Speaking

Speaking Topics

Launching Our Young Adult Children: When does Adolescence end and Adulthood Begin?

Mind-Body Breath-Work

In 2012, Kay attended a CEU training workshop at the Kripalu Yoga and Wellness  Center in Massachusetts to learn coherent mind-body-breath work with Drs. Richard Brown and Patricia Garber, neuropsychiatrists who do research regarding alternative mental health practices.

Parenting With Confidence: Less Bribes, Less Threats and Less Exhaustion

A More Caring and Compassionate You: How to manage stress and enhance effective interpersonal relationships

Beginner and Intermediate

Teachers thrive when they manage effective relationships with parents, children and each other. This interpersonal process is ongoing with ample opportunity for lessons and growth. That is really what life is all about…learning our lessons with renewed opportunities to better ourselves.

Yet we live with undue stress  resulting largely from the way we think about what we experience. Our intention is compassion and care. Yet we may find ourselves out of order, reactive and unable to sustain positivity.

In this workshop “Dr. Kay” will teach us the neuro-physiology of stress and it’s impact on mood and cognition. You will learn how to better manage a core calm confidence that empowers and enables you to manage interpersonal relationships with greater calm, compassion and care.

• Taking an inventory about our anxiety producing culture
• The garbage we trip over or carry on our backs
• You hold the power to shift gears from overdrive to neutral
• Breath work comes first
• Ideal vs. real self
• Your thoughts do count
• Create a Vision of Compassion & Care

Sustaining Positive Mental Health in the Face of Stress and Negativity

Our culture inundates us with negativity, inflating our sense of anxiety and fear. Our brains are programmed to survive through a defensive system that depletes us.  In this presentation, you will learn about stress and illness as well as how to transition from the negative to the positive state of being that promotes wellness. Learn both the language and the tool for sustaining positivity that is contagious and guarantees success in managing inter-personal relationships for leaders, teachers and parents.

Cultivating Compassion, Care and Purpose to Conquer Depression and Anxiety

What is anxiety and depression and what helps to reduce or eliminate such maladies? In this talk, “Dr. Kay” explores social emotional and biogenetic factors influencing our mood. There are cognitive and behavioral as well as social emotional tools at our disposal to improve our psychological well being. This presentation leaves participants more mindful and enabled to take mental health into their own hands and hearts.

Minding Your Marriage

Our culture appears to undermine our expectations about marriage with unrealistic “happily ever after” notions of love. Along the way, we often create a lot of distractions to help us avoid the work of minding our marriage, including sleep deprivation, a job, and caring for our children. In this presentation, “Dr. Kay” discusses the need to make every effort to understand and accept your differences, rather than making an effort to fight or “win” some kind of power struggle.  Learn about the necessary shift in thinking toward a goal of shared understanding, “give and take,” and mutual acceptance.

Managing Interpersonal Stress and Anxiety with Greater Calm

Every day, we are bombarded with stimuli that set us up to respond with reactivity and impatience. As a result, we all carry some amount of angst in our hearts and souls. Managing stress involves adjusting our expectations and our priorities, along with finding ways to recharge. In this session, Dr. Kay will help you to observe how stress impacts your body and mind. Participants will be able to walk away with simple tools for practicing a calm presence daily and responding effectively in the face of interpersonal challenges.

Talking to Your Tweens about Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll

Wouldn’t it be nice if we only had to talk to our kids about easy topics? The reality is that at school, from their friends, and in the media, kids see so much information (and misinformation). It is important to keep it real, keep your humor, keep it simple and be a good listener. In this presentation, Dr. Kay will share practical, positive and creative options for talking openly with tweens about sex, drugs, and other difficult issues.  There will be role playing, time for questions, and plenty of shared knowledge to choose what works for you. Participants will be ready to begin a discussion or handle any question a child may have without worrying about the door closing on further talks.

Living in Our Legacy of Trauma: How to Stay Centered Despite Media Madness

Many of us live not only with current undue stress; we also carry a legacy of trauma on our backs.  Much of our reactivity, insomnia and/or negative mood  results  from the way we think about what we witness and experience. The media is no longer a neutral informer. We are now bombarded with opinions that serve to persuade and distort.  Worse, as we try to sort through the stimulation overload, our hearts may lose hope and joy while our nervous systems take a beating.  Trauma promotes the need to seek safety and defend against greater harm. All healing and rational problem solving is born out of compassion and care. How to we sustain our sense of security and intelligence in the face of real and projected terror? In this workshop “Dr. Kay” will teach us the neuro-physiology of stress and it’s impact on mood and cognition. You will learn how to better manage a core calm confidence that empowers and enables you to manage yourself as well as  interpersonal relationships with greater calm, compassion and care.

• Taking an Inventory about our Anxiety Producing Culture
• The Garbage we Trip Over or Carry on our Backs
• You Hold the Power to Shift Gears from Overdrive to Neutral
• Breath Work Comes First
• Facing “Reality”
• Your Thoughts do Count
• Create a Vision of Compassion & Care
• Empowerment trumps Helplessness