Julia W.
Julia W.
on
Last summer, one of my fellow You Matter bloggers wrote a great post on the benefits of journaling and how it helped him better understand his emotions (you can read that here). For me, too, journaling has been a wonderful way of expressing and identifying my emotions. I have found that it can help clear […]
Julia W.
on
Everyone tells us we are not alone, to reach out to our friends and spend time with trustworthy people when we are feeling depressed, anxious, you name it. But right now, we can’t be surrounded by our friends. We are in the middle of a pandemic and have to do our part in flattening the […]
Julia W.
on
I’m not alone. The first time I walked into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I felt like a weight had been lifted from my body. I hadn’t even realized how alone I had been feeling. But when I was finally surrounded by people who understood what it was like to live with or to love an […]
Julia W.
on
The holiday season is upon us. There are only seven days until Christmas, one of the most embraced holidays of our culture. It’s a season of joy and singing, of gift giving and baking, of community and merriment. And for many of us, it is also a time of stress and anxiety. Christmas can be challenging […]
Julia W.
on
My siblings and I grew up in an emotionally abusive environment and continue to deal with the effects of that trauma. Part of my sister’s journey to health included an inpatient hospitalization last fall. Below is an interview during which she shares her story. Can you describe how you were feeling in the months leading […]
Julia W.
on
I just need to get out of here. They’re too many people, too much stimuli. But leaving would be awkward, and I can’t make my feet move. I feel my heart racing and my breathing get faster, shallower. I look around for a familiar face, someone to feel safe with, but I can’t find anyone. […]
Julia W.
on
“Sometimes when you’re depressed, the things you don’t want to do are the very things you need to do in order to feel better,” my therapist told me. Great, I thought, for just once could there be an easy answer? “As you start doing things, it gets easier,” she continued, “and you begin to have […]
Julia W.
on
Growing up, I had heard meditation discussed as some sort of new age nonsense. Subsequently, I had never given much thought to meditation or its possible benefits until my junior year of high school when I had the opportunity to listen to a talk given by a group of Tibetan monks. Seeing the monks in […]