morning wellness

Jan 30, 2017

Mindfulness, Identity

Psychotherapy, fear, self-growth, therapy

Aug 29, 2016

anxiety, depression, mindfulness, change your thoughts

Aug 29, 2016

anxiety, depression, mindfulness, change your thoughts

Don’t Take It Personally

Aug 29, 2016

anxiety, depression, mindfulness, change your thoughts

Aug 29, 2016

anxiety, depression, mindfulness, change your thoughts

“It’s not all about you.”

“Nobody’s thinking about you that much.”

“You don’t have that much power.”

At first glance: rude statements, right? I admit, I’m a sensitive soul, but I think most would agree that these quotes seem to come with a little sting.

Well, sometimes when we are spiraling downward into a black hole of negative self-talk and harsh self-criticism, we have to be a little blunt with ourselves.

Aug 29, 2016

anxiety, depression, mindfulness, change your thoughts

Aug 29, 2016

anxiety, depression, mindfulness, change your thoughts

Aug 15, 2016

Aug 15, 2016

Vulnerability in Practice

Aug 15, 2016

Aug 15, 2016

Daring Greatly and Brene Brown’s TED Talk have made vulnerability a hot topic in the personal growth world. This week, in the midst of gabbing on and on about how I feel, what’s going on in my head, what I fear, the times I’ve failed, the things I am searching for in my life and still not getting, I had a thought.

Maybe I’m too vulnerable.

Aug 15, 2016

Aug 15, 2016

Jul 11, 2016

Jul 11, 2016

Breaking Up Your Routine

Jul 11, 2016

Jul 11, 2016

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Yesterday I got a phone call from a great friend back home (please pause in a moment of appreciation for how warm and cozy the sound of old friends’ voices are) who is in a bit of a slump. “I’m just trying to do things to break up my routine,” she said.

I related to that completely. When we go about our days in that same old, same old way that we always do, things start to feel…boring. And maybe kinda depressing. Wake up, work, relax, sleep, repeat. Again. And again. Forever. Til we die.

Nice, right?

You and I want more than that. We want to live a life that we want to savor. The exciting moments – the milestone events, the travels, the career advances. But also the slow moments….the reading on the porch, a filler episode of one of your favorite TV show, that first sip of coffee on a Saturday morning. When our everyday lives become mundane, I think we’re tricked into thinking we need something big and exciting to happen to get us back on our feet. Things become so boring that we think we’re falling deeper and deeper into the “boring life” pit, and we can only be pulled out by the rope of some skydiving trip or marriage proposal.

I don’t buy that. I’m a strong believer in the power of the little things – though I do think that the little things stop bringing us enjoyment when we stop looking for them, and when we get sucked into the same routine, it’s so much easier to do that.

Jul 11, 2016

Jul 11, 2016

Jun 20, 2016

mindfulness, dialectical behavioral therapy, dbt, Psychotherapy, psychology, social work

Jun 20, 2016

mindfulness, dialectical behavioral therapy, dbt, Psychotherapy, psychology, social work

Learning to Ride the Wave

Jun 20, 2016

mindfulness, dialectical behavioral therapy, dbt, Psychotherapy, psychology, social work

Jun 20, 2016

mindfulness, dialectical behavioral therapy, dbt, Psychotherapy, psychology, social work

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Lately, I have been thinking a lot about going with the flow – which is super easy when you are are Type A, sorta a perfectionist, and maaaybe a little tiny bit of a control freak. For me, thoughts about going with the flow tend to be a pretty good indication that things aren’t going exactly as I’d like them to.

And when things aren’t going the way we’d planned them, we’ve got a few options. We can push down our negative feelings and pretend that everything is SO fine and we are SO okay and nope, definitely NOT bothered this new direction.

Alternatively, we can play up our negative feelings and stir in the irritability and anxiety, and now nothing’s going right and everything sucks and we’re never going to recover.

Or, we could find a happy medium by taking a tip from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and riding the wave.

