As graduates prepare to transition to their next stage of life, many are still dealing with disappointment and lack of closure. Graduating mid-COVID looks very different to the rite of passage we have come to expect. How can we comfort, support, and encourage them?

May is Mental Health Awareness month in the US. As we continue with stay-at-home orders, it is more important than ever to be taking care of our mental health and reaching out to others who may need our support.

As we grapple with the uncertainty of mixed messages and relaxed restrictions, anxiety seems to be on the rise. How can we identify unhelpful thoughts and choose to respond in healthy ways?

When we find ourselves navigating something we have no previous knowledge of doing, it can be like learning a new skill. It’s all about finding balance as we face our fears with courage.

It is hard to begin a practice of writing to heal without a starting point. Here is a list of journal prompts, questions to ask yourself, and even different styles to try as you process your COVID experience.

Our minds are designed to try to understand things that happen to us. When we experience a traumatic event, a significant loss, or a major life transition like we are in this COVID season, our minds have to work overtime to try to process all that has happened. Writing can help us heal.

Change can feel like a kind of suffering and could be likened to a refiner’s fire where the heat has been turned up, our idols exposed, our heart flaws uncovered, and an opportunity revealed to choose how we respond.

The practice of lament allows us to actively enter into our grief in the presence of God, allowing him to love us in our loss and comfort us. Lean into it and learn how to write your own lament.

In our modern world we have lost our appreciation of the gap. We have forgotten that in the empty place lies the time for reflection and refinement. Instead, we find ways to replace it, fill it, or bypass it - until now, when we are forced to face it.

Carolyn is interviewed by Pastor Jady Griffin of Antioch Austin. There is chaos in the middle of transition and here are some tips to walk ourselves and others through it.

This week we unpack grief in the middle of transition: the symptoms, stages, and types of grief we may be experiencing. How can we help ourselves, let alone those around us who are grieving too? Link to podcast in text.

Let’s be real. Self-care feels selfish. How can we be taking care of our own needs when we see so much need around us? Let’s start a new practice where each Sunday we reevaluate our self-care routines and practices to boost our resilience and extend our ability to keep showing up for ourselves and others.

Navigating a world that is profoundly and irrevocably different is challenging. By understanding the aspects associated with endings, we can validate our feelings, and remind ourselves it’s okay to grieve. Find comfort in closure, celebration, and contentment.

It’s unfathomable that this virus has made the world stop in its tracks and rethink life completely. Change is the one thing that is constant in our lives - sometimes we choose it and sometimes it happens to us.

From home-body to global nomad, this is the story of the journey I’ve been on to get me where I am today.

Hand in Hand is a song for children, by children, to say that we see you, we feel with you, and whilst we cannot change your situation, we can sit with you in it offering comfort and hope.

I learn a lot from Farhia. Like I should always be ready to learn from anyone at any time and also putting the kettle on any time I have someone over, because it’s not the tea itself, but the mere act of offering it that breaks all barriers.

I see two opportunities: create the stories to add to the volumes in your library, but perhaps more importantly, ask those you love to tell you their stories while the pages can still be turned.

Learn to accept ambiguity. The ability to hold two seemingly opposite truths in either hand, believing that the presence of one does not discount the other.