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Small Changes With Big Results
5 Strategies to Calm Your Anxiety Quickly
When you live with an anxiety disorder, any moment can become one that creates a slow-rising panic within you. Life is normal one second and the next, you feel your chest tighten and your heart begin to race. You may begin to hyperfocus on future events and find...
A Budgeting Guide for the Holidays
The holiday season is a time for sharing and caring, which includes giving and receiving gifts! We all love to give gifts and are equally excited to receive them. However, during the holiday season, it can be easy to overspend. We all want to buy our children the...
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: An in-Depth Look at What It Is and Who It Works For
Have you been considering seeking out a counselor or therapist? Many people have elected to seek out mental health services and the stigma, while still present, is slowly dissipating. Mental health is becoming a more widely discussed topic. Hundreds of millions of...
How to Avoid Emotional Eating During the Holidays
The Thanksgiving holiday is approaching us! Thanksgiving is a time for showing gratitude to our family, friends, and close loved ones. In traditional American households, we spend the holiday giving thanks, saying grace, and preparing for the new year. Similarly,...
Self Care During the Holidays
Self care is all about setting and honoring personal boundaries. Practicing self care can seem difficult at times in an ongoing, fast paced world, especially during the holiday season. It can easily become overlooked and neglected during the busy (and sometimes...
Supporting Your Teen’s Mental Health
The weight of the world is enough as an adult; but as a teenager? It’s even more overwhelming. Teens are faced with pressures from all angles. To name a few, school, friendships, romance, family, jobs, drugs, and body changes are heavy on teens' minds. On top of that,...
How to Find the Best Online Couples Therapy to Save Your Relationship
Every relationship has its fair share of ups and downs, however, sometimes the tension can reach a boiling point, and assistance is needed. Online couples therapy can be the solution to relationship woes. Studies have shown that current marriage counseling techniques...
Benefits of Seeing a Male Therapist
Therapy is a transformative experience that requires the right personality fit between client and clinician. Beyond that, trust and rapport are what drive a successful therapeutic relationship. Notice that I didn’t say therapy was always a comfortable experience. To...
Warning Signs of Dysfunctional Family Roles
Let’s talk about family roles. Family roles may be a phrase that feels very light as it is commonly used. We’re here to talk about the negative side of family roles and the impact they can have on a family Family roles can be a sign or symptom of a dysfunctional...
4 Areas You Could Be Improving Your Self Care
Sometimes the term Self Care can be a little intimidating. Because not everyone likes the face masks, bubble baths, or essential oils that typically come to mind when this term is mentioned. These things might actually turn some people away. We wanted to break self...
The Two Levels to a Toxic Family Upbringing & How To Break the Chain
Too many children grow up in toxic families. This can be detrimental to their mental and emotional health as adults in the world. As parents, there are things we can watch out for in ourselves to prevent a toxic family upbringing in our homes. There are typically...
Simple Tips for Sleeping Productively
Perhaps one of the most basic parts of life that often doesn’t get the credit or attention it deserves is sleep. It’s essential, and we spend about a third of our lives doing it, so maybe we should consider giving it a little bit more love. There are things you can...
Despite What You May Have Grown Up Hearing–There Is In Fact, A Fair Way To Fight
The saying “All’s Fair In Love And War”, isn’t really conducive to a healthy relationship between two people. There are ways to have productive arguments and disagreements without having to end the night with someone sleeping on the couch, or angrily hanging up the...
Moms: Get Started with Self Care… Or Else
Standing in line at the grocery store you’re privy to a lot of conversations - whether you like it or not. You’re stuck there because you don’t dare move or you’ll lose your place in line and checking out will take even longer. So, you try not to listen to what people...
Becoming Culturally Aware
In this time, it feels more important than ever to know our surroundings and be aware of our voices as well as the voices of those around us, who may not have the same opportunities to speak and be heard. As white individuals during the time of Black Lives Matter, it...
What Men Need to Hear About Therapy
Once upon a time, I took a trip for private practice owners to Colorado. This was a conference to help therapists who own their own private practice grow and network. I was lucky enough to meet TONS of rad therapists/owners but a small group of us created a special...
Manage Your Anxiety During Quarantine
Melissa Kemlage and Kayla Reilly, two licensed therapists in Wilmington, NC come together to send you some strategies on managing your anxiety. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT90QSByid8&t=9s Be Creative with Self Care Find ways to make yourself feel good. Don’t...
