Counseling & Coaching
An effective self-care strategy requires identifying practices that work specifically for you: practices that you’ll enjoy engaging in and stick to. You can identify these practices by asking yourself, “What self-care practices align with my values and my interests?’ For example, if you’re a people-person and relationships are most important…
Many of us take care of our physical health without thinking twice about it: We eat and we exercise; we stretch and relax; we moisturize dry skin and apply sunscreen; and we consult a doctor when we feel physically ill or hurt. But when it comes to our mental and…
Stress can be defined as something that is under an uncomfortable amount of pressure. In this case, that something is a someone and it’s you! And you’re tired of it. But now what? What can you do to slow down this stress? The following have worked well for clients of…
Due to COVID-19 and the lifestyle changes we have been forced to make, many of us are struggling with anxiety, stress, feelings of loneliness, and other difficult emotions. Fortunately, self-care activities such as mindfulness can help us to work through these emotions and relieve any anxiety or stress we might…
Due to COVID-19, many of us are self-isolating and social distancing, which is causing us to feel trapped inside of our own minds. Fortunately, we can reclaim control and free our racing minds by practicing mindfulness and returning to the basics during self-isolation. Mindfulness is about focusing on the present…
Numerous methods of therapy and spiritual practice discuss mindfulness. Dispositional mindfulness (also recognized as trait mindfulness) is a category of consciousness that has lately, been given more serious research attention. It is defined as a keen awareness and attention to our thoughts and feelings in the present moment, and the…
Social anxiety, or the fear of being negatively judged by others, employs the body’s natural defenses which are biologically hardwired. That said, we can take steps to address the triggers of our social anxiety and, in turn, overcome it. An important step is to understand what triggers your social anxiety:…
Compassion is sharing someone’s pain without sharing their suffering, according to meditation teacher and researcher Shinzen Young. While this sounds kind of contradictory, there’s a point to Young’s logic. One of the core skills of meditation involves focusing on the details of your experience while also accepting that experience…
Listening to music and practicing mindfulness can aid stroke recovery. Researchers from the Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and East Anglia recruited 72 participants who had suffered from a stroke and divided them into three groups. One group listened to music, another to audiobooks, and the final group to music as…
We’re bombarded with information about food and dieting on a daily basis—this can cause one to be overcritical about their eating habits and ultimately develop an unhealthy relationship with food. Instead of focusing on the latest diet craze, losing weight, or crunching numbers, we should put our energy into cultivating…
Anger is a natural emotion that stems from a perceived threat—to our physical or emotional wellbeing; our self-esteem or self-worth; our resources such as our finances, time or belongings; or those we love. Additionally, it’s a reaction to and a distraction from other negative feelings such as anxiety, fear, shame,…
According to research conducted in the realm of positive psychology, our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors account for a significant portion (40%) of our overall happiness. This, of course, means that we have some control over our happiness; in fact, our mere decision to focus on the good can have life-changing…