Articles Tagged with self-care

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Carolyn Woodruff

Dear Carolyn,

I am married for the second time. My first husband, who I divorced, was physically and verbally abusive. I got out. The problem is I am right back in a miserable, abusive relationship—although quite different. This second husband (and might I add my last husband) is quite controlling on most every aspect of my life. He controls all the money, and I am given an allowance as a child. I dated him for two years, and I did not pick up on this for some reason. What insight do you have that might help?

– Poor picker of husbands

Published on:

Carolyn Woodruff

In honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, today I’m posting an excerpt from Ask Carolyn 2 that addresses one survivor’s struggle with the secrecy of childhood sexual abuse and her search for closure.

Dear Carolyn,

I am now 32, and my sister is 35. We were both molested by our stepfather. Our mother “knew,” but for whatever reason selected to ignore this. My stepfather is now deceased, and he took his ugly secret to his grave.  This stepfather has other children, all older than my sister and me. I would like closure regarding this horrific secret. I am thinking I would like to confront my mother about allowing this to happen and expose the b…….d to his other children. What do I do?

Published on:

Carolyn Woodruff
Dear Carolyn,

I am a new Father, and I think the mother of our new baby is depressed. I am concerned. She seems exhausted and stressed. I am helping and her mother is helping, but there seems to be a problem.  What should I do?

– Stressed with New Baby

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Venn Crawford

New year, new you, right? At least, we want to think so, but oftentimes our resolutions end up getting abandoned because we tried to start doing too much at once. This is especially true for health-related resolutions. We want to get healthy and think we have to make the big changes all at once, but too much change is hard to stick to. Instead of making a complete health routine step 1, try easing yourself into a healthier lifestyle with some of these simple healthy habits.

Drink a Glass of Water Before Meals

Most of the time, we want to get healthy so that we look good. Your diet is a huge part of that. There’s tons of advice on what to eat or what not to eat or what new “superfood” you should put in every meal. Often though, how much we eat is the more important part.

Published on:

Venn Crawford

It’s almost a new year – the days are already getting longer, sunlight stretching out a little further every evening. You can feel a fresh sort of energy in the air. And, like many, that energy might inspire you to think about how you’ll change this year, how you’ll make efforts to be a new, better, you. You might even make a New Year’s resolution.

But, in two weeks, or a month (or for some of us the third day of January), most of us will give up on our New Year’s resolution. That inspiring energy fades, and life gets in the way. We just can’t make our resolution stick.

The thing is, changing our habits is hard, and New Year’s doesn’t change that. But if you approach it right, you can make a change any time of the year.

Published on:

Venn Crawford

Every year we gather around a table with our family, friends, and a roasted turkey to celebrate. But what are we celebrating? We’ve all heard some version of a historically inaccurate story about pilgrims and Native Americans, but a lot of times we seem to miss out on the thanks part of Thanksgiving. We may go around the table and say what we’re thankful for, but do we really sit down and spend a moment sitting in gratitude?

For most of us, the answer is no. The day that’s set aside for “giving thanks” is usually overshadowed by turkey and family drama, and the rest of the year we have too little time and too much to do. So when do we make time for gratitude? We should be making time for it every day.

Gratitude Makes Us Happier

Published on:

Venn Crawford

Sometimes we feel like life has chewed us up and spit us out on the pavement. Perhaps your confidence was shattered by career problems, loss, or an abusive relationship. Maybe you’re just having a slew of bad luck and aren’t sure how to turn things around. Either way, you can build self-confidence by taking control of your life and exercising your ability to change it.

Make Small, Reachable Goals

Building self-confidence takes time, so don’t pressure yourself to feel like a rock star immediately. Yes, we want to change. We want our lives to be better, and we’ve listed out all the ways to do that. But if we try to change every bad habit at once, we won’t succeed. We’ll be proud for two days, then eventually it will feel like too much. The bigger the effort required, the easier it is for us to allow ourselves to “forget” to do it.

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