McCartney Paul, Plano Christian Counseling

Signs That You Need Help for Alcohol Dependence

Signs That You Need Help for Alcohol Dependence

McCartney Paul, Kate Motaung2025-06-20T06:55:04+00:00June 20th, 2025|Chemical Dependency, Featured, Individual Counseling, Men’s Issues, Women’s Issues|

Many people have a complicated relationship with alcohol. In one person’s experience, it may be related to happy and enjoyable memories, while for another, it’s associated with dark and painful ones. Each person must navigate how they will deal with alcohol, and it helps to be informed about some of the ways it can negatively affect someone. Various substances, such as prescription and recreational drugs, affect the brain. Likewise, alcohol can produce pleasurable feelings and also blunt negative ones. It has a powerful effect on the brain, which can make it appealing. This temporary relief can motivate someone to turn to alcohol again and again, even when it poses possible significant risks to their health and overall well-being. You can become dependent on alcohol even without recognizing it. What is alcohol dependence? When you depend on something, it means that it plays a significant role in your life. When a person is dependent on alcohol, they may feel as though they cannot function without consuming alcohol. Alcohol assumes an important role in their life, and often, they have to drink more and more of it in order to obtain the same effect as before. Alcohol becomes a priority, superseding other activities or obligations. When a person is dependent on alcohol, they may not only prioritize alcohol over other things like family or work, but they may continue to consume alcohol even when it becomes destructive. Even if they’ve begun experiencing the harmful consequences of drinking, such as getting a DUI, losing their job, being diagnosed with liver disease, or other mental health challenges, they will continue to drink. Alcohol dependence is marked by the impaired ability to stop or control one’s intake and use of alcohol. Alcohol dependence is one of a cluster of terms that are often used [...]

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Common ADHD Quirks and How to Manage Them

Common ADHD Quirks and How to Manage Them

McCartney Paul, Kate Motaung2025-06-05T07:08:08+00:00June 5th, 2025|ADHD/ADD, Family Counseling, Featured, Individual Counseling|

Having ADHD is a mixed bag of fun and frustration. so many things are just different about us compared to neurotypical folks, that it’s sometimes hard to keep track of. It is important for us to feel seen and understood because, although we might be different, there is nothing inherently wrong with us. As with everyone, regardless of their neurotype, sometimes we need to understand why we are doing certain things so that we can better adapt or tweak our actions, for the good of everyone. Let’s explore some of the most common ADHD quirks and consider how to manage them. Common ADHD Quirks and How to Manage Them Most of us have poor bladder control When we get locked into a hyperfocus mode, there is little that can stop us or distract us, even a full bladder. Unfortunately, holding urine does not strengthen the bladder but weakens it over time. It might take a lot of practice, but we simply need to lean into our natural affinity for multitasking and go to the bathroom while we are doing whatever fun task we are absorbed in. We tend to adopt accents Those with ADHD often become fascinated by ordinary things, and a foreign accent can be captivating. We tend to imitate accents without even realizing it, and sometimes this comes across as rude or fake, although for us it is harmless and unintentional. If we find ourselves in a conversation with someone who has an interesting accent, it might be helpful to warn them that we tend to mimic accents. It may not be a big deal, but it also might be best to warn others before it slips out. Alternatively, we can be self-aware and try to intentionally stop ourselves from mimicking. We suffer from FOMO There is [...]

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5 Relationship Types and How to Strengthen Your Bonds

5 Relationship Types and How to Strengthen Your Bonds

McCartney Paul, Kate Motaung2025-05-22T07:13:04+00:00May 22nd, 2025|Couples Counseling, Featured, Individual Counseling, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues|

