All posts by Kevin Hales

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About Kevin Hales

Kevin Hales, MA, LPC offers marriage counseling as well as individual counseling for adults and teens at Colorado Counseling Center. Kevin’s clients find that he wholeheartedly devotes himself to helping them heal and move forward in life. To learn more about Kevin's counseling specialties, please visit coloradocounselingcenter.com/kevin-hales/

How Do You Cope?

Coping Strategies Counseling Denver Centennial

Do Other People Bug You?

Have you ever been angry at someone because it seemed like they were spending WAAYYY too much time with a particular thing or situation? We’re so easily frustrated by other’s coping strategies. Here are some examples: a wife who’s angry with her husband for spending too much time at work. A husband who is angry with his wife because she’s on her phone ALL the time. A son who plays video games every waking moment of the day? Or how about a daughter who hangs out with friends as much as possible, rarely spending time around the house and family?  Perhaps your husband is spending A LOT of time watching sports on TV. Or maybe your wife seems to be spending way too much time exercising and going to the gym.

It’s easy to get judgmental about the behavior of others—but judging others rarely results in change, and often results in damaging our relationships.

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About Kevin Hales

Kevin Hales, MA, LPC offers marriage counseling as well as individual counseling for adults and teens at Colorado Counseling Center. Kevin’s clients find that he wholeheartedly devotes himself to helping them heal and move forward in life. To learn more about Kevin's counseling specialties, please visit coloradocounselingcenter.com/kevin-hales/

What is Wrong with You!?!

What is Wrong with You!?!

by Kevin Hales, LPC

“What’s wrong with you?”

Has anyone ever said this to you? Have you ever said this to anyone you know?

We typically make this statement when something happens that goes beyond our current logical understanding and comprehension about what we deem as “normal and acceptable.” Someone said or did something that we deem stupid, irrational, illogical or just plain “wrong.”

As a society and people, we need to understand some things that surround this statement and why it is ultimately unhelpful at best and psychologically harmful at worst. Continue reading

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About Kevin Hales

Kevin Hales, MA, LPC offers marriage counseling as well as individual counseling for adults and teens at Colorado Counseling Center. Kevin’s clients find that he wholeheartedly devotes himself to helping them heal and move forward in life. To learn more about Kevin's counseling specialties, please visit coloradocounselingcenter.com/kevin-hales/

Rethinking Failure

Rethinking Failure

Photo by Fernando Puente on Unsplash

 

By Kevin Hales, LPC

The Word that Shall Not Be Named

Failure is word that many of us don’t like to talk about. It typically taps into the inner shame that many of us feel when we have “failed.” Nobody wants to be a failure, no one wants to fail at anything they engage in. It is often our fear of failure that prevents us from engaging in new activities, careers and fields of study. Clearly the idea of failure has a powerful effect on all of us, whether or not we actually “fail” at a given task.

In my work as a therapist, I work with brave individuals who have mustered up the courage to call me up, walk through my door and to ask for help with whatever is currently getting in the way of his/her happiness and well-being. Sometimes it’s an individual struggling with addictive behavior of some sort. Perhaps it is a couple struggling in their relationship with one another. One way or another, these people often feel that they are failing in some way with their marriage or with their individual lives. They are stumbling and falling and coming up short, failing over and over again to “succeed.”

A Work in Progress

I believe it is time to rethink the idea of failure. Continue reading

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About Kevin Hales

Kevin Hales, MA, LPC offers marriage counseling as well as individual counseling for adults and teens at Colorado Counseling Center. Kevin’s clients find that he wholeheartedly devotes himself to helping them heal and move forward in life. To learn more about Kevin's counseling specialties, please visit coloradocounselingcenter.com/kevin-hales/

We’re Doing the Best We Can!

We're Doing the Best We Can!

By Kevin Hales, LPC

Do You Assume the Worst in Others?

In the day in which we live, it can be tempting sometimes to assume the worst in others. The driver who cuts us off can suddenly become an enemy to us. The child who defies our direction can be seen as rebellious and troublesome. The spouse who ignores or lashes out can be seen in the moment as uncaring and hateful. Yet, the reality, as unreal as it may seem, is that we’re all doing the best we can, given the knowledge and experience we have gained up until that point in our lives. Continue reading

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About Kevin Hales

Kevin Hales, MA, LPC offers marriage counseling as well as individual counseling for adults and teens at Colorado Counseling Center. Kevin’s clients find that he wholeheartedly devotes himself to helping them heal and move forward in life. To learn more about Kevin's counseling specialties, please visit coloradocounselingcenter.com/kevin-hales/

The Dangerous Pursuit of Perfection

The Dangerous Pursuit of Perfection

by Kevin Hales, LPC

Perfection is a Bad Word

Perfection has recently become a “bad word” in my vocabulary. Let me share why.

