Take a moment. Check in with yourself. How are you feeling in this moment? What’s on your mind? There’s times in our lives we realize we’ve been living in fear. Not just fright or worry, but F-E-A-R: Fusing with our negative thoughts about ourselves Excessively making goals outside of our current resources Avoiding the Uncomfortable Remotely moving away from our values. We forget our values in moments of stress. We forget the type of person we want to be, want to be remembered as when we

Cultivating Gratitude in Seven Steps By Chandra Michelle Tracy, LMFT 1.  Practice seeing the world as it IS.  We are constantly moving from yesterday to tomorrow, preoccupied with what we need to do or what we did, that we do not take the time for all that is. We are on to the next before celebrating the first, and often do not give ourselves the credit we deserve, when we do complete a goal. Take time to notice all that is right now. 2.  Once you notice what is happening in your life right

Dreams have always been a place of creativity, the mystery that they hold can be a constant source of wonder and beauty, but what do they  actually mean? Dream interpretation takes what was a meaningless dream and turn it into a real life metaphor. What effect do dreams actually have on your life, and how much of your life can you learn from what you dream about?  There are many different theories behind why we dream. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of dreaming proposed that we all have

10 Oct, 2019

Hello Sierra Therapy Center Community!   We recently reached out to a group of individuals in an attempt to help them with promoting a community BBQ.  The BBQ is intended to bring together the community and provide warm meals for those in need, but it is also an opportunity to see and meet some new faces in our community.  We are here, and we want to hear your problems and help you through them!  Pitch in and come out and enjoy the evening!  We look forward to seeing you there!  With love,

04 Oct, 2019

Hi! I’m Saki the new intern and Sierra asked me to research on what makes the most improvement in psychotherapy. Therapy always seems to be the answer. Have a past trauma? Go to therapy. Relationship issues? Therapy. Need to vent? Therapy. But what about therapy produces results? Research by the American Psychologist Association (APA) has found that the most effective agent of change in psychotherapy is the therapeutic relationship, which is the relationship that you and your therapist share.

I’ve been asked “what is therapy all about” and my response was always pretty deflective because I struggled to sum it up in a way that was probably true for all therapists regardless of their theoretical orientation. Recently however it occurred to me that therapy in its most general form is actually a practice designed to cultivate non-violence. Many spiritual and philosophical traditions have tenets or doctrines that advocate for non-violence. A number of these traditions expand the idea

The Gentle Reader with Steven Cooper    Close your eyes... Take a deep breath…Take in the scent of your surroundings… Now… Listen to the vibrations around you. Without trying to change anything at all, just allow yourself to shift into an Observer role... Check in with Yourself. How are you feeling? What’s been on your mind? Much like seeing yourself in third person... No tension, no anxiety, not allowing yourself to feel triggered...just...See. Feel. Breathe. When we participate in

23 May, 2019

I was reading the words of my yoga teacher, who foretold in the 1990s, that there would be a time when every person would have mega billions of units of information on the tip of their finger, all the time, which would cause a widespread nervous breakdown (Yogi Bhajan). He was right! In the 1990s, we had barely scratched the surface of the information age, but now, nearly 30 years later, we are encapsulated by it. We are facing a world wide epidemic of emotional crises. Never before did we have

Its been a while since we updated everyone, but here's what we have been up to.  In the last couple months we have added some new team members and added another location.  STC (Sierra Therapy Center) is proud and honored to welcome Dena Hall, and Annette Kelso to our team!  Welcome to the team Dena Hall, MA, LMFT! Dena Hall is working in both the Nevada City office and Grass Valley office.  Here's a little message from Dena: “It is an honor to witness another’s journey and to provide them