We all know that feeling. The feeling of dread, creeping over your body and pressing down on you. The seemingly abundant thoughts that keep coming at you with things you have to get done or will soon have to do. As a student, it can be overwhelming. Even when you’re able to get one thing out of the way, you get another assignment thrown at you. So if we can never truly get everything done, how are we supposed to get past this?

Stress and anxiety plague students all over the world. Everyone is, has, or will experience it at some point. As for me, I started experiencing stress around fifth grade. In the first week of school, I lost one of my math assignments and got behind trying to redo that, along with keeping up on all the new assignments we got. But even when I did catch up, I still found myself getting stressed out. That’s because for the rest of the year, I was constantly making sure that I stayed up to date on tests and homework. Even now, I struggle with trying to remember everything and keeping track of what I have to do. The truth is that no matter how behind or caught up you are, school is always going to be a source of anxiety. However, the good news is that no matter if you’re in fifth grade, college, or somewhere in between, there are ways to cope and greatly reduce school-related stress.

One difficult to identify form of verbal abuse is when someone makes public jokes about you at your expense. The feelings you could experience as a result of this are shame, humiliation, anger, and confusion. Humor is an effective mask should anyone choose to confront the inconsiderate behavior. They can always respond with, “I’m just kidding. Don’t take it so seriously.” Don’t let such a response fool you. Anyone who responds like this simply doesn’t want to be held accountable for the hurt that their words caused. A person who truly cares about you and knows how to love in a healthy way will always listen when you need to talk about something they said or did that hurt you. They’ll believe you. They don’t want to hurt you. A person engaged in verbal abuse on the other hand will often attempt to convince you that you’re wrong and that what they said wasn’t actually that bad (Gordon, 2022).

Because verbal abuse doesn’t leave any visible wounds or bruises, it can be easy to overlook or convince ourselves that it isn’t so bad. But it is. Some of the long term effects of verbal abuse include chronic stress, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, PTSD, social isolation, and substance use (Gordon, 2022). If you think you might be experiencing verbal abuse from someone in your life, please reach out and talk about it. No one deserves to be verbally abused. Ever.

We all have that one spot that seems to be the collection point for clutter. It seems to be a universal rule: clutter begets clutter. Once one thing is set down, other items seem to land there and accumulate. 

If you're feeling the anxiety start to creep up because of some cluttered area that is taking over your space, giving yourself 10 minutes to tackle some of the clutter can be a physical way you can address your anxiety. You don’t have to do a massive overhaul of your space to feel the releasing effects of decluttering. The following are a few small spaces that you can address that can be done quickly or in small increments, but feel like they leave a big impact.

Therapists generally agree that to hold space for someone means to be completely present for someone, putting your focus on them to support them while they feel their emotions. There is no emphasis on problem solving or “fixing” in holding space. It is more about “being with” than anything else. If you’ve ever experienced good therapy, then you’ll know the value that can be found in having a safe space where you feel comfortable communicating whatever it is that you need, think, or feel. That space is created and “held” by someone, usually the therapist. But this is also an important skill for friends, parents, caretakers, medical professionals, and many others to learn.

Have you ever been in the middle of your own crisis when someone tried to lean on you for support or looked to you for their own guidance and emotional balance? If you’ve experienced this, then you know what the usual response is: a wide eyed, blank stare that essentially says: What?!? I can’t help you right now! I’m barely capable of helping myself! This is a far more common situation than you might imagine. For many, hardship and trials lead them to lean on anyone who happens to be close enough to grab, even if that person is up to their neck in their own problems. When this happens within families, it can lead to really explosive interactions!

Did you know that here in America 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men will experience sexual violence at some point during the course of their life?

At some point during the pandemic, I realized that I was starting to wonder why I even bothered at all. Why did I get dressed every morning? Why did I shower? Put on a little makeup? Brush my hair?

There are times in our lives, especially after a traumatic event, that we may feel that we are better off if we isolate ourselves from others. Intimate partner violence, loss of a loved one, or recent trauma are a few triggers that may push a person to think that they would be better off alone than with others.

If there was one place I spent a LOT of time in my pre-teen and teen years, it was the car. Yes, the car, but not on my way to vacations, exciting new places, restaurants, or even friend’s houses (all that much). No, I passed countless hours traveling between my parents’ homes.

Up in the raftors, his eyes widened in amazement. He’d practiced with these men countless times and never had it occurred to him that they were silently thinking such awful things about themselves. Then again, come to think of it, hadn’t he done the same thing?

It was a particularly busy day. All three kids needed to be in separate places at about the same time, the fridge was showing the great need to be restocked, the pile of laundry was pleading for attention, and there were about 12 other items on my to-do list that I needed to get to.

From her bed, Alexandra stared at the boxes her grandmother had left stacked in the corner of her room. No, stared wouldn’t be the right word for it. She glared. If she could have lit them all on fire with the loathing in her gaze, she would have.

Gift giving doesn't just have to happen at Christmas, anytime of the year is a great time to experience the delight of giving. Many times we think that the one who benefits the most in a gift exchange is the one who gets the gift, but I think the best part is actually saved for the giver.

This life is guaranteed to come with trouble, challenges, and situations we wish we would not have to go through. When hardships come, they can crush us or make us stronger.

I love to clean. I love to start with a big mess and systematically trudge through it until I am left with a clean space, organized, and decluttered. If I always left my room clean, then how would I have a huge mess to have fun with and clean up?!

Family secrets can have a powerful effect on us and seriously change the way we view people we love or ourselves. According to Psychology Today, there are three types of family secrets: individual, internal, and shared.

One of the things that he said to us once stood out to me. He told us that fear gives us two options, which boil down to two acronyms created by author Zig Ziglar:

Forget Everything And Run or Face Everything And Rise

I learned my lesson that year. And this year, when the volunteer squash and tomatoes popped up – they were ripped out. It pained me to have to rip out healthy plants, but I knew that if I didn’t pare down, nothing would grow well.

Kind of like life, right?

Another thing to watch is the voices in your head. They can be negative, critical, and downright abusive. Your own brain can be more brutal than an abusive “friend,” partner, or parent.

I slid down onto the bathroom floor, cell phone tucked against my ear while tears streamed down my face. On the other end of the line, my husband did the best he could to comfort me. It had been an emotionally brutal season.