All the Feels
Recently, I’ve had a lot of people disclose to me that they wish they could be less [insert mental flogging device here]. The end of that sentence often looks something like “perfectionistic” or “depressed” or “reactive” or “anxious” or “opinionated” or “attention...
Healthy Relationships Start With… Me!
When my children were younger, I tried to instill in them the concept of “kindness begins with me”! When unkindness cropped up among siblings, I would ask the offending party, “Who does kindness begin with?” and most of the time, the child would respond with, “me!”,...
A Wounded Healer
The full memory on my computer has forced me to take a trip down memory lane and peruse through all of my various files to see which ones were worthy of keeping and which could be dumped. I stumbled upon many of my old assignments from graduate school. As I opened one...
Boundaries and Bunnies
It began because of the pandemic. Or is that just my excuse? Anyway, somehow, my kids convinced me that getting two bunnies as Pandemic Emotional Support animals was a good idea. The breeder didn’t know the sex of said bunnies, but somehow I felt confident about...
Stop and Smell the (Garden) Roses
I will be getting married in just a few days! I feel like for so long it has seemed like it would never come and now it’s here! To say I am excited is an understatement. I am also very excited to stop stressing about all the little details of wedding planning....
Emotional Needs and Microspikes
“Deep breath and don’t look down,” I counseled myself with frozen fingers cemented to the bolted chains, as my shoes slipped beneath me on the icy cliff face. I wished for the hundredth time that day that I had brought my microspikes. It also wasn’t the first time...
Good Trouble
Good Trouble in a Classroom Setting Happy Black History month! Along with working with clients at Balance Health and Healing, I also teach a class at BYU called Cross-Cultural Families and Human Development. It is a class focused on race, ethnicity, families...
Harnessing Self-Compassion
I once heard it said that you can motivate a donkey to carry you to town in one of two ways: you can whip the donkey, forcing him to move out of fear of pain, or you can hold carrots in front of him, lovingly encouraging him to move forward to receive his next reward....
The AND Inside All of Us
One of my children is notoriously harder for me than my other children. On my good, grounded, calm days, I remind myself that she is the child with the most to teach me. I wish I had more good, calm, grounded days. Today happens to be one of those good days. So I want...
Are Your Goals SMART?
Well…it’s that time of year again. The time when all we hear about are New Year’s resolutions and pledges of “new year, new me”. We are accosted with wishes of weight loss through new faddy diets, goals of success in “get rich quick” schemes, and daydreams of how...
Coping Wake Up Call
I recently had a little bit of a coping wake up call. I’m sure many of you can relate-the unique stress of this year has dialed up the heat slowly but steadily. Are you familiar with the frog in the pot analogy? A frog, if plopped in a pot of boiling water, would jump...
In These Bodies
“In these bodies we live, in these bodies we die. Where you invest your love, you invest your life.” -Mumford + Sons Our relationship to our bodies is complicated sometimes, isn’t it? It’s easy to get caught in the traps of comparison, ingratitude, and criticism. It...