mental health

  • Finding Joy in Every Season: Tips to Cope with Seasonal Depression

    Finding Joy in Every Season: Tips to Cope with Seasonal Depression

    I used to hate Winter. I wished I could avoid it like the plague. The cold, the dark, the brown and gray of nature when everything had died for the season. But some time in the past few years, I began to change my tune. My feelings about Winter began to evolve when I started…

  • Art as Therapy

    Art as Therapy

    2020 has been a real doozy! I say that lightly but in all seriousness it has been one of the weirdest, bumpiest, stress-inducing and even tragic years of our collective lives. I’ve been through some really hard times, and you’ve been through some tough times too, but it’s rare we’re all going through the same…

  • The same, but different

    The same, but different

    The air outside Mild and humid with Spring rain Sunlight diffused by the overcast sky Sidewalks wet with recent rainfall The neighbors walking their dogs, Entire families outside to enjoy the fresh air Kids shooting hoops in the driveway, but only in their own. Everyone keeping their safe distance, but everyone outside It looks so…

  • Swimming in anxiety with COVID-19

    Swimming in anxiety with COVID-19

    Anxiety comes naturally to me. I know I’m blessed and unique in that way (said no one ever). Big news events like this COVID-19 stuff and the stuff with Iran back in January can really do a number in my brain. I’ve come along way with managing my daily anxiety through exercise, sleep, nutrition, meditation,…

  • Music, painting, and alcohol

    Music, painting, and alcohol

    The last couple months of 2019 were both joyful and frantic. I had a surprising volume of pet portrait painting orders for Christmas which was all a new business to me, so I just buckled down and spent my evenings and weekends cranking them out in time for the holidays. It was exciting and scary…

  • Known

    I cry out to God As only God can know me My heart that I’ve been told is evil My mind I’ve been taught not to trust My flesh that was deemed as temptation Yet these were crafted by my Creator With adoration and love A temple for oneness and worship How could I be…

  • Walls

    I feel it in my throat A voice trapped A scream stifled But muscles strangle my soul into silence I feel it in my bones A spirit contained Defined by a deteriorating shell But the body protects the gift it carries I feel it in this room A life that is stuck A longing to…

  • Projections

    I see them Sad eyes Blank stares Shallow conversation Going through the motions “Is this all there is?” Cries from their empty insides I wonder what their stories are and what brought them here, and if they will ever wake up and escape? Do they even know it’s possible? And then I wonder If what…

  • Edge

    The knot tightens in my core A cauldron beneath it Brewing from the past Fear Uncertainty Apathy I am frozen in this darkness But I know it will bubble over into nothing Evaporate when I wake Sunshine and hope awaits Don’t fight it Just breathe and be Until the dawn of a new day.

  • Afternoon in paradise

    The clouds swirled above in multiple layers Shifting from wind, rain, sunshine We were in the arc of a rainbow I wondered if three different days passed. Twin peaks stood in stark contrast Conducting the clouds Casting gold dust and shadow in the valley I rested in their enduring majesty. The spruce and the aspen…