Disability is something that most people don’t think will happen in their life. Still, the disability community is the largest minority in society today with one in four individuals born with or acquiring a disability at some point over their lifetime. With this commonality comes a shared difficult experience of coping with disability, which is often …
Fostering resilience in teens can be scary for us as parents as we learned in Part 1 of this blog post. By providing them with the appropriate supports, we are helping them to launch successfully into adulthood. Early development of resilience. The fundamentals of resiliency start in infancy and continue on into early childhood. During …
Continue reading “Raising Them to Leave Us Fostering Resilience Pt. 2”
Raising my four girls has been the hardest, yet most rewarding job. Although I do not view it as a job, but my biggest priority. Somehow (and without a guidebook) parents must take these tiny human beings and mold them into productive members of society. Gulp, that’s a big responsibility to swallow. We also need …
Continue reading “Parenting Your Teen Through Mental Health Struggles”
Is social media running your life? It’s a fun way to pass the time and can help to keep us connected with our friends and loved ones, but is social media having a greater impact on you than how you spend your free time? Presence in Society Today, our businesses, culture, and relationships are structured …
If you struggle with relationships, you are not alone. There are some dominant cultural narratives that assumes there is something wrong with us, but science and research offers us a more expansive view. Our relationship challenges may be rooted in what is known as “attachment trauma”. Attachment Theory We need to first understand attachment to …
There are many relationships that happen through being a foster parent. If I had to name them all, it would probably take up most of this blog. Then there are relationships with friends and family that were there before we became foster parents. When I became a foster parent in 2016, I heard about all …
Continue reading “How Fostering Challenged My Relationships”
Relationships of all types have a direct effect on our day to day lives and emotions. I’m sure you’ve experienced having a fight with your kiddo or teen, partner, family member, boss, etc. and it just put you in a bad mood…I know I have! That’s because interactions and connections affect our mind and our …
Continue reading “Importance of Positive Relationships for Our Mental Health”
I walked through the grocery store jumping around from side to side sure that something was about to happen. When I turned the corner, I put my arms up ready to fight, as an 80-year-old woman who was no threat turned the corner and almost collided with me. Having just returned home from Afghanistan it …
Continue reading “Over Perceiving Threat, Under Perceiving Safety “
We now have more scientific evidence than ever showing the relationship between the mind and body. Most of us understand how diet can influence mental health (example: giving a child a sugary snack before bedtime). However, we also need to understand the very real physical effects of psychological stress and trauma on the body, particularly with trauma …
If you recall, in my last blog I talked through the definition of trauma and how trauma can get stored in the body. Trauma leaves an impact long after it’s over. Chronically freezing, trying to escape, fighting, or collapsing. But why? Why do our bodies get caught like this? How We Get Stuck Well, there …
