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Heather Edwards Mental Health Counseling / Posts tagged "self improvement"

8 Tips for Combatting SAD – Preserve your energy and spirit

Welcome to daylight savings time! It’s that time of year when days get shorter, darkness grows longer, and your energy and spirit can be eclipsed. SAD abounds. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, “About 4 to 6 percent of people may have winter depression. Another 10 to 20 percent may have mild SAD. SAD is four times more common in women than in men. Although some children and teenagers get SAD, it usually doesn't start in people younger than age 20.” That equals a whopping up to 63,780,000 people in the U.S.A. with SAD and/or mild depression in the winter! In case you’re wondering if you have S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder) here are a few symptoms: decreased energy increased appetite (for sweets & starches)   weight gain reduced socialization increased sleep lower productivity less...

3 Ways YOU are Like Your SMARTPHONE

Unfinished business. Open loops. Running Apps. Depleted energy. Less productivity. Divided attention. Ugh. It’s downright overwhelming when you take a moment to realize how many tasks are competing for your time and focus every minute of every day. Ironically, ignoring them only creates more stress, and tackling them all at once creates overwhelm. So how are you like your smartphone? You’re Multi-Talented  - After all, we are the creators of phones and apps. You can manage your homefront, a job and freelance work, your own business, self care, social commitments, romantic curiosities, attend that class at the gym, and learn an instrument in one fell swoop. You’re Uber Productive - You can do laundry while listening to a podcast and writing a blog, calling your mother, emailing your...

Start Your Day Right: 3 Tips for the Perfect Journal Entry

Start your morning right with a journal entry. They say the day is shaped by the tone of your morning ritual. So make it productive, uplifting, and grounding. There are many benefits of journaling. It's an emotional cleanse, a refocusing on the positive, and a reminder of your purpose and vision.  Try these tips to maximize the potential for your day and to keep you on target with your goals...

Heather Edwards Life Coach

5 Tips for a Juicy, Gorgeous Life

Let’s face it! You’re bored with the status quo. You’re an adventure-seeker-happiness-freak-self-improvement-junkie.  (No offense intended. I’m one, too!) So, put the needle on the record. Let's pump up the volume! Here are five tips you can start today to create the life you want… Shift your routine. The same ole only maintains what you already have.  Mix it up! Stir the pot. If you're reading this blog, you're ready for something new. Identify one action that could change the outcome of your day. Decide to get up 30 minutes earlier. Start your day with a journal entry, meditation, or work out. Unplug at a reasonable time. Whatever you choose to enact will change your trajectory. Embrace one goal that stretches you. See it through.  What area of your...

Psychology Today: 4 Ways to Clear Your Mind

[caption id="attachment_2349" align="alignleft" width="320"] Source: Photo: iStock[/caption] Clean Your Mind of Harmful Toxins - And Feel Good Again Post published by Mark Banschick M.D. on Aug 04, 2015 in Psychology Today. By Heather Edwards - Guest Blogger As I sit down to write this blog, I'm struck by three common themes in conversations with clients, family, and friends. Most of us have clarity about how we want to feel - happy, free, grounded. But instead, we end up frustrated, overwhelmed, and burdened. We get stuck and confused about how to internalize fleeting positivity in an enduring way. In the quest for the seemingly elusive states of calm and life satisfaction, several common toxins manifest. But you can change them! Or better, clear them out. Take stock of your life and notice which...

Heather Edwards Psychotherapist Coach

10 Tips for Gaining Clarity on ANYTHING

If you’re anything like me you struggle with staying on task.  In this immediate-gratification-digital-world it’s a challenge to sustain focus on anything for any uninterrupted amount of time. The average attention span is estimated to be about five minutes long for a two year old child, and up to 20 minutes in older children and adults. Just guessing - but it will probably take you longer than 20 minutes of focused attention to achieve your dreams.  Try out these 10 tips for clearing and clarifying your mind.. Establish a Morning Ritual:  What you do in the morning sets the tone for the day. Begin each day with 10 minutes of nurturing self care.  Stretch, breathe, meditate, or read a few pages of a self improvement book.  See how...

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The Ripple Effect: Your Power Source

Among the hundreds of people I’ve coached and counseled, there’s a striking and honorable theme. It’s one that prompts people to seek support in becoming their best self.  It's one that guides behavior, values, and wants. It motivates their reflection, desire for improvement, and a genuine regard for having a positive impact on the greater good. So let’s give credit where credit is due.  After all, that’s what keeps us going. The theme I’m referring to is the ripple effect. Regardless of the particulars that bring people to coaching or counseling, clients share a common concern about the imprint they leave on society - their family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, clients. This collective consciousness about their personal effect on what extends beyond their immediate reach impresses me.  So much...

Heather Edwards Psychotherapist and Coach

5 Tips to Reclaim Your Life.

Is ego, fear, or someone else’s vision keeping you stuck? You are the expert, master, and keeper of your life. What are your guiding philosophies?  Are you functioning from a place of blame, entitlement, lack, fear, and greed? Or from a position of responsibility, abundance, wealth, courage, and charity? And I’m not talking about money - but rather about strength, purpose and meaning. Maybe your mind is scattered and unfocused, or it seems too late to change course now. Maybe you forgot to ask questions and push back a little along the way. Perhaps what you want seems unobtainable. Maybe you’ve never been a lucky person, or there’s too much burdening you to see the possibilities. Our perspective is much like a camera lens. Sometimes we need to stop to adjust...

4 Steps to Bump Up Your Life

Why is it so difficult, and so important, to know the difference between thoughts and feelings? Sometimes thoughts happen so fast that they go unnoticed.   Instead, what we experience is a pit in the stomach, a racing heart and mind, or a sense of hopelessness that things will get better. It’s true that negative emotions seem instantaneous. They're automatic and natural consequences of events, right? Wrong!  That’s just not the case!   Although they can wash over us like a tidal wave, leaving us helplessly drowning in sorrow, fear, or numbness - there is a choice you can make between stressful events and negative feelings. Except for those real life fight or flight situations, where your safety or life is in actual danger, or in some post traumatic stress...

Heather Edwards Psychotherapist and Coach

Kung Fu Your Energy – Get Healthy with Open Awareness

As a kid, my sleeping imagination had no limits. My dreams were vibrant, colorful, moving, exciting, emotional, and physical. There were monsters, heroes, allies, and adventures. I could see, taste, touch, smell, and feel the twists and turns of events.  My unconscious mind was free to wander, explore, create, and fantasize. The governor, censor, parental control, and filter of any sort was non-existent as far as I could tell.  In the morning, the sensations from the intensity of my dreams lingered for a moment, leaving me wondering about the truth of their reality. Sometimes they scared me.  Sometimes they filled me with joy. Regardless of the theme, their dynamic, flowing, saturated richness left a lasting impression. And then, KAPOW! Hello, reality. Time for school. That wild imagination was...