Phone (808) 880-1395
THE NATURE OF STRESS
FOR GROUP WORKSHOPS ON STRESS MANAGEMENT:
PLEASE CONTACT DR. BONNICI BY CLICKING HERE:
FOR GROUP WORKSHOPS ON STRESS MANAGEMENT:
PLEASE CONTACT DR. BONNICI BY CLICKING HERE:
Stress is the "dynamic psychophysical energy" our bodymind experiences as we are impacted by a constantly
changing set of conditions and experiences in our daily environment. When I say that stress is "dynamic psychophysical energy" I mean that it can create either positive or negative feelings, sensations, and mental states in our moment by moment bodymind functioning. A certain amount of stress and tension during daily work, play, and relationships is healthy and necessary and can feel good to your bodymind's sense of vitality, aliveness, and passionate engagement with life. This kind of "positive stress" can add excitement, enthusiasm, meaning, fulfillment, and dynamic energy into our lives. Athletic competitions, work deadlines, artistic endeavors, openly sharing difficult feelings with others and
even our experiences of sorrow, loss, and grief can add compassionate depth and meaningful wisdom to our lives and our relationships.
However, there is a negative side to Stress that can have a serious and detrimental impact on our bodily health, our emotional well being, and the quality of our human relationships. When the psychophysical experience of stress and tension exceeds positive levels, we begin to feel driven, anxious, depressed, angry, resentful, powerless, etc.. We now know that the negative influences of chronic stress can create health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, recurring headaches, insomnia, rashes, lowering of immunity, and stomach ulcers. In addition, high levels of chronic stress can lead to over-indulgence in unhealthy habits, such as overeating, smoking, drinking, and drug abuse, the
health effects of which are well-documented.
In brief, we all experience the phenomenon of stress as we react or respond to the moment by moment challenges and changes in our everyday lives. These challenges and changes can include such positive and negative circumstances as the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, the loss of work, a job promotion, a retirement, a long vacation, or a new relationship. As we experience our dynamic and ever changing life circumstances, the healthy or unhealthy impact of our bodymind stress is dependent on the degree to which we relate to stressors with conscious awareness, compassion, wisdom, and creative response-ability or with unconscious prejudices, beliefs, habits, perceptions, and behaviors, respectively. WITH APPLIED MEDITATION THERAPY
Given that stress is inherent in the dynamic nature of life and our relationship to it, it is not meaningful to approach the problem of stress by seeking to eliminate it from our lives. If we were to practice the elimination of stress from our lives, we would have to negate the more healthy and positive aspects of stress as well. Insufficient stress (the dynamic psychophysical tension energy of life) can leave us feeling bored, depressed, dejected, and disheartened. Therefore, the goal of Applied Meditation Therapy is not to eliminate stress from your life, but to help you learn how to manage the degree, quality, and intensity of stress in order to sustain a healthy, passionate, creative, wondrous, and enthusiastic engagement with your daily life and relationships. What we need to do is realize, understand, and creatively change the ways in which we unconsciously perpetuate excessive and unhealthy stress on our bodymind and practice maintaining the optimal levels of healthy stress that continue to enhance our vitality, motivation, and passionate life engagement. This balanced and dynamic relationship to stress is the goal of Applied Meditation Therapy.
AND CONSULTATION PRACTICE
Six years ago I began to extend my face-to-face counseling practice to include people who are beyond my geographic location. I have done this by making my practice known throughout the Internet and by using the telephone as the medium for my counseling, teaching, and mentoring. Over this length of time, I have had the opportunity and privilege of counseling people not only within my own state of California, but also from Australia, England, Ireland, Japan, Pakistan, Mexico, Africa, Afghanistan, Hawaii, Alaska, and several other states within the USA. My clients are now equally distributed between face-to-face counseling and worldwide telephone counseling.
When I first started telephone counseling with clients, I was concerned that not having visual cues from clients and not being able to have an immediate physical presence with them might make the counseling and training difficult, less productive, and therefore, less beneficial. However, just the opposite has occured. Over these years, I have found that my telephone counseling clients are equal to, and sometimes out-distance, my face-to-face clients in their ability 1) to quickly learn the breathing and mindfulness techniques associated with the bodily forms of seated and engaged meditation, 2) to implement the behavioral and cognitive skills of stress counseling with effectiveness and competency, 3) to actualize and refine their daily practice of personal and interpersonal growth, 4) to work insightfully with their character development and spiritual integration, 5) to expand their consciousness and freedom of choice even amidst conditioned patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior, 6) to accept the change, impermanence, and wisdom of their only moment body, 7) and to open themselves with courage, faith, and integrity to their journey of life transformation. Thus, I have found working with clients by telephone can be just as effective, and sometimes more effective, than face-to-face counseling, training, and mentoring. The only draw back and regret that I have found thus far is my own inability to speak in the beauty of other world languages. Because of my own ignorance of other international languages, my global clients are limited to those who are able to speak the English language with some degree of fluency. Confidential and Convenient
Just fill out my Easy and Affordable:
There are no video or phone charges from anywhere in the world.
Fill out the online intake form and the hourly fee will be charged to your credit card after your session.
You can schedule a Stress Counseling Phone Session with me by simply filling out the Information Form that Opens when you
  
All Session Fees are paid for by Visa, Master Card, or American Express.
My counseling, training, mentoring, and consultation fee is $150.00 per hour. Remember that there are no internet or phone charges from anywhere in the World. You can open the form for scheduling your Stress Counseling session by
All video, telephone, and
email communications are
kept strictly confidential. Only
two exceptions exist to confidentiality:
1) When I have knowledge that a client is a
serious danger to self or others, and 2) When
there is any indication that a child, elder, or
disabled person is at risk because of
abuse or neglect. In either case, I
would need to notify the
social agencies in
your area. |
