Therapy

Journaling from Confusion to Clarity

Journaling from Confusion to Clarity

If you’re like me, you sometimes feel like you’re living in a fog, seeing the world with fuzzy edges and hearing conversations in muffled tones. When in this place of confusion, I rely on my journal to create direction out of the darkness.

Here are some basic tips to start of journaling from confusion to clarity.

Etch-A-Sketch Journaling

Etch-A-Sketch Journaling

Journaling helps us to clear our minds in order to focus on what’s ahead of us. Think of your mind as an Etch-a-Sketch and as journaling as your hands shaking off the past, in order to be awake in the present.

Breathe & Journal: Easy, Effective Meditation Moments

Breathe & Journal: Easy, Effective Meditation Moments

Meditation doesn’t have to be something formal, with rules and rights and wrongs. Give yourself the gift of the present, but just taking time to reside fully in the present. Giving yourself an opportunity to bring your attention to Now, helps energize and ground you. This is a great place to start a Journaling session. Ground yourself with these few deep breaths and this body awareness and answer the following,

Good News about S.A.D

Good News about S.A.D

Does fall fill you with dread, knowing winter follows on its heels? If so, you’re not alone and you might suffer from SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder. The following 6 tips are great techniques to help sustain you through the dark days of winter:

Three ways to improve your mental health right now

Three ways to improve your mental health right now

Life is hard enough, why do we have to be so hard on ourselves? If we’re generally pretty good at being kind to, and having compassionate for, others, what’s the deal with that mean inner monologue?

Scientists believe that one reason is due to our “negativity bias”, wherein we evolved to be constantly scanning our environment for danger, training us to orient to what is, or potentially will, go wrong. Retraining something at integral as evolutionary hardwiring is not easy.

To that end, it’s helpful to have a bunch of self-healing tools at the ready. Here are three tools that may come in handy.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month

May is Mental Health Awareness Month

You can’t necessarily judge your mental health by your emotional ups and downs. Feelings are important and definitely have a lot to tell us, but they are always colored by "the stories we tell" about our experiences. Mental health is about experiencing a full range of our emotions without denying, shaming, or becoming overwhelmed. Emotions are innocent, it’s what we do with them (i.e. "act-out") that can get us in trouble.

Journaling T.I.P. for mindfulness & self-compassion

Journaling T.I.P. for mindfulness & self-compassion

Writing about how we're feeling allows us to observe and manage our feelings as they arise, instead of being knocked over by them like a tidal wave. Next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, try this journaling TIP:

Take deep breaths

Identify thoughts

Practice self-compassion

5 Ways to Use Your Journal Right Now

5 Ways to Use Your Journal Right Now

Want to get started writing in your journal? Here are 5 simple, yet effective methods you can try right away.

Learning by failure: life on the edge of the comfort zone

Learning by failure: life on the edge of the comfort zone

I’ve always learned by failing, like getting lost in a new neighborhood, in order to find my way around (pre-Google maps!). But, this can come at a cost to my self-esteem, as I’m constantly in what Brene Brown calls “Fu*king First Times”.

To get me through the feelings of being a stranger in a foreign land, I’ve had to focus as much as possible of my WHY. Why did I want to make this course/book? How do I wish to change the world/give back to my community? Focusing on my why (mostly) gets me through the rusty machinations of the unknown.

My WHY : Creating and delivering inexpensive and accessible mental health tools to as many people as possible so they can take charge of their own healing.

Netflix Therapy

Netflix Therapy

10 entertaining and uplifting documentary programming available on Netflix. Sometimes, all we have room for, is a little passive relaxation. Best to watch something that will leave you feel better than it found you.

Therapy as Emotional Coaching

Therapy as Emotional Coaching

One myth, stubbornly persistent in our culture, is that needing therapy means one’s mentally ill. In reality, most people seek out therapy for what I like to call emotional coaching. A holistic therapist serves as a translator between heart & mind, helping create a pause, between stimulus & response. Therapy does not have to be about what’s wrong, but about uncovering all that’s right.