Relationships are a part of life, but why? If we have learned anything during the pandemic, it has been that although isolation is necessary for particular seasons of our lives, we thrive when we are part of a social circle. This circle can include your spouse, children, parents, siblings, coworkers, or the friendly mail delivery carrier. You choose the people and how much access they have to your life. Knowing the five relationship types and how you can strengthen those bonds can serve you well in every area of life. Why Relationships are Necessary Positive relationships are necessary for the formation of social skills and happiness. Different types of relationships fulfill various needs throughout life and can result in better emotional and mental health. Not feeling alone, even when you are struggling, is crucial to avoiding specific mental condition symptoms such as depression. Relationships, even the hard and toxic ones, help build emotional resilience. Resiliency will help you overcome challenges throughout life and move forward instead of staying “stuck,” reliving hurt, disappointment, or trauma. Relationships provide a support system and other people to share your burdens. When going through something challenging, you want people who love and care about you to help stand in the gap. Relationships allow you to support others and be a blessing when they need it. As relationships form early, those bonds may shape the person you become. But remember, even if your relationships throughout childhood were tumultuous, you have the resources to lead a different life. You can choose to surround yourself with people who can push you to learn more, think differently, and act appropriately. The relationships you choose later in life can either bless you or harm you. Not every relationship needs to be a close, intimate one to benefit you. Building [...]

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ADHD and Communication: How One Impacts the Other

ADHD and Communication: How One Impacts the Other

McCartney Paul, Kate Motaung2025-05-08T06:18:42+00:00May 8th, 2025|ADHD/ADD, Featured, Individual Counseling|

Almost all friendships and relationships these days are maintained and enriched by digital communication. With our busy lives, we tend to rely on text messaging and video calls to make plans, check in with each other, share news, and spend casual time together when we can’t meet in person. Digital communication fills a gap in almost all modern friendships. This especially affects those with ADHD. For those with ADHD, though, this aspect of communication can be complicated. Where most people find digital communication to be easy and sometimes even preferable, those with ADHD generally hate it. Their friends and partners will probably attest to this fact. For many, those with ADHD seem to blow hot and cold because they are friendly, focused, and connected in person but silent and seemingly cold in the times between hangouts. The ADHD Pattern From the perspective of friends, those with ADHD have a pattern of communication that looks something like this: You spend time together and enjoy yourselves with your ADHD friend, making you feel like you’re the center of their attention and the only person in the room. However, you don’t hear from them in the days and weeks that pass. Text messages don’t receive replies, and phone calls are unanswered; they seem to be ghosting you. What gives? If you have experienced rejection or abandonment trauma in your life, this kind of unpredictable communication often feels triggering. It’s hard to trust someone who makes you feel seen and heard when you’re face to face, only to disappear completely in the time between. Communication is as much about the words that are spoken as much as the words that go unspoken. Silence speaks volumes, too. Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind One of the harsher realities about ADHD is that it often [...]

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Working Through Anxiety and Intrusive Thoughts

Working Through Anxiety and Intrusive Thoughts

McCartney Paul, Kate Motaung2025-04-23T07:38:51+00:00April 8th, 2025|Anxiety, Featured, Individual Counseling|

Our bodies and minds don’t always do what we tell them to. You could be on a date, and all you’re trying to do is stay calm and not come across a certain way, but there’s no guarantee that your mind and body are going to comply with this request. It can sometimes feel like your mind is actively working against you and your well-being. That’s certainly the case with anxiety and intrusive thoughts. Most people can probably pinpoint a time when they felt anxious, or when a thought entered their mind unbidden. Such experiences can range from being mildly uncomfortable to being downright distressing. The good news is that they can be dealt with effectively, helping to restore calm and peace in your life. Plano Christian Counseling offers faith-based tools and compassionate support to help individuals manage anxiety and find lasting peace. Anxiety and Intrusive Thoughts Anxiety is the feeling of nervousness, fear, or worry that you experience when you’re in a situation that feels unsettling, frightening, or threatening. When you feel anxious, it’s often accompanied by racing thoughts, feeling restless and irritable, and you may even have a rapid heartbeat and be unable to sleep. Anxiety may last for a few moments after you’ve been in a frightening situation, but it can also linger, pointing to an ongoing condition. Intrusive thoughts are distressing and unwanted images, thoughts, urges, or ideas that enter a person’s mind. These thoughts can be unwanted for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the thoughts go against one’s personal values. These two can feed off each other and worsen things. Some of the connections between them include the following: Intrusive thoughts fuel anxiety Having unwanted thoughts piling into your mind can be quite distressing, and because these thoughts come and go [...]

