10 Ways to Mentally Prepare for the Week Ahead
Mentally Prepare for the Week Ahead Before anything else, preparation is the key to success. Alexander Graham Bell Does a long weekend make it easier or more difficult to transition ...
5 Easy Ways to Share the Love
share the love Love is a behavior. Jill A. Murray Valentine’s Day is this week. Whether you’re a big fan or no fan at all, this much is true: Opportunities ...
Struggling to Get Your Needs Met? Try Nonviolent Communication
nonviolent communication Our attention is focused on classifying, analyzing, and determining levels of wrongness, rather than on what we and others need and are not getting. Marshall B. Rosenberg Communicating ...
Loneliness: What Yours Might Be Telling You
loneliness Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact. Martha Beck Feeling a little lonely lately? You’re not alone. While this experience is sometimes confused with sadness ...
Emotional Wellness, Habits & Goals
Struggling with Procrastination? Try This.
prepare for the holidays Clutter is the physical manifestation of unmade decisions fueled by procrastination. Christina Scalise Procrastination. Sooner or later, we all experience it. But for some of us, ...
5 Ways to Change Your Relationship with Stuff
stuff Minimalism isn’t about removing the things you love. It’s about removing the things that distract you from the things you love. Joshua Becker It’s all around us. (Especially after ...
Habits & Goals, Mindfulness, Seasonal, Winter
Mindful Goal-Setting
mindful goal-setting The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals. Melody Beattie As ...
5 Ways to Deepen Your Relationships This Season
deepen your relationships A deep connection starts with interest, open-mindedness, and paying attention… April Mae Monterrosa Not all relationships are created equal. Even our most important relationships can vary widely: ...
Fall, Gratitude, Holidays, Mindfulness, Seasonal
How To Practice Gratitude When You’re Not Feeling Grateful
gratitude Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. Melody Beattie As we look around this week, the signs of Thanksgiving are ...
Gratitude, Seasonal, Self-Care, Winter
Self-Compassion: 4 Ways to Start Practicing It Today
self-compassion If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. Jack Kornfield Self-love may seem an essential component of emotional wellness. After all, if we can’t love ourselves, how can ...
Emotional Wellness, Gratitude, Habits & Goals, Mindfulness
Perfectionism 101: 4 Creative Alternatives to Being “Perfect”
Last week, we shared some common signs of perfectionism. Maybe they got you wondering about your own relationship with “perfect”. Or about a friend or family member. But where do ...
Perfectionism 101: 6 Signs You Might Be a Perfectionist
{ 6 signs you might be a perfectionist } Perfectionism is not the same thing has striving to be your best. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, ...
Perfectionism 101: 3 Perfectionism Myths
It’s not something you’re trying to do. Most of the time you’re not even aware of it. In fact, like the many others who struggle with perfectionism, it feels like ...
100 Weeks of the Sonder Blog: Our Top 5 Posts
You’ve read them each week. You’ve shared them with your friends and family. You’ve sent us your reactions. …and we’ve been listening! In celebration of 100 weeks of content on ...
Mindset: Why Yours Matters
The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows ...
When Good News Causes Stress
Stress doesn’t discriminate but it is subjective… what causes stress for one individual may not be the case for another. Jaime Carlo-Casellas Stress. We all experience it. And we’re learning ...
How to Apologize More Effectively
An apology is the superglue of life. It can repair just about anything. Lynn Johnston It’s one of those little inevitabilities of life: Sooner or later… You’ll have to apologize. ...
Emotional Wellness, Mindfulness, Stress Management
5 (More) Self Care Apps to Improve Your Emotional Wellness
Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with ...
5 Ways to Help Kids Navigate Cell Phone Use
Kids and cell phone use. From mildly annoying to bordering on addiction… Their interactions with these devices give us plenty to wonder (and stress) about. Let’s look at how you ...
Back to School, Fall, Parenting, Seasonal
Back to School: 7 Simple Ways to Ease the Transition
{ Back-to-school transition } Usually the things we think we need become the very things we need a break from. Jen Hatmaker The air is crisping up. The Halloween merchandise ...
Abuse and Trauma, Current Events, Grief & Loss
Should We Focus on Mental Health In the Wake of Violence?
Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures. John F. Kennedy No sooner do the shots ring out ...
5 Fast Facts About Anxiety
When you’re feeling anxious, remember that you’re still you. You are not your anxiety. Deanne Repich It’s one of the most common of all emotional wellness issues. It’s in the ...
Date Night: An Overlooked Relationship Resource?
Date night. Does it have a priority place in your calendar? Or is it a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence? Leading relationship experts John Gottman, PhD, and Julie Schwartz Gottman, PhD contend that ...
