Tag: change

For years I often heard people say that you have to go through grief and pain, you can’t go around it, you can’t go above it, you have to go through it. For years I didn’t understand what that meant. We live in an incredibly emotionally avoidant culture which then leads to chronic mental emotional health struggles, high addiction and disconnection from self and others among other symptoms. 

In order to move through grief or pain a person must create a safe space for emotions to build. Like a wave on a beach, emotions need to be able to build and crash safely on the shore before they can recede out and become calm again. Instead of allowing the natural flow, we often dam up the water as high as we can to keep it from crashing, but then when it inevitably breaks the dam, and the lifetime of suppressed emotions can come cascading and flooding ...

A sense of direction, purpose, and identity. Most would agree that these are factors contributing to a fulfilling life. At some point most of us have also experienced the anxiety or depression that accompanies a loss of these.

As we attend to the daily concerns of life, we experience the satisfaction and positive emotions that come with caring for family, making progress toward work, financial and health goals etc. At the same time, the immediacy of these concerns can sometimes take almost all of our focus, distracting us from parts of ourselves that may have been buried under the daily routine.

To bring balance, it’s important that we check in with ourselves from time to time to ensure that we are moving forward with internal integration, an awareness of who we are and where we want to go. 

A simple exercise for doing this involves making two lists. 

For list one, make a list of the to ...

Having a child is a huge transition and brings changes for the entire family. This time of transition is often difficult for all members of the family, but is further complicated when PMADs enter the picture. PMADs stands for Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders and encompasses diagnoses of depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, and postpartum psychosis. Symptoms can occur at any point during pregnancy and within the first 12 months after childbirth, so it is important to continually be on the lookout for changes. PMADs impact 1 in 5 women and are the number one complication of childbearing. Research is also showing that PMADs can occur in around 10% of fathers, and this number can increase if the mother is experiencing symptoms. The good news is that there is help. Postpartum Support International believes that, “You are not alone. You are not to blame. With help, you will be well.”

The first step in that process is knowing what to look out for. O ...