Consent Preferences

Relationships

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Wishing Love and Kindness to the World= Your Increased Quality of Life

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Wishing Love and Kindness to the World= Your Increased Quality of Life

Having challenges with your quality of life can come from many sources. When you take what happens to you and combine it with your reactions (thoughts, feelings, beliefs, choices, etc.) you get the formula for your quality of life. Most of what happens to us lies outside of our control, which can influence thoughts and feelings we often feel initially, in new situations. However, it is important to understand that the subsequent thoughts and feelings we have, and the beliefs they form, are very influential on our overall quality of life. It is here that a skill referred to as Loving Kindness was developed from eastern meditative practices as a way of reducing stress-reinforcing beliefs and improving overall quality of life.

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3 Assumptions That Can Help You Parent

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3 Assumptions That Can Help You Parent

Parenting kids of any age is one of the most emotionally challenging things most people go through. It is filled with daily struggles to motivate yourself and motivating your kid(s), sometimes even motivating your spouse as well. Trying to get your kids to go to sleep on time, wake up on time, get ready for school, eat their vegetables, get dressed, get bathed, do their homework, catch the bus, put down the cell phone, and another thing, and another thing without conclusion. While being a parent has its built-in rewards like cuddle time, hearing your kids laugh, and the occasional unsolicited “I love you mommy” or “I love you daddy”, the day-to-day can be very emotionally, mentally, and physically exhaustive. It is at this point where a lot of parents fall into a trap and build a series of assumptions that decrease their effectiveness as parents. While there are plenty of ways to reframe your thoughts and build more effective assumptions, these are three worthwhile assumptions that have been born out of my experience in the field of family therapy.

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Aglow in Autumn: Fostering Positive Feelings Through Fall Changes

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Aglow in Autumn: Fostering Positive Feelings Through Fall Changes

Autumn typically makes us think of many things: pumpkins, fall foliage, apple-picking, hayrides, and colder temperatures. While there are many themes that come up when fall comes to mind, mental health is typically not one of them. However, as we enter a new season, there are a lot of lessons the seasonal change can provide, with regard to overall wellness. Here are a few lessons from the transition of fall that can support overall wellbeing.


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Flourishing Into Fall

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Flourishing Into Fall

Flourishing is a term within the field of positive psychology that focuses on a multi-dimensional, complex approach to what true wellbeing and happiness look like. There are a lot of factors that make up flourishing, from personal development, self-love, self-awareness, financial freedom, and more. You might experience flourishing when you are trying new things, exploring a new hobby, and spending time with loved ones. Flourishing isn’t just one of these areas, it’s focusing on all of these pieces of the puzzle; a complete picture of wellbeing and happiness.

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Resolving Relational Anger: Healthy Ways to Resolve Arguments and Miscommunications

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Resolving Relational Anger: Healthy Ways to Resolve Arguments and Miscommunications

We all know that anger is a normal emotion and valid in many situations. However expressing anger through yelling, expletives, or aggressive behaviors can lead to negative consequences. It’s important we find ways to share our anger with others in ways that allow the other to hear and understand us.

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Happy is Healthy: Eight Phrases to Help Increase Happiness

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Happy is Healthy: Eight Phrases to Help Increase Happiness

We can improve feelings of happiness through changing our thoughts, behaviors, and circumstances. Research has largely focused on changing our thoughts with lots of published strategies to help with changing our thoughts. Within this there are some strategies that you can use to change negative thoughts into being more positive, and thus happier overall.

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Coping With Pandemic Fatigue: Support In Managing The Ongoing Pandemic

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Coping With Pandemic Fatigue: Support In Managing The Ongoing Pandemic

COVID-19 has brought us a year of anxious uncertainty. Sheltering in place, working remotely, or facing daily hazards as essential workers, we’ve been unable to see our extended families, meet a friend for coffee, or even go to the gym, a sports game, concert, or movie. Some of us have lost loved ones, leaving a heartbreaking hole in our lives. All of us have lost touch with the normal rhythms of life. With no breaks in routine and fewer simple pleasures, the past few months have been an endless blur. Recent studies have shown that depression rates in America have tripled since the pandemic began (Berman, 2020).

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Therapy During A Pandemic: Benefits of Engaging in Virtual Therapy

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Therapy During A Pandemic: Benefits of Engaging in Virtual Therapy

With the pandemic forcing many of us to stay inside as much as possible, most therapists are meeting their clients virtually at present, in order to protect others and remain safe. While there has been an adjustment to navigating virtual therapy, there have been many benefits to being able to transition to more virtual opportunities for therapy.

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Trauma & Love: Supporting a Romantic Partner with A Trauma History

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Trauma & Love: Supporting a Romantic Partner with A Trauma History

Being in a relationship with someone who has a trauma history can be uniquely challenging at times. In many cases, individuals who experience trauma may behave in ways that are hard for their partner to understand. They may experience panic attacks, express distrust, escalate quickly to anger, or become disengaged. As trauma can interrupt emotional processing, those who have experienced trauma often struggle to articulate what is really going on inside of them. This can cause conflict and miscommunication, and it can make it difficult for well-intended partners to know what kind of support to provide. If this sounds a bit like your experience, not to fear! There are ways to become a trauma-informed and compassionate partner while also maintaining your own boundaries and safety within your relationship.


