Over and over I’ve heard people remark that they were so ready for 2020 to be over. And with the start of the new year, we are all looking forward to a better 2021 - a new beginning, a path to recovery. At the same time, there just might be some things that we learned in 2020 and that are gifts. So, I am curious and reflecting on these questions over the next few weeks: What did I learn? What do I want to keep? In what ways was I...
Since early spring, many of us feel disconnected from our friends and family because we have been unable to spend time with them. And while it is important for us to practice social distancing, the price is high when it comes to the connection many of us crave. This challenge is made more difficult around the holidays when we are used to gathering with old friends and have opportunities to make new ones at holiday parties and outings. What Makes a Friendship? According to the author of We Should Get Together: The...
If summer is your favorite time of year and you dread the upcoming winter – you may want to stop reading here -- or you might want to read on for hope. Slowly, gradually, the sunny days of summer (despite the COVID-19 pandemic) are fading into the vicissitudes of autumn. Gradually, the shades of lime green, forest green, spring green and emerald green, fern and shamrock green in the canopy of leaves above are transforming. The leaves look increasingly yellow and golden in the sunlight, with splotches of red and orange. ...
Parenting school-aged children, circa 2020, has required parents to juggle (in new ways) their profession with their parenting responsibilities, and to strike the right balance between their kids’ happiness and their health. Now that virtual school has started across metro Atlanta, pandemic parents are encountering additional and entirely new challenges. In many ways, parenting during virtual school may feel like being lost at sea, with no Coast Guard in sight. Here are a few try at home strategies that may help pandemic parents navigate the unchartered waters we are all in...
My client said, “I’m bored and agitated. It isn’t a good combination because it makes me reckless.” His thoughtful insight rings true: The country’s foundation is defined by COVID-19 with recommendations for social and physical distancing, combined with little sense of a communal endgame (the political polarization and fragmentation is staggering). We are living in the presence of uncertainty. The psychological nature of uncertainty causes tremendous anxiety. Our survival brain is always updating the world, making judgments about what is safe and what it not. When we are uncertain about what...