Melissa Plantz, Plano Christian Counseling

After the Divorce: Finding Yourself After a Toxic Marriage

After the Divorce: Finding Yourself After a Toxic Marriage

Melissa Plantz2025-08-26T09:10:50+00:00August 26th, 2025|Featured, Individual Counseling, Personal Development|

A toxic marriage is emotionally and, often, physically draining. The period after the divorce is a time for finding yourself, grieving the lost relationship dream, and healing from the loss and trauma. Tips to Rediscovering Yourself after a Toxic Marriage It is important to your mental health to take it slowly after a toxic marriage. Don’t jump into another relationship right away. Give yourself time to heal, seeking professional help if needed. Depending on your circumstances, you may need to seek a new place to live, find work, go back to school, and rebuild your self-esteem. The following is a list of tips for rediscovering yourself after a toxic marriage. Grieve for the relationship dream We don’t plan for a marriage to end during our wedding. We come into it full of dreams and promises. Toxic behaviors can interfere with and ruin those visions of the future. We may feel that we are starting over, sometimes with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Allow yourself to move through the grieving process. Grief has five stages: denial/shock, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. You may cycle through these stages repeatedly until you reach acceptance. Ask for help from a counselor if you are having trouble processing your emotions. Set new boundaries Now is the time to establish new boundaries. You may not have had clear boundaries or may not have known how to enforce them in the past. Decide what you will tolerate and what you will not. Learn to say no to everything that disturbs your peace or is not what you feel God has for you. You do not need to be accessible to everyone all day, every day. Let the people you love know your boundaries. This might mean turning off your phone at 8 p.m. or [...]

Comments Off

Trauma Counseling in Plano, Texas: Finding Your Identity After Emotional Abuse

Trauma Counseling in Plano, Texas: Finding Your Identity After Emotional Abuse

Melissa Plantz2025-08-13T06:52:12+00:00August 13th, 2025|Featured, Individual Counseling, Trauma|

Emotional abuse is scarring. It can rip away what sense you had of yourself. Once the abuse has ended and you have placed distance between yourself and your abuser, you may be left wondering who you are or trying to remember the person you were before the abuse. You can find your identity after emotional abuse with time, healing, and patience. Here at Plano Christian Counseling, we offer trauma counseling in Plano, Texas, to help you overcome the effects of emotional abuse. Tips for Finding Yourself After Emotional Abuse Be willing to work on your mental and emotional health after emotional abuse. It takes time for healing and for the discovery of what was hidden. The abuse slowly chipped away at you, but your identity is still there. You just need to rediscover it. Trauma counseling in Plano, Texas,T can help. Journal your emotions Your emotions may feel like they are all over the place after experiencing abuse. It may be difficult to decipher exactly what you are feeling. Anger? Bitterness? Pain? Probably all three. Journaling is an excellent tool for identifying and working through emotions. Although you can use a digital version, many people find that using a paper journal gives them a sense of catharsis. Releasing strong emotions frees you from the bondage of emotional abuse. You can also use your journal as a reference if you decide to try counseling, providing insight into your thoughts and feelings. Be kind to yourself If the emotional abuse was severe, you may hear your abuser’s voice in your ear, whispering terrible things about you. Those words can become a false belief. Learning how to identify and challenge those thoughts will help you to be kinder to yourself. Abuse is not your fault. The fault lies with a person who [...]

Comments Off

Premarital Questions to Ask for Engaged Couples in Plano, Texas

Premarital Questions to Ask for Engaged Couples in Plano, Texas

Melissa Plantz2025-03-22T06:23:27+00:00February 24th, 2025|Couples Counseling, Featured, Premarital Counseling, Relationship Issues|

Getting married in Plano, Texas? Here are some important premarital questions to consider before you tie the knot. Before you get married, you may assume you know what to expect from the marriage and your spouse. Unfortunately, life rarely works that way. A person’s upbringing, environmental factors, life experiences, and personality can all impact a marriage. You’ll want to be on the same page with your significant other, so it’s important to know what premarital counseling questions to ask. Plano Christian Counseling offers faith-based premarital counseling to help couples build a strong foundation for a lasting marriage. Premarital Counseling Questions to Ask When you share the same goals, dreams, and expectations with your partner, marriage feels like sharing life with your best friend. However, if you do not know how to overcome obstacles together and share emotions productively, you can end up sharing your home with a stranger. Premarital counseling is critical for opening the line of communication and discussing matters that may have never crossed your mind. These subjects may not be an issue at present, but your future self needs answers. Premarital counseling in Plano, Texas also teaches communication skills, conflict resolution, and how to keep the focus on you as a couple as you move through the different seasons of your lives. Below is a list of premarital counseling questions to get you started. Although you can share this list with your significant other and review the answers together, a counselor at Plano Christian Counseling in Texas can work as a mediator to help you find solutions and teach you skills that will serve you as a couple for years. Premarital counseling questions: Where do you see yourself in the future? Where do you want to live? Where do you want to work? Are you willing [...]

