Posts in Mental Wellness
10 Low-Cost (Or Free!) Ways to Celebrate Mom
10 Low-Cost (Or Free!) Ways to Celebrate Mom

Year after year, I find myself on the greeting card aisle at my local supermarket, gazing at the stands of cliche cards that just aren’t personal. I don’t know about you, but something feels different after the past year. I want to put more effort in this year because that’s the kind of thing that makes life enjoyable, and nothing is for certain. So if you’re like me, instead of finding yourself at the supermarket the night before Mother’s Day, check out our list of low-cost (and even some that are free!) ideas to make mom feel special this year.

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Healthy Living, Self-care, Mental WellnessGuest Usermothers day, creativity, free, family, activitiesComment
Dropped your New Year's Resolutions? Don't worry, here's what to do now
Dropped your New Year's Resolutions? Don't worry, here's what to do now

You can diligently plan your resolutions and goals in nitty-gritty detail, but eventually we all slip up. When talking about setting goals, there is often little focus on what I call the “emergency plan.” It’s all about how to achieve your goal-- but what happens when you stray so far off course that you’ve lost sight of your goal? What happens when you eat a whole pizza?

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Mental Wellness, Healthy LivingGuest Userwellness, mental health, goal setting, resilienceComment
Setting Goals for Real Change
Setting Goals for Real Change

Once you’ve established why you want to set this goal, how you create and go about achieving it is just as important. Remember, if you don’t build the right foundation for your goal, it will stand on shaky ground. One reason why many New Year’s Resolutions fail is that they are too vague. How do you know when you have reached your goal when your resolution is to “be in the best shape of your life?

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Mental Wellness, Healthy Living, Self-careGuest UserWellness, well-being, goal setting, Mindfulness, mental health, personal growthComment
Farewell to 2020
Farewell to 2020

This year has been, for lack of better words, a trash fire. 2020 has left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth, even if not directly impacted by this year’s challenges. And with those challenges have come painful, beautiful opportunities to learn and grow. As we ring in a new year, it’s important to recognize the struggle as well as the triumphs of the past in order to bring about positive, hopeful change for 2021.

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Self-care, Mental Wellness, Healthy LivingGuest Usermental health, gratitude, grieving, personal growth, selfcareComment
3 Rainy Day Self-Care Activities for Oregon Winter
3 Rainy Day Self-Care Activities for Oregon Winter

Some of my favorite ways to fill a rainy day is to feed all parts of myself— Mind, Body, and Spirit. This approach to self-care focuses on each part to achieve a well-balanced life. You don’t need to set a whole hour aside for each portion— 5 to 10 minutes each is enough. Here is my recommended agenda for a holistic self-care day.

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Healthy Living, Mental Wellness, Self-careLily Lunnemannselfcare, rainy day, spa day, skincare, bath, mental healthComment
Discovering Your Personal Core Values

Once we have a set of core values, they can become an invaluable rudder to steer us in the direction that feels most authentic to us. When you’ve done the homework of discovering the core principles which are most essential to how you live and operate, you can lean into those values when things are feeling unclear or confusing. I know often times I’m not quite sure why I’m feeling off. I’ll feel as if I’m having a day that just isn’t the greatest, but I just. can’t. quite understand why. It’s almost a pit-of-your-stomach feeling that something is off kilter. This can be an opportunity to check in with your values to see if there are things you may have overlooked where you are operating out of alignment with your values.

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Self-care, Mental WellnessSean VierraTHE PEARL DAY SPAmental health, goal setting, goals, core values, values, ethics, moralsComment
Resilience in the Face of a Hectic World
Resilience in the Face of a Hectic World

You may have heard discussions about resilience as of late. Resilience, or more specifically psychological resilience, is defined as “the ability to mentally or emotionally cope with a crisis or to return to pre-crisis status quickly.” In other words, resilience is your ability to experience the knocks of life without being down for too long. While there are a lot of contributing factors that determine resilience, like mental health and genetics, there are skills that can be learned and improved upon to help yourself through tough times. This might be why, since March, some of us have been feeling like an emotional wreck, while others are outwardly happier than ever. Let’s take a look at the basic tools you can use to build resilience through these uncertain times.

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Mental Wellness, Healthy LivingPearl Daysparesilience, mental health, Wellness, communityComment
6 Ways Gardening Is Your Mental Health Ally
6 Ways Gardening Is Your Mental Health Ally

Let’s just start from a place of honesty… whether you think you’re faring well in the Rona times or not, we are all off center in some way or another right now. Many of the things we considered normal and perhaps took for granted have either been eliminated, replaced, or at least modified in this new world. Finding things that give us a sense of being grounded, centered, or simply feeling “normal” can go a long way toward health, whether that be mental, spiritual, emotional, or physical.

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Mental Wellness, Healthy LivingSean Vierragardening, garden, health, mental healthComment
Express Your Love in the Way They Want to Receive It--The Love Languages
Express Your Love in the Way They Want to Receive It--The Love Languages

When we attempt to show care to those around us, we tend to show it in the ways we prefer to receive love and affection, but not everyone’s language of love is the same.

Do you know your love language? Just as importantly, do you know the love languages of those around you? Keep reading for a few tips on how to show you care.

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Self-care, Mental WellnessSean Vierraself love, love language, valentines day, relationshipsComment
Clearing the Clutter-The Psychology of Place Inside & Out
Clearing the Clutter-The Psychology of Place Inside & Out

What’s cluttering your life? Is it the stuff in the corner of the bedroom, or the stuff in the corner of your mind? What are you tolerating that keeps you from expressing your true self? Authors Bruce and Lou Stewart say that clutter–both in our environment and our mind–is stagnating, blocking the free-flow of energy, or chi, in our homes and lives. Whether we’re detouring around a box in the living room or repeating a negative pattern in our head, it’s time to clear the path.

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Mental WellnessSean Vierrahealth, mental health, Wellness, MindfulnessComment
The Importance of a Pause
The Importance of a Pause

Taking a moment to press the pause button allows you to process. Think of the last book you read, or the last crazy thing you watched on Netflix. You most likely set the book aside at some point, or pressed pause to catch up. In these instances, we allow ourselves the space and time to collect our thoughts, emotions, take a bathroom break, and then continue. So, why then, do we not use this throughout our daily schedules?

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Healthy Living, Mental Wellness, Self-careGuest Usermental health, spa, selfcareComment
Stressed Out? Try "Forest Bathing"
Stressed Out? Try "Forest Bathing"

Here in Eugene, I feel so fortunate to live somewhere with such abundant greenspace. Just being able to sit by the Willamette and soak in the sights and sounds of nature is a little magical. And as the weather slowly warms up and the sun peeks through the clouds, spending time outside in Oregon becomes even more enjoyable. Even my “indoorsy” self has something to enjoy outside here: the Japanese concept of Shinrin-Yoku, or “forest bathing.”

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Mental Wellness, Healthy LivingGuest UserWellness, Mindfulness, mental health, Forest BathingComment