Finding Beauty During Dark Days
We are memory collectors. Memories shape the narratives of our lives. They shape our understanding of ourselves, others, and the world. Memories contain stories as well as the full range of emotional experience. Memories hold our humanity. Because most of us have...
Cultivating a Resilient Spirit
Welcome back for another segment in “Cultivating a Resilient Spirit”. You can catch up on our introduction HERE and part one HERE. This month, we are going to be digging into how we experience distress, why it matters, and how to increase our coping through distress...
A Fresh Lens
A few weeks ago, I went out with my camera to capture some of the early blossoming trees. During the pandemic, it has been easy to miss some of the beautiful things going on in the world as we are confined to our homes for longer periods of the day than usual. I was...
Seeds of Hope in the Age of COVID-19
The Carr Fire: Redding, CA, July 26, 2018 In the summer of 2018, the Carr Fire struck my hometown of Redding, CA, destroying well over 1,000 homes and taking nearly a dozen lives. The city shifted from a hot summer day to a hellscape in minutes. Skyscraper-tall towers...
Cultivating Resilience: Our Connection to Others
In last month’s blog I examined the idea that resilience was something that could be cultivated, and mentioned that we would be taking a deep dive into six specific skills we can build in order to increase our resilience. Since writing that, our world has been turned...
Puppies & Patience
What a crazy world we are living in right now! If you’re like me, I’m finally starting to settle into a good COVID-19 routine, but I am really missing my friends, my co-workers, and being out and about. It’s been difficult for me to stay in a relatively small space...
Resources To Help You During This Pandemic
I have heard talk and seen posts and articles comparing COVID-19 to the Spanish Flu. There is quite the debate about similarities and differences between the pandemics, but one thing that most can agree on is the wealth of resources we have now that didn’t exist in...
8 Ways to Thrive in Uncertain Times
Times are tough! Talk about uncertainty. We are in the middle of a pandemic that has left us scared and scrambling. Our world has been turned upside down almost overnight and there is an eerie stillness on the streets at night. How are you hanging in there? If you’re...
Staying Connected in this Disconnected Time
It feels surreal, what we are experiencing in the US with the Coronavirus. It’s scary and unlike anything most of us have ever gone through in our entire lives. I remember when 9/11 happened, it was devastating, but also beautiful to witness how Americans banded...
Cultivating Resilience
I’m not going to sugar-coat it: life can suck sometimes. It can drain us and stretch us and break us in ways we didn’t even know were possible. I’m not here to try to tell you any differently. Life can just really suck at times. Having been through plenty of “dumpster...
Overcoming the Wasteland in Eating Disorder Recovery
Why is recovery so long and hard? There’s a long stretch of land in treatment for eating disorders that I describe as a “wasteland.” It’s in this space where clients are most likely to relapse. Who wants to continue trekking through a wasteland without knowing when or...
Sacredness in Tears
Several months ago I attended a funeral for a bright blue-eyed baby that fought his hardest for his 12 days of life. His incredibly strong parents shared a quote by Washington Irving that has stuck with me since. “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of...