Parenting in Quarantine (You’re Doing Great)
Parenting is THE hardest job on the face of the planet. Hands down. Now throw on a global pandemic that causes 6+ weeks of quarantine. So many parents are struggling with judging themselves, being exhausted, feeling guilty… It makes therapists sad because you are...
3 Toxic Myths about Marriage
Today, we'll cover the 3 toxic myths about marriage that all beginners MUST break away from in order to achieve a healthy long term relationship. Getting your mindset right is the #1 thing you have to conquer if you want to succeed in marriage. As the popular saying...
Self-Care During Coronavirus
Are you having a difficult time taking care of yourself during this pandemic? Are you tired of being trapped in the same routine every day? Have you started to forget which day it is? Are you going absolutely stir-crazy because you can’t think of other things to do?...
Important Information For Telehealth Appointments
We hope that you are doing well and adjusting to all of the changes that have been going on related to social distancing, working from home, balancing kids being home from school, etc. - 1. Connection If you are connecting to your telehealth appointment via your...
Re-Evaluating Your Balance During Quarantine
There is a concept in Al Anon and ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) programs that I love: “detach with love.” The idea is, we have to peel away our identity and wellbeing and emotional state away from people in our lives so that we can see where we end and they...
Telehealth Counseling Services Q&A
COVID-19 (AKA the Coronavirus) is rampant in our country, businesses and schools are closing, and many states have moved to a mandatory “Shelter in Place” order. The economy is taking a major hit, people are being laid off from their jobs, and those who still are...
Adjusting to Social Distancing
If you are ready to move forward from the setbacks that COVID-19 has caused, consider counseling at our Wilmington, NC-based counseling practice, or online in North Carolina,During a time of crisis, there often comes a reverberation of circumstances that are a result...
Mental Health During COVID-19
It’s March! The sun is shining, the weather is warm, aaaaaand COVID-19 is impacting our country in a serious way. The economy is taking a major hit, people are being laid off from their jobs, and those who still are working are at risk for COVID-19 infection. Most of...
Coping Methods For Anxiety
Anxiety can be difficult to handle. Given that anxiety is essentially an unintentional misuse of your body’s natural fight-or-flight response to imminent threats, it can be quite challenging for those who live with severe anxiety or who experience serious anxiety in...
Common Sources Of Stress For Teens & How To Help Them Cope
The teenage years are hard for most kids — between stressful school, fickle friends, and the hormone soup swirling in their brains and bodies, it’s very easy for teens to stress out about their lives. At Evolution Wellness in Wilmington, we’re passionate about...
Family Roles
In all family’s there are roles that each person takes on. Especially in families with many siblings, it is easier to detect the dysfunctional family roles that each person embodies. Each dysfunctional family may have addiction present, personality disorders like...
Does Your Mental Health Affect Your Romantic Relationship?
No two relationships are the same. Everyone will deal with the mental health of themselves and their partner differently. Those dealing with depression, anxiety, anger, or any other form of mental illness, often push away from their loved ones. They can do this for...
Be Vulnerable
In our society today, we have been conditioned to believe that being vulnerable is a bad thing. That if we are out of our comfort zone we are anxious and fearful. One of our favorite speakers and authors, Brené Brown, discusses how vulnerability can change your life...
Why You Need Intimacy in Your Marriage
Intimacy: A quality of interpersonal connectedness and familiarity, emotional and empathetic, between individuals. Characterized by – Fear of Intimacy: resistance to self-disclosure, short-term relationships, distancing techniques, defense mechanisms, emotional...
4 Things to STOP Doing in Your Relationships
The Four Horseman of The Apocalypse (In Relationships) John and Julie Gottman have been studying relationships for over 40 years and they have nailed down the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse of a relationship. If you let these horseman run wild through your marriage,...
Why You Should Practice Self-Care
Practicing self-care can range from bubble baths, to meditation, to spending more time with family and friends. Everyone’s self care will look different because we all have individual needs to tailor to. In our busy day to day lives, self care can be hard to make...
Self-Love For Single Parents
Let’s talk about something that isn’t discussed frequently enough: being a single parent. So much love is given towards two parents raising their children, but where is all the love for the parents who are doing it all on their own? What about the dad who lost his...
The Importance of Setting Personal Boundaries
As human beings we have the tendency to over work ourselves until our batteries run low. We try and multitask so many areas of our lives, that our relationships and mental health often get neglected. One of the areas a therapist will focus on their client with is...
