โMy garden is my favorite teacher.โ โ Betsy Garmon This is the second year that I have spent working for my aunt's gardening business, Inspired Market Gardens. She sells flowers, vegetable and herb plants as well as fresh cut flowers. I water, fertalize, transplant and help customers. This year I reflected on what this work… Continue reading Mental Health in the Garden: A Photographic Journey of My Work Week
Tag: mental illness
Mental Health Questions That Keep Me Curious: How Broad Reflection Can Guide Mental Health Recovery
Photo by Ryan Hutton on Unsplash Most of my mental health journey I have been focused on navigating crisis, staying well and managing everyday life. Really sitting with the broader questions of mental health has felt like a bit of a luxury. However, as I started writing more about mental health, these deeper questions have… Continue reading Mental Health Questions That Keep Me Curious: How Broad Reflection Can Guide Mental Health Recovery
Letter to my Readers
"All journies have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware." ~ Martin Buber Dear Readers, โญ โญ โญ โญ โญ Next week on October 10th is World Mental Health Day - the "birthday" of this blog series. I am so thankful for each of you who have supported me as I have shared my… Continue reading Letter to my Readers
Mental Health Milestones: Celebrations In Your Recovery Journey
Your mental health recovery is a journey of self-discovery and resilience ~QuoteHive Photo by Javon Swaby: https://www.pexels.com/photo/selective-focus-photography-of-sparkler-1697902/ I am going on holiday this week and next and so I am posting this early. The holiday is a celebration of a milestone birthday and also a celebration of almost a year's worth of blogging mapping out… Continue reading Mental Health Milestones: Celebrations In Your Recovery Journey
Spiritual Tools for Mental Health
โThe Wound is the place where Light enters you.โ ~ Rumi Photo by Meegan Simpson-Cooke The word spirituality is used so often that it sometimes loses its meaning and significance. It can be associated with ego, as in how spiritual someone can be. Also, there are many people who do not believe in a higher… Continue reading Spiritual Tools for Mental Health
The Seasons of Mental Illness
Embrace the seasons and cycles in life. There is magic in change. ~ Bonnie Ware Photo by Lorenzo Hamers on Unsplash When I went back and looked at the time of year my episodes occured, a pattern emerged. I was more likely to have an episode in spring, summer and early in the fall. I… Continue reading The Seasons of Mental Illness
Psychiatric Medications: The Gifts and the Challenges
Photo by Michaล Parzuchowski on Unsplash Two quotes today for two different persectives on psychiatric medications... โBecause drugs have become so profitable, major medical journals rarely publish studies on nondrug treatments of mental health problems. Practitioners who explore treatments are typically marginalized as โalternative.โ Studies of nondrug treatments are rarely funded unless they involve so-called… Continue reading Psychiatric Medications: The Gifts and the Challenges
What Lies Ahead
It's okay to not have the answers yet. Continue your journey and trust the process. ~Simplereminders.com Photo by James Zwadlo on Unsplash The last couple months of my posts have explored in detail themes like healing the past, strengthening boundaries and connection and looking at contributing factors to mental illness. As much as I offer… Continue reading What Lies Ahead
The Impact of Social, Political and Global Factors on Mental Health
โThe current ruling ontology denies any possibility of a social causation of mental illness. The chemico-biologization of mental illness is of course strictly commensurate with its depoliticization. Considering mental illness an individual chemico-biological problem has enormous benefits for capitalism. First, it reinforces Capitalโs drive towards atomistic individualization (you are sick because of your brain chemistry).… Continue reading The Impact of Social, Political and Global Factors on Mental Health
The โWhysโ of Mental Illness
โYou have survived everything you have been through, and you will survive this too. Stay for the person you will become. You are more than a bad day, or week, or month, or year, or even a decade. You are a future of multifarious possibility. You are another self at a point in future time… Continue reading The โWhysโ of Mental Illness