Beginning Meditation Series
Focus Your Attention
Meditation can be extremely relaxing. Regular practice increases self-awareness, builds inner strength, can help you find inner peace, and bring you fully into the present moment. The mind can become calmer and more still without being void of thoughts. Learn these beginner friendly meditation techniques that involve focusing on specific thoughts, or noting thoughts while not getting tangled up in them.
Increase Emotional Awareness
When you’re able to identify your emotions, there’s a greater likelihood you’ll be intentional as you react to them. This, in turn, reduces some of the negative physical effects associated with our emotional states. And in doing so, our newfound awareness allows us to release stress and tension that has taken up residence in our body. Relaxation, resulting from mindfulness and meditation, is a crucial element of self-care.
The Wellness Series
Charting a Course
One could argue that nothing we could invest in, has a greater impact on our quality of life, contentment, joy, and fulfillment than our wellness. One of the keys to achieving greater health and wellbeing, is to develop a more holistic approach to the adoption of healthy lifestyle habits.
When we focus on various aspects of wellness individually, while still considering the concept more comprehensively, we start to feel better, inside and out.
Set the Stage for a Sound Night of Sleep
There’s nothing better than waking up refreshed, rejuvenated, and feeling fully alive following a sound sleep. Unfortunately, many people toss and turn during the night. Some are worried about tomorrow or ruminating about yesterday.
Luckily getting better sleep is, to a large degree, within our control. Small shifts in our habits, routines, and environment can vastly improve the quality of our rest!
Embrace Your Strengths
Recognizing what you’re good at, how those skills and characteristics help you reach goals, succeed, or make meaningful connections, can increase your sense of self-worth.
Maintaining a strength-based focus can motivate you to continue to grow, learn, and progress toward your full potential.
Handwashing: Its History & Preventive Importance
Washing hands with soap and water began as a religious ritual and cultural habit.
Today, we’re well aware more of the preventative capabilities of handwashing, but are we using this wellness tool as effectively as we could, and should?
Turn a Bad Day Around
Have you ever had a bad day? Are you having one now?
I would like to propose six strategies to employ on just such an occasion. Following one or more of these tips and techniques will turn your mood around and make a rough day better.
Signs of Dehydration
The human body is made up of approximately 60% water. Staying hydrated is a vital, but often overlooked, aspect of health and wellness. Dehydration occurs when the body is losing more fluids than it’s taking in. Knowing the signs of dehydration offers an opportunity to hydrate, before symptoms become more severe.
Power-Based Abuse:
Awareness, Intervention, Support
Articles in Part I
- Forms of Relationship Abuse
- Six Relationship Red Flags
- Key Reasons Abuse Victims Stay
- Defining Sexual Assault
- The Aftermath of Sexual Assault
- A Typology of Stalkers
- Stalking Warning Signs
Articles in Part II
- Healthy Communication of Consent
- At the Heart of Intervention
- Supporting Survivors
Viewing the World through a Sociological Lens
When using a sociological perspective, we think about topics broadly, historically, and holistically. We see that although individuals have free will, there are forces nudging us in specific directions.
Thinking sociologically, we understand that our groups, and the positions we hold within them, affect our thoughts and behaviors. They influence the way we approach, and interpret, the world around us.
Self Care: Attitude, Priority, & Practice
Self-care involves finding your inner child and your inner critic, identifying and being willing to feel all of your emotions.
It is a branching out, a stretching of oneself, but it also involves letting go. We may need to rid ourselves of outdated habits, ideas of who we are, who we should be, and our limiting beliefs.
The Art of Assertiveness
Assertiveness is about thoughts, not just actions. In other words, assertiveness is a mindset, that is demonstrated through our behavior. It is also a skill, that can be learned, practiced, and improved upon.
Being assertive is about self-control, self-respect, and healthy boundaries.
Stalking Awareness: Warning Signs, Typology
Stalking is a pattern of behavior, directed at a specific individual, that causes that person to feel harassed, afraid, and emotionally distraught. In most cases, subtle stalking warning signs appear prior to more blatant and harmful behaviors.
Since stalking tends to escalate over time, identifying red flags early is essential. Regardless of the context and circumstances, stalking should be taken seriously and seen as a warning sign of potential trouble ahead.
Dating & Domestic Violence: Forms of Abuse, Red Flags, Why Victims Stay, Supporting Survivors
In abusive relationships, one partner seeks to gain, and maintain, power and control over the other. This is accomplished through the use of various manipulative tactics.
The main forms of relationship abuse are emotional, financial, physical, and sexual. Abuse involves tactics of manipulation, coercion, intimidation, or harassment, used to gain and maintain power and control over another.
Chris Elle Dove 