Mindfulness and meditation have seeped their way into modern Western culture for decades, and over that time, we’ve gained a lot of misunderstandings about the practice.

While mindfulness is a way of being and relating to yourself and the world around you, meditation is practicing mindfulness in a formal, intentional way. It’s saying to yourself, “I’m going to sit down and be mindful on purpose.”

When I first started exploring mindfulness, I realized it was not nearly as complicated as I thought it was. When you get down to basics, mindfulness is incredibly simple and easy to incorporate into even the busiest of lives. 

From back to school nights to suddenly chilly evenings, the last weeks of summer are synonymous with change and rebirth. As this summer comes to a close, here are some of my favorite poems celebrating the season.

You’ve graduated with your master’s degree and packed away your textbooks. You thought your days of educational reading were behind you…but that urge to keep learning keeps nagging at you.

Fantasy world-building as a therapeutic tool has been around in some form for a long time. Some call it “co-storying,” “collaborative story writing,” “therapeutic storytelling,” or “writing therapy.”

One major theme of “Myth of Normal” is humans’ tendency towards inauthenticity. The book argues that when we are not true to ourselves – when we say “yes” when we mean “no” or when we suppress our anger for the sake of others’ feelings, for example – we end up only harming ourselves.

When you first get together with your partner, it can feel like it’s you two against the world. You’re aligning on everything, supporting each other, and celebrating your wins together. But over time, needs get ignored, resentment builds, and suddenly you no longer feel like a team.

I absolutely love working with engaged couples. They have so much hope for their future, and they’re often at their most open to learning and growing in their partnership. I’ve found, though, that no matter how in love the couple is, there are often major topics they haven’t ever discussed.

We've all been there: reaching for our phones mindlessly, scrolling through social media for "just a minute" that turns into an hour, or feeling a phantom vibration when our phone is safely in our pocket. Cell phones have become an undeniable part of our lives, but for some, their constant presence can become a struggle.

You’ve likely heard both these terms before, and on the surface, they may seem interchangeable. But in practice, the acts of self care and self soothing differ slightly, and understanding these differences might be key to taking better care of yourself.

Not all of us can write beautiful poetry that perfectly captures how we’re feeling, but to know that a stranger from a different time and living in a different place knows exactly how your pain feels – well, suddenly, you’re not suffering alone.

If one of the partners wants to separate or divorce while the other wants to stay together, or if both partners are undecided on the best path to take, discernment counseling can help you make a decision.

I’ve been a fan of Dan Harris’ podcast Ten Percent Happier for a while now, but I was particularly excited when he posted an episode featuring James Nestor, the author of “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art” – a book I’ve had on my want-to-read list for ages.

I think a well-curated selection of newsletters can bring joy to our day, keep us up-to-date on topics we care about, and inspire us to reach whatever goals we’re working towards. If you’re looking to boost your inbox with some mental health and wellness goodness, then you’ve come to the right place.

You can find a TED Talk on just about any topic you’re interested in. As a mental health professional, I’m highly interested in what makes people happy. Luckily for all of us, there are some brilliant researchers out there who are wondering the same thing.

I learned a lot from my professors and classmates who were ahead of me, so I wanted to share my exam strategy for those who plan to take it soon. It’s a lot of work, but trust me, seeing the word “passed” on your exam results makes it all worth it.

From Carl Rogers to Esther Perel, we have been fortunate to have access to some of the greatest minds across the globe. Whether they are writing (or speaking) on love and relationships, the unavoidable pain of the human experience, or the power of mental health counseling, these writers inspire and motivate me daily.

Louis Cozolino published “Why Therapy Works” back in 2016, but the neuroscientific research he employs to back up his claims is astounding. I read his book while getting my master’s in clinical mental health counseling and learned an incredible amount about how the brain works.

Talking about sex can be scary. Even if we’ve been sexually intimate with a partner for many years, just coming out with it doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Use this simple sexual desire scale to take away some of the scariness of communicating your sexual desire.