I'm a therapist, so believe me when I say that therapy is good and helpful and a lifeline for many people. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be in the field. However, therapy is not always accessible. Community services out there are growing, but unfortunately we have a long way to go before mental healthcare is available to all Canadians in the same way as physical healthcare. Thankfully, … [Read more...]
What to Do When You Can’t Change the Outcome
Have you ever felt powerless? As though you are no longer in the driving seat and not really sure if you ever were? No need to answer; it's part of the human condition. We like to be in control—to know that the small plot of land we are in charge of, namely our own lives, are ours to groom, pull out weeds and plant seeds as we wish. But our neat little gardens rarely stay well manicured—before … [Read more...]
Why is Self-Kindness So Challenging?
Why do we find it so hard to be kind to ourselves? What is it we're afraid of? We deprive ourselves when we make self-kindness the last thing on our agenda. And we deprive the ones we love of the best we have to offer them. Because how we love ourselves is how we love others. What is self-kindness? Self-kindness is looking in the mirror and finding something we like today rather than hacking … [Read more...]
Why Self-Love is a Necessary Part of Loving Others
"Your problem is you’re too busy holding onto your unworthiness.” - Ram Dass If you had asked me a decade ago whether I loved myself the question would have baffled me. Self-love? What does that even mean? Does anyone really love themselves? And if they do, isn't that the bedrock of egoism and navel gazing? It wouldn't have taken me long to give you an answer; that is, if I was feeling like … [Read more...]
How to do Busy Well
The art of busyness has become a competition (tweet that!) The idea that "you can't possibly be as busy as I am," is continually implied in our daily conversations, as though the busiest people are somehow the most accomplished and successful. I'm tired of busy, aren't you? I'm tired that as a culture we are using it as an excuse to not show up, both for others and for ourselves. We … [Read more...]
The Work of Grief: Making it Through the First Few Months
"If, as a culture, we don’t bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad, to let go, to move on, to cheer up. And if they don’t — if they have loved too deeply, if they do wake each morning thinking, I cannot continue to live — well, then we pathologize their pain; we call their … [Read more...]