We can’t control the cards that are dealt to us, but we can learn how to play the cards we have and develop skill and wisdom to accumulate more cards that will be useful in the future.

There is so much hope in the idea that resilience is possible to learn.

Nobody has a perfect, balanced life 100% of the time, because life is just not that way. It is messy and unpredictable and full of wonderful opportunities.

We miss out on things when we turn self-care and balance into rigid rules we must follow.

We also miss out on enjoying what we do when try to do too much.

It is possible to change the way you interact with your world. You can use these strategies to find ways to manage your relationships, your stress, your thoughts and feelings so that you can take care of your needs and still be there for the people you hold dear.

The saddest thing about people pleasing is that it does not actually deliver what we are looking for by coping this way. Deep down we usually long for true connection with people. We have an inherent need for this connection. There is a sense of safety in being connected to others.

We fall into the habit of people pleasing because we want to fit in, to be accepted, to be liked. We will never get there if we are always presenting a version of ourselves that we think others want.

When our own opinion matters, it is easier to be clear on where we want to spend our time, money, and emotional energy.

When we start talking about people pleasing, the word “codependent” often gets thrown into the mix. People-pleasers can be codependent, but these really are two different things.

Previously, I offered some insight about the way someone’s internal motivations are the difference between someone who is just a nice person and someone who is displaying people-pleasing behaviors.

There is another level to this .

As Christians, we want to serve others, because when we are doing this we believe we are serving God.

We know that our works do not save us, but we are overflowing with love and gratitude towards God. Serving others is a way to express that.

It is also a way to help others get a tiny glimpse of the love God has for them.

However, our sinful natures can twist this into something that is not actually serving God but serving ourselves.

I define people pleasers as people who tend to constantly meet the needs of others at the expense their own needs because they are driven by certain internal motivations that cause a desire to please others to become a need to please others.

I am a big fan of using my own lessons learned to help someone else, so I have compiled some journal prompts with military spouses in mind. Maybe your sense of identity as a military spouse could use some reflection, like mine did. Maybe you are approaching your final years in this lifestyle and need to start thinking about what comes next. Maybe you are holding onto things you need to find a way to say to your active duty spouse. Regardless of your circumstance, I hope you find these helpful.

I have been writing blog posts and putting content on my social media that directly relates to military spouses lately because I really want to drive home the importance of taking time to address your mental health, and getting started now before the year gets underway.

I wanted to extend a specific welcome, tell you why I care about you, re-cap the resources I have made available to you, and answer some questions I am guessing you may have.

It’s not easy to ask for help. I remember, as a potential client, looking at therapist profiles and thinking they all kinda sounded the same to me. I didn’t know what the letters after the counselor’s names meant. Did I need an LMFT? Or an LPC? Or a social worker? Psychologist? And what is an NCC? I hate that this is such a nebulous, difficult process, so I have compiled some considerations to hopefully make it a little easier.

Stigma, concerns for confidentiality, and an expectation of self-reliance represent internal barriers to seeking mental health help, but there are some external barriers that military spouses experience, too. These include time, effort, and logistics, such as childcare, transportation, and scheduling. How can we address these barriers?

This post can apply to any woman because I am talking about those nonmilitary stressors. The specific application to military spouses is that when we leave these things unchecked, they make the military stressors harder to deal with.

We all experience stress, but when we suffer under stress for too long, or when it hits us in a traumatic way, it is very easy to get stuck in a struggle with mental health.

Research has suggested that the mental health of the military spouse impacts the mental health of the rest of the family. But often, our solution to helping our family members stay mentally healthy is to pretend we don’t have any issues with our own mental health.

She looked around the echo-y house that held the memories of the most recent chapter of their lives. With all the boxes packed and loaded onto the moving truck, husband and kids settled into a temporary lodging facility, she is alone with the echoes.

And her emotions.

Ohhhh the emotions.

Those don’t pack up so easily.

Mindreading is a cognitive distortion we work on using cognitive behavioral therapy. When we engage in mindreading we have these (often inaccurate) ideas of what other people are thinking. And we just know we are right. This becomes a habitual pattern; we do it without even realizing we are doing it. The thing is, most of the time “they” (whoever “they” are) are not even thinking about us at all.

Deep Breaths. Meditation. Mindfulness. Journaling. Mantras. We hear about these things as coping strategies for anxiety, but people tend to blow them off because they seem too simple to make a difference.

Today I want to give a brief explanation of these coping strategies, to include information about why they work. These are thing I tend to talk to clients about a lot… because they do make a difference!

The work of addressing anxiety is a paradigm shift.

It is unlearning patterns that have become automatic and creating intentional responses to replace them.

This work may be a paradigm shift for you, the supporter, as well.

Therapy can be a hard thing for everyone involved, because mental health struggles are a hard thing for everyone involved. Today’s article focuses on some things you need to know about the process of therapy. I hope to shed light on some of the ways someone in therapy for anxiety or trauma may need your support.

Most people think of empathy as just good listening, but I see five components of empathy: listening, curiosity, communication, support, and focus on the other person.