Jun 20, 2016

mindfulness, dialectical behavioral therapy, dbt, Psychotherapy, psychology, social work

Jun 20, 2016

mindfulness, dialectical behavioral therapy, dbt, Psychotherapy, psychology, social work

Jun 6, 2016

Jun 6, 2016

Discovering Self-Compassion

Jun 6, 2016

Jun 6, 2016

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Today’s post is one I’ve been excited to write for about a month now, which is weird because it’s kind of just a glorified book review. But guys, over the past month, I’ve been like…spiritually awakened by Kristin Neff’s book, Self-Compassion. “Spiritually awakened” is kind of dramatic but listen. The drama is justified. The book (and more so, the concept of self-compassion) is like finally finding the key to unlock the shackles of judgment imprisoning our thoughts (okay, maybe that’s too dramatic).

Jun 6, 2016

Jun 6, 2016

May 23, 2016

Stress, Motivation, Mindfulness, Identity, Gratitude

May 23, 2016

Stress, Motivation, Mindfulness, Identity, Gratitude

Challenging Materialism

May 23, 2016

Stress, Motivation, Mindfulness, Identity, Gratitude

May 23, 2016

Stress, Motivation, Mindfulness, Identity, Gratitude

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Last night I spent a half hour or so scrolling through Instagram. Looking at pictures of my friends? No. Looking at inspiring art? Hell no. I was straight up devouring photos of potential new skincare purchases.

And the thoughts go like this:

I really want that serum. I see that so many people love it. But it’s so expensive! I’m sure it’s worth it. Oh shoot, and sunscreen! Definitely need to buy that before next weekend. My haircut this Sunday is already gonna be at least $65 but I obviously need that and also sunscreen. Dang, what am I even going to wear next weekend? All my shoes are horrible. I need new summer clothes. I could really use a new…

Blah blah blah literally could go on FOR LIFE if I don’t notice it and get a hold of myself. Sometimes I have to close my computer or shut off my phone and set it on the table next to me, vibrating with this energy of temptation, non-verbally begging me to pick it back up and keep shopping.

Here’s the thing: we want stuff. We want the things that products sell us – beauty, success, happiness, and a sense of interconnectedness with each other. We want what’s trendy so we can feel like part of the gang. If every cool girl on Tumblr is wearing strappy wedges, we wanna get strappy wedges too, because we want to be a part of it. We don’t want to feel left behind. And further, we want to spend our energy thinking about shoes because it’s a lot easier than thinking about the “real life” stress of our work, relationships, and intrinsic dissatisfaction.

May 23, 2016

Stress, Motivation, Mindfulness, Identity, Gratitude

May 23, 2016

Stress, Motivation, Mindfulness, Identity, Gratitude

May 16, 2016

creativity, childhood, art, past, brene brown, elizabeth gilbert

May 16, 2016

creativity, childhood, art, past, brene brown, elizabeth gilbert

Healing Our Creativity Scars

May 16, 2016

creativity, childhood, art, past, brene brown, elizabeth gilbert

May 16, 2016

creativity, childhood, art, past, brene brown, elizabeth gilbert

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It was 11am on a weekday and I was already feeling my motivation dwindle. My focused actions turned into mindless Twitter scrolling and my coffee was cold – sure signs that I was on the edge of surrender.

My inspiration savior came in the form of Elizabeth Gilbert’s podcast, Magic Lessons. Fellow social worker (and career-crush) Brené Brown was featured on an episode in which she talked about her belief that “non-creative people” don’t exist – only people who do and do not use their creativity.

But then she said something that really shocked me. While researching shame, Brené Brown found that 85% of the people she interviewed remembered an event in school that was so shaming that it changed the way they thought of themselves for the rest of their lives. Among those individuals, 50% reported that those shame wounds were related to creativity.

As someone who has her fair share of difficulty with creativity, I wondered: do I have childhood “creativity scars”?

May 16, 2016

creativity, childhood, art, past, brene brown, elizabeth gilbert

May 16, 2016

creativity, childhood, art, past, brene brown, elizabeth gilbert