How to feel gratitude when your world is falling apart
I spent most of my early life being challenged with the idea of gratitude. As a daughter of a sociopath and a narcissist, I struggled with self-preservation in the midst of cruelty and craziness. I couldn’t trust the very people who were supposed to keep me safe, and my struggles with depression, anxiety, chronic stress, and loneliness made gratitude feel completely beyond my reach. And a big part of the problem was how I perceived my peers. Every one of them seemed to “normal healthy parents” who treated them well. At least, so I thought.
I had what I now call, “gratitude deficit syndrome”.
Read MoreLetting Go of Holiday Loneliness
Right before the holidays, my client’s boyfriend dumped her. She did not have family or close friends to spend the holidays with. This caused distress for her. In addition to the heartbreak she felt, she had feelings of being left alone and abandoned.
Releasing feelings that cause loneliness is the first step.
Our first step to address holiday loneliness was
Read MoreThe Dangers of Vitamin D Deficiency
Most people are deficient in vitamin D.
The current recommended dose of vitamin D is 600IU daily for adults, but many experts in nutrition and functional and natural medicine say that the optimal dose ranges between 1000-4000 IU per day.
Depending on the study, Vitamin D deficiency has shown to range between 30 -75% in the general US population!
Why are so many people vitamin D deficient?
Read MoreHow to Stay Informed Without Getting Depressed
I’ve always been troubled by massive injustices inflicted upon fellow citizens. In my quest to determine how to prevent a future Holocaust for example, I needed to understand what caused it. One of the most important lessons I learned in my college course, “Introduction to Political Freedom”, is that the most horrific injustices of the world occur when we are not paying attention and when we disengage.
Thus, I’m a big believer that it is essential to stay informed and engaged in what is going on in the world, and to do what you can to make it a better place.
But as an empath, staying informed and keeping engaged can be emotionally taxing and overwhelming. Every day I wake up, thinking about the state of our country, and how we can have peace and justice in this world. And often this obsession with the direction of our country leaves me in despair about the future.
But I know that I’m not alone, so after doing some research on the internet, I found some great advice which I’ll share below.
Read MoreDoes Inequality Affect Your Happiness
You may not know this about me, but after I got my Ph.D. in Neuroscience, I spent about 10 years in the field of public health (specifically epidemiology) looking for underlying factors that contribute to mental and cognitive health problems across populations. One of the things that resonated with me about the field of public health, was that we looked at risk factors at all levels ranging from the individual, to the relationship level, community level and societal level. While most of my writings have been on things that we can do in our relationships and personally to improve our mental health, we cannot forget the enormous role that our communities and society play in our happiness.
Right now a major contributor to our mental health is the increasing inequality that we are experiencing. Income inequality is at an all time high, and the richest 85 people have as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion. And in a comparison across 31 countries, US has the second highest level of inequality, only second to Chile.
So how does income inequality affect our mental health?
Read MoreLimiting Beliefs about Depression & Suicide
There are few celebrities I will miss as much as Robin Williams. I was a huge fan of Mork & Mindy, appreciated his comedic and more serious roles, and valued his good –heartedness and compassion. And with all that he had to offer, he too like many of us suffered from tremendous despair. The only good thing about his suicide,is that we are learning more about the nature of suicide and depression. But what distresses me is that I keep hearing, “there is no cure”. I believe that you don’t have to live with depression or suicidal thoughts, and this is why.
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