Tips to Have a Happy Pandemic Thanksgiving
Who doesn’t love Thanksgiving? No worrying about gifts! We get to focus on food, (one our favorite things!) and people, relationships, family, friends (more favorites! And, of course, gratitude. This year it feels all turned upside down. The focus has shifted...
5 Tips to Help Parents Survive Distance Learning
Can Parents Survive Distance Learning? The answer is highlighted in 7 Tips! Kids with Attention Challenges & Remote Learning, your child is the main focus of distance learning, but don’t forget a KEY ingredient to your child’s success: YOU. It might be easy...
Why am I damaging my hair, skin, & nails when I am stressed?
Why am I damaging my hair, skin, and nails when I am stressed?! Do you bite your nails or cuticles until they hurt?Do you pull your hair until you have bald spots?Do you pick at your skin until you have multiple bloody spots on your face? You are not alone! You are...
7 Tips! Kids with Attention Challenges & Remote Learning
Parent's all over the Western New York Region are experiencing the difficulty of connecting children with Attention Challenges to Remote Learning. Having the kids home 24/7 AND for many, also working from home, AND helping them each step of the way with their school...
4 Skills to Adapt to The New College Experience:
Clara Kuntz, Ph.D, discusses four skills college students can use to adapt to the new college experience. Helpful for college age families.
Near Me: 5 Parks to Visit After a Therapy Session
Therapy is great, but homework isn’t. At the end of my last therapy session, my therapist asked “So have you made any more headway in that workbook I recommended?” The smile on my face fell slightly. ‘Shit.’ I, in fact, had not opened that work book in over a...
Depression or Grief: Five ways to give ourselves a break
Here are some things I’ve learned from my experience of crashing and burning and getting back on track again. Five ways we can give ourselves a break You are not crazy. Stop gaslighting yourself. It’s not mental illness if you are reacting to an event in your...
EMDR Helps To Heal A Painful Past
When healing a painful past event requires more than talking it out, EMDR is there to help Intrusive memories: they can happen to all of us. You think that you’re over your parents’ divorce from over 20 years ago, but every now and then, and completely out of...
Daughter is a VSCO Girl, What Does That Mean?
First of all, don’t panic. It is perfectly normal to be a VSCO girl. Second of all, I am 26 years old and I just found out about VSCO girls in October. I went into work and one of my colleagues was playfully teasing the other. He turned to me and laughed “Isn’t...
Chronic Illness in the Time of COVID
In the old movie Broadcast News, the Holly Hunter character, I forget her name, would take time for herself every morning to cry. She just cried. There was no apparent trigger, no reason or justification ever given for why this intelligent, intense, professional woman...
RE-OPENING!
AN OPEN LETTER TO OUR EXPLORE WHAT'S NEXT CLIENTS REGARDING RE-OPENING OFFICES! All of us at Explore What’s Next sincerely hope this finds you well. Thank you so much for your patience, flexibility, and resilience during this time of great change. The transition to...
Will Tele-Therapy Work For Me?
Throughout the United States and around the world, people are connecting with Explore What’s Next for therapy sessions through tele-sessions. Geography is no longer an obstacle to getting the help you need! Tele-sessions are more like office visits than you think....
DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) Group Info
Explore What’s Next is now recruiting new participants for virtual Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Skills Groups! In the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic, a lot of people are struggling with increased isolation from their loved ones and friends. Depression,...
COVID-19 Stuck at home? 10 Tips For Parents
Stuck at home?Here are (hopefully) 10 helpful Tips For Parents for you and your family during this time: A snow day (or two) is fun…but more than a few days stuck at home can quickly become overwhelming. Given the current health crisis and closure of schools, many...
3 Ways to be Socially Responsible: Explore What’s Next Responds with Care
News about COVID-19, how to prepare and how to take care of ourselves and our families, changes every day. With every new piece of information, more worry seems to mount. That’s natural. We know how stressful this time can be. To do what we can to lower the stress and...
