How to Cope with a World on Fire in 5 Steps
Let’s face it, nowadays it feels like the world is literally always on fire. Here we are in 2022, hopefully heading to the end of a global pandemic, and halfway across the world, a senseless war on innocents begins in Ukraine. Before this, the urgency of climate change, the #MeToo movement, the Black Lives Matter movement, wildfires ravaging the United State’s west coast and many parts of Australia, and many other conflicts and disasters were blasted all over our television screens and social media news feeds. It feels like hearing and seeing the harrowing details of tragedy is inescapable, especially now that we have minute-by-minute news at our fingertips, and tons of it.
Information overload ignites our fight-or-flight response, which is caused by a little almond-shaped structure in our brains called the amygdala, responsible for the emotional response to danger. Oftentimes, we feel the need to flee, jump into action and fight, or even freeze in place. We have a tendency to over-consume information in order to regain control in what can feel like a very helpless position, especially when these disasters are happening somewhere far away from where we are. Who else is guilty of listening to the news and scrolling through Twitter at the same time, waiting for the next piece of news that makes us feel informed and thus in control?
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You Don’t Need to Love Your Body. Now or Ever.
“The diet industry doesn’t tell us hat 95% of diets fail - yes, 95% of diets fail. They fail for a number of reasons, one of which being that severely restricting your food intake (coupled with intensive exercise) stretches your body beyond its comfort zone, a concept known as weight set point. Research suggests that our bodies work to regulate our weight within a certain range and that this is where our bodies feel most comfortable and healthy. The weight set point range is determined by a number of factors including your DNA, medications, medical history, environmental and lifetime experiences.
This unrealistic standard of beauty has been glorified in the media through TV shows, movies, magazines, billboards, and now, more so than ever, through social media. For those of us who have struggled to feel worthy based off of how we feel in our bodies, we’ve felt the devastation and self-loathing of body hatred. Many believe that in order to finally feel confident or satisfied in our bodies, we have to love our bodies. And in order to move from hating our bodies to loving our bodies, we need to change our bodies. So, we can either hate our bodies OR we can love our bodies through either making them “perfect” with weight loss or by pretending that we love them with body positivity!…”
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6 Ways Pets Support Mental Health
‘Playing with a pet elevates dopamine and serotonin - hormones that elevate/stabilize mood, elicit satisfaction, and make you feel good. Touching your pet can offer grounding and sensory stimulation which contributes to stress relief and reduction of anxiety. Having to take care of your pet’s needs can benefit those with depression to engage with life and serve as a reminder to care for themselves by caring for another. Brushing down a horse can offer a moment of stillness and quiet intimacy which can be respite for an anxious or overwhelmed mind. For kids (& adults), pets can help with separation anxiety, emotional regulation, companionship, building empathy, and learning about responsibility…”
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10 Tips to Help You Heal After a Break-Up
Breakups are hard. This is obviously not news. But even though we already know that to be true, what we still often get hung up on (even if we’ve been through multiple breakups before) is: how in the world do I begin to get over it, move on, and heal after a relationship has ended? Here are some real tips, beyond making sure you “eat, shower, sleep, repeat” that will help you on your journey to reconnecting with yourself as an individual post-breakup.
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How to Find the Right Therapist for YOU
Let’s be honest, the past few years have been exhausting. Between the ever-changing landscape of childcare and work dynamics to the feelings of isolation and desire to return to some degree of normalcy, you may have found yourself thinking: “I should probably talk to someone.”
Yes! It is so crucial to remember that mental health is just as important as physical health - and talking with a therapist is a great place to start. We may be biased because we are the owners of The Therapy Group so you could say we love therapy. Here’s the twist, both of us went into the field because we had such negative experiences going to therapy ourselves! Yes, we’re sure those therapists were a great fit for other people, but they weren’t for us. We know first hand that it can feel exhausting finding the right fit and also how important it is to find a therapist who you connect with. In fact, the relationship you have with your therapist is the most important predictor of therapeutic success. Check out these five tips to finding the therapeutic support you are looking for without wasting your time, money or vulnerability.
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How is Mental Health Comparable to Physical Health?
We tend to take physical health much more seriously than mental health. It’s more openly talked about, and physical healthcare (although also very flawed) tends to be more accessible. The truth is though, they are so connected. They are also much more similar than they are different. I’m hoping that by seeing their similarities, we can begin to start seeing them as two sides of the same coin.
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10 Ways to Increase Intimacy in Your Relationship
Intimacy and vulnerability are an essential part of a healthy relationship. Our day to day lives are ridden with stressors that easily create a barrier to maintaining and cultivating connection in our relationships. Check out The Therapy Group's 10 tips to increase intimacy in your relationship with your partner.
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Stop Saying “This is a Safe Space”
“This is a safe space” is a phrase heard far and wide across therapy offices, yoga studios, classrooms, workplaces, relationships – pretty much anywhere there are humans. It’s a trendy phrase. Often it is uttered to encourage people to open up in one way or another to a therapist, to an experience or to a class of their peers. People say this with the intention of signaling that they are capable of holding whatever the sharing person needs to express. While seemingly positive and reassuring, what fails to be considered in saying this is the actual experience of the person being asked to share. Only that person can determine if a space is safe. A space isn’t safe just because a someone else says so.
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12 Types of Emotional Abuse That Aren't Physical Violence
It is imperative to also note that in addition to physical injury and assault, domestic violence can also be emotional and psychological, but is often minimized as not being “that bad,” because it did not cause physical harm. In fact, emotional and psychological abuse is substantially more prevalent than physical abuse, yet is not as often identified and addressed. Explained further below are twelve types of emotional and psychological abuse that do not cause physical injury.
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