Barn Life Blog
Weekly Theme: The Root Chakra
Weekly Theme: The Root Chakra - How to Heal & Align The Muladhara Welcome to the chakras series! For the next 7 weeks, the weekly themes will be all about the chakras with the root chakra coming first. In this article, we’ll explore the root chakra and uncover some...
Weekly Theme: What is Respect?
Weekly Theme: What is Respect? Growing up we learned that respect is saying please and thank you, making eye contact when shaking hands, or calling someone by their surname. While each of these is an example of practicing it, they only skim the surface. Looking at the...
Weekly Theme: Tai Chi
Tai Chi: Integration with the Flow Safe bets, based on successful old bets, are not bets. You are chasing. We want the fresh, fresh. We want what works now, not then. And how might we align ourselves with that pulse of the zeitgeist of now? Redundancies aside, that...
Weekly Theme: Relationships
Types of Relationships Everyone reading or listening to this can say they have been in a relationship. Some may argue “I’ve never had a partner before.” My response to them is have you ever had a friend? Maybe a neighbor? Parents or someone you viewed as a caregiver?...
Roar with Confidence in 2022, the Year of the Water Tiger
Roar with Confidence in 2022, the Year of the Water Tiger In addition to evidence-based practices like psychotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, Barn Life Recovery utilizes Eastern healing practices like yoga and tai chi that have been a cornerstone of mental...
Improvisation: Flexibility and Creativity for Mental Wellness
Improving Mental Wellness with Improvisation What is improvisation, anyway? Google a definition and you’ll get “the act of improvising” - helpful, isn’t it? Let’s try looking up “improvising” then: “producing or making (something) from whatever is available.” There...
Weekly Theme: the Hero’s Journey
Allies and Adversaries We are all heroes, though dormancy does settle in now and again. Waiting dreamily, many of us, for something to rouse us from our slumber so that we may fully awaken into our Hero’s Journey. That moment can be now. Adversaries will be easy to...
Weekly Theme: Returning to the Present
Sometimes you hear a pull to return Like a fish out of water hears the waves Or a falcon hears the wind “Come back, come back” And return to the life You are meant to live And remember There is no shame In uprooting yourself From the garden That shunts your bloom To...
Weekly Theme: Family and Accountability
The Value of Family Family – a word that can carry such pain and yearning yet also warmth and purpose. Barn Life practices the value of “family.” Our actions are guided by this value often. “Accept everyone!” is our beautiful marching tune. We want everyone who walks...
Weekly Theme: What is Self-Love?
Self-Love is a Basic Human Necessity What are basic human necessities? Some include food, water, air, and shelter. These things we quite literally cannot live without. What if we told you self-love was a basic human necessity? Shocking, right? What is shocking about...
Weekly Theme: Forgiveness and Resentment
Letting Go of Resentments, Pain, and Anger Forgiveness is not giving up nor is it admitting defeat. Forgiveness is about taking power back. Making a conscious decision to let go of resentments, pain, and anger. Some people are not ready to forgive and rightly so. What...
Weekly Theme: Inner Child Healing
A Guided Meditation Get comfortable and let’s try this guided meditation together: Take a deep breath in through your nose, hold it, then blow out through your mouth. Do that four more times. Next, I want you to think of a time when you were younger and you felt like...
Weekly Theme: Crisis is Choice
The Turning Point Within Have you ever been in a situation faced with an important challenge that felt insurmountable by your usual methods of coping and problem-solving? Into every life flows crisis. Every breath rides on the brink of upheaval. Every human beat of a...
Weekly Theme: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Can Happen to Anyone Continuing with the idea that we are not our diagnoses, we want to discuss post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) this week. PTSD has gone by many names: shell shock, soldier’s heart, combat fatigue, and war neurosis,...
Weekly Theme: Psychosis and Schizophrenia
What is Psychosis? Psychosis is sensory perceptions and abnormal thinking experienced by an individual struggling with a schizophrenia spectrum or other psychotic-based disorder. Reminder! We are not here to judge you or label you. We are here to help you manage these...
Weekly Theme: Depression and Negative Belief Systems
A New Way of Thinking For some, "depression" is a scary word that carries a connotation of weakness and shame. For others, it’s a warm blanket to withdraw into over and over again despite knowing the suffocating ramifications. We may be fearful of it, comfortable with...
Weekly Theme: Anxiety is a Teacher
Don’t Shoot the Messenger!! Extreme and constant emotional states (i.e. mania, anger, fear, sorrow, grief, and worry) lead to serious mental health disorders (i.e. anxiety, depression, PTSD, etc). Anxiety, for example, is a normal reaction to stress and certain life...
Weekly Theme: You Are Not Your Diagnosis
Navigating the Sea of Modern Mental Health Diagnosis Our themes from this week forward are going to be a general overview of mental health diagnosis. However, we want to do it in a systematic order week by week. We will start with the root and move outward towards the...