There are many ways that people strive to conceptualize their relationships and that of others around them. It is hard to apply a framework to something so complex, so what is being offered in this blog post is not a full framework but rather a device to use to help side-step being defensive, reduce co-dependency, and increase your commitment to your personal values while in the context of a relationship.

Now you know what an eating disorder is, but you want to learn more facts about how prevalent they are! Wonderful. You have come to the right place. There are many resources out there to help you understand more about eating disorders.

Part of some people’s mental health challenges, especially if they struggle with anxiety and/or depression, is an experience referred to sometimes as “overthinking”. Many people struggle with long strings of thoughts about one or many topics that end up effecting their daily lives. Overthinking can make you late for appointments, generate unreasonable anxieties against your own goals, or put a halt in your basic motivation which is sometimes casually referred to as “analysis paralysis”. These habits can chronically effect someone’s quality of life, but they are still just habits. As habits, they can be broken, and new habits built up in their place.

Anger is one of the emotions most people would put in their list of fundamental feelings that they, and most others, would experience regularly. There are entire treatment modalities and services specifically dedicated to anger management that help educate and coach individuals in recognizing anger triggers and reducing the spikes in distress in the moment. This does lead to the idea that anger is one of the most common emotions that people do struggle with in ways that directly effects their lives. Though anger is a very strong feeling and one of the ways we may choose to express how we feel in many situations in our lives, it was during my start as a therapist that I was taught, and then reaffirmed through my experiences, that anger almost always comes second. This is means that it is rarely a primary emotion and is often then referred to as a secondary emotion. A secondary emotion refers to a feeling one has about another already existing feeling. It is here that the iceberg idea begins.

The way you begin your morning can have a huge impact on the rest of your day, whether this be a positive or negative impact. The first moments of the day have a correlation to your productivity and your mood. Starting the day off on a positive note helps to set you up for success to conquer the day. This all begins with a morning routine that sets a positive tone.

If you are trying to cope with a divorce, you may experience a grieving process. Know this is normal and that there are several things you can do in order to cope with difficult feelings. Divorces can be exhausting, overwhelming, and full of negative emotions. You may experience feelings of depression, anxiety, and/or stress. Know that these feelings are valid. While you navigate through this grieving process, you may go through cycles of feelings. It is important amidst this to enjoy all the things you previously loved doing and make space for you and what brings you joy.

Walking can be a great way to boost your physical and emotional well-being. It is a great exercise that can easily be done anywhere. Walking increases your blood flow and circulation between your brain and your body, this positively impacts your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis which is responsible for the response of your central nervous system and stress responses (Brennan, 2021). Basically, what this means is that the body functioning while walking helps to alleviate stress, increase your overall mood, and even help you to sleep better. Walking obviously has its benefits in more ways than one, so how do you go about incorporating this into your routine? The following are tips and tricks on how to begin your walking journey.

Everyone has an understanding that having a strong self-esteem is important, but actually establishing positive self-esteem can be difficult. When we have higher self-esteem, not only do we feel better about ourselves, we become more resilient too. Another benefit of positive self-esteem is being less vulnerable to anxiety, due to reduction in the release of cortisol (the stress hormone).

We may have all heard the term “problem-solving” but I wonder how many people actually know the steps in the process. If you ask someone how to solve a problem, they may say something like “just find what works” or “figure out the problem before trying to solve it” and just like how the average person could change the brakes on their car, an experienced mechanic will know all the basics just as well as they would know all the subtleties and best practices that would take the process from just working to working optimally. I am sure that many people reading this could say that they have solved countless problems in their lives, but to have a step-by-step guide on an effective method of doing so may yet be useful.

Summer has its expectations to be fun and relaxing, but if you are struggling with summer depression, it isn’t. For some people, there is a biological cause. For others, the stressors of summer can pile up and affect their mood. What makes it more difficult is that you feel like you’re supposed to have a great time. This blog can help you to make your summer easier and more enjoyable.