Some Thoughts on Mental Health, Substance Use Disorders, Recovery, Coaching, & a Life Well Lived.
The House Always Wins: What I know from 20+ years of in-home therapeutic coaching.
I've driven from house to house to house daily, since 2004, supporting clients and families...
Beyond Recovery Coaching: What Clients, Families, & Providers Should Know
As coaching continues to gain traction and prove helpful in mental health and substance use...
The Locus of Freedom: A Buddhist Twist on Locus of Control
In psychology, we often hear about the locus of control—the idea that we have an internal or external sense of power over our lives…
Why You Should Metaphorically Rip Off Your Eyelids
Recently, my wife sent me a picture from up the road: a hill overlooking the houses, mountains,...
The Hidden Crisis in Mental Health Care: Lack of Discharge Planning
They Spent Their $750,000 Retirement on Two Years of Treatment. He Ended Up Homeless Without a...
Why Does the Treatment Industry Keep Dropping the Baton?!!
It doesn’t matter how good your clinicians are or your program is, if coordination of care is not...
Active Recovery Network: Revolutionizing Therapeutic Coaching with Community-Integrated Care
In the realm of addiction recovery and mental health treatment, the traditional model of therapy...
Why It Makes Sense for Your Mental Health or SUD Treatment Program to Partner with Active Recovery Network’s Community Integrated Recovery Solutions
Enhancing Recovery: The Power of ARN’s Community-Based Integrated Coaching and care Management In...
What is Therapeutic Coaching?
The value of ARN is in our individualized and flexible approach to building and maintaining...
Going Within and Daily Habits
“Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.” Let’s use this time to build ourselves up....
The “Midwest Curse” and A Practical Understanding of Time
Telling people I grew up in Kansas is rarely a conversation starter. Tornadoes and The Wizard of...
The Most Important Question You Can Ask
The most important question we can ask has been attributed to Albert Einstein, whether accurately...
On the Importance of Adventure & Play
If you’ve seen Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, then you'll remember the cabin fever experienced by...
Clinicians as Coaches. Our Key Differentiator.
I've been doing the same work for the last 15 years. In 2004 I started doing in-home clinical case...
The 3 Things We Should Always Be Doing
Do you remember that part in the movie Glennary Glen Ross with a young, brash Alec Baldwin where...
N.A.A.P. Time for Adults – Understanding the Utility of Mindfulness Practice
When I taught mindfulness at retreat centers, treatment facilities, the cancer center or 1:1 with...
The Keys to Success: Resilience, Optimism, Meaning & Purpose
The difference between those who “succeed” in life and those who do not very often lies in the...
On Realizing I Was a Helicopter Parent, Too!!
Ok, soooo.. I got called out when I posted some pictures of my daughter learning to ride a...
The Importance of Dreaming Big and Believing in Others
One of the most important things we can do for others is to keep dreaming big ourselves. This may...
Mindfulness is NOT a Self-Improvement Project
It took me 10 years of Buddhist practice and study to learn this lesson. It took me pursuing a...
How to Win Your 2019 With Ease
Anyone who knows me well knows that I love goals! I love setting goals, I love envisioning the...
Allowing Heaven
I was going to write something beautiful and elaborate about how we can trap ourselves and create...
The Lost Art of Boredom
The best thing my mom ever did was ground me from church. Wait, that's not true. The best thing my...
Uncovering our Client’s History of Sanity
The first open-air cremation I ever attended was of a psychiatrist and Buddhist teacher Ed...
Thank God it’s Monday!!
Thank God it’s Monday!! If you are not saying “Thank God It’s Monday!” on your way to work each...
Here’s Why Your Treatment Outcomes Suck (In Four Simple Words)..
In 2005 I stepped out of residential treatment work because I was shocked. I was as a freshly...
Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll and….. MONEY.
There's a whole lot that does happen in treatment. And there's a whole lot more that...
A Smile In Hell
I grew up reading Dante's Inferno. My mom was a high school English teacher and tutored students...
The Subject Tonight Is Hope
The subject tonight is Hope And for tomorrow night as well, As a matter of fact I know of...
Learning to Suffer Better
I was a competitive kid growing up. So when I got to the meditation cushion I was going for gold....
There Are No Detours.
I was leading a group a couple years back at a residential treatment center. It was a mindfulness...
The 40% Rule
I didn't want to go run the other evening. It had been a long day, and I'd met with clients for 8...
Why Stress is Good News!!
Only under stress can we function optimally. Let me clarify, only under the right kinds of stress...
How Developing a Needs and Feelings Literacy Will Change Your Life!
So, a couple weeks ago the wife of a male client I'm working with, whom I'm also meeting weekly as...
The Problem with Therapy
“The problem with therapy is that it makes you feel better but it doesn't change anything.” Let me...
Mindfulness is NOT a Self-Improvement Project
“Mindfulness is NOT a Self-Improvement Project” This is the first thing I write on the whiteboard...