Stress Management with Psychological Flexibility Listen to podcast Steven C Hayes, Ph.D. wrote The Most Important Skill Set in Mental Health for Psychology Today and it highlights practical and applicable tools that can be incorporated into your stress management journey. As we go along on this path of stress management aka change management we can see themes forming around mindfulness and personal value awareness. The study highlighted in Hayes’ article analyzed over 54,000 cases to answer one question, “Why does psychotherapy work?” The findings may surprise you.  Pillar 1 Awareness Pillar 2 Openness Pillar 3 Valued Engagement The main revelation is a focus on psychological flexibility in which Hayes talks about three pillars that are actual skill sets that one can develop through focus and practice. Hayes states, “The most common pathway of change was your psychological flexibility and mindfulness skills.” He then proceeds to break down the three pillars: The full article is availab

Step Sisters Review Step Sisters is streaming on Netflix and I am not sure how I came about watching this. I actually have a hard time choosing what I am going to watch on any streaming platform. I end up spending more time going through the clips, adding them to my watch list, and moving on to the next clip than actually watching a movie. But today, I was cleaning and wanted something to play in the background so I decided to watch this one.  It is definitely background-worthy. I generally don’t do bad reviews. There’s enough good programming out there that I hope to avoid anything that would actually warrant a bad review. You all already know that I can find something to like in most movies but this one here! Whew lord! I do have a disclaimer though. I am a member of one of the Devine Nine greek organizations, and that may cause me to be a tad biased.  Step Sisters is about a potential Harvard Law student who finds herself on the verge of not being able to attend if she is not able t

Redirect Your Focus away from Lizzo Scroll down to listen to the podcast here Recently a comedian has been under fire for making hurtful comments toward the artist Lizzo about her weight. Aries Spears in an attempt to be funny mocks Lizzo about her weight and her looks. He also goes on to say that he can get away with being a big dude and women cannot. He then attempts to pivot in a spectacular show of hypocrisy that instead of supporting her expressions of confidence women should be pointing out potential health issues linked with obesity. Sir! What are you doing? I really wanted to take this opportunity to point out that we as a people, as a nation should be less focused on individuals and more on the industry that’s putting crappy overprocessed foods on the shelves. They are appealing to our need for convenience. They are using science and psychology to influence us to buy these crappy foods. And let's face it, who doesn’t love a good sweet or salty snack or fast food that we ca

  Forge Your Own Way: The Devil Wears Prada Scroll down to listen to podcast! There I was watching The Devil Wears Prade for the millionth time when it dawned on me that at the end of the movie, Andrea Sachs is at the beginning of her journey. The Devil Wears Prada is streaming on Prime and has memorable iconic Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly moments. Sometimes I watch and skip to my favorite parts which always include Miranda being Miranda. This movie came out in 2006 and is a classic for me, mainly due to Maryl Streep's portrayal. There’s also a little intrigue because Miranda is rumored to be loosely based on Vogue editor,  Anna Wintour.  The Devil Wears Prada follows Andrea Sachs and she steps into the fashion world by becoming assistant to Runway editor, Miranda Priestly. Miranda is shrewd, demanding, and downright mean which causes Andrea to bust her behind to live up to Miranda’s high expectations. As anyone can imagine, as Andrea assimilates into what she once thought was

Beast Movie Review Scroll down to listen to the podcast instead. The Beast was beaten in its opening box office weekend by Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, and I was surprised. Then again, I didn’t even realize the Dragon Ball Super was even released and because it is not my type of programming, I did not give it much thought. Nevertheless, Beast is a pretty good watch. It stars Idris Elba as Dr. Nate Samuels, a newly widowed father who takes his two daughters to his wife’s homeland in order to reconnect with them. Little does he know, he is walking into what appears to be the perfect storm of disasters. He just placed his girls in the middle of nowhere with a really angry lion on the loose, bent on revenge after losing his entire pride.  This movie was enjoyable in that it was a heart-pumping thrill. The beast, aka rouge lion, was out for blood and did not care who he got. If you were human, you were going down. The acting was solid. Let's talk about the beautiful melanated represen

We Deserve Better than what We Allow Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we realize that we deserve better than what we have been allowing ourselves to get. Let’s talk about my podcasting, for example, I realize the microphone and equipment that I purchased are crappy. This is my second go around at it too. The first one I purchased was a dud right off the start but I waited too long to address the issue so I am stuck with it- money lost. I decided to get another one that appeared easier to use; however, the sound quality on the new microphone sucks. I deserve better than sucky sound quality. You as my listeners deserve better than sucky sound quality.  So now I have to take some more steps that I really don’t have the time for nor do I want to. I have to plan out how I am going to address this. Do research into getting a better quality product that will provide sound quality that is up to my standards and take action to make it happen. It takes effort and action and motiva

Bullet Train You can read the post or click here to listen to the podcast or scroll all the way down. Bullet Train still holds the number one box office spot in its second week out in theaters. I had the opportunity to watch it this weekend and am pretty glad I did. It stars Brad Pitt as an assassin, Ladybug, who is just getting back to work after having some time off and currently going through therapy. His unlucky streak finds him in the middle of a very dangerous assignment. Ladybug just wants to get through this assignment peacefully and quickly but quickly learns that he signed up for more excitement than anticipated.  When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I was on the fence about wanting to watch it.  After watching a few more trailers and learning that Antoine Fuqua was one of the producers, I decided to give it a shot, and honestly, there was nothing else out that was compelling enough to watch instead. Surprisingly, I ended up really enjoying this film. Now if you are

The Revival of Self I write cinquain poems. Granted I have not written any in a while but they are one of my favorite styles of poetry to dabble in. A cinquain is a five-line poem with specific syllable requirements for each line similar to a haiku. Every now and then one will pop up on my blog with increased views. Most recently, one that I wrote titled Missing has increased views.  I don’t remember the exact circumstance at that particular time that caused me to write it, but I know what it stemmed from. It was a quick note to my late husband who I had traumatically lost nine years prior. Nine years later and I was still writing notes to him? Heck, 13 years later and I still write journal entries to or about him. Being a widow is funny like that.  The words of it struck and stuck with me though. Loss is one of the most difficult and stressful situations that we can go through. We can lose ourselves in the grief of loss. We have this ability to create an environment of loss and then