The Summer Blues: 5 Signs You Might Be Experiencing It
{ summer blues } …the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time. Sylvia Plath The sun’s out. The birds are singing. ...
8 Ways to Boost Emotional Wellness Outdoors
{ 8 Ways to Boost Emotional Wellness Outdoors } In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. John Muir Life can feel pretty complicated these days. ...
10 Emotional Wellness Tips for Graduating Seniors
We do not need magic to change the world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: We have the power to imagine better. J. K. Rowling It’s ...
Summer Break: 9 Tips for Transitioning with Ease
And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was ...
Holidays, Parenting, Relationships, Spring
Mother or Not, This Is Our Wish for You
The past several weeks have ushered in Mother’s Day, Stepmother’s Day, Infertility Awareness Week, and Mental Health Awareness Month. And we know that with these public acknowledgements come a wide ...
Video Games: Separating Fact from Myth
Most people think video games are all about a child staring at a TV with a joystick in his hands. I don’t. They should belong to the entire family. Shigeru ...
Mental Health Awareness Month: 10 Ways to Take Action
There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction. John F. Kennedy May is Mental Health Awareness Month. A ...
Brené Brown: 5 Emotional Wellness Lessons from Her New Netflix Special
Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. Brené Brown If you’ve visited a bookstore at any point over the last decade, chances are good ...
How to Tell Someone You’re in Therapy
This post was inspired by a request from a reader! If there’s a particular topic or question you’d like us to cover on the blog, we’d love to hear from ...
Emotional Wellness, Mindfulness, Stress Management
There’s an (Emotional Wellness) App for That
New technology is not good or evil in and of itself. It’s all about how people choose to use it. David Wong Technology is becoming so seamlessly integrated into our ...
4 Myths About Couples Counseling
Conflict is an opportunity to learn to love our partner better over time. Julie Gottman You’ve heard friends talk about it. Maybe you’ve thought about giving it a try. (Or ...
Parenting Adult Children: 5 Signs of a Healthy Relationship
A child needs to internalize a model of someone who has a life of her own. The parent whose life is centered around her children is influencing them to think ...
Boundaries in Parenting
Children raised with good boundaries learn that they are not only responsible for their lives, but also free to live their lives any way they choose, as long as they ...
Boundaries: Understanding this Emotional Wellness Buzzword
Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves even when we risk disappointing others. Brené Brown It’s one of those terms that gets a lot of ...
Spring Break Ideas to Boost Emotional Wellness
Despite the forecast, live like it’s spring. Lilly Pulitzer So, the weather hasn’t exactly gotten the memo… But, spring break is fast approaching! Maybe you’ve got big travel plans ahead. ...
Preparing for Your TMS Evaluation
So, you’ve done your research on TMS. Thought it over. Maybe talked with friends and family. Completed your complimentary consultation. And it turns out TMS may be a good fit ...
TMS: The Promising Depression Treatment You’ve Never Heard Of
Flexibility requires an open mind and a welcoming of new alternatives. Deborah Day Are you (or is someone you care about) struggling with severe depression that hasn’t improved, no matter ...
Depression Treatment Options
There are far, far better things ahead than anything we leave behind. C.S. Lewis Living with depression can keep you feeling stuck in the past, disconnected from the present, and ...
Understanding Depression Symptoms
Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also harder to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is ...
How “Tidying Up” Can Improve Your Emotional Wellness
To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose. And if you no longer need them, then that is ...
Which Type of Support Is Right for You?
Surround yourself with people who support you. Find champions. Sarah Gavron When life becomes challenging, you might have the sense that you could benefit from additional support. But what does ...
Gratitude, Habits & Goals, Mindfulness
5 Emotional Wellness Habits to Adopt Today
You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine. John C. Maxwell This is the time ...
Grief & Loss, Holidays, Seasonal, Self-Care, Winter
When the Holidays Are a Struggle
Expectations are high this time of year. What you should do. Where you should be. How you should act. How you should feel. It’s enough to cause stress for even ...
Healthy Boundaries, Holidays, Seasonal, Winter
10 (More) Ways to Say No (with Kindness)
When you say “Yes” to others, make sure you are not saying “No” to yourself. Paulo Coehlo When it comes time to say No to someone or something, many of ...
7 Tips to an Emotionally Well Holiday Season
As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, ...
10 Simple Ways to Practice Gratitude
Gratitude is an antidote to negative emotions, a neutralizer of envy, hostility, worry, and irritation. It is savoring; it is not taking things for granted; it is present-oriented. Sonja Lyubomirsky ...
Fall, Holidays, Seasonal, Self-Care
Self-Care for Kids: Helping Kids Learn to Treat Themselves
When little people are overwhelmed by big emotions, it’s our job to share our calm, not join their chaos. L.R. Knost This week, the kids in your life likely have ...