Category: Self Care

Managing My Child’s Behaviors Started with Me

In the fall of 2016, my husband and I became licensed foster parents. Everyone told us we would get a nice “honeymoon phase,” before behaviors escalated with the kids who came into our home. I was caught off guard when we did not experience the “honeymoon phase.” I felt unprepared and overwhelmed. I began to question if I actually knew what I was doing. The information from all the classes I had taken seemed to disappear. “How will we ever get through this?” My husband and I would question. Start with Self Care             Managing behaviors comes with practical skills

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Every First Responder Deserves Solace

“The experience I have had is that once you start talking about [experiencing a mental health struggle], you realize that actually you’re part of quite a big club.” — Prince Harry             I’m currently a 23-year veteran of a law enforcement agency.  My career started as a patrol deputy for approximately 5 years.  As a patrol deputy/first responder, I patrolled the streets responding to routine calls, as well as emergency calls for service.  In my later years in patrol, I eventually became a field training officer where I trained new recruits on how to become law enforcement professionals. I was

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New Year, New Goals

It’s that time of year again when we set goals to better ourselves in some way. Studies show that 90% of our goals will be abandoned by the first weeks of February. There are a lot of reasons why we don’t stick with it. Whether your goals are centered around health, self care, or are financially based, here are ways to ensure your success. Create realistic goals. Many times, we create resolutions or goals that are simply too big to achieve. If you’ve never run before, don’t sign up for a marathon, instead start with a 5k run. Putting too

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‘Tis the season to… cry, grieve, to feel blue.

So much of what we hear and see in this season is reminiscent of joy and cheer.  It can almost feel like an expectation.  But what if we just can’t? This season can actually be challenging to get through at all, even more so with a cheerful mood.  It reminds of us of who we don’t have and what we didn’t get that we needed.  Let me explain.  The first, simple answer to this, which is true for so many people is that this time of year reminds us of people we loved that we have lost.  Lost to death.

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The Mask We Wear

Have you ever thought about the masks we wear to gain acceptance or use to hide because of the constant thought of how you might look to others in the workplace, grocery store, or school?  With Halloween around the corner, I thought this the perfect time to talk about the mask that we all wear in everyday life.  When are we truly ourselves or are we always wearing some type of mask?  Would anyone recognize us without our mask?  How can we trust when we are always wearing a mask? I think it is normal to wear a mask to

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Depression…it’s kind of normal!

Society has this negative view of depression…that it’s bad, it’s something we need to run from, or we shouldn’t confront it because it could make things worse, or we may be scared of it.  But in actuality, depression is pretty normal!  So many people experience symptoms of depression, that doesn’t mean they are depressed.  It is a part of life; life is a roller coaster of happy and not so happy emotions.  Life can be really hard at times, and so can depression.  How do we understand more about depression and what that means for us?  With October being Depression

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Dear Evan Hansen: Asking For Help

“Dear Evan Hansen” premiered Friday, the movie version of one of Broadway’s biggest hits in recent memory. This movie has a powerful and fundamental honesty that resonates with teens (and really anyone) suffering from things like anxiety and depression. Personally, I related to this movie on many levels. As a teen, I definitely experienced my share of anxiety from rejection, but depression was new as a 45-year-old adult. In the movie, Evan’s mom addresses how she fell short as a single parent. That’s the moment I felt like I lived in everyday. I couldn’t figure out how things did not

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The Buffalo Story

BUFFALO CHARGE THE STORM STORY BY RORY VADEN All of us have storms.  The only choice that we have is how we respond to those storms.  And more specifically is when we respond to those storms. Let me map out this story for you so you can visualize it. In Colorado, where I grew up, we are world-famous for the Rocky Mountains. Many people don’t realize about Colorado, as a state, is divided almost exactly in half: the western part of the state is the great Rocky Mountains on and to the eastern part of the state is the great Kansas Plains. Because of

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Summer Time with Intentional Time

Many of us are entering the second half of our summer festivities. Many of us have enjoyed the festivities of Memorial Day Weekend and the Fourth of July Weekend. Many of us have taken vacations and made plans for “get-aways” that we haven’t been afforded in the last year due to COVID and the pandemic. We all have different ways of celebrating this time of year with camping trips, out-of-state excursions, and swimming. This month we have been blogging to assist families in their preparation for the summer days to come where BOREDOM emerges. We have tried to provide tips

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Summer Time with our Toddlers

This blog is specifically for our Arizona families! For many past blogs I have spoken about the importance of co-regulation. The wonderful art of regulating our own emotions before reacting to our children. The art of co-regulation is not easy! BELIEVE ME!! However, it is a practice that can really ease many of the tantrums, fits, and outbursts that our very young children experience often. When we are able to regulate ourselves, we become less reactive and more responsive to the needs of our children. Think of it! When you come home after a hard day of work, and our

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