Our mantra in all of the trauma trainings we conduct is: “Good self-care is not selfish - it’s our professional and ethical responsibility.” Yet, we know that amid the stresses of everyday work, family, and other responsibilities, it can be hard to remember, let alone carve out time, to practice good self-care. The current troubling times and the global coronavirus pandemic have added exponentially to our collective anxiety, with uncertainties, pressures, and worries, including the health...

Awe: a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder. An overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like. Carl Sagan once said, "Every aspect of nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder and awe." Researchers at UC Berkeley have found that "awe — as opposed to joy, pride, amusement, contentment and other positive emotions — is the singular sensation that goes the furthest in...

Though we are still in the "early days" of what the experts predict will likely be a long period of profound changes to our everyday lives, I've already (prematurely? ridiculously optimistically?) been trying to imagine what it will be like when we are finally able to return to whatever may become our "new normal." When schools and colleges re-open, businesses that have managed to remain solvent through this crisis resume business, government agencies return to their core functions, human...

This pandemic has aroused a swirl of really difficult feelings for virtually everyone. We may be feeling afraid, angry, anxious, confused, depressed, helpless, overwhelmed, sad, terrified, vulnerable, or any of a host of other emotions. Simply acknowledging what we’re feeling, allowing ourselves to feel these things, without judgment, is an important part of self-care. As I told the students in an online class I taught a few evenings ago: Please know this: whatever you are feeling in the...

In an article last week in Harvard Business Review, titled “That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief”, grief expert David Kessler names the multiple types of losses we’re experiencing in the midst of the current global COVID 19 pandemic: loss of normalcy, loss of a sense of safety, loss of work (for some), financial losses, loss of connection. As a result, many of us are going through stages of grief, individually and collectively. “There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus...

“One ship drives east and another drives west With the self-same winds that blow. ‘Tis the set of the sails And not the gales Which tells us the way to go. Like the winds of the sea are the winds of fate, As we voyage along through life, ‘Tis the set of a soul That decides its goal And not the calm or the strife.” ~ poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox, (1850 - 1919) “The Winds of Fate” Researcher, author and professor, Dr. Barbara Fredrickson , has studied the power of positive emotions * such as...

“Walking is the best medicine.” - Hippocrates (460 – 370 BC), Greek physician, widely regarded the "Father of Western Medicine" Under our current #StayAtHome orders, one of the few things we can still do outside of our homes is take a walk. And it turns out Hippocrates was right. Modern research has shown walking really IS good medicine - improving our physical health, boosting our immune system, increasing longevity, preventing heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and depression...

As we navigate through these uncertain times, self care has never been more important to our well-being. To that end, we've created a mini-podcast series titled "Contagious Self Care" consisting of short audio messages (mini-podcast style), each of which features a simple self-care practice. Each audio message is between 2 - 6 minutes long. To access the full series (30 days worth), click here: https://hearthis.at/melanie-snyder/set/contagious-self-care/ Peace. Be well. And remember to...