The whole world has been in quarantine and a popular phrase has been going around....'the quarantine 15' - referring to the extra 15 pounds you may have put on during quarantine. Eating habits have shifted while cooped up inside and there has been an increase in 'boredom eating'. As things are starting to get back to a new sense of normal, it may be time to ...

Former First Lady Barbara Bush, once said “Your success as a family—our success as a nation—depends not on what happens inside the White House, but on what happens inside your house.” It is in the home, after all, where children first learn to talk, to share, to say please and thank you, to express emotions, to sing, to laugh, and&md...

The late American screenwriter Frank Howard Clark once said, “Habit is something you can do without thinking, which is why most of us have so many of them.” Where are most of these habits developed? In our families of origin. Many patterns of behavior learned in the home thrive for generations simply because no one in the family realizes t...

How can we use affirmations to make changes? We use positive affirmations to mold the details of our lives into something more desirable. Just saying something is true doesn’t make it so—especially if you don’t believe it. Sure, you can fake it till you make it. Things do sink in after a while. But the best way to use affirmat...

5 Characteristics Emotional Intelligence The balance and depth of emotions is critical to leading a happy and healthy life. In fact, we propose—along with many others—that your emotional intelligence, or EI, is as important, if not more, than your IQ. A person’s EI is defined as the ability to identify, use, understand, and mana...

8 Ways to Reduce Stress & Anxiety Anxiety is your body's natural response to stress. Under conditions of extreme stress when we feel our life is threatened, our body naturally activates the "fight-or-flight" response. Your success in managing the biological trigger of stress depends on your ability to understand your own emot...

Would you like 10 Tips for Improving your Immune System along with DIY recipes for protection against environmental threats? Then this blog post is for you! Learn the best way to ADD ESSENTIAL OILS to your Wellness Lifestyle. Remember the foundation of your health are these four things! EAT RIGHT EXERCISE REST AND STRESS MANAGEMENT...

We’ve covered how important self love is, but we can’t help but move onto the next important topic of love, relationships. You may be in a relationship right now, you may not, or you may have just gotten out of one. Regardless of your “status” this blog is for you. This blog is for the worrierers, the romantics, the wall builders, and...

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." Several years ago, I enjoyed watching the American medalist Michael Phelps compete in the Olympic Games in Beijing. His world-record-breaking performances have been motivating, to say the least! What enthusiasm!? Michael Phelps made his dreams come true and ...

Looking for ways to avoid stress and increase joy this holiday season? If so, perhaps including meditation on your to-do list over the next few weeks may just do the trick! Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years. Originally, it was a method used by those who desired a spiritual and intuitive connection. These days, people around the...

And the Grinch with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling: how could it be so? “It came without ribbons! It came without tags! “It came without packages, boxes or bags!” And he puzzled three hours till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! “Maybe Christmas,” he...

On any given day, more than 440,000 children live in foster care in the United States. The children in foster care spend an average of two years in care and rarely remain in the same home during that time. Sadly, some of the homes they are placed in provide an environment that is no better than the environment from which they were removed. Jam...

In a 1938 stage play written by Patrick Hamilton, a husband mysteriously disappears each evening. When his wife grows anxious about his behavior and questions him about it, he brushes it off and claims she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. And then he reminds her of several other ways in which she’s been acting crazy lately...

In two recent episodes of the Emotions Mentor® podcast , I had the privilege of talking with individuals who once found themselves in the mires of addiction but have done the hard work to crawl up from rock bottom and turn their lives around. Today both women take others like them under their wings and walk them through the addictio...

British philosopher, writer, and literary critic GK Chesterton wrote: “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder” (from A Short History of England , 59). In 1917, when Chesterton first published these words, there was no scientific research to back up his ideas. A litt...

Each year, more women will experience postpartum depression than there are new cases of tuberculosis, leukemia, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and epilepsy combined—for both men and women. That means a little more than 1 in 7 women will suffer from postpartum depression. In lower socio-economic ar...

Suicide rates in the United States over the past 15 years have skyrocketed, making suicide a growing epidemic in our country. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) estimates that a suicide occurs in the United States once every 12 minutes. And the Centers for Disease Control reports that in children and young adults ages 10 to 2...

Five years ago, the American Psychological Association (APA) published the results of an intensive survey on the youth of America and the pressures they face. The results were somewhat surprising—and quite troubling: Today’s youth report stress levels higher than those experienced by adults. Norman B. Anderson, PhD and CEO of the ...

One of the more common tropes in television and movies is that of the man lost on a country road, stubbornly refusing to look at a map or ask any passersby for directions back to the interstate. We all laugh at the character’s expense, many of the women knowingly nodding their heads, some of the men getting just a little defensive. These ficti...

Death is often referred to as life’s great equalizer. And, it’s true, we all die eventually. But the manner in which a person grieves the loss of a loved one is varied, complex, and unique to that individual. Grief is multi-layered and full of many other emotions, such as anger, guilt, and abandonment. Because ...