Today my blog is written by a guest; my eighteen year old daughter, Layne :) While recently on vacation, I invited her to write a post for my blog; I gave her "carte blanche." What she came up with was quite insightful. Good job, kiddo! Things I have Learned in High School Your self-worth is most definitely not based on “likes.” Having quality friends is more important than being popular. Very few boys are emotionally mature – their actions are usually never about you. N

I am an early riser; as part of my own "anchor to my day", I like to take a daily walk with my dog. This is often quite early in the morning, "dawn's first light" type of early, and I am pretty good about ignoring the phone in my pocket. I have come to observe over the years that my walk is always where I do my best thinking and I notice things that I would not have paid attention to had I been plugged in. In the spring for example, the predominant noise in the air are the bi

In a recent podcast I listened to called "Other People's Problems," with therapist Hillary McBride, she was showcasing a session with "Maggie" and had this to say about the problematic behaviours we sometimes choose to help us cope with stress and hurt. " Looking at these behaviours through the lens of emotional regulation, these are all things that is doing to manage her low mood or depression. There are all sorts of things that all of us do to manage a low mood, to boost

Depression makes it hard to give. I often see clients who come into therapy because they live with a person who is struggling with depression and they are looking for ways to cope. One of the things that is quite common to hear is their perspective that their loved one "doesn't contribute very much" which in turn places a greater weight on them to manage the household and family. And, as sympathetic as they attempt to be, resentment eventually plays a role in the dynamic bet

I read the book “The Colour of Our Sky” by Amita Trasi while on holidays this summer. Nothing I like better than getting into a great book while sitting on the sunny shores of the beach and listening to the waves. Here is a passage that I would like to share with you: “ He used to take me around the village and tell me that all people are equal and that people from the lower caste should not be treated the way we were treating them. Initially, I couldn’t understand what he w

Anxiety is normal . We are actually pre-programmed to worry. Eons ago, when we lived on the plains, we had to worry. It was imperative to our survival that we worried about shelter, worried about how we were going to get food, worried about how to make fire. And so, anxiety, although it feels uncomfortable, is a very adaptive and necessary process and it is part of our survival brain. Everyone experiences anxiety at times. “Instead of worrying about what you cannot control,

Part Two on the podcast called “Clear and Vivid with Alan Alda” whose guest speaker was Judge Judy: In another part of the podcast, Alan Alda and Judge Judy are speaking about relationships and Judge Judy remarks that “ Anger is a much easier emotion to deal with than pain or sorrow .” She goes on to put this into the context of divorce and how that can ultimately damage children. She says: “ You have to love your children more than you hate each other. When you first got t

I recently listened to a podcast called “Clear and Vivid with Alan Alda” whose guest speaker was Judge Judy. In one part of the podcast, Alan Alda asks Judge Judy about her ability to read people and this is her response: “It doesn’t start out with reading people; it starts out with a story . It starts out with the common sense of things. It starts out with if something doesn’t make sense, it’s usually not true . Now there is aberrative behaviour where something happens and

Welcome to my very first blog post! Anchoring your day is a concept in self-care strategy. When we purposefully engage in a peaceful activity at either the start of our day, end of our day (or both!), we are feeding our souls and nurturing our spirit. One of my favourite things to do in the morning is to get up while everyone is still sleeping and sit peacefully in my comfy armchair with a freshly brewed coffee. This is my time to think about my day, scroll through Facebook

Thank you for visiting! The purpose of this blog is to provide short, daily counsel on a variety of topics and interesting facts about mental health. We all live busy lives which is why the focus of this blog is to have something relatively quick to read; it can act as an "anchor to your day" so to speak.