Tag: body care

With warm weather comes the invitation and at times, even necessitates, cooler clothing that inevitably shows more skin than would be seen in cooler weather. Out come the shorts, sandals, sleeveless shirts, dresses and swimwear. Adjusting our apparel for the weather can produce many feelings - from confidence and contentment to feelings of shame, embarrassment, contempt or even jealousy. These feelings point towards a story, embodied from our head to our toes, of what we should think, interact, feel, judge and name our bodies. This, in turn, shapes our relationship with our body. And this relationship is under constant assault, internally or externally.

The assault on our bodies ranges from an uncomfortable or judgmental side glance we notice from someone, a comment relegating our worth as greater or lesser depending on our size, or being ignored or minimized for failing to present in a particular way. Some of us h ...

            Whether we realize it or not, we use coping strategies everyday.  Some maybe as subtle as sleeping in to avoid the traffic or procrastinating on a project or term paper due (guilty) hoping it will just do it itself.  It is when our unhealthy habits become a problem with our normal daily routine is when we need a change.  Our skills, routine, or what we think is working needs to be looked at.  Is this beneficial for me, is this getting me where I want to be, am I seeing bad consequences from these decisions?  These are just some of the questions we need to ask ourselves if we aren’t where we want to be.  

            Coping skills, strategies, or techniques have a couple of common threads that can be applied to just about any disorder: anxiety, anger, alcohol abuse, or any other ...

Self-care is often easier said than done, but a lot of times it can be hard to define what self-care even is. Self-care has become a buzzword in our culture, but the act of self-care is never really clarified. I think this is because self-care is not a one-size-fits-all. One might find running outside to be a great form of self-care whereas I groan when I must do any form of cardio. So where do we even begin? Well, first I want to highlight the many challenges to making self-care a practice within daily life.

For starters, it is important to note that there are both personal and occupational challenges that stand in the way of self-care. A personal challenge towards self-care can simply be a feeling of selfishness. For me, my childhood was always on the move, there was no rest until all the chores were done. If there was a chance for relaxation that moment was plagued by thoughts such as; “Why are you wasting time sitting a ...