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5 Good Boundaries to Draw With People Who Have Caused Trauma

5 Good Boundaries to Draw With People Who Have Caused Trauma

McCartney Paul, Kate Motaung2025-03-21T09:20:10+00:00March 10th, 2025|Featured, Individual Counseling, Relationship Issues, Trauma|

` One of the most critical aspects of our emotional freedom is to forgive those who have hurt us. This is especially true for people who have suffered trauma or abuse. A person with a traumatic past may need the help of forgiveness to move past it and thrive in their lives. However, just because a person has forgiven someone does not mean they need to give them access to their lives. Good Boundaries to Draw With Causers of Trauma Boundaries help people limit access to interaction with them and what they can know about them. A person who wants to protect themselves from suffering trauma again needs to draw proper boundaries with that person. Here are five good boundaries to draw with people who have caused trauma: Time Boundaries Limit the amount of time you spend with a person. If you see that person regularly, limiting the time you spend talking with that person is essential. A person who has subjected you to trauma and is not repentant may quickly come back to that topic and cause you pain and harm by denying the behavior even existed. This can re-trigger the pain you are trying to get past. Furthermore, a person who has subjected you to trauma wants to know more about you. By spending more time with you, they can learn more details about your life. Draw a reasonable time boundary and limit their time with you or your loved ones. Plano Christian Counseling can help you set healthy boundaries and find healing from past trauma. Space Boundaries Similarly, limit or restrict their ability to get close to you. A person who is close to you in proximity can try to hug you or, even worse, abuse you. To protect yourself, you need to draw a space [...]

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How to Communicate Better in the Workplace: Four Barriers to Effective Communication

How to Communicate Better in the Workplace: Four Barriers to Effective Communication

McCartney Paul, Kate Motaung2025-03-22T06:28:26+00:00February 19th, 2025|Coaching, Featured, Individual Counseling, Professional Development|

If you have ever seen a good communicator in the flow of expressing themselves, it can be both an inspiring and discouraging thing to witness. Some people seem to be able to express themselves naturally and effortlessly, while others have a host of issues to overcome. Plano Christian Counseling can help individuals build confidence and develop effective communication skills through faith-based guidance and support. The encouraging news is that learning to communicate better is entirely possible; the first step is learning about the barriers that block effective communication. How to Communicate Better by Overcoming Assumptions Words are a small part of communication. People communicate with their personalities, their bodies, and even through silence. We take in and respond to large amounts of information daily without fully realizing that we are wordlessly communicating with those around us. For example, when a coworker who is normally chatty and vibrant comes into work and they are quiet, withdrawn, and disheveled in appearance, they are communicating something without even speaking. We might subconsciously take note of their behavior, body language, and appearance and deduce that they are struggling today. They have communicated something to us. How we treat them in response is us communicating back to them. We might be gracious to them, give them space by not engaging in small talk, or we might take the opportunity to ask them how they are. If we were to observe the changes in them and decide on the reasons for those changes, we would be assuming. It might be a correct assumption, but without asking them simple, non-invasive questions, we won’t know for sure what is going on. Assumptions might be correct, but by leaning on assumptions, we risk being incorrect. There remains a barrier between us and the person we’ve assumed about. Correct [...]

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Why You Need a Personal Development Plan and How to Get Started

Why You Need a Personal Development Plan and How to Get Started

McCartney Paul, Kate Motaung2025-03-27T18:28:21+00:00January 31st, 2025|Featured, Individual Counseling, Personal Development|

