How to Practice Self-Soothing
“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson When feeling heightened levels of stress and anxiety, it can be especially difficult to draw upon our inner resources to practice self-soothing. During difficult situations that tend to increase our levels of distress, it is especially important to have a self-care toolkit already prepared…
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How to Use Grounding to Calm Yourself
“No feeling is final.” – Rainer Maria Rilke There is no such thing as an inherently “bad” emotion. The ability to experience a broad range of emotions is a natural, healthy part of being human. However, most of us know that plenty of emotions may feel incredibly uncomfortable, while many other emotions seem universally desirable.…
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Feeling Disconnected & Homebound? Online Mental Health Communities Offer Support
“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” – Khalil Gibran If you’re like a great deal of people in the world right now, you may find yourself engaging in “social distancing” by staying at home and away from crowds. It’s natural…
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Mindfulness During Times of Uncertainty
“We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.” – Blaise Pascal It is no secret that the world is grappling with an incredible amount of stress in the face of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. During times of intense stress it’s more important than ever to be mindful of…
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Build Love Based on Interdependence
Interdependence involves a balance between autonomy (the ability to function independently) and leaning on one another. It’s crucial to recognize that within the context of all interpersonal relationships, we affect one another. To presume that our actions, or lack thereof, within a relational context affect no one but ourselves is clueless at best and perhaps narcissistic at worst. When a relationship is based on interdependence, each person takes responsibility for their own feelings and behaviors.
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Values: The Necessary Building Blocks of the “Optimal You”
“A further sign of health is that we don’t become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it’s time to stop struggling and look directly at what’s threatening us.” – Pema Chödrön What thoughts or images come to mind when you consider what a healthy lifestyle is all about? For many…
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3 Mini Mindfulness Exercises for Stress Relief
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” – Mahatma Gandhi Stress is inevitable… and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. When stress comes in the form of eustress, it can serve as a valuable motivating force that helps us spring into action, maintain necessary momentum, or stay alert and focused. On the other hand,…
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Building a Self-Care Toolkit
“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. ” – Thich Nhat Hanh How often have you found yourself thinking, or even saying aloud, that you’re simply too busy to slow down and take care of yourself? After all, there are so many…
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Increase Somatic Awareness with a Body Scan Mindfulness Exercise
“Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.” – Voltaire How tuned in do you tend to be to your physical sensations and sense of self within your body? In a world filled with distractions, to-do lists, and external demands, it can…
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The Importance of Mindfulness in the Workplace
“Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.” – Pema Chödrön How do you “show up” at work? We spend so much of our lives devoted to academic and career-related pursuits, that it’s worth asking ourselves how…
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