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Thanksgiving, Gratitude, and Mental Health

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Thanksgiving, Gratitude, and Mental Health

As Thanksgiving approaches, the focus on gratitude and being thankful for others comes to mind. The research on understanding the impact of gratitude on health and relationships has also expanded over the last several years. Expressing gratitude on a consistent basis has been shown to positively impact important areas in one’s life including emotional wellbeing, physical health, and connectedness in relationships.

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Thoughts on Thanksgiving: Tips and Tricks to Cope with Thanksgiving Stress

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Thoughts on Thanksgiving: Tips and Tricks to Cope with Thanksgiving Stress

Often we may feel we have to brave through stress and worry, and that this is the only way to tackle the holiday: by grinning and bearing it. While this may seem like the best option in the short-term, when you add up the holidays each year and multiple by the many years you may manage holiday stress, this can seem overwhelming. The holidays are not a mental health sprint, but a marathon thus why not strategize on how to make the most of the holidays. Read below for some tips and tricks to manage stress during the holiday season.

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How to Have Tough Conversations

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How to Have Tough Conversations

Getting a text or call from a friend, family member, or romantic partner with the words, “We have to talk”, always evokes a bit of anxiety. Whether you’re the one delivering this statement or receiving it, we all definitely don’t enjoy this phrase and what often follows. Are there ways to talk without having to use this phrase? Absolutely. This post aims to provide you with a way to communicate with others, never having to use this statement.

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The Innovation Behind Being An Introvert

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The Innovation Behind Being An Introvert

With so many ways to communicate whether in-person, phone, or the many social media apps we can access 24/7, introverts are often viewed as odd for their lack of expressing an opinion whether with friends or in a meeting. Introverts are often described as individuals who do not like prolonged social interactions and may feel uncomfortable in large social gatherings. Introverts don’t mind remaining isolated for extended periods, however this gives them time to engage in thinking and dreaming!


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Social Media Breaks & Well-Being

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Social Media Breaks & Well-Being

We’ve all experienced the negative effects of social media at some point in time and we have either all taken a break or have had our friends and family take social media breaks for a time. We know that taking a break can help reduce our stress levels. Research is limited, however has revealed that a little break from social media can relieve physiological symptoms of stress, at least in the short-term.

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Dealing with Zoom Fatigue

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Dealing with Zoom Fatigue

Zoom calls have taken over. A few meetings in the morning, virtual learning, seminars over Zoom, a doctor’s visit over Doxy.me and FaceTime dates with family and friends. As social distancing continues, people move from video platform to video platform throughout the day. The unintended impact of this on mental health may be what’s being referred to as “Zoom fatigue” or the “feeling of tiredness, anxiousness, or worry from one video call to the next”.

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Building Self-Esteem in Therapy

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Building Self-Esteem in Therapy

Often individuals come into therapy looking to understand and explore self-esteem as well as boost their self-esteem. Individuals develop a close, trusting relationship with their therapist and share a lot about themselves. Through this process one can begin to feel that a genuine relationship has built and that they and their therapist have mutual respect for each other. Through the therapeutic relationship, one can heal from past negative experiences and shift their perspectives around various situations and circumstances. Self-esteem is often linked to many of these.

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The Power of Connection: Social Supports as a Tool to Improved Mental Health

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The Power of Connection: Social Supports as a Tool to Improved Mental Health

Part of our ability to problem-solve and identify coping strategies in the moment, is the ability to analyze feelings in the moment and rethink negative thoughts. However, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. When experiencing negative thoughts and emotions, we often need the help from others, our support network, to cope. Have stable people in our support networks is crucial for our overall mental health.

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Renewing Your Relationship Through Renegotiation

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Renewing Your Relationship Through Renegotiation

Sometimes we need to revamp our relationships. All of us can think of times we need a refresh whether this be of goals, experiences, the clothes in our closet, or our beliefs, and the same rings true for our relationships. We grow and change in and out of relationships and there is no rule that you have to stay the same if you are in one. It is healthy and positive to grow and change yourself and within your relationship.

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Supporting Mental Health for Healthcare Workers

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Supporting Mental Health for Healthcare Workers

Studies report that healthcare workers are and will continue to experience psychological distress along with symptoms of anxiety and depression, managing the many stressors they face on the frontlines and how this impacts their daily lives. How can we support healthcare workers? Here are a few strategies to care for you or a loved one’s mental health at this time, especially if you are working on the frontlines.

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5 Positive Ways to Utilize Technology During COVID

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5 Positive Ways to Utilize Technology During COVID

It’s easy to get sucked into a Netflix marathon or an eight-hour video game run. However, we know that sometimes too much screen time can have a negative impact on mental health so we are constantly told to to watch our screen usage. The problem is that during the COVID-19 pandemic, when we are told to remain socially distant from others, we are often using technology and having more screen time than is typical, in order to remain connected with others, which is positive. So how can we utilize technology in positive and healthy ways as we remain socially distant?