Category: Coping

Exercise and It’s Benefits on Your Mental Health

One of my favorite, favorite shirts I’ve seen in a while is the one that says “Fitness? More like fitness whole pizza in my mouth!” It gets me every time, and want to give the creator of that shirt a high five for combining two of my favorite things, misdirection humor and really bad puns. … Continue reading “Exercise and It’s Benefits on Your Mental Health”

5 Ways to Help Manage Stress and Anxiety

As an adult stress, anxiety and worry can be challenging emotions to manage. We can become overwhelmed, distressed and begin having catastrophic thoughts. For our children it is equally as difficult if not more to manage these emotions. Children do not have the emotional capacity or brain development like that of an adult and need … Continue reading “5 Ways to Help Manage Stress and Anxiety”

Dealing with Hurts

Friday morning I woke up feeling excited. I had prepared a teaching for a group of ladies and could not wait to get to the meeting to share with them. The topic addressed dealing with hurts and pain. Let’s admit it, hurts are a part of everyday life. Someone hurts our feelings, betrays our trust, … Continue reading “Dealing with Hurts”

The Stages of Grief

If you have lived on this earth for very long, then you have experienced loss. I see it every day in my office. Loss of a relationship. Loss of a job, etc. Someone we love moves far away or someone we love is not who we believed (hoped)) he or she to be. Perhaps you … Continue reading “The Stages of Grief”

Processing Your Sadness

Most of us do not like to feel sad. As a matter of fact, we have a tendency to do whatever it takes to avoid feeling sad. We work, we shop, we eat…the list is endless. What if, contrary to this natural tendency, the best way for us to deal with feelings of sadness is … Continue reading “Processing Your Sadness”

Dealing with Disappointment

  I hate feeling disappointed but bad news arrived this past week and I felt very blue. There is a verse that says “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” This week, my heart (emotions) felt hurt when I found out my husband had again been passed … Continue reading “Dealing with Disappointment”

Experiencing Grief

In working with clients, I have discovered the topic of grief is a tough subject to tackle.  It is typically avoided until an unfortunate event forces a discussion to occur.  Grief had once been described as a step-by-step process consisting of 5 emotional stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.  It was believed that once … Continue reading “Experiencing Grief”

Therapeutic Depression

It’s always a puzzlement to me whenever I experience depression.  Not that I shouldn’t be depressed or am somehow exempt, due to my professions as a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (it reminds me of James Bond, 007, licensed to… well, you know what). It puzzles me because when I start feeling the depression, I just … Continue reading “Therapeutic Depression”

What Exactly Is Healing?

Often in my office I will sit across from a client who says to me “I just want to heal”. When we begin to dive into what that means, we find they are looking for the absence of pain. They believe they will feel healed when they no longer hurt, no longer grieve, no longer … Continue reading “What Exactly Is Healing?”

Self-Injury Awareness

  It is “Self-Injury Awareness” month so I wanted to take the opportunity to focus on what defines self-injury and how to recognize it in friends and family.  There are myths and stigmas attached to self-harming that I would like to address. Contrary to popular belief, people that self-harm are not doing so to get … Continue reading “Self-Injury Awareness”