Peaks & Creeks Life Development, Inc

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United States
Evergreen, CO
Peaks & Creeks Life Development, Inc

A counseling practice specializing in grief, relationship, and resilience counseling.

Karl is a certified HeartMath trainer and utilizes these tools and techniques in workshops designed to help individuals create and store energy to build resilience. Counseling is relevant to life issues and practical steps for living a better life. Counselor is personal, caring, and skilled at helping individuals and couples find concrete ways to move forward in their relationships.

06/12/2023

"WOW... THAT FELT SO GOOD WHEN YOU DID THAT!"

We are far too quick to point out a partner's faults and how what they just did was a withdrawal of love and trust from the relational bank! This is why it is critical that a couple who desires to restore feelings of love to their relationship give each other receipts for deposits of love and trust into the relational bank. Giving a receipt is as simple as calling attention to something that just happened, like "It felt so good when you asked my opinion about the decision you have to make this week." Or, "Thank you so much for bragging on my dinner in front of our friends." And, "Keeping your promise to help me with the garden made me feel like I am important to you." These statements multiply the effect of the deposit and work to create good will between two people trying hard to re-establish trust. Bottom line? When your person does something that makes you happy, acknowledge it out loud and thank them for it.

Moving forward, when your partner does something to make you happy, take the time to use a few extra words of description to tell them thank you and to acknowledge what it was about their effort that made you feel good. Ignoring a partner's effort to make a deposit in your love and trust bank is the same as a withdrawal. Acknowledge even the smallest effort at making you feel good, realizing that rebuilding trust is a long journey and one that requires patience over an extended period of time.

https://peaksandcreeks.com

06/08/2023

"HOW DO I REBUILD TRUST?"

Essentially deposits of love and trust are made by doing things that make a person happy. More specifically, deposits happen when we meet another person's favorite emotional needs. Withdrawals take place when we make the person unhappy or refuse to meet their emotional needs. In a relationship with mutual expectations and commitments, withdrawals erode trust and drain feelings of love and affection. Unfortunately trust is not restored in huge deposits all at once from "big" acts of meeting needs. It is a result of many, many small, medium, and large acts of love and need meeting done over a long time consistently and without withdrawals taken in between. It may seem like an oversimplification, but rebuilding trust is as simple as making more deposits than withdrawals, and being the best student of your person's emotional needs as possible.

Take a piece of paper and make two lists. One a list of the basic emotional needs of your person - affection, conversation, openness and honesty, recreational companionship, and domestic support are a few examples. Then a second list of specific things you can do for your person to make deposits, and start making them without announcement or fanfare.

https://peaksandcreeks.com

06/06/2023

"I THINK MY LOVE BANK IS EMPTY"

One of my favorite authors is psychologist, Willard Harley. He's written a number of books and several of them discuss the concept of the Love Bank. The idea is that each of us have accounts in each other's bank of love and trust. We can make deposits or withdrawals into or from the accounts of people in our lives, and the amount of love and trust in each account has a lot to do with the quality of our relationship. When someone has a substantial amount of love and trust in their account in your bank, you have extra love and trust to give them the benefit of the doubt, or forgiveness when a withdrawal occurs, or just the simple love and trust to believe what they are telling you and to risk your heart with them. When the love bank is empty, all of those benefits go away. Conflict in your relationship tends to result in more arguments and fights, and hurtful words are more likely to be spoken.

Think about a significant person in your life and ask yourself on a scale of 1-10 what amount of love and trust they have deposited and hold in their account in your bank. You will likely discover that the quality of your relationship will be in direct proportion to the amount of love and trust available.

https://peaksandcreeks.com

05/15/2023

"YOU ARE NOT ALONE! OR ARE YOU?"

The temptation to isolate and withdraw is the gravitational pull for people constantly beaten down with adversity. It is around those who rise above and find ways to come back that we find help, assistance and a willingness to receive it. The need for interpersonal support is not a sign of weakness, it is a requirement of resilience. Resilient people do not isolate themselves and only attempt what they can accomplish on their own. Resilient people allow, expect and invite support from others with a shared vision and shared values. The Aspen trees in the picture below are a beautiful example of resilience achieved by linking roots and helping each other continue to stand strong.

Look at your family, friends, work environment, neighborhood, or church group and ask yourself some questions. Do I find support in any of these groups? Do I offer support to any of them? What could I do today to become more connected to the support around me?

https://peaksandcreeks.com

05/12/2023

"STUBBORNNESS CAN BE A GOOD THING."

According to the authors of the book, Stronger, one of the five most important characteristics of resilient people is tenacity and determination, or a steady persistence in a purposeful course of action. It is simply refusing to give up. Resilient people do not quit. This quality of persistence is even more important than talent in determining success, say the authors. At times it requires physical stamina, and at other times a mental toughness that some would define more as stubbornness. Tenacity and determination come from a belief deep inside that if we continue to try, good things will eventually happen. We are determined and refuse to be dissuaded.

What is something you are about to give up on, that if you kept moving forward might see you through to success? Think about what is tempting you to quit - fear, exhaustion, or maybe a loss of focus? None are good reasons to give in. Set a goal and finish it. Reach out to someone you know famous for tenacity. Get some friends to help you.

https://peaksandcreeks.com

05/08/2023

"I HAVE BEEN LOST AND IT WAS SCARY!"

I have been lost. I have been backpacking in the mountains and not known where I was. I discovered from that experience how critically important a magnetic compass could be to find my way out of a jam. The moral compass does similar work for us. It represents a set of consistent principles that keeps us on the path toward a better destination. The authors of Stronger, describe those four points of the compass as honesty, integrity, fidelity and ethical behavior. When resilient people feel lost in life or are trying to make a decision to keep from getting lost, they depend on these four points of the moral compass.

Ask yourself these questions…

Am I being honest with myself and others and acknowledging the whole truth?
Do my words and actions match?
Am I faithful and loyal to the people and commitments of my life?
Do I hold to standards of right and wrong as I understand them?

https://peaksandcreeks.com

05/04/2023

"DECISIVE ACTION - REFUSING TO REMAIN STUCK IN A RUT"

Albert Einstein's description of insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is more common than we care to admit. Staying perpetually unhappy with your life is not a strategy for resilience. After identifying the need for change, decisive action is the quality needed to get you out of an unhealthy orbit. When technicians guiding satellites orbiting the earth need the satellite in a new position, with the aide of powerful computers they fire rockets onboard to create movement in a new direction. Without computers and a perfect knowledge of a next step to take to improve our life, decisive action gives us the ability to take the knowledge we do have and expend energy in a new direction, believing that less than perfect change will be better than no change. Resilient people have discovered they can bounce back and out of a rut through a series of bursts of energy in the right direction.

What rut have you been stuck in that you want to get out of, and what is the decisive action you could take to find a new orbit?

https://peaksandcreeks.com/

05/01/2023

"ACTIVE OPTIMISM - MORE THAN HOPING THINGS WILL TURN OUT WELL"

There is a benefit in being a glass half full person instead of a glass half empty one. However, this characteristic in the top five qualities of resilient people list is not passive, but active. It is about believing, saying, and doing things that ensure a better outcome than just hoping and shrinking in fear or pessimism. Active optimists believe they have in or around them the resources necessary to access their agency, or the power to create change in their world. You may not see your way from "A to Z" in one step, but active optimism fuels your ability to see your path from "A to B, B to C, and so on".

Think of a challenge you are facing that represents a struggle, and create a resolve to believe, speak and act on a truth that you can effect positive change against that challenge, even if it feels like you are only taking baby steps. Don't give up and watch to see positive change emerge.

https://peaksandcreeks.com/

04/28/2023

"WHAT ARE THE QUALITIES OF RESILIENT PEOPLE, AND DO I HAVE THEM?"

Stress takes a toll on all of us, and there are times when we allow our energy reserves to become so depleted that we find ourselves mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually and relationally empty. In this condition we make mistakes, miss opportunities, create pain for ourselves and others, and threaten our physical health. I loved the book, Stronger, by authors Everly, Strouss, and McCormack, because it represented a huge body of work in identifying people across the globe known for their resilience, and through a tedious research process catalogued their qualities and characteristics. These characteristics were distilled into the five primary qualities of resilient people. Through stories and science the authors described in detail these five qualities.

I wonder to what extent you have these qualities in your own life? Follow Peaks & Creeks page to see upcoming posts describing these critical qualities of resilience.

https://peaksandcreeks.com

08/23/2021

The loss of a child at any age is devastating.
Help is available here.

The We Grieve Community is offering a free virtual workshop...

"Grieving the Loss of a Child - All Ages"
Parents are not supposed to outlive their children.

Possibly the most exhausting reaction to losing a child is the emptiness felt deep in your soul. When you are a parent, you create huge amounts of space in your life you dedicate to loving, nurturing, training, caring for, teaching, protecting and providing for your children. When you lose a child, that aching emptiness fills with unimaginable pain and excruciating loss. The death of the child is also the death of all the dreams a parent has for their son or daughter.

Secondary losses incessantly emerge in the form of each specific goal, aspiration and hope held for the child. Parents of an adult child will feel the emptiness in a different way. If the relationship has matured to more of a peer relationship, the loss is felt more like the absence of a close and intimate friend. If the relationship was made complex by estrangement or brokenness, grief is complicated and intentional work to resolve this pain will be needed.

A 4-week workshop offering tools for grieving the loss of a child.

This workshop is scheduled for four Tuesday evenings in September, 2021
September 7, 14, 21 & 28; 6:00pm - 7:30pm MST.

Workshop format will be 45 minutes in a large group experience with teaching and real-life stories, and the last 45 minutes in loss-specific small groups led by a trained grief facilitator.

Register for the workshop at:
https://wegrieve.net/

07/28/2021

Need help with your grief?

The We Grieve Community is offering a free virtual workshop...

"The Journey of Grief & Loss"
The trip you would never take if you had a choice.

Loss changes everything. We move through life working hard, playing hard, and following our dreams until suddenly the road we are on comes to an end and we are forced into a painful detour, a direction we would never have chosen on our own. Our loved one is gone. This change creates intense emotional pain and we realize we need help to stay healthy in our grief.

A workshop on the basic elements of healthy grieving.

This workshop is scheduled for four Monday evenings in August, 2021
August 2, 9, 16 & 23; 6:00pm - 7:30pm MST.

Workshop format will be 45 minutes in a large group experience with teaching and real-life stories, and the last 45 minutes in loss-specific small groups led by a trained grief facilitator.

Register for the workshop:
https://wegrieve.net/

07/01/2021

The We Grieve Community is offering a free virtual workshop...

"Grieving the Loss of a Partner"

Any loss of a person can be devastating, but losing a partner is one of the most overwhelming. This loss is crushing because of the way partners lives are intertwined, and the high level of dependence each might have on the other. In a healthy relationship, partners generally meet the majority of each other's basic emotional needs. When a partner dies the loss is excruciating and touches almost every area of daily life.

This workshop is scheduled for four Tuesday evenings in July, 2021
July 6, 13, 20 & 27; 6:00pm - 7:30pm MST.

Workshop format will be 45 minutes in a large group experience with teaching and real-life stories, and the last 45 minutes in loss-specific small groups led by a trained grief facilitator.

Register for the workshop: https://wegrieve.net/

Address

Evergreen, CO

Telephone

720-382-9420

Website

http://peaksandcreeks.com/

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