Walters Counseling, LLC

We often feel better in the summer: the sun is out longer, we tend to make more social plans and/ or go on vacation, and we often feel a bit lighter, even eating lighter than we do in the winter. It can also be stressful, though. All those social plans can lead to us feeling over-scheduled and burnt out, or putting pressure on ourselves to say yes to everything, even when we'd rather sit something out. The high temperatures can be overwhelming and make us feel rather short-circuited. And the trips to the pool or beach can make us feel more self-conscious about our physical appearance. To help, perhaps you say no to all social plans one weekend a month, make sure to find pleasant shady areas at the max temp of the day, or look for what brings you confidence while wearing your bathing suit. Stay cool, and have fun!

Tips for protecting your mental health this summer There are science-backed actions that may help protect mental health in the hot months

I don't know about you, but I loved Inside Out and Inside Out 2 (particularly the second one, breaking the "the first film is always better" rule). I think the creators did an amazing and creative job exploring feelings and how they all work together. Obviously, it wasn't perfect, and shouldn't be a sole source of emotion and brain education, but it also seems to have made many people feel seen in their own emotional experiences, and gives a visual representation as to what is happening when we are feeling our feelings. (Note: this article says the main character is playing soccer, but she actually plays ice hockey!)

Insights on 'Inside Out 2' A trauma therapist explores the movie "Inside Out 2," reflecting on its portrayal of complex emotions and anxiety, especially relevant for those with relational trauma histories.

Unfortunately, there are times in our lives when we experience grief that is beyond what we independently have the ability to cope with. For men, the stigma of how to grief and the expectation of needing to prioritize others may prevent them from reaching out for support. This is why a group of grieving dads created the Sad Dads Club. They have online and in-person meetings, along with resources, to help dads who are grieving. https://saddadsclub.com/resources/

It can be hard to help children cope with their feelings, and to teach them what they all are. Fortunately, there are lots of toys geared toward one or both of these goals, some of which you can find at this website. From board games to fidgets to huggable stuffed beings, you can find them all out there! https://thetoyinsider.com/make-mental-health-a-priority-with-mesh-toys-games/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=toynews

How often does something bad, on any level, happen, and you immediately find yourself blaming someone? Recognize that blame is a verbalization of anger, and that finding someone to blame gives us a false sense of control. If you saw my post last week, you'll remember that anger is typically considered a secondary emotion, meaning that there is a more accurate emotion behind it (typically pain, whether that is physical or emotional). So if you find yourself blaming someone, know that this means that you are in pain, and need to find a way to cope with or accurately express that, rather than picking someone to assign responsibility to.

RSA Short: Blame Brené considers why we blame others, how it sabotages our relationships, and why we desperately need to move beyond this toxic behavior.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and, as part of their many related activities, SAMHSA is hosting a free online symposium on Friday. "Championing Mental Health Together" focuses on sharing information on mental health of children, youth, and young adults. The link can be found under the events section of this site. https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health-awareness-month

Anger can be a very large emotion, and one of the easier ones to identify. The tricky thing about anger, though, is that it never operates independently. It is considered a secondary emotion, and also has another, truer, emotion riding along with it. Typically pain (physical or emotional). What did you do the last time you stubbed your toe? The same is true for emotional pain, however. Anger comes in, disguising another feeling, and creating what feels like a more comfortable emotion and outlet. If you find yourself being angry, big or small, try to take a mental step back and look for the pain. If you address that, the anger will resolve. Addressing the anger, on the other hand, does nothing for the pain.

Many people find themselves in the habit of binge-watching shows, even when they don't really want to. The viewing platforms' default settings automatically play the next episode, making it harder to disconnect. What they don't tell you, however, is that you can change this setting to you have control over whether or not the next episode starts. This can make it much easier to turn off and move on to something else, or get yourself to end your day and get some rest. Happy watching (one episode)!

"The opposite of play is not work. The opposite of play is depression."--Stuart Brown. We often think of downtime, fun activities, or breaks as things that take away from work, whether that work is in or out of the home. In actuality, we need that "play" time to recharge, re-energize, and reconnect, both with ourselves and others. Take the time you need to feel like you, and you will also find yourself happier, and that work comes a little easier.

Dreams are mysterious things. We all have them, although we don't all remember them. Some seem to have meaning to them, while others appear to be a random mish-mash of things we heard, saw, or read recently. Sometimes we feel guilty about our dreams (which is unreasonable, since we also can't control them), other times we can get a laugh out of them, and others wake us up trembling. Instead of getting too worried about your dreams, try to see if there is anything in them that can give you some information or insight into some part of your life, past or present. And if not, maybe it's just a simple dream, a moment when your brain is doing some reorganizing while you're sleeping.

Why Do I Keep Dreaming About My Ex? A Dream Expert Explains A dream expert weighs in why we often dream about exes, how to figure out what they can mean, and when you should be concerned.

