Yesterday, I was having a bad mental health day. I had insomnia the night before because I was on my phone late at night and experienced a trigger, which lit my brain up to the point where I lay in bed for 5 hours wide awake, thinking about everything and anything. I woke up irritated and anxious, and I felt like my skin was crawling with tension. My mind could not focus because my body was [...]
As a therapist, I have studied addiction. I have worked at a residential substance use disorder inpatient treatment facility, and I have learned about how addiction can include not just physiological and psychological craving and dependence on substances, but also to videogames, social media, and even people. I have witnessed people who have become consumed by their addiction, and I have watched them struggle to gain a sense of autonomy and normalcy in the process of [...]
I have been thinking a lot recently about the word “objectification” and what it means for me as I explore what makes me feel beautiful in my body. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “objectify” means “to treat as an object or cause to have objective reality; to give expression to (something, such as an abstract notion, feeling, or ideal) in a form that can be experienced by others”. I have spent my life trying to live [...]
Flow: “a cognitive state where one is completely immersed in an activity…it involves intense focus, creative engagement, and the loss of awareness of time and self”- Psychology Today (2021). “I kind of entered a flow state. I’ve been there before while climbing. You are not thinking ahead. You are just thinking about what is in front of you each second.”- Aron Ralston According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (2017), over 40 million adults in [...]
I don’t know about you, but sometimes my brain feels like it is whirring so fast with thoughts that I can’t even think straight. For years, I have struggled with an overactive mind that seems to laugh in the face of meditation then look at me with a smirk and hit me with a big dose of anxiety. The only times I have been able to truly calm my monkey mind have been while swimming, running [...]