Since it’s the season to bring “joy to the world,” I thought this might be an appropriate occasion to ask you to consider what brings joy to you. Somebody asked me this question recently, a...
https://www.stjohnsmith.ca/role-joy-plays-emotional-mental-health/
We are living in powerful times. A crucial time in the lives of those who’ve been sexually abused. For girls, boys, men, and women, it’s a long-awaited time when people are becoming empowered...
As a psychotherapist, I’m in the business of hearing how people, especially women, talk about their bodies using hateful and disparaging terms. They aren’t alone. I’ve done the same myself,...
Sometimes I feel like complaining. About whatever. And it feels good – that is, when I’m not in the company of the kind of person we all know who see it as their job to drag us over to the �...
https://www.stjohnsmith.ca/focusing-on-positivity-can-sometimes-drive-us-crazy/
I’m a perfectionist. Always have been. And sometimes it drives me crazy. Like most ‘Type-A’ people, there isn’t enough time in the day to be a perfectionist about everything, so we often ...
As a psychotherapist, I often meet individuals, couples and families who at first describe the relationships that matter the most in their lives as ‘very close’, ‘tight’, and supportive. ...
https://www.stjohnsmith.ca/important-maintain-healthy-distance-relationships-matter/
Never making the decision you know you need to make has been called ‘analysis paralysis’; ‘sitting on the fence’; ‘considering your options’; ‘waiting for the right time’ (when th...
https://www.stjohnsmith.ca/no-thinking-make-decision-take-action-today/
When I was in Grade 4, I struggled with an ability to read, especially when asked to read in front of the class. I wasn’t dyslexic but I was quite shy, and not at all confident about my intelle...
https://www.stjohnsmith.ca/adults-teaching-children-legitimization-bullying/
From the moment we’re born until the day we die we are continually absorbing messages that tell us who we are, what we’re worth as human beings, what we should be doing at any given time, how...
Over the years, I’ve discovered there are few among us who embrace transitions. I’m not one of them. Just ask my husband. For perhaps the first ten years of our lives together, when we vacati...