I’m definitely not a fan of the whole toxic positivity business, and no, happiness is not a choice (or at least not always). But a while back I stumbled across the Action for Happiness website, and I like their style. I was looking through my journal and came across the 8 pillars of joy I’d […]
Action for Happiness: More Than Just “Choose Happiness” Read More »
While we’re used to looking through a Western lens at health and wellness, I think there can be a great deal of value in looking at other ways of understanding to gain new ideas. The medicine wheel is used by certain North American Indigenous peoples to tie together culture, traditional knowledge, health, and healing. Traditionally,
What We Can Learn from the Medicine Wheel Read More »
Disclosure: I received a free paint by numbers kit from Winnie’s Picks, but all opinions are my own. I probably hadn’t done any kind of painting since elementary school. I’m not visually artistic at all; all of my creativity comes out in words. But when Winnie’s Picks reached out to me, I thought it sounded
Painting as a Mindfulness Activity Read More »
“Mental illness is not a choice, but recovery is.” While this image floating around on Pinterest originated with Healthy Place, I couldn’t figure out the original source of this mental illness recovery quote (if, in fact, it is a quote from another source), but seems to have been around for a while. Anyway, I don’t
Is Mental Illness Recovery a Choice? Read More »
Mental illness recovery can be more of a journey rather than a destination, and if you’re aiming for a destination, that can end up being a moving target. Let’s begin this discussion by looking at what recovery actually entails. An Australian National Standards for Mental Health Services document from 2010 defines recovery as: “… gaining
The Moving Target of Mental Illness Recovery Read More »
Animals are wonderful for mental illness. But first off, what exactly is an emotional support animal? Unlikely service animals, they’re not specially trained to provide assistance to people with disabilities, and they’re not granted the same universal access that service dogs have to do their duties. Rather, emotional support animals are recommended by a mental
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We’ve all heard that money can’t buy happiness. But is there some sort of relationship between money and happiness? And if so, what does that look like, and can money facilitate happiness? Meeting basic needs Clearly, it takes money to meet our most basic needs like food and shelter. When those basic needs are on
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is mental illness recovery. The word recovery can have various connotations depending on the context. It began to gain popularity in the context of mental health in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when it was used by
What Is… Mental Illness Recovery Read More »
An A-to-Z gratitude challenge is currently making the rounds in the blogosphere. The goal is to identify something to feel grateful for starting with each letter of the alphabet (X and Z just have to contain, not necessarily start with, those letters). I thought I would join in. A-romatherapy: very pleasant and relaxing B-edtime: my
Gratitude from A to Z Read More »
Here are some of my favourite TED Talks that relate to mental wellbeing. The Gift and Power of Emotional Courage (Susan David) I recently reviewed Susan David’s book Emotional Agility, and this talk covered similar subject matter. She points out how problematic it is to avoid emotions that are considered negative or illegitimate. She says
TED Talks on Mental Wellbeing Read More »
