What does it mean to be mentally strong? Part of it comes from our ability to be resilient; to challenges, to change. Part of it comes from our ability to honour and regulate our emotions. Part of it comes from the habits we form in purposefully working on our emotional strength . Here are 5 habits of the mentally strong: Maintaining a sense of personal power. Being mentally strong allows us to believe that we have the ability to choose how we deal with any circumstance that

I often talk about our comfort system. That is the feeling we have when we are at rest and can feel the calm. There are times when we have to be active in nourishing our comfort system with consciously choosing our self-care activities, but there are times when things already built into the world around us bring us security and consistency. One such place is nature and the inherent cycle that it is propelled to deliver. Walking in the forest on a regular basis allows me to

Theodore Roosevelt said, "I am part of everything that I have read." For an avid reader, this resonates strongly with me as I believe that we integrate something into our experience with every book that we read. But so it would also go with the music that we listen to, the podcasts that we play on our way to work, the TV shows that we choose to watch. It matters how much news we subscribe to absorb daily, the way we prefer to spend our free time, the people we choose to con

When we consider the process of healing, let us keep these three truths in mind: Healing requires air and time . Remember as a kid when we fell and scraped our knee? The instinct of mothers has always been to stop the bleeding and add the bandaid. Cover the wound to prevent infection, but soon enough we would hear "We need to take off the bandaid, the wound needs air." As it is with emotional wounds, we need to acknowledge and work through what has occurred. Healing is a proc

When anger strikes, we often lose the ability to fight fairly. Words get said, names get called, tones change, yelling happens. All in the name of needing to be right. For that is what anger does; it propels us to a place where we lose the perspective of wanting a solution and instead need to prove that our opinion is the right one. Unfortunately, there are times when the conflict moves to an unhealthy place. Learning how to fight fair is an important step in having to lesse

Here is a lovely quote by Rumi: "Never give from the depths of your well, but from your overflow." - Rumi How many times are we giving from the depths of our well? Our circumstances will often dictate the amount that we have to do in each given day; our jobs can be stressful and overwhelming, we may be in charge more in the planning and organizing of the household, we may have convinced ourselves that we don't deserve to have a full well. But that is where the fullness is; t

I came across this lovely poem about joy and had to share it: When you finally realize that joy is less fireworks, more firefly, less orchestra, more birdsong; she will come back much more often. For joy will not fight with the fast pace of this life; she dallies not in the shiny or the new. She breathes in the basic, shimmers in the simple and dances in the daily to and fro. - Donna Ashworth As the busy season of Christmas is approaching, let us set the intention to see

As we come into winter, we can still enjoy the changing of season by waling in nature. Here are 5 facts about nature and our mental health: When we walk in nature, rumination decreases. We all fall into the trap of the worry cycle - something gets stuck in our thought process and will lead to us ruminating about it. When we go for a walk outside, nature tends to take care of that for us; perhaps through a greater sense of overall calmness. Nature helps to manage stress. Ex

Wendell Berry writes: "In the stillness of the trees I am at home." W.B. Yeats has said: "The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper." Part of our daily non-negotiables is the permission we give ourselves to slow down and enjoy. Perhaps for some that is found in a walk in the forest, or sitting by the water's edge. It can be found in the shade of a tree, in the quiet turning of a book's pages. It can be found in the silence of intentio

Clear, healthy boundaries come down to behaviour and responsibility. Essentially, if we move from a flexible position and are able to recognize what is our responsibility in relationships and what belongs to others, we are on the road to forming appropriate boundaries for ourselves. This is not always an easy process, and can take both some commitment and practice, but it is possible. First we begin by understanding how we came to having poor boundaries (yesterday's post). F

Building on our post from yesterday, today we will look at how poor boundaries may have found a way into your operating system. Our sense of personal space is intuitive; we often know when someone is asking too much of us, the situation in front of us doesn't make sense, or someone's (or our own) reaction is "over-the-top." What tends to interrupt our intuition, however; is doubt - if we don't have a strong sense of self, we can often get pulled into situations and relations

Let's start with the definition of a boundary: a line that marks the limits of an area; a dividing line. Probably the most significant word in that definition is limits; when we speak of boundaries for emotional growth and maturity, we are referring to the personal limits we to set in order to have healthier relationships. Boundaries essentially come down to two things: behaviour and responsibility - and figuring out the differences between what is acceptable and what is

The word power can bring about a lot of different feelings. For some, it means success, for others it might suggest oppression. When it comes to power and how to use it for optimal emotional health, we can keep these things in mind: Manipulation is a bid for power. Whenever we walk away from an interchange or experience and can't make sense of something, it is fair to assume that some type of game is being played. When someone uses manipulation in order to get what they desi

I love this quote by Mark Twain: "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." - Mark Twain Lying is an avoidance behaviour. We lie when we want to avoid getting into trouble, don't want to hurt someone's feelings, don't want to deal with the consequences of our choices. Sometimes we exaggerate to keep up with the Jones's or intimate that we know something when in fact, we don't. When we choose to lie or stretch the truth, we risk erosion of relationship due

When we are looking back in our life as a way of understanding something, we do so through our 'hindsight glasses.' These are the spectacles we put on long after the event or relationship is over as a way of trying to process who we were at the time or why we made the choices that we did. As the old saying goes "Hindsight is 20/20." Looking back, things are clearer for us and we can look at the situation more objectively. Our hindsight glasses bring clarity because much of t

To some degree, we experience our feelings in a 'come and go' type way. Things occur throughout our day, thoughts pop into our head, daily living brings about nuanced experiences - and each of these things bring about some type of emotion. As a result, it creates an emotional energy flow; one that we can recognize as we pay attention to the coming in and out of emotion. There are three emotions however that can threaten to consume us; taking over our system and potentially k

Grief runs its own course. It is not time that heals all wounds, but rather ourselves allowing the process of grief to be within us, with the rise and fall of each day, of each season. Our relationship to the person who has passed will determine the depth of our grief, the richness of our healing. Today marks 6 years since my mother has passed away. Although it is a day to remember her, there isn't a day that goes by without her in our thoughts, in our sense of her energy, in

When people set out to heal themselves, to work through and process some of their grief or pain, it is usually with the intent that they need to do so for themselves. They feel stuck, hindered, arrested in their sorrow and they have come to the realization that in order to move forward, they must work through the injury, integrating it into their story to find peace. But healing is not an alone process. When we consciously choose to heal ourselves, it sends out a ripple eff

When it comes to our emotions, there are five things we can keep in mind: Emotions help us to understand what is important to us. What brings me joy or sadness is going to be different than what brings you the same feelings. Although emotions are fairly universal, the nuance of emotion helps us to form our own personal value system. Emotions protect us. Every emotion comes with a message which can help us in deciphering which direction to go. When we tune into our feelings,

If you can answer yes to this question, you most likely know that an HSP is a Highly Sensitive Person. Everything exists on a continuum; that includes the inherent trait of sensitivity that is tied to our temperament. As a general rule, HSP's react more sensitively to the world around them; they tend to react more intensely and feel things more deeply. Here are some more specific characteristics of a highly sensitive person: Other people's moods will affect you and you are a