoral Care with Miami Cancer Institute, affirms everyone needs ways of relieving the stress, ways of resting for recovering. Overeating or undereating, angry outbursts, drug or alcohol use, social withdrawal and exercising less often are the main effects of stress in personal behavior.
Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, also adds that stress is becoming anxiety and depression too. It is important to control in some way that teenagers do not overuse some of the applications and websites. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist at Baptist Health Care & Counseling, says cellphones are a privilege, and not a right.
“Parents have the control over their teens’ cellphone, and it is okay to invade their privacy. They need that and if they grow up with that, they will be okay with that”, she points out.
Because of the dangers of social media and what they can get into, parents have to be aware of what is going on and they should be checking on their kids. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist, Care and Counseling at Baptist Health Florida, explains transactional analysis was created by Eric Berne, a canadian psychiatrist, who developed this way to explain human behavior.
“Instead of him looking at human behavior, he would look at social interactions,” she says adding Berne used terms like games, he believed humans tend to play games, even as adults, to explain human behavior. Stress is a part of our daily life. It is not always a bad thing, sometimes it can be positive, but not when it’s not handled well, says Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida. Rev. Guillermo Escalona, Director of Pastoral Care with Miami Cancer Institute, explains that everyone needs ways of relieving stress to help recovering. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist, Care and Counseling at Baptist Health Florida, explains she uses in her sessions the cognitive behavioral therapy, which consists of recognizing your thought pattern and then changing it in order to change your behavior.
Teresita Calero, Psychotherapist, Care and Counseling at Baptist Health Florida, highlights the goal is taking personal responsibility for your actions and choices that you make, so you can get out of the drama triangle. Suicide is the third leading cause of death in young people ages 15 to 24. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist, Care and Counseling at Baptist Health Florida, explains suicide is something that is happening and we do not talk about that a lot.
“Young people are under the myth that if I talk about it, I’m going to put the idea in their head, but that’s just a myth,” she points out. Teresita Calero, Psychotherapist, Care and Counseling at Baptist Health Florida, says you can avoid getting into a drama triangle being aware and looking at your actions and thinking what is the outcome of what you are doing and recognizing you need to change your view and actions if that is not the outcome you want to.
Activities like exercise and meditation are great for mental health. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist, Care and Counseling at Baptist Health Florida, says replacing unhealthy habits with healthy habits would help you. For teens maybe it is difficult to speak out about other teenagers with adults, but it they are worried about their friends and their behavior on social media, they should tell their parents.
“The biggest fear I always hear is ‘what if they get mad at me and they no longer talk to me’. I usually tell them it is better that they are mad at you for a time, but you saved their life”, says Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist at Baptist Health Care & Counseling.
When parents have a funky feeling about what is going on with their kids, they should go with their gut. Amy Exum, also Psychotherapist, recommends to start a conversation to know the situation. Good stress can motivate people and Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, gives some examples in the cases it happens.
Meanwhile, bad stress occurs when it goes into things that become anxiety, fear, and things that stop from living daily life.
She also says mindfulness is something that she uses a lot in her therapy routine because of its benefits such as: Improved physical health, increased attention, focus and clarity, lowered anxiety and stress levels, as well as experience of feeling connected. There are some signs to make sure if teens are hurting themselves. Amy Exum, Psychotherapist at Baptist Health Care & Counseling, says running always and rapid change in moods may be engaging in some high-risk behaviors like substance use.
“They can also be talking about death or dying but not just in a joking way, or liking things on social media that are related to it”, she points out.
Nicole Rodriguez, also Psychotherapist, notes that cutting is another sign that they are planning to commit suicide. She recommends to be aware of what your kids are wearing because they will always find the way to hide when they are cutting themselves. Social Media is the new way of advertising and it can have an influence on teenagers. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist at Baptist Health Care & Counseling, says social media not always has a positive influence; teenagers feel pressured because of how many like they have or how many people are following them.
Another thing that has an impact on teenagers’ self-esteem is what to post and wondering if people are going to like it. There are some situations where social media become dangerous, too.
“I think there is a lot of exposure and one of the issues of social media is that children and teens have access to a lot of things that they wouldn’t normally access to immediately. So I think some of the dangers are associated with seeing other people engaging in high-risk behavior,” says the psychotherapist. Social media is powerful because its everywhere. Nicole RodrÃguez, Psychotherapist at Baptist Health Care & Counseling, says social media is something that is really prevalent out there for teenagers.
