WellnessWithHolli

  Family Is Important and So Am I - Part Two:  Choose Your Health Today's blog is Part Two of three-part series: Family Is Important and So Am I. If you have not already read Part One , please do so and then return here. It is important to Choose Your Truth so that you can establish a foundation from which to Choose Your Health. This series is for individuals who have worked on their wellness, or for those who are currently embracing a path of recovery, or for those who have chosen an intentional healthy way of being which is much different from their family of origin.  And in spite of their levels of wellness, these individuals find themselve s  still injured by family members .   Although we cannot change the unhealthy behaviors of others, we can choose our response to them.     Let's grab hold of another healing choice. It is time to stop hurting and… Choose Your Health As we have discussed in Part One, some families are heal...

With the holiday season upon us, it is easy to feel anxious and stressed. There is much to do and not enough time to do it in. In addition, with worries around the costs of gift-giving and travel as well as meeting family expectations, our joy begins to slip away. To add to the tension of the holidays, stores are crammed with pushy shoppers and streets are filled with impatient drivers. Gosh, no wonder with each passing day, we feel more agitated and less appreciative of the season. Let’s take a look at how we navigate a happier and healthier mindset during Holiday Turbulence. 3 Easy Practices For Staying Balanced! Breathe and Hold Suspend Beliefs Be In The Moment Let’s begin with our first practice. Breathe and Hold You’ve probably heard about the importance to taking deep breaths when dealing with stress or anxiety. However, we’re going to change it up a little.   The exercise is as follows: 1) When you feel mad, tense, anxious, irritable etc., clo...

After posting a   three-part series on  Healthy Friendships and receiving positive feedback, I’m returning to the same format but this time exploring Healthy Families. There is much to be said on this topic; in fact, there are hundreds of books with tons of valuable information.   However, for our purposes we will focus on three aspects of Healthy Families: Part One: Is Mine Free of Entanglements? Part Two: Is Mine Flexible? Part Three: Is Mine For-Giving? As we get started, I’d like to share an important concept. As a Marriage & Family Therapist, when working with families I view them as a sort of working machine, based on the theory of Family Systems. In other words, a family is   made up of many moving parts (individuals). How well each part functions determines the level of functionality of the machine as a whole, much like that of a vehicle. Therefore, in addressing Healthy Families, I’d like you to think about your family as an intricate and ...