To one degree or another, we’re all guilty of pursuing perfection. For some, it is a part of their religious creed: “Be ye therefore perfect” declared Jesus to his followers. Some have actually been told by a parent: “I just want you to be perfect.” Others might simply feel the pressure to be perfect because of family expectations or the image society paints in our minds of what is and isn’t acceptable. Continue reading

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About Kevin Hales

Kevin Hales, MA, LPC offers marriage counseling as well as individual counseling for adults and teens at Colorado Counseling Center. Kevin’s clients find that he wholeheartedly devotes himself to helping them heal and move forward in life. To learn more about Kevin's counseling specialties, please visit coloradocounselingcenter.com/kevin-hales/

Anger is a Gift!

anger-is-a-gift

By Kevin Hales, LPC

Emotions are a normal part of being human

That isn’t a phrase you hear too often is it?  “How in the world is anger a gift??” you might find yourself asking…

When one stubs their toe, they aren’t likely to curse their nervous system for sending signals to their brain letting them know that their toe is hurting. On the contrary, we immediately adapt our behavior to avoid further pain. I might touch tenderly around the toe to find out where it hurts most, see if it’s serious or possibly broken. I might gingerly try standing on it, walking, possibly running to see just how badly it was hurt. All of this is a natural response to a part of our body that alerts us to something that needs our attention.

Likewise, our emotions are something that are not wrong or right, they just are.  They serve a purpose not unlike our nervous system, alerting us to something that needs our attention. Continue reading

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About Kevin Hales

Kevin Hales, MA, LPC offers marriage counseling as well as individual counseling for adults and teens at Colorado Counseling Center. Kevin’s clients find that he wholeheartedly devotes himself to helping them heal and move forward in life. To learn more about Kevin's counseling specialties, please visit coloradocounselingcenter.com/kevin-hales/

Pornography’s Impact on Society

Pornography's EffectsOn Society

By Kevin Hales, MA, LPCC

My previous two posts covered pornography and it’s effect on the individual and on a relationship. Studies are finding more and more that pornography is not simply a harmless endeavor that doesn’t affect anyone else. It actually changes the brain makeup of the individual looking at it. Pornography has a numbing effect on the individual, causing him or her to see others in a less empathetic manner. In fact, the individual comes to see others as merely objects, something to please him. Engaging in viewing pornography, either willingly or unwillingly, eventually leads one to inferior relationships with others, which is damaging to the well-being of that person and to others who know him. Continue reading

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About Kevin Hales

Kevin Hales, MA, LPC offers marriage counseling as well as individual counseling for adults and teens at Colorado Counseling Center. Kevin’s clients find that he wholeheartedly devotes himself to helping them heal and move forward in life. To learn more about Kevin's counseling specialties, please visit coloradocounselingcenter.com/kevin-hales/

Virtual Infidelity: The Dangers of Pornography

Virtual Infidelity

By Kevin Hales, MA, LPCC

Many of the couples I meet with in couples therapy have experienced infidelity in their relationship. “Virtual Affairs” are becoming more and more common. Virtual affairs betray the trust of one’s partner and violate agreements of sexual exclusivity; they happen when one partner looks at pornography or has an online affair with someone that he’s probably never met and probably never will. Because pornography is so addictive and damaging to the viewer and those involved in it, it behooves us to examine the dangers and harm that come to a relationship from a seemingly “harmless” endeavor.

Pornography Isn’t Harmless

Many believe that the viewing of pornography is harmless, that it somehow only involves the person viewing it. They ask themselves, “how can this be harmful to anyone else?”   Continue reading

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About Kevin Hales

Kevin Hales, MA, LPC offers marriage counseling as well as individual counseling for adults and teens at Colorado Counseling Center. Kevin’s clients find that he wholeheartedly devotes himself to helping them heal and move forward in life. To learn more about Kevin's counseling specialties, please visit coloradocounselingcenter.com/kevin-hales/

Pornography: A Dangerous Vice

Pornography Addiction - A Dangerous ViceBy Kevin Hales

Desensitization to Pornography

Pornography is largely accepted today as “normal” and typical behavior, especially by males. However, more and more research shows that pornography has  extremely detrimental effects on a person’s life and can be more addictive that many drugs. This is because with drugs, you need a substance in order to get the “high” whereas with pornography, you only need your thoughts to get the chemicals moving. Continue reading

Avatar for Kevin Hales

About Kevin Hales

Kevin Hales, MA, LPC offers marriage counseling as well as individual counseling for adults and teens at Colorado Counseling Center. Kevin’s clients find that he wholeheartedly devotes himself to helping them heal and move forward in life. To learn more about Kevin's counseling specialties, please visit coloradocounselingcenter.com/kevin-hales/

Why Do We Argue So Much?! (Part 3)

Marriage Counseling Denver | Why Do We Argue So Much?!By Kevin Hales, LPCC, (with contributions from Paul Sigafus, LMFTPart 2 of 3

In our previous post, we explored how your role as a pursuer or withdrawer can reinforce the arguments and sense of disconnection in your marriage. To end this negative cycle, it is essential for you and your partner to learn how to speak from your hearts—your primary emotions and needs. Continue reading

Avatar for Kevin Hales

About Kevin Hales

Kevin Hales, MA, LPC offers marriage counseling as well as individual counseling for adults and teens at Colorado Counseling Center. Kevin’s clients find that he wholeheartedly devotes himself to helping them heal and move forward in life. To learn more about Kevin's counseling specialties, please visit coloradocounselingcenter.com/kevin-hales/