Comments Off

10 Steps to Building Self-Esteem

10 Steps to Building Self-Esteem

Melissa Plantz2025-03-29T03:46:40+00:00January 19th, 2024|Featured, Individual Counseling, Personal Development, Spiritual Development|

Self-esteem is how you perceive your worth. It is self-respect. If you struggle with low self-esteem, you may have trouble in relationships and social situations. Low self-esteem typically means a lack of assertiveness, which indicates you may need help building self-esteem. 10 Tips for Building Self-Esteem Building self-esteem is simpler than you may think. It is not easy; however, taking specific action can simplify boosting self-esteem. Here are ten steps to building self-esteem. Accept where and who you are now. There is much unhappiness in trying to return to being the version of yourself you used to be. The version you were before the loss of a family member, the end of a marriage, the birth of a child, or the move to a new state. Plano Christian Counseling offers faith-based support to help you process life’s changes, find healing, and move forward with hope. Accepting who you are now and where you are regarding a specific life category grounds you. This acceptance provides clarity for what you want next. Catch negative thoughts. Negative thoughts and demeaning self-talk can do a great deal of damage. Vow to catch these thoughts as soon as you recognize them. Recognize the lie and look for the truth. You can change an old belief into a new one with practice. Flip these thoughts into positive self-talk. Smile. A quick tip for building self-esteem is to smile. Smiling stimulates the amygdala, releasing endorphins that brighten your mood and boost confidence. Notice how others perceive you when you greet them with a smile. You can experience a mood boost by simply smiling when you are alone. Play music. Energetic music, the kind that makes you want to dance, can boost your mood and improve your self-esteem. A song can make you feel like you can [...]

Comments Off

Overeating Disorder Recovery

Overeating Disorder Recovery

Melissa Plantz2025-04-01T15:59:23+00:00August 26th, 2023|Eating Disorders, Featured, Individual Counseling|

Eating disorders, like anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating disorder (overeating disorder) can be fatal without treatment. Recovery from overeating disorder and other eating disorders is possible. Tips for Overeating Disorder Recovery Seek professional help. Overeating disorder can coexist with anxiety and mood disorders. You may struggle with poor body image, negative self-worth, and low self-esteem. The compulsive behavior tricks you into believing you lack self-control and are helpless. This is not true. The first step is to seek professional help. One option is to contact our office at Plano Christian Counseling to schedule an appointment with a license counselor. Stay away from the scale. We can become obsessed with the numbers on the scale. If you struggle with body dysmorphia, poor body image, or low self-esteem, you may need to avoid the scale until you are well into recovery. The number on the scale is simply a number that relates to gravitational pull. It does not consider how much muscle you gain in your workouts, fluid retention, or any other factor. Plano Christian Counseling offers faith-based counseling to help individuals struggling with body image issues, low self-esteem, and related concerns. If you are a woman, your weight may fluctuate throughout your cycle, weighing more on the days leading up to your period and during the week of ovulation. Consider using a tape measure to track the lost inches and smaller clothing sizes instead of the scale. Identify negative self-talk. How do you talk to yourself? Are your words worse than you would say to others? We are often harder on ourselves than we are on others. Critical and negative self-talk belittles your motivation and self-esteem. The negative thoughts you hear may be echoes from words spoken over you in the past. You need to learn to let those [...]

Comments Off

The Mental and Physical Benefits of Pilates for Seniors

The Mental and Physical Benefits of Pilates for Seniors

Melissa Plantz2024-09-27T11:52:35+00:00July 21st, 2022|Aging and Geriatric Issues, Featured, Weight Loss|

Pilates is a series of low-impact movements used to strengthen the core and balance of the practitioner, both of which are critical for seniors. But the physical gains are only a side bonus to the mental benefits of consistently practicing Pilates. If you are looking for a low-impact exercise for the elderly that strengthens, lengthens, and leaves you feeling confident, give Pilates a try. Introduction to Pilates The Pilates Method was created by Joseph Pilates, a German-born immigrant to the United States. After Pilates left Germany, he taught Scotland Yard self-defense tactics before being interred in a camp during World War I. During the internment, Pilates kept himself strong, lean, and healthy with a series of movements that he performed on the floor or on modified beds. These would later become the skeletons for Pilates apparatuses. Pilates taught others in the internment camp his method and when influenza swept through England, none of Pilates “students” died of the virus. Pilates realized that his method went beyond just physical fitness, but wellness. After the war, Pilates returned to Germany briefly and then immigrated to the U.S. His method became popular with dancers and athletes due to its ability to help heal injuries while keeping them at their peak. Others began to train under Pilates and eventually branched out to teach in other areas besides Pilates’ New York studio. Although Pilates passed away in the 1960s, his work lives on. The exercise known as Pilates has gained incredible popularity over the last 50 years. It consists of two types of Pilates: work done on a mat on the floor, and work done using a Pilates machine such as the Reformer or the Chair. There are many different forms of Pilates as more teachers have added their own technique to the method. Some [...]

Comments Off

Melissa Plantz

About Melissa Plantz

CONTACT INFO

Plano Christian Counseling

ABOUT US