We are all on a spectrum of mental health and everyone will struggle at some point in their life. Let’s build a toolbox for living better.

Beyond Well With Sheila Hamilton

7 days ago

"We are feeling our thinking, not feeling the world around us.”

Anna Debenham is the founder of the Insight Alliance, an organization that works with men and women in prison and in the community sharing two simple, but profoundly life-changing ideas:

We have everything we need inside ourselves to lead a good life
Our experience of life is being created moment to moment from the insight out by our thoughts. Her groundbreaking work is reducing recidivism and providing hope to Oregon #inmates. #mental health #incarceration #mindfulness #InsightAlliance ... See