It is easy to feel grateful when you have health, wealth, leisure time and freedom of movement. But having an attitude of gratitude in times of illness, financial struggle, distress, and the requirement to physically distance is a different story. Here is a December 2020 headline from CBC, “Dealing with a lot: Suicide crisis calls […]
Most of us have had moments of loneliness, feeling deep and empty sadness. I felt it as a farm girl, living at the end of a long lane. I felt it in high school, being surrounded by other students while feeling shunned. I felt it when I moved to the city and knew no one. […]
The research reported by Professor Shelley E. Taylor and her team at UCLA. In 1998 they began to wonder if women had different reactions to stress than males. By 2000 they reported a phenomenon they called Tend and Befriend.
“Loneliness kills!” Dr. Robert Waldinger, Harvard University We were forty-years-old when my hubby was transferred from Ontario to Calgary, Alberta. I felt excited to explore the employment opportunities in this dynamic city. After four months of job seeking, I was still unemployed. I was often home alone and the phone seldom rang from near or […]
It takes courage to reach out and mend a broken relationship. Those with a high level of resiliency demonstrate exceptional courage to do so. As the American author and poet, Maya Angelou wrote: Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice […]
Are you fed up with COVID-19? You are not alone. You are not the only one either needing or wanting to develop a COPING Mindset. I am with you. I am working at monitoring my negative self talk and COVID-19 Fatigue. Some psychologists term it Pandemic Fatigue. Yet, we can do what we can do […]
Most of us have had our personal boundaries violated. I have been asked in a job interview how much money my husband makes. The obvious answer was “None of your business.” Then there was the manager who patted my behind. Boundaries in relationships help all parties feel emotionally and physically safe. When we establish clear […]
Personal boundaries provide an effective strategy to handle many different external woes or adversities. Survey respondents quoted in my book, From Woe to WOW, indicated such. An outreach worker wrote, “I wish I’d stood up to her,” an office receptionist wrote, “I should have stood up for myself months sooner,” and a nurse wrote, “I didn’t make the world a better place by running away.”
You have known your conscious, aware part of yourself all your life. You know what you know. However, most adults have stifled, stuffed, or denied many of their painful and dysfunctional childhood experiences. Most adults have unconscious thoughts and beliefs, and emotional triggers. Many have trouble regulating their emotions. This is, of course, inhibits our […]
Really, a dream can strengthen resilience? Yep, and here’s why and how.
How can you tell if you are addicted to approval?
The concept of inner child work, in the field of psychological healing, increased in the 1960s, particularly due to the theory of Transnational Analysis developed by the Canadian born psychiatrist, Eric Berne. Discovering and developing a relationship with your inner child is similar to concepts and ideas such as making the unconscious conscious, getting to […]