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Category: Life Stress

Difference of Opinion?

October 4, 2025
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| Categories: Anxiety, Creativity, Depression, Life Stress, Parenting/Children, Personal Growth, Relationships

Most of the time family feuds are fueled by stubborness. No one is going to give up their belief, and they will believe that they've been wronged the most. That's true sometimes. However, the most well-adjusted person will have an internal conversation about whether or not it's worth disliking someone who has a different  belief than yours. Some time ago I read an article about a study done some where,where people held certain beliefs, and that no matter how persuasive opposing evidence was no one was willing to change their minds about their belief. Which brings me to the topic at hand. This country is currently facing a deep political divide. Whatever side of the fence you stand on the other side is most certainly related to Satan in your mind. So you can stop speaking to each other, which gets you nowhere, or you can engage in a hurtful, name calling argument, and none of these things resolve a thing, nothing, nada, except a waste of your energy. I have an idea. I'm going to propose a game that doesn't have winners and losers. In this experience agreeing to disagree is a valid ending to the conversation. Everyone has...

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A Circular Life in the Time of Pandemic

August 29, 2021
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| Categories: Anxiety, Life Stress, Personal Growth

I'm sitting here wondering how to write a blog about hope without sounding like I'm preaching, how to express empathy and make it meaningful, what to suggest you can do to make your life more enjoyable, upbeat, happy, and I'm drawing a blank. Our country has gone through months, years of great unhappiness. We have many different political opinions, religious preferences, and so on. Acts of nature are beyond our control. Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and mudslides where thousands and thousands of people are left dead or wounded, happen more frequently. California is on fire and running out of water. One percent of the citizens in this country hold over ninety percent of the wealth. The middle class has all but disappeared. Health care, including dental and vision, is becoming harder for individuals and families to afford. Even co-pays can be impossible to pay since the minimum wage comes nowhere close to parity for healthcare, medication, or dental work. Daycare costs have caused many families that would like to be a two-income family to become a one-income family even though the family could use two incomes to pay the bills and raise the kids. Many people go without the basic things...

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HELPING YOUR TEEN DURING THE CORONA VIRUS PANDEMIC

January 4, 2021
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| Categories: Anxiety, Depression, Life Stress, Parenting/Children, Trauma

Everyone is affected by the world pandemic we have endured for a year now. Daily life has been severely impacted on so many levels some days it can feel like there is nothing to do but sit down and stare at the wall. The bills are due, the job is gone, responsible people have practiced social distancing, wearing a mask, and staying home as much as possible meaning no bars, no social events, no sporting events, extreme stress and high anxiety. Congratulations if you and your partner have figured out how to be together doing fun activities and chores without sniping or outright arguing. Generally, that requires agreed upon alone time that you use to go into a room where you are alone, and read, paint, meditate, work on crafts, do something on the computer other than work or porn or pretending you’re single and cruising dating sites. You can do anything, research, read all kinds of interesting articles, catch up on social media, send emails to friends or chat with a friend or friends from the privacy of your alone time. It’s even more important at this time to maintain social and familial connections than before the pandemic began....

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THE NATION IS GRIEVING

October 10, 2020
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| Categories: Anxiety, Depression, Life Stress, Trauma

I happened to see Deepak Chopra on a news show this morning. He was bring interviewed about COVID and said that he believes the nation is grieving. So startled, I stopped walking to listen to the rest of what he had to say about that. I know about grief and grieving, have had my fair share, but it never occurred to me that the nation is grieving. I thought, dissolving, having a collective nervous breakdown, using violence as a coping mechanism, and being submissive trying to survive fear itself, but not grieving. Yes, I thought, that’s right, the nation is grieving. It is going through all of the stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In other dire situations, the stages of grief aren’t linear, and they can overlap. The nation is grieving for itself, no matter what you believe, no one is getting what they want, no one. Before I saw that news clip, I was going to write about despair, and how difficult it is and has been these past months, how in the beginning, we thought it would be over maybe not sooner but for sure later. No one could imagine being quarantined for six...

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DURING THE TIME OF CORONA VIRUS

June 30, 2020
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| Categories: Depression, Life Stress, Trauma

People are scared, anxious, depressed, feel helpless, feel hopeless. It’s all true. Most of us have been on some type of quarantine for months. We’ve learned to wear masks and talk, to stay six feet away from everyone we’re not living with, and to use tubs of hand sanitizer along with washing our hands frequently. We scour stores looking for toilet paper and paper towels, a box of Kleenex is a real score. We didn’t sign up for this, nor did wet see this coming. We couldn’t have imagined the nightmare we’re living through, but like all nightmares, no matter how horrible they are, eventually they are over, we put them away and try not to look back. We go on, shaken up, having learned a new way to live, learning things about ourselves we didn’t know before we were called to courage, hope, faith, and a whole lot of grit to get from the first announcement of a world pandemic to where we are today. Instead of reading a Steven King novel that scares us witless, we feel like we’re inside of a Steven King novel, unable to find our way back out of those pages of life that...

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ANXIETY IN THE AGE OF CORONAVIRUS

March 22, 2020
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| Categories: Anxiety, Life Stress

On December 10, 2009, the CDC reported an estimated 50 million Americans or 1 in 6 people had been infected with the 2009 A H1N1 Virus, and 10,000 Americans had died, by which time the vaccine was beginning to be widely distributed to the general public by several states. H1N1, also called the Swine flu, was the last time the world had a pandemic. It began in the spring of 2009. Today we have a vaccination to help protect us against H1N1. Maybe you're wondering why I'm talking about the Swine flu when I'm supposed to be writing about the Coronavirus. I am because, at the time of the Swine flu, I purchased one box of Tamiflu for every member of my family. I was so anxious I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. I alternated between planning my funeral (bad) or one of my children or grandchildren's funerals (much worse). The tab for Tamiflu for all was considerably higher than a luxurious weekend at a ski resort. I didn't care. I couldn't bear the thought of losing a loved one. Never mind that, had anyone developed the Swine flu, their doctor would have prescribed Tamiflu for...

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