Supporting Your Loved One Through Anxiety and Depression
Depression and anxiety disorders are on the rise, but that does not mean you know who is struggling with one. More often than not, people struggling with depression don’t show clear signs. They may look like they are really enjoying life and constantly make you...
How to Get the Most Out of Your Counseling Experience
In my nearly 14 years of experience as a therapist, I’ve had the pleasure of observing counseling clients achieve great success towards the goals they set for themselves in therapy. Conversely, I have also observed individuals drift through the therapy process without...
3 Signs Your Teen Needs Counseling
Teenagers are notorious for bottling up their feelings, mainly because their feelings are all so new they just don’t know what to do about them or how to express them. This is what can lead to depression quickly. Evolution Wellness offers teen counseling services in...
3 Ways Telehealth Therapy is Easy
While many rail against the internet, the internet has opened up many possibilities that otherwise would not be possible, such as online therapy. Evolution Wellness offers online therapy services from our Wilmington, NC, offices. Below, we’ll list the benefits of...
3 Tips to Talk about Therapy
There is a stigma attached to therapy that stems from the early days of counseling services where those who needed therapy were portrayed as people with something wrong with them. However, nowadays we all know counseling is for everyone to deal with the stresses of...
3 Hacks to Stretch Your Time
Time forever marches on. As you get older, time seems to march faster. Between career, family, kids, hobbies, and pursuing dreams, you barely have time to clean your house, wash your clothes, and do the dishes. Evolution Wellness in Wilmington, NC, offers counseling...
3 Tips to Cope as an Empty Nester
As a good parent, your children come first, from feeding them in the morning to helping them brush their teeth at night. However, as they age, your children need you less and less until finally one day, they leave. This can be devastating to you when someone whom...
3 Ways to Feel Fabulous After 50
Aging is not exactly something most of us look forward to. When your hair starts to turn gray, parts of your body start to sag, and your bones creek when you bend over, you don’t exactly feel good about yourself. Evolution Wellness in Wilmington, NC, helps people who...
What is Depression?
What is depression? The most common mental disorder in the world, one in five Americans will experience depression in their lifetime. Depression should not be defined as just being very sad, because it is so much more than that. Think of sadness that is overwhelming...
Creative Ideas for Improving Communication in Your Relationship
Whether conducted in the United States or far off lands, many surveys find the number one reason for divorce is poor communication. Beyond having different communication styles, issues often arise when both partners are not comfortable talking about their feelings....
How to Reduce Fighting Over Money & Budgets
If you and your partner fight about money, you’re not alone. According to a recent survey, 27% of Americans said that disagreements about finances tend to erupt into full-blown arguments. This means couples fight more about money than they do about work, chores or the...
Are You Playing the Blame Game? Here’s Why You Need to Stop
Blame and game – two words that should never be joined together. The truth is, the blame game is no fun to play and there are never any winners. And, perhaps, the biggest loser of all is the one who is doing all the blaming. When we blame others, we lose our power....
Mental Exercises to Help Athletes “Get in the Zone”
For many athletes, being “in the zone” is an immersive moment of super productivity; a type of tunnel vision, where one is hyper-focused on something to become our best and most powerful self. Professional survival expert Mike Horn had this to say about “the zone”:...
How Meditation Can Help Manage Symptoms of Trauma
Meditation offers practitioners powerful benefits, yet many people are confused as to what exactly those benefits are. In a nutshell, meditation focuses attention in a deliberate manner, taking you from a state of noisy mental chatter to calm and quiet inner peace....
5 Ways to Recharge Your Energy After a Rough Day
Few things zap your energy the way a stressful day can. Stress is known to reduce our levels of serotonin and dopamine, neurotransmitters that play an important role in our mood, energy and motivation. After a difficult day, you might be tempted to lounge on the couch...
Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks! Tips for Starting a Later-In-Life Hobby
Most of us, when we were growing up, had hobbies. Some of us collected stamps or coins, others rode horses, and still others liked to draw or bake. But then we grew up and our world became filled with work and family responsibilities, and we had little time to do the...
Let’s Go for a Walk: How Regular Exercise Can Aid Mental Health
By now, most of us know that exercise offers numerous health benefits. From maintaining an ideal weight, to reducing the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and osteoporosis, moving our body every day improves the length and quality of our lives. But not all of us...
