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balance, Anxiety, Encouraging, Stress
Gretchen Flores
COVID-19 Are You in Your Emotional Window of ...

Life has thrown us all some unexpected turns recently with the rise of COVID-19. The question to ask yourself is how do you stay within your emotional window of tolerance? When you are in your window of tolerance you feel secure or safe. You feel that you can handle your emotions as they surface, and you can find your sense of direction. Your responses are congruent with the situation at hand and you feel open, curious, and present. Feelings of empathy remain intact and you are able to maintain healthy boundaries. However, a stressful event can lead to movement out of your window of tolerance.

COVID-19 Are You in Your Emotional Window of Tolerance?
Nutrition, Health
Gretchen Flores
How to Stay Healthy During Flu and Virus Season

Some years ago I noticed a higher number of cancellations due to the flu than other seasons. This year the Corona Virus is putting fear in many hearts. People are stockpiling toilet paper and essentials to have around the house and some offices are preparing to have their employees work from home. Vacation plans are being canceled as fear rises like the tide. Around 7 years ago I started on a quest for natural health

How to Stay Healthy During Flu and Virus Season
Parenting, Stress
Gretchen Flores
Guest Article: Physical and Financial ...

Once you’ve experienced the shock and euphoria that accompanies the news that you’re having a baby, your thoughts move on to the physical and financial preparations that need to be made. There’s a nursery to be assembled as well as equipment and supplies to be acquired so you’re ready to go when the big day arrives.

For parents who find they’re expecting a child with a physical or mental disability, the shock they experience is of a slightly different nature.

Guest Article: Physical and Financial Preparations for a Disabled Child
Gretchen Flores
The Holiday's Stink!

Tis the season for intensified feelings of grief, despair, and loneliness. The feelings of sadness of the loss of a loved one increases exponentially during the holidays. The memories of past holidays together can flood the mind and intensify the feelings of loss. When our lives aren’t perfect and we look around at everyone else’s seemingly perfect lives, despair sets in with feelings of inadequacy. The feelings can spin around in our minds like a tossed salad with too much dressing, “They have an intact family, they have money to go skiing, they don’t have financial problems, their kids have good grades…

The Holiday's Stink!
Encouraging
Gretchen Flores
Patience

I have learned that it takes around 3 years for a bamboo plant to be fully established once it is planted. It will have long periods in which the plant doesn’t appear to be making any growth progress.  It is during this time that growth is occurring underground within the root system.  The roots are actively growing and pushing water up to the plant above ground.

Patience

Grief

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How to Process Grief After Loss

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How to Process Grief After Loss

thought about writing on the topic of grief this afternoon before I learned the news of the most recent school shooting.   Hearing of the news of the shooting in Florida today reminds us that so many people are grieving every day.  It's horrifying to hear of such news, and the tragedy reminds us that each day we live is a sweet blessing.  Our hearts break for those affected by the senseless violence.  Some of us grieve sudden and unexpected losses, similar to the one in the news today in Florida, and others grieve over time as loved ones suffer from a terminal illness or fragility from old age.  

Identifiable stages of grief include; denial, anger, deep sadness or depression, bargaining, and acceptance. 

by Gretchen Flores
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Processing the Pain When a Friend Leaves

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Processing the Pain When a Friend Leaves

Her phone calls seemed to get farther and farther apart.  She seemed distant and aloof and I started to wonder what was going on.  I considered her to be my closest friend.  We roomed together for years in a spacious, sunny apartment.  We had been through a lot together and had supported each other through hard times.  We also laughed a lot, and had code sentences that only we knew what they meant; private jokes built over years of closeness.  I wondered why she wouldn’t get back to me. 

by Gretchen Flores
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Why Women Stay

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Why do women stay in less than satisfactory relationships?

It’s an age old question, why?  Why on earth would a woman stay in a relationship with someone who is mean, controlling, manipulative or straight out abusive?   There might be as many reasons as there are women (and yes, men can be in bad relationships too).

Possibly;

  • She has low self-esteem. 
  • She doesn’t value herself or see that she can do better. 
  • She has an unhealthy attraction to the wrong kind of guy.
  • She is desensitized to the poor treatment from being in it so long. 

by Gretchen Flores
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Trauma at the Dark Knight Theatre Premier

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Trauma at the Dark Knight Theatre Premier

In light of the movie theater shooting I thought I would write about PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  Initially we have our response to the deaths and visible injuries of the people who went to the opening night of The Dark Knight Rises.  I have been brought to tears several times thinking about what the victims went through and what their families are going through now.  It is just heartbreaking and so difficult to grasp why this would happen.  

Then there are the invisible wounds.  The wounds that are under the surface.  The scars that trauma leaves behind and that alter the lives of the people who were there.  Many people may have an acute stress reaction that will last only a few weeks or months.  Others may develop PTSD symptoms.  

I, myself, have PTSD.  I wish I didn’t, but I do.  I could describe to you several of my various traumatic experiences.  I have had, at least, a handful.  I could describe each one but then this blog post would be way too long.  Let’s see, I’ll choose the time I was held up at gun point. 

It’s an interesting story but I am not writing to talk about myself but to talk about how PTSD can affect you for a lifetime.  Those who were at the theater in Aurora, and survived, are forever changed.  They are deeply affected by trauma and it will be something that doesn’t just go away, but it may be something that they can learn to live with.  

For me it started on

by Gretchen Flores

What is this feeling?

Sometimes life is hard, discouraging, even sad.  Grief is an important process we go through in life.  Often we may be in a grieving process and not even realize it because we equate it with a death.  No one has to die for you to be going through grief.  Sometimes we lose a dream, a hope, or a relationship begins to fail.  Suddenly a direction in our life takes a turn and we feel a range of strong emotions that we cannot place.  Often we might hold onto something that we know we need to let go of and don’t even realize we cannot let go because we are avoiding the strong emotions of grief.  

The 5 classic stages of grief are:

1.  Denial- This isn’t really happening.

2.  Bargaining- If only...  or Why did God let this happen?

3.  Anger- This shouldn’t have happened, it is somebody’s fault.

4.  Sadness- Weeping and feeling the pain of loss

5.  Acceptance-  Coming to terms with the pain of loss.

Going through these stages does not need to be sequential and there is no specific time limit for each stage.  However, if you do not allow yourself to

by Gretchen Flores