Explore What’s Next Speaker Series-Mindy Scime
People pleaser is a label I hate. That it is accurate when used to describe me just makes me hate it more. My ability to be a people pleaser was off to an early start when I first impressed my dad with my reading skills. The book was Little Bear by Elsa Holmelund...
Coronavirus Anxiety: 3 Challenges & What to Do About Them
Coronavirus. Just the word causes faster heart rates, shorter breaths and queasy stomachs, hallmark signs of anxiety. There have been many times when I’ve written about our psychological reaction to current affairs on this blog. Game-changing events, natural...
Three Steps To Control Your Anger
Anger is a perfectly OK emotion. A natural reaction to feeling threatened, the expression of anger, especially for women, has been given a bad rap. While growing up, I was encouraged to deny my anger, to feel somehow guilty or apologetic for it. Angry women are called...
Dream Made Manifest: The Studio at Explore What’s Next
The Studio at Explore What's Next is a long hoped for dream made manifest. The dream was to have a place where people, like me, who at some point or other, feel raw and vulnerable, can find a safe haven. In the center of that safe haven, there is the...
The Proposal, The Ring
Four months after I met John I proposed marriage to him. He said, “No. Thank you.” I was twenty-nine when we met. He was the life partner I had been waiting for. He loved me but he didn’t believe in marriage. OK, I thought, I’ll give him a year. ...
Interview with Chris Sova Ph.D.
An Introduction by Elvira G. Aletta, PhD founder of Explore What's NextI am very excited to introduce Dr. Christopher Sova to you. Dr. Sova is a local son, born and bred in Western New York and proud of it! Not only does he have the education, skills and knowledge of...
The Shame of Seeking Counseling as a Man
There has ever been a voice in my head that whispers to me that I cannot share my pain, my sadness, my mistakes, or my fears. This same voice shouts at me that I must never show weakness. For I have learned that once people get a glimpse behind my armor of masculine...
10 Gifts to Give Yourself When Stress Is Making You Lose Your Shit
Stress can tip from bearable to overbearing in a split second. When you’re buckling under the stress, and who isn’t these days, give yourself these gifts. You have to give them to yourself because the reality is no one else will. Stress can be a gift. Stay with...
Naomi Osaka and Lessons from the Universe
When I heard about Naomi Osaka bravely saying no to the French Open, I was standing on my patio holding a cup of coffee close under my nose, working on closing my own stress cycle. The story wafted out of an open window from the radio in the kitchen. Ms Osaka, all of...
Explore What’s Next – ReOpening! April 1st!
Explore What’s Next is opening on April 1st (it’s not a joke!) – Read to learn about our safety measures.
The Tricky SCAMP of Overcoming Skin Picking and Hair Pulling Also Known As Body Focused Repetitive Behavior
The Tricky SCAMP of Overcoming Skin Picking and Hair Pulling Body Focused Repetitive Behavior Do you pick at your skin or have obsessive nail biting habits? Do you pull out your hair without awareness? If so, you may be struggling with a body-focused repetitive...
9 Steps to Getting Organized for a New Semester of College: Part 2
If you have not done so already, check out my blog post here on Part 1, Steps 1 – 5. Okay, you got your folders and notebooks (digital or hardcopy). Maybe you even organized your email and desktop. You also got your calendar/ planner and a to-do list ready to go!...
9 Steps to Getting Organized for a New Semester of College
New Year! New Semester! Let’s Do This! The start of each semester is an opportunity to collect and reset ourselves on a path towards success. College is tough especially with all the rapid changes in course delivery. Now more so than ever, ORGANIZATION is critical to...
Thriving in Winter with Body-focused Repetitive Behaviors
It's back, winter in Western New York, which means bitter cold winds, dry heat, and hot showers; all a recipe for dry uncomfortable skin, hair, and nails. Body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) such as nail biting, skin picking, and hair pulling can be hard to...
Three Ways to Navigate the Holidays: Pandemic Style
As 2020 comes to a close, it’s okay to let out a long, deep sigh. For most people, this year has been tumultuous, difficult, and exhausting. And as the holidays arrive, we might need to find creative ways to navigate this season as well. While this time of year is...