The Wellness Diary

Insights, advice, new research, tips and tricks, and new resources to help you with your mental health journey.

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Toxic Positivity: It’s Okay To Not Be Okay

Toxic positivity refers to a pattern of behavior wherein a person adopts a lifestyle that engages in being positive at all points of time no matter what, because ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. It involves rejecting the negative triggers of your life, thus investing all your attention and energy into the positive stimulants. How come a lifestyle that sounds like a mental detox, be labeled as toxic?

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An Open Letter To My Fellow Women

Women have been pitted against one another for centuries. Whether it be for the attention of men, careers, looks, or even family life, women are no strangers to the fight. Moving forward, we have turned our fight from one another to the betterment of our own and to nurture the quality of our society.

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How To Silence Your Inner Critic

Your inner critic is the voice inside your head that judges, demeans, and disapproves of your thoughts and actions. This voice is a manifestation of your fears and doubts. In fact, The New York Times notes that people beat themselves up because of a negative value they've attached to past experiences. This self-criticism can easily lead to poor mental wellbeing, low self-esteem, and a greater risk of failure.

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Self-Compassion: the Antidote for Perfectionism?

why is it that we strive for perfection with our bodies, our social interactions, our performance at work, and in our relationships? We set impossible standards that only lead us to critically question our self-worth and engage in internal name-calling (i.e. “did I look smart enough?” “ugh, I am so lazy.”) This never-ending pursuit of flawlessness does not yield success, instead, it places us on a fast-track to emotional dissatisfaction and a relentless state of unhappiness.

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How To Use Self-Compassion As A Motivator

Before we go into how self-compassion can help motivate you to take positive action towards your life, let’s first learn about what self-compassion is.  What does it mean to treat ourselves with self-compassion?

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The Cost Of Having Gossipy Friends

Why might some friends be so quick to judge others? to judge you? It’s possible that they have developed a sort of critical reflex to process the world around them, after being conditioned to pass judgment on anything and everything that comes their way.

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8-Simple Tips for Getting Into a Healthy Sleep Routine This Month

Sleep is like a good mattress—you never realize how good it is until you don’t have it. Interrupted sleep can be extremely frustrating for both children and adults. Not only can it leave you grouchy and fatigued for your day, but it can affect children’s mental development and behavioral psyche.

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3-Easy and Calming Thought Exercises You Can Do Before Bed

Falling asleep becomes such a challenge when we feel like our thoughts are racing at night, or we struggle with managing anxiety.  There are ways to quiet our minds and calm our bodies before bed. Following these three calming thought exercises before bed can make all the difference in strengthening our ability to fall asleep, stay asleep and get some good, restful sleep.

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How To Create a Balanced Life in a Season of Chaos and Stress

You can’t wrap up all the loose ends at once, and you can’t expect everything to ever be perfect. Don’t set yourself up for failure and disappointment by setting unrealistic long-term goals on a short-term schedule. Instead, start with these five simple ways to steadily chip away at the disorder in your life.

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How To Stop People Pleasing And Improve Your Well-Being

Taking steps to challenge this natural reflex of apologizing can support reduced anxiety, guilt and shame. Apologizing is the act of acknowledging “faults or failures”; however chronic apologizers need to redefine their thoughts and understand that not all they are apologizing for are THEIR failures, instead they need to practice gratitude.

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Wide Wonder Podcast: Sandra Kushnir, LMFT Interviewed About U-NIFY LA!

U-Nify’s mission is to offer affordable workshops led by therapists, life coaches, spiritual leaders, and wellness experts. We believe mental health should be part of your everyday wellness routine, just like going to the gym, yoga or attending a meditation. Check out this interview with our founder, Sandra Kushnir, LMFT.

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Helping Others: Aftercare Recovery

Anyone who has someone in their life struggling with addiction recovery may wonder what role they can play in their loved one’s recovery. One way family and friends can support a recovering addict in an impactful way is by helping them to get their lives back on track after their recovery.

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The Game Of Love: What's There To Learn?

Romantic partners tend the be some of the most powerful teachers and bring us important lessons that need to be learned in our human experience. There really is no energy stronger than the energy of romantic love….

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Navigating the Depths of Connection: Friendship and the Quest for Your Tribe

Friendship. Some of the most significant relationships in life are our friendships, friends are soul mates who come into our lives to be mirrors that wake us up and help us grow into our full potential.  Friends are the family that we get to choose and they become part of our tribe. Humans are wired to have connection and our friendships are vital to our mental and emotional health. 

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