6 Signs it’s Time for a “Mental Health Day”
Many of us think of “the workday” as starting the moment we set foot in our place of work, but it actually begins the moment we open our eyes. Beginning our day mindfully and extending that sense of being present into our workday can make a significant difference in...
7 Self-Care Strategies for work/life balance
Many of us think of “the workday” as starting the moment we set foot in our place of work, but it actually begins the moment we open our eyes. Beginning our day mindfully and extending that sense of being present into our workday can make a significant difference in...
When Someone You Love is Battling Addiction
When someone we love and care about is battling an addiction, we often feel powerless. The cycle of addiction causes intense pain to both the addicted person and those around them. It feels impossible to simply observe the damage to a person’s health, financial...
3 Ways to Manage Anger
Anger is commonly referred to as a surface or secondary emotion. On the surface we present as angry, but underneath there can be a gang of other emotions driving the rage truck. Anger is so extremely functional for us as humans; it allows us to defend ourselves from...
Finding Balance
One of the first things I like to explore with new clients is the balancing the roles of their life. We all have things: partners, kids, jobs, etc. and it’s easy to let our lives become defined by one thing. What roles do you serve in your life? Sally is: mother,...
Take Accountability for How You Feel
There is one sentence I preach to all my clients: “You are responsible for how you feel.” Part of the break down in today’s culture is everyone is finding something to blame for their own emotional state. “He cheated on me, so I’m crushed.” “She irritates me.” “If I...
The Sum of Depression
Someone once explained their experience with depression to me in the following way: “It feels like being underwater in a swimming pool… and I can see people on the pool deck, but they’re blurry and just out of reach, and I can hear them, but what they’re saying is...
Anxiety & Your Brain
Over 21 percent of American adults between the ages of 18-64 will experience diagnosable Anxiety Disorders in a given year (over 42.5 Million people). To give you some perspective, that is more than the number of people who subscribed to Netflix™ in 2015. What is...
Summer Recipe: Kale Pesto
Looking for a light, easy to make, summer snack that’s also super nutritious? Check out this delicious twist - Kale Pesto! A refreshing taste, perhaps served on apple slices, sliced tomatoes, crackers or even as a spread or dressing on salads, vegetables or...
Boundaries
“Boundaries are, in simple terms, the recognition of personal space.” ― Asa Don Brown, The effects of childhood trauma on adult perception and worldview Have you ever heard the saying, “Good fences make good neighbors”? It’s the idea that a tangible boundary between...
What’s the Buzz about Essential Oils?
Essential Oils have recently been featured on many newscasts and online reports as a “trend” in alternative healthcare. In reality, essential oils aren’t as much “alternative” as they are “natural”. Essential oils are volatile aromatic compounds extracted from plants...
What is Trauma?
With growing research in the field of trauma and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), we are seeing more clearly now than ever before that trauma does not just occur for the war-time veteran. In order to understand how broadly it impacts society at large, we first...
Spice up Your Life
Health is the Spice of Life, but could Spice be the Life of Health? What you add to the spice rack in your kitchen could actually provide you with a cornerstone for health and healing. Spices come from seeds, fruits, roots and the bark of plants and are used in dried...
Avenues to Recovery
Author: Natalie Gomes MA, LPCS, LCAS I read once that recovery is like a huge, beautiful, elaborately wrapped gift that when you open, contains thousands of other, smaller, beautifully wrapped gifts. Over the course of my career as a mental health and substance use...
Misdiagnosed Trauma
Author: Buffy Andrews MSW, LCSW Trauma is a tricky animal, and it rears its ugly head in many different ways. More often than not, individuals who’ve dealt with trauma in their past, commonly get misdiagnosed with other mental health disorders or illnesses. According...
3 Steps to Overcome Anxiety
Author: Buffy Andrews MSW, LCSW We’ve all been plagued with it at some point. Anxiety sometimes wreaks havoc like a cancer in our lives. Maybe you, or someone you know struggles with feelings of anxiety at times. I myself feel caught in throws of anxiety in moments...
Listening to Our Bodies
Author: Buffy Andrews MSW, LCSW Listening to our bodies can be really hard when we have the voices of society telling us all sorts of untruths. Things like: be vegan and you'll live longer, don't eat gluten it's the enemy of everything, don't be so sensitive, look...
10 Ways to Send Your Kids Back to School with Confidence
Author: Jennifer Witkowski MA, LPC The count down to the end of summer is here! While many parents rejoice at the thought of their children going back to school, and the quiet of the house returning, we often forget what a large transition this can be for some...