Have you found yourself moving from relationship to relationship, struggling to settle down? Or perhaps you’ve had a few long-term relationships but feel like you’re picking the wrong partners? Maybe you’ve been in a long-term relationship and realized you haven’t been happy for years. If I asked you to rate your relationship satisfaction, would you score above a 6 or 7? There are many factors that can contribute to feeling like your relationships aren’t going well, but one significant factor that can address many smaller issues is the act of being present. Although it’s just one concept, it can be easier said than done.

Now that you're here, we'll dive into the unhealthy vs. healthy ways of coping and understand that there is a wide spectrum of ways to do it. One valuable tool in our coping arsenal is the creation of a coping skills list. This comprehensive list is designed to remind us how to avoid snowballing into an unhealthy direction so that over time, our brains can automatically cope in healthy ways.

I was looking through some papers I wrote in grad school over 20 years ago. I ran across a paper on Seasonal affective disorder, better known in the DSM- V-TR as Major depression with seasonal pattern or S.A.D. I must have picked that topic to study since I was from Massachusetts and like so many of us that moved to Phoenix, I never liked the winters there. Like so many therapists going through grad school, we often end up wondering if we fit into certain diagnosis when we are learning about them….