About this topic, parents should be on social media too and do their own research and know what their kids are posting. They have to check up on their children.
Amy Exum, also Psychotherapist at the same institution, highlights the possitive aspects of social media, like accesssing to a group of people that have the same interests but are so far away on the map. So, it allows you to know people for over the world. It’s important to know and express the feelings of the entire family members for avoiding holiday stress. Martin G. Lopez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, and Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist at the same place, explain why people should learn to say “No”. When someone thinks positively, stress level is lower, improves his cardiovascular health and avoids depression and anxiety. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, talks about how hard holidays can be for people. Helping others and being grateful are very powerful ways for changing life. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, affirms being grateful opens a lot of doors, reduces stress and handles depression and anxiety. Holidays tend to trigger depression and anxiety. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, explains why it happens. Besides, Martin G. Lopez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, considers family support is very useful for anxious or depressed people. Communication is the key for having a better life at home. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, and Amy Exum, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, say a couple’s success sometimes should start by talking about their needs. Suicide rates increase during holidays. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, explains there are some situations that can cause suicide such as depression or loss. Martin G. Lopez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, explains other red flags about that. To acknowledge what happened, to acknowledge your feelings, to choose to forgive, and to reconsider your perspective about the incident.
Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care and Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, says forgiveness is not about the other person, it is about you. “It is being able to let go of the anger and hurt because that is not doing you any good. It doesn’t always mean reconciliation.” Time is so valuable and it’s important that people do something for themselves. Amy Exum, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, recommends taking at least 10 or 15 minutes away to recharge. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, advises detoxing from cell phones. Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care and Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, explains positive psychology is the psychology of happiness, it is about looking for what makes us happy, how to find personal growth and what we are good at and focusing on that.
She says she uses positive psychology with her patients because they fall into the bad habit of thinking negatively. Getting to the airport on time, packing everything ahead of time and relaxing are some of tips to reduce stress while traveling. Martin G. Lopez, Psychotherapist with Care & Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, and Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist at the same place, explain why, sometimes it’s important to spend the holidays at home. There are happiness facts, some of them are: happiness does not correlate with economic growth, trust correlates with happiness, some regions are happier than others, and our brain reacts when we do good things.
Nicole Rodriguez, Psychotherapist with Care and Counseling at Baptist Health South Florida, says it is not about giving only money. “Spending time with someone, being there for someone. When you are giving, you tend to receive a lot more than when you are getting something.” “Spirituality is to religion what romance is to marriage. Spirituality is very universal. It’s that search for meaning that search for purpose,” says Rev. Guillermo Escalona, Director of Pastoral Care with Miami Cancer Institute.
He describes religion, for Latin people, involves relationship, commitment and receiving and giving up certain things. He affirms one complements the other. Adolescence is a time of experimentation and tasting the boundaries, but sometimes teens can end up winding up with a substance abuse problem.
Amy Exum, Psychotherapist at Baptist Health Care & Counseling, says a lot of the warning signs of depression, anxiety and suicide are similar warning signs to substance use, such as change in behavior, change in appetite, change in friends.
If your child comes home looking disoriented it is time to have a conversation. Teresita Calero, Psychotherapist, Care and Counseling at Baptist Health Florida, says the Drama Triangle speaks of dysfunctional interactions. “It maps conflictual type of dramatic intense relationships.
It has three main characters: the victim, the rescuer and the persecutor. The victim’s stance is “Poor me”, the rescuer’s line is “Let me help you” and the persecutor insists on “It’s all your fault”. Teresita Calero, Psychotherapist, Care and Counseling at Baptist Health Florida, says in the Latin community of South Florida there is a stigma on the patients that go to a psychotherapist for treatment. She explains most people think you are crazy if you go to a therapist.
“It’s just a conversation, not to be afraid, my challenge to my patients always is we can face everything in recovery, we don’t have to forget everything and run,” she says. Rev. Guillermo Escalona, Director of Pastoral Care with Miami Cancer Institute, affirms people need to examine what their trauma inputs are during the day.
He counsels arriving home soothed. For that, he advises turning the radio on for listening to something beautiful such as soothing music, enjoying nature and taking some deep breaths.
