Blogs For Your Personal Growth
Inspiration, Empowerment, Education, Tips, and More from Meredith Van Ness, LCSW.
Mastering Mindfulness: A Guide to Easy Practices for Stress Reduction and Inner Peace
Mindfulness is more than a buzzword; it's a powerful tool to reduce stress, lower blood pressure, alleviate chronic pain, improve sleep, and even address gastrointestinal difficulties.
Creating Positive Relationships
The constant demands of work and family can become so overwhelming that maintaining genuine relationships often feels like an additional burden.
Why Asking for Help Boosts Confidence and Reduces Stress
Why Asking for Help Reduces Stress and Makes You More Confident... Trying to do everything on your own can be incredibly stressful...
Why Knowing Your Values Makes Life Easier
We all have a general sense of what’s important to us but solidifying these values means living a more authentic life.
Navigating High-Functioning Anxiety: Finding Balance and Well-Being
High-functioning anxiety shows up for people in overdoing, overthinking, and overperforming. Recognizing that you suffer from high functioning anxiety is tricky because often times it feels productive or even beneficial. On the surface, you may come off as organized, high-achieving, proactive, and outgoing but you may be suffering in silence.
Why Setting Boundaries is Crucial for Reducing Anxiety and Boosting Confidence
Setting boundaries is critical for maintaining good mental health. When we don't set clear boundaries, we can become overwhelmed and stressed, leading to feelings of anxiety, low self-esteem, and burnout.
5 Ways to Maximize the Benefits of Therapy and Coaching
Are you already in therapy or considering this option as a way to improve your overall mental and emotional well-being? Here are 5 ways to make it even more productive.
Stress Management Made Easy: Unveiling Symptoms, Strategies, and Resilience-Building Techniques with Meredith Van Ness
Virtually everyone on this earth has experienced stress in one form or another. It is your body’s natural reaction to help you adjust to the changes and challenges of life. Whether these stressors include work, a big exam, or dealing with home life, some stress is normal. However, bad or chronic stress—the kind that negatively impacts our mental, physical, emotional health—occurs when stress persists over a long period of time. We become used to this type of stress as a part of our everyday lives and forget how to manage it.
How to Identify Stress and Anxiety. 10 Tips that will help relieve and manage them.
We’ve all experienced more stress than usual in the last couple of years. So now normal and everyday stresses may be putting you in a constant place of feeling out of control or overwhelmed. Although some stress is a natural part of life, we must learn to handle it in healthy ways so our stress does not always spiral into anxiety.
June Journal Prompts: Gratitude
I for one am so grateful to have gotten my kids through the school year! This was no easy task with homeschooling and working and running my business. In light of this success I wanted to take this month to spend some time reflecting on what we are grateful for.
May Journal Prompts: Personal Growth in Spring
I view the month of May as a time of revival and rebirth. The weather is starting to change, and it makes me feel hopeful for the future. It shows me that nothing lasts forever, so I have to keep working towards my goals.
Why You Can't Pour From An Empty Cup
You can’t pour from an empty cup and you can’t truly support and care for those around you if you’re not taking care of yourself first.
April Journal Prompts: Self Love
So, it’s my birthday month and I LOVE my birthday. I feel like birthdays are so great for really reflecting on your accomplishments for the past year.
The Downward Spiral of Automatic Thoughts
Even if you’re having a good day or you thought you succeeded at something, this voice is the first to remind you that you are not worthy. These negative, exaggerated thought patterns are called automatic thoughts or cognitive distortions and we all experience them from time to time.
Learn to Recognize the Symptoms of Stress
Virtually everyone on this earth has experienced stress in one form or another. It is your body’s natural reaction to help you adjust to the changes and challenges of life. Whether these stressors include work, a big exam, or dealing with home life, some stress is normal.
March Journal Prompts: Reflection and Self Growth
Journaling helps to offer insight into our daily lives when we are amidst the daily hustle and bustle and don’t always have time to reflect at the moment.
Using WOOP to Reach Your Goals
Although it may sound funny at first, WOOP is an acronym for Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan. Clever, right? Developed by Dr. Gabriele Oettingen—a professor and researcher who spent 20 years studying the science behind goal setting and positive thinking—this mental practice is an optimal way to help motivate us to attain our various life goals.
February Journal Prompts: Reflection and Creating Goals
There is no better time to return to our safe space of journaling than the beginning of the year.
January Journal Prompts: A Fresh Start
There is no better time to return to our safe space of journaling than the beginning of the year.
5 Ways to Cultivate Healthy Habits
Below are five healthy practices to pursue in the New Year, as well as a recap of some tools and practices that the Balanced+Well community encourages.