Does the turn of the new year excite you? Do you think about what you want for your future? Or have you been living the same year repeatedly, much like Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day? You were created for a purpose, and it is not to repeat the same year over again. You can get clear on what you should do with a personal development plan. Why You Need a Personal Development Plan A personal development plan identifies your goals, strengths, and weaknesses. It uncovers what you need to learn or do to accomplish your goals. New skills will take you higher than you have ever been before in your personal and professional life. Plano Christian Counseling offers faith-based guidance to help individuals create and achieve their personal development goals. The following are more benefits of creating a personal development plan. It motivates you to accomplish goals A personal development plan motivates you to accomplish goals that otherwise might be out of reach. It gets to the bottom of why you want to achieve a specific goal. When the tasks to reach the goal become challenging and you no longer feel motivated, the reason why you chose this goal will motivate you once more. A personal development plan keeps you focused on the reason behind the goal. It teaches you goal setting principles There is an art to setting goals; people who understand the principles and follow through achieve more than those who make vague statements. Anyone can declare that they want to do something, but it will probably never happen if they do not make their goal specific and time bound. It helps identify your strengths and weaknesses To reach the next level, you must honestly assess your strengths and weaknesses. You will also need to [...]

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How to Walk Alongside Your Depressed Husband

How to Walk Alongside Your Depressed Husband

McCartney Paul, Kate Motaung2025-03-25T15:21:21+00:00January 6th, 2025|Couples Counseling, Depression, Featured, Individual Counseling, Marriage Counseling, Men’s Issues, Relationship Issues|

Seeing a person we love going through a hard time is heart-wrenching. We want to do all we can to love them, to make them feel loved, supported, and understood. It is possible in many situations – especially that of a depressed husband – to begin to feel powerless, especially when our presence does not seem to be making a difference. In this and other situations, remember that your empathetic presence by itself can make a difference, and you must hold onto that when it seems otherwise. If your husband is struggling with depression, you may not know how to be that empathetic presence for him. On the other hand, you may wonder if what you are doing is making a difference. Hopefully, the words below will encourage you in your journey with your depressed husband. Supporting a Loved One with Depression Depression is a common mental health problem that afflicts people from all walks of life, all genders, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds. It can afflict those whom we may perceive as strong. It is often shocking for many wives to see their husbands bowed down by depression. As with any other condition or situation, one of the first ways you can function as a meaningful support is to understand what it is your husband is dealing with. Plano Christian Counseling is here to help, offering guidance and faith-based support as you navigate this journey together. Depression is a mood disorder that affects how a person feels, thinks, and functions in daily life. Something is going on not only in the person’s body but also in their mind and brain chemistry as well. Often, depression is signaled by feelings of intense sadness which last for weeks and months. It can be tempting to think that your depressed husband just [...]

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Connecting Well with Others: Relationship Advice for Women

Connecting Well with Others: Relationship Advice for Women

McCartney Paul, Kate Motaung2025-03-25T17:24:04+00:00November 6th, 2024|Featured, Individual Counseling, Relationship Issues, Women’s Issues|

The greatest treasure in our lives is not all the stuff we have, including our homes, jobs, wealth, or looks. To be sure, those things all have their place in our lives, but the value they possess is limited. Rather, what is of greatest value is our relationships. these relationships can be with our friends, neighbors, siblings, and other family members, or our romantic partners. When these relationships are of a good quality, that impacts your overall well-being in a way little else can. “Stuff” is best enjoyed when it’s shared with your loved ones. It should come as no surprise that your relationships are of such importance. For one thing, people are deeply social and relational beings, something we get from our Heavenly Father. In the beginning, God created human beings in His image and likeness. Plano Christian Counseling is here to help you navigate those challenges, offering faith-based guidance to strengthen your relationships and deepen your connection with God and others. That can mean many different things, including taking care of our world, but it also means there’s something about us that images God. God is love (1 John 4:16), and love is all about rich, deep, truthful, and healthy relationships with others. If the God we reflect is eternally Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then it makes all the sense in the world that we are relational creatures too. Our overall well-being is intimately tied to our relationships. A person who has healthy, positive, and supportive relationships has a greater likelihood of being happier and healthier. Life isn’t always sunny, and we often encounter hardships such as death, losing a job, or struggles with our health. That’s why developing and maintaining good connections with other people matters. When we are going through hard times, those relationships can [...]

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