personal-growth
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(Building Mental Fortitude: Part 5, Learning to Adapt) Life can suck. It can be unfair. There can be many times that life does not go as planned; your best laid plans go off the rails. You may have been caught off guard, or then, no matter what you do, it is not going to work.… Read more
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(Building Mental Fortitude: Part 4 Building Resilience) 9/30/2026 Resilience has been often described as the ability to bounce back from stressful situations or failures. Others describe resilience as bouncing forward, as being able to quickly forward despite the strong emotions that they are feeling. I have often seen others as being more resilient than myself.… Read more
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Building Mental Fortitude: Self-compassion (Part 2) 9/16/2026 Do you replay past mistakes? Do you compare yourself to others? Do you treat your friends with more compassion than you do yourself? I know I do. I consider myself a compassionate person, but for some darn reason, I have difficulty being compassionate towards myself. I am my… Read more
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September 8, 2026 Mental strength helps us navigate adversities, stress, and emotional turmoil, wrote Dr. Sacha Cohen. According to LCSW writer Amy Morin, mental strength is the ability to cope with negative emotions in a healthy way. It is understanding your emotions, and it is knowing when to engage with your emotions and when to… Read more
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9/1/2026 Why do hardship and pain drive some people to bitterness, and another person to unshakeable strength? Mental health professionals call this resilience. Although fortitude and resilience are not the same thing, they are closely related and often used together. Dictionary.com defines “fortitude” as a mental and emotional strength in facing difficulty, adversity, danger, or… Read more
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July 14, 2026 Are you tempted to distract yourself from anxiety or other uncomfortable emotions? Many of us are. There is no running away from discomfort or pain forever, sooner or later after distractions or hiding from it, discomfort returns, perhaps even more intensely. Over the years, I have been an emotional eater. I would… Read more
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July 8, 2026 Have you noticed how you feel after you hear your self-talk? Last week, I touched upon how often during my life that I have been outright mean to myself. I have been working on changing the tone of my self-talk for years, but it takes a lot of practice to go from… Read more
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6/29/2026 Have you heard the following being said? “Oh, my God, what were you thinking?!” “I cannot believe you said that out loud.” “Wow, how can you not be embarrassed?” What is sad is that I have said to myself over the years. You have said some similar things to yourself. I am conscientious about… Read more
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Last week I shared how anxiety impacts our minds and bodies. If there is any ounce of doubt, anxiety can worm in with questions about self-worth and whether we deserve love at all. In the end, anxiety can become very destructive. As I was diving into the topic of self-love, I came across this quote… Read more
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June 3, 2026 What is hope? Hope is defined as a sense of a certain future that can be achieved. In order to achieve this, individuals need to feel a sense of agency. Hope contributes to our well-being and happiness which motivates positive action. A published study in Health Economics defines hope as the determination… Read more
