After writing my last post about common anxieties during the postpartum period, I wanted to provide some strategies to help challenge these negative thoughts. Irrespective of whether you have a mental health diagnosis or not, it’s easy to fall into unhealthy thinking styles when you feel vulnerable. I hope these five strategies can help youContinue reading “Five Ways to Challenge Negative Thoughts”
Category Archives: Mental Health
Changing our relationship with our Inner Critic
When our inner critic shows up, it can be hard to talk it down or reason with it. This part of our personality can be fierce, harsh, argumentative and stubborn. This critical voice tends to be judgemental and demeaning. Internal Family Systems therapy has helped me change the way I view my own perfectionism, shame,Continue reading “Changing our relationship with our Inner Critic”
Preventing compassion fatigue: Simple ways to help family members struggling with their mental health
Living with someone who is suffering from a mental health problem can be challenging to say the least. Whether the individual is formally diagnosed or you’re noticing a shift in their moods, the ripple effect it has on the home is significant. One in five people are living with a mental health struggle, and withContinue reading “Preventing compassion fatigue: Simple ways to help family members struggling with their mental health”
Unhappy relationship after a baby
Relationships are tested all the time when life throws curve balls. As much as we’d love for a new family member to bring us closer together, having a baby can actually worsen the sense of an unhappy relationship. Working in perinatal mental health, I hear a lot of parents talking about their relationship dissatisfaction. IContinue reading “Unhappy relationship after a baby”
Using validation to improve your relationship
When it comes to some challenging relationships, we all recognize that miscommunications and frustration seem endless. It feels like every conversation hits a roadblocks, and both you and the other person walk away feeling hurt, pissed off, and unheard. So how do we work through these blocks so that we can improve our relationship withContinue reading “Using validation to improve your relationship”
COVID-19: Working with the fear of not knowing
One of the biggest struggles with COVID-19 is the uncertainty with this virus. How do we treat it? Will we become infected? How long will we need to maintain physical distance?Given that there is so much that is unknown right now, it is understandable that many of us are struggling with anxiety. The following areContinue reading “COVID-19: Working with the fear of not knowing”
Understanding our Window of Tolerance
A few weeks ago, I wrote Why is everything harder after trauma? In continuing the conversation about trauma’s shift to our nervous system, I came across this great little video that explains the window of tolerance in a very accessible way. For my fellow learners, I hope this piques your interest! For fellow parents, IContinue reading “Understanding our Window of Tolerance”
Race and Culture in Therapy
Given the atrocities that have cost lives in the past few weeks (e.g., George Floyd, Breonna Taylor), race and ethnicity are at the forefront of many minds. I have been thinking a lot about racial and cultural sensitivity within a counselling space, and I wanted to take some time to share how I address bothContinue reading “Race and Culture in Therapy”