For Shame
Debbie Ward was 7 years old when she survived a kitchen fire that left scars on 70% of her body. At the age of 9, she asked her mother if...
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Barbara's Blog
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Golden Handcuffs, Sunken Costs, Devil You Know and Other Restraints
Clients often complain about feeling stuck - in a job, in their studies, in relationships or in their lives. And yet, no matter how...
Judging Books by Their Covers
While we may not want to admit it, we all do it. When we meet new people, we tend to size them up within a matter of minutes, even seconds.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
It's happened again. Despite our best-laid plans, and the greatest of intentions, we find ourselves scrambling to complete a task at the...
How to be an Ally
Lately, it feels harder to drown out the voices of the bullies and the haters. Intolerance for anyone who doesn’t believe, look, love,...
Safety First
Our need for safety is core to our survival. In order to keep ourselves safe, our nervous system alerts us to possible dangers. When we...
Disconnections/Reconnections
Johann Hari was 18 when he was first prescribed antidepressants for depression and anxiety. Initially, he felt better, but then he...
Stuck in a Moment (And Now We Can't Get Out Of It)
At first, we got creative, baked bread, banged pots on balconies and believed that life would soon return to ‘normal.’ But then, it didn’t.
Disengaged
According to Statistics Canada’s latest tally, there are 731,900 unfilled jobs across the country. While some have speculated that this...
First Do No Harm
In 1980, Dr. Vincent Felitti, head of Kaiser-Permanente’s Department of Preventative Medicine in San Diego started an obesity clinic.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
As we emerge from this long, protracted, global pandemic, many of us are expressing a strong desire to get back to ‘normal.’
People Learn What They Live
Predictions of a Baby Boom following a year of frequent lockdowns have not borne fruit. In fact, the rate of separation and divorce has...
The Best Laid Plans
There is an old saying that seems particularly apropos these days. Man Plans, God Laughs. Despite our best efforts to follow through on...
Self-Care & Self-Compassion During COVID-19
To say that 2020 has been a stressful year would be an understatement. A global pandemic, struggling economies, political and social...
The Future of Twentysomethings
When I first wrote about it six years ago, Toronto's youth unemployment rate was at 18.1%.
Take Chances, Make Mistakes and Get Messy!
We have all failed in our lives and will continue to have failures in the future, because we are not perfect.
Rejected/Dejected
It's never easy to be turned down. We build up hopes that someone that we like will like us too, but it turns out that...
You're Worth It!
While we may complain about people's sense of entitlement, in many ways, it is a healthy way of asserting ourselves.
Emotional Time Travelling
Some of us are stuck in an unresolved past, fretting and regretting about what we did and what we should have done instead.
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