“You can do vulnerability or it can do you.”--Brené Brown In other words, you cannot avoid feeling vulnerable. If you recognize that you are feeling vulnerable, then you can learn ways to cope with it and foresee when you will likely experience it. If you ignore it, though, then you are reacting from fear and lack of personal awareness. We all feel vulnerable, so will you choose to accept it or ignore it?

You may have heard of, or experienced, hangxiety, the anxiety caused from alcohol. Alcohol has many negative affects on our systems, and anxiety and depression are not the least of them. While the only way to truly prevent this is by not drinking in the first place, limited your alcohol consumption to 1-2, drinking plenty of fluids, and getting the alcohol out the day after (in healthy ways, such as via exercise), can help to mitigate the severity of the hangxiety.

What Is Hangxiety? If your anxiety increases after a night of drinking, you’re not alone. Here’s why it happens and what you can do if it happens to you.

Happy Easter!

I often get this sort of a question from clients: "I've talked to my spouse 20 times about (fill in chore here), and maybe it changes for a day or a week, but they always stop again. I can't take it anymore!" Many people feel this way, and no, it's not about the dishes in the sink. It's about your time, task load, and mental load. It's about the level of respect, care, and support you feel you are getting from your spouse. Changing the conversation can be helpful. Talking about how you each receive love and support can help to improve your mutual understanding of each other. Develop a plan for how to support each other differently. Have check-in conversations to talk about how it is going, and verbally acknowledge when you each take steps toward meeting the other's needs.

She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink It wasn’t a big deal to me when I was married. But it was a big deal to her.

The postpartum phase of pregnancy can be particularly challenging. While going through significant physical changes, a sudden dearth of sleep, and adjusting to a new little person who needs you to meet all of their needs (preferably immediately), you must also find a way to take care of yourself and stay balanced. That's an impossibly tall order! It can be very helpful to have a partner who is focused on the birthing parent and whose primary job is to take care of them, physically and mentally. Create a plan, push back if you see your partner struggling, and withhold judgement for what you may be seeing in them; it may not always look like it, but they are doing their best. Even for minor "baby blues," it can be helpful, if not imperative, to assist your partner in getting professional help with adjusting to all of these changes. Psychology Today, your insurance company, and multiple other resources, can help you find a local provider who can support one or both of you in this difficult time of transition.

Supporting Your Postpartum Partner New parent’s guide to offering relational care.

Don't let yourself go
'Cause everybody cries
Everybody hurts sometimes--REM, Everybody Hurts
I have recently been having a higher-than-usual number of clients asking the question, "Do most people have this many trauma events?" As with everything, it obviously depends on the person, but rest assured that you are not alone in this. Sooner or later, everyone experiences different types of loss, grief, fear, medical diagnoses, and/ or trauma. If you feel like you are overwhelmed by what you are or have gone through, talk to your supports, and contact a mental health provider. It may not feel like it now, but with some help, you can move through what you are currently experiencing.

Even in this day and age, when we should have learned from our past experiences, women continue to be disregarded when they talk to providers about their health, and minority women at a significantly higher rate than White women. The experience of maternal health, physical and mental, is no different. 40% of Black women experience postpartum symptoms, compared to 1 in 5 in the general maternal population. If you see someone who is struggling, reach out to let them know you are there to listen, help them find a counselor, and take steps to alleviate some of the burden of new parenthood, such as providing meals, holding the baby so they can nap, or come over to clean the dishes. It takes a village not just to raise our children, but also to support our birthing parents.

The maternal mental health of Black women - Counseling Today Because Black women in the United States face an alarmingly higher rate of maternal mortality and mental health conditions, counselors should be prepared to help clients manage their mental health while also advocating for quality care from health providers.

When is the last time you did nothing? I don't mean you sat down and read a book, watched a show, scrolled your social media accounts, took a nap, or consciously meditated. I mean you sat down, eyes open or closed, and let your brain wander wherever it wanted. The last time you daydreamed, or allowed yourself to be bored. My guess is that it's been awhile. This kind of "activity" can be helpful in destressing and in becoming more creative. When we focus on less, our brains can naturally do more. More importantly, doing nothing helps us rebalance, allows our minds and bodies to relax. It gives us some much-needed space from the daily to-dos of life. So give yourself a break, and sit down and literally do nothing.

Niksen Is the Dutch Lifestyle Concept of Doing Nothing—And You're About to See It Everywhere A new way to look at 'doing nothing'

Black History Month is so important to focus on and, hopefully, learn from, but it rarely seems to include the effects of and on mental health for Black and other minority populations. A new book discusses just this, focusing on an insane asylum that, shockingly, didn't close until 2004. Connecting institutions like these to the ways in which mental health is seen today is essential in beginning to open the doors to more people wishing to and being able to assess effective mental health treatment within their neighborhoods today.

What a Jim Crow-era asylum can teach us about mental health today NBC journalist Antonia Hylton spent more than a decade piecing together the history of Maryland's first segregated asylum, where Black patients were forced into manual labor. Her new book is Madness.

Elmo the therapist? Turns out, we can get emotional support just about anywhere. Elmo, the beloved Sesame Street character, recently tweeted out a simple questions, "How is everyone doing?" When this came on Friday, the responses were pretty positive. But Monday, though, it seemed people's moods had changed and Elmo had his work cut out for him. In true Elmo fashion, he didn't bat an eye and set to showing people love and compassion. If only we all could be a little better at asking the question and showing Elmo-level empathy!

Elmo takes a turn as a therapist after asking, 'How is everybody doing?' When the beloved red Muppet asked people how they were doing, they responded with honesty — and, in some cases, despair. Elmo replied to many messages with encouragement and empathy.

Did you know that the Free Library of Philadelphia will soon be offering Social Services assistance? They have hired several Social Workers, who will be on-hand at different branches to assist connecting residents with programs and services specific to their needs. Very exciting!

Blog: Social Services Offered by the Free Library The Free Library is pleased to announce the addition of three full-time social workers to its Social Services roster. The newly formed Social Services team will provide open office…

Feeling secure within yourself can be one of life's great challenges. As can trying to figure out how to gain that security. These questions posed by psychologist Dr. Cortney Warren can help to not only get a better sense of how emotionally secure you are, but also what areas to focus on in improving your level of security.

Harvard psychologist: If you say 'yes' to any of these 9 questions, you're 'more emotionally secure than most' Harvard-trained psychologist Dr. Cortney Warren shares key questions to ask yourself to see you are more emotionally secure than most others.

The way we think about ourselves strongly influences our perception of ourselves. Even if those thoughts are not accurate. We think things all the time that are not true or factual. For some of those things, we recognize pretty quickly that they were just a random thought and shouldn't be given much weight. For thoughts about ourselves, however, we tend to believe without questioning, thinking about feedback we've received from others, or identifying factual evidence from the past. Next time you think something negative about yourself, try to look for real evidence that discredits this thought and see how that, in turn, makes you feel.

If You Feel Like Trash, That Doesn't Make You Trash How depression affects our perceptions of ourselves.

At the beginning of every year, people start talking about resolutions again. But have you heard, or thought, about them at all for the last 6 months (or more)? Probably not. If you want to use the turn of the calendar to think about what you want to gain during this year, consider thinking in terms of achievable goals, rather than broad changes. Identify what you want to accomplish and set steps to do so. This may help you reflect back at the end of the year and find that you have, indeed, succeeded in your efforts!

Why Not to Make a New Year’s Resolution Science suggests most New Year’s resolutions fail. Mental health experts say here’s how to get smarter about behavior change instead.

Pets can be an invaluable companion, particularly for anyone struggling with mental health concerns. For many, however, the expense of feeding and taking care of a pet makes it impossible for them to get one. Fortunately, cities across Pennsylvania have pet food pantries. With several in Philadelphia, this might make it more likely that some people who could use the support pets can provide will be able to adopt one of their own! https://www.agriculture.pa.gov/FoodForThought/Pages/Article.aspx?post=76

The holidays can be, to say the least, a tad bit stressful. For most of us, we over-stretch ourselves, and hold on to the eternal hope of that elusive "perfect" holiday. The one where no one argues or gets upset, everyone comes together to smoothly make the perfect meal, while music plays cheerily in the background. Where all the toys work and the right batteries have been acquired ahead of time. And at the end of the day, you feel a satisfied level of tired, rather than purely exhausted. Any memory of one of those? Me neither. Instead, it can be helpful to acknowledge that something is bound to go wrong, and to prepare yourself for handling whatever that situation may be differently than you have in the past. Trying to stay calm and patient in the midst of what always ends up being a highly emotional day. And ahead of time, to look at your "to-dos" and ask yourself: Am I doing this for myself or someone else? Often, it's for someone else, and does not need to be done. Make a promise to yourself that you will eliminate at least one thing off that list, and instead take a little time to breathe.

Feeling overwhelmed? Try these 6 emotional resilience tips — Calm Blog Learn what to do if you get easily overwhelmed or feel emotionally overwhelmed all the time. Plus, try our tips for emotional resilience and managing overwhelm.

You never know when a simple action of yours will have a large impact on someone else. This woman discusses how someone asking her to take their photo prevented her from committing su***de. While this is a more extreme example, it can also remind us that the small interactions we have on a daily basis with strangers actually do matter, and serve to enhance both their lives and our own.

Perspective | A stranger asked me to take her photograph. It saved my life. Today, I am alive because a pink-haired stranger stopped me for a picture.

"There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes to where life is not painful; nor is there a port of call where it is possible to forget." --Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet