The Lighter Side of Transformation

with Lisa Wessan, LICSW

Apr 28

Mastering Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills (DBT): 14-Week Distress Tolerance and Mindfulness Skills Training, starts June 10, 2025, 7:30 – 9 PM EST (on Zoom)

by Lisa Wessan, LICSW

Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amidst the storm…

Hi, 

I’m excited to be teaching the next 14-week semester of Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills (DBT).  This semester we will cover Distress Tolerance & Mindfulness Skills.

🌀 Click here for the current DBT FLYER.

DBT skills significantly help to reduce the escalation of your inflammatory emotions. They also lessen the painful, polarized and perfectionist thinking that often cause your meltdowns. You will learn to find your peaceful “Middle Path” here. 

There are many powerful skills included in this semester’s work. We hope you will create your own personal Distress Tolerance tool kit. Use the techniques that work the best for you.

Unfortunately, there is no “one size fits all” with these various techniques. You need to be a good scientist in the laboratory of your life and try them all out.  To that end, DBT provides excellent handouts, worksheets and exercises to help you practice between sessions. You will eventually find the techniques that you love. These techniques will help you pause successfully. They will transform difficult moments into something better.

You might have someone in mind for this next DBT Group. If so, please have them contact me soon at my web site – www.lisawessan.com – and fill out the Contact Form. This private form helps them briefly tell me the best times to reach them. (It also guides them to check out their insurance for the Out of Network benefit.)

Please know, this is a NO-SPAM zone, and no one’s email is saved unless requested to do so.

14-week fee: $1120 for continuing students, $1420 for new students (includes one Intake session.)  

It is an honor to serve your friends, family, patients or clients with this powerful, experiential, transformative curriculum.

Onward and Upward✨
Lisa Wessan

“If you can recognize and accept your pain
without running away from it,
you will discover that although pain is there,
joy can also be there at the same time.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, No Mud, No Lotus

Lisa Wessan, LICSW, CLYL, RM
Psychotherapist, Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Trainer (DBT),
Podcaster, Author, Speaker
www.lisawessan.com
UP NEXT: DBT Distress Tolerance & Mindfulness Skills (Virtual, June 3 – September 2, 2025)
🌀✨🌀✨🌀✨🌀✨🌀✨🌀✨🌀✨🌀✨🌀✨🌀✨🌀✨🌀✨🌀✨🌀

#DBT, #PTSD, #EmotionRegulation #DistressTolerance, #Wellness #Recovery #Peak, #Mindfulness Anxiety BPD Distress Tolerance Mindfulness Transformation

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Aug 28

UP NEXT: Fall-Winter Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Group (DBT)

by Lisa Wessan, LICSW

Up Next: Mindfulness & Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills

During the Mindfulness module, you will learn how to become a more compassionate observer, be less judgmental, learn to stay focused and in the present moment, practice using the Emotion Wheel to identify all of your feelings and detach from the negative ones as needed, plus more.

In the Interpersonal Skills module, you will be exploring ways you can set healthier boundaries, ask for what you want, decline and say “NO” effectively, examine validating and invalidating relationships, and more.

🌀CURRENT DBT FLYER: Mindfulness & Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills.

FAST FACTS:
🌀 When: 14-week trimester, Tuesday evenings, 7:30 – 9:00 PM EST; September 19 – December 19, 2023
🌀 Where: On Zoom
🌀 Fees: Continuing students pay $1050; new students pay $1285 (includes one individual Intake Session).

For details and FAQ please visit www.lisawessan.com

Onward and Upward🌀

Lisa Wessan

PS – All registration forms, fees and intake sessions must be completed by 9/15/23. If this DBT work speaks to you, contact me very soon.

#DBT, #PTSD, #EmotionRegulation #DistressTolerance, #Wellness #Recovery #Peak, #Mindfulness Anxiety Interpersonal Effectiveness Mindfulness Social Anxiety Transformation

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May 4

UP NEXT: Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills training (DBT) on Mindfulness & Distress Tolerance, May – August 2023 on Zoom

by Lisa Wessan, LICSW

Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amidst the storm…

Hi, 

Thank you for your continued interest in my work. I know I haven’t posted frequently enough here – but that will change soon!

For today, I’m excited to be teaching the next 14-week semester of Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills (DBT).  This semester we will cover Mindfulness & Distress Tolerance Skills.

🌀 Click here for the current  DBT FLYER. 

With the Distress Tolerance curriculum, your will learn valuable skills and interventions to help yourself reduce your intense stress and harsh feelings in the moment – to lower the volume on your anticipatory anxiety and catastrophic thinking. These DBT skills significantly help to reduce the escalation of your inflammatory emotions, and reduce the painful, polarized and perfectionist thinking that often cause your meltdowns. You will learn to find your peaceful “Middle Path” here. 

There are many powerful skills included in this semester’s work. It is the hope of this process that you will put together your own personal Distress Tolerance tool kit with the techniques that work the best for you.

Unfortunately, there is no “one size fits all” with these various techniques, so you do need to be a good scientist in the laboratory of your life and try them all out.  You will eventually find the ones that you love, and that will work quickly and effectively for you. 

Yes, I am looking forward to continuing this exciting journey towards wholeness with this next group.  I am also deeply honored to be sharing this transformative and useful educational process with you.

If this is not for you, but you have someone in mind for this next DBT Group, please have them contact me soon at my web site – currently www.MirthMaven.com – and fill out the Contact Form which helps them briefly tell me the best times to reach them (by phone) and guides them to check out their insurance (for the Out of Network benefit).  Otherwise this course is private pay, $980 for continuing students, $1215 for new students (includes one Intake session.)  

Onward and Upward✨

Lisa Wessan

“If you can recognize and accept your pain
without running away from it,
you will discover that although pain is there,
joy can also be there at the same time.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, No Mud, No Lotus


Lisa Wessan, LICSW, CLYL, RM
Psychotherapist, Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Trainer (DBT)
Life Coach, Author, Speaker, Consultant

www.MirthMaven.com
🌀✨🌀✨🌀✨🌀

#DBT, #PTSD, #EmotionRegulation #DistressTolerance, #Wellness #Recovery #Peak, #Mindfulness Anxiety BPD Distress Tolerance Mindfulness Transformation

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Feb 7

LIFESPAN: Why We Age, and Why We Don’t Have To, by David Sinclair, PhD

by Lisa Wessan, LICSW

Video Comment: (3 min) https://youtu.be/pGSuysVYo2Y

FUN FACT: “The number of centenarians – people in their 100s – is soaring worldwide as life spans continue to grow. In 1990, there were about 95,000 centenarians, but by 2015 there were 450,000, according to United Nations estimates.  By 2100, the U.N. projects, there will be 25 million.” – THE NEW YORK TIMES [quoted in THE WEEK, 14 MAY 2021, p. 16]

To that end, here is my review of LIFESPAN: WHY WE AGE, AND WHY WE DON’T HAVE TO, by David Sinclair, PhD (2019, Simon and Shuster: New York):

“Aging is a disease…and it is the Mother of all diseases, the one we all suffer from.” David Sinclair has evidence that there is a cure for aging. This is the basic hypothesis of this work.

The good news: fresh from the labs of Harvard, MIT and many other top research institutes around the world, Sinclair shares the very exciting and hopeful reports which indicate that our life expectancy is about to grow — the average person will live to 150 years soon, and possibly much longer…

The less good news: there is quite a bit of resistance and kickback to this longevity work which creates research funding issues. People have economic, philosophical, religious and ethical issues about longevity. Tampering with our genes, reversing cell damage, increasing strength and brain function results in an increased life expectancy.

The first part of this book is highly technical – Sinclair enthusiastically deconstructs his research and his peers’ work on gene editing and other relevant experiments.

Approximately the middle third of this book is about longevity techniques, treatments, prevention, and ways to stay healthy. We learn more about intermittent fasting, cold plunges, dietary suggestions, and possibly useful supplements (surprisingly few). There is no true “Magic Bullet” here. Yet.

The last third of the book explores the implications of increased longevity, and how it will affect our culture (and Social Security questions). Sinclair successfully resolves dozens of serious conflicts and considerations that have been thrown at him – and this part was both interesting and annoying at times. The worst case scenarios are all addressed with positive extrapolations for the mutual benefit of all humans – so there is no reason not to send billions of dollars to these researchers to unlock the secret code to aging successfully.

I hope one or more of our billionaires get word of this book and send over a few billion dollars to Sinclair and his buddies so they can finally nail down the aging disease and, dare I say it, CURE AGING!

It was frustrating to learn here how people’s ignorance and fears block the funding for this work! Basically, if Sinclair and his tribe can slow down and even reverse aging, they will also be eliminating cancer, heart disease, diabetes and more chronic diseases which all arise from the aging process.

I agree with Sinclair, this is NOT a moral or ethical issue. Increasing our longevity is part of our natural evolution and is a natural next step.

IN SUM, there is a solution to aging, and when we find it, it will help our species and benefit all of mankind in amazing ways.

On a personal note, I have been affirming that I am going to be a Super Centenarian (110+) for decades already…so now, I’m correcting that and plan to live to at least 150 years or longer. I always knew I was going to peak in my 60s…so I’m not even halfway through this awesome adventure in living!

Sinclair has inspired me to ramp up my longevity activities – the one thing I have resisted is the cold plunge (the Wim Hof method). I’ve been aware of Wim Hof’s works for years – so for a while I was going to a cryotherapy tank every week and taking the cold plunge inside of -260 F tank for 3 minutes. That was very useful and I loved it.  

In addition, my teacher Tim Ferriss has discussed and explored this work on his podcast to the point where I feel like a fool for not doing it regularly. (Ferriss takes ice baths regularly). My version of the Wim Hof method is to walk outside in cold weather wearing a light coat or vest and NOT bundling up all the way. (I wear a hat, scarf and gloves to avoid frostbite.)

So I’m excited about the possibility of living WELL at 150+ years of life, and to empower others to do the same. Yes, it’s the TEAM WORK that makes the DREAM WORK!

May we all age well together🌟

Longevity Uncategorized

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