Wellness Wave Wisdom

  By Peer Educator Savannah Merrell Hi! My names Savannah Merrell. I’m a Peer Educator and psychology major here at MiraCosta College. I’m also a mom to two toddler boys and a military wife. In my free time I enjoy practicing self care by meditating, going to the beach, reading, and hiking.   Feeling Stressed? Anxious? Overwhelmed? Being a college student can sometimes leave us feeling all these things. Through full-time course loads, studying for exams, and all the other challenges outside of our college life, we may experience these feelings at least once throughout the semester.  What can I do about it you ask?  Well, I’m here to offer some useful tips to combat these tough feelings. I’d like to explore the benefits of deep breathing, meditation, and yoga. These three coping skills are not only beneficial for stress and anxiety, but also relaxing practices you can use in your everyday life.  Let’s talk about deep breathing.  Deep breathing can be practiced in many different ways. Th

Written by: James Olmos (Mental Health Therapist Trainee) Affirmations are gifts filled with love. These gifts carry a lot of weight and can lift up a person's mental state of mind. The power of affirmations can lift up an individual in many ways. Examples may include complimenting them for their presence, wisdom, gratitude, or personal strengths.  One of the most significant affirmations I received was someone simply saying, "You showed up." As someone who battles depression and anxiety, I know the overwhelming urge to expect the worst. Folx dealing with depression and anxiety frequently have to convince themselves to carry all the internal battles they are fighting and still show up. Showing up can be challenging for many people who have been hurt and acknowledging that can be therapeutic. It can be as simple as complimenting a person for their outward appearance or simply thanking them for being there. Validation in an affirming scenario is important because sometimes

Jaya Roy, M.A., M.S.W., A.S.W.   Stigma on substance use Because of the immense stigma towards people struggling with substance abuse, it’s challenging to even ask the question if your relationship with a substance is healthy, unhealthy, or how it impacts your life. That shame and guilt can be so large it can prevent a person from asking these questions in the first place. Narrative Therapy is an approach that holds how we understand and make meaning of our lives is created by interactions with other people, culture, history, and more. By bringing attention to the construction of our understanding and meaning of our lives it offers us opportunity to reconstruct our own stories. It is an approach that is flexible, non-judge mental, and curious. In fact, one of the common sayings amongst Narrative therapist is that the “the problem is the problem, the person is not the problem” (Winslade, et al. 1997). This idea allows us to separate our sense of self from the problems we are experiencin