We are standing on the threshold of a new school year and as educators and families grapple with how to start the fall semester, I want to encourage us to debrief this past season before moving on to the next.

With change being a constant we are living with daily, feelings of uncertainty and anxiety are at an all time high. What techniques can we use to regulate our emotions and help our bodies cope with the stress we are under?

As we move into an extended season of transition mid-COVID, we continue to face disappointment as plans are thwarted and hope is deferred. How are we dealing with disappointment? And how can we help our children learn from one of life’s greatest teachers?

As we struggle to see the end of these COVID days, we are needing to develop new skills and find ways to deal with life’s challenges. Read on to find my top ten tips for cultivating resilience.

Social support is shown to be the most powerful protection against becoming overwhelmed by stress or trauma. While we continue to practice social distancing, how can we be proactive in finding ways to feel connected?

Trauma is not the first word that comes to mind when we think about the COVID-pandemic. However, as we take a closer look at the collective stresses we are under as well as evidence of our fight, flight, and freeze behavior responses, we might reconsider.

What do a Monkey’s wedding, re-entry grief, and cross-cultural workers have do do with one another? Listen in to this interview to find out!

As a nation and throughout the world, we are witnessing the grief of a people whose cries can no longer be ignored. Grief is an experience common to all human beings and does not discriminate. What are some of the ways we could be responding?

We are all experiencing some re-entry distress. We’ve talked about the awkwardness of social interaction, the anxiety surrounding uncertain expectations, as well as some re-entry friction, but what about the sadness we might be feeling too?

It’s Memorial Day weekend in the US and with the sun shining and barbecues firing up across the country, it’s easy to imagine that we are back in a world without COVID. But as we begin to reintegrate into society with the pandemic still at large and uncertainty at an all time high, we can expect some re-entry friction. The question is, how will we respond?

As the 2019-2020 school year draws to a close, parents and children are faced with a long structureless summer. Camps have been cancelled, summer trips postponed, and many are wondering how to transition from this very different school year to an even more uncertain summer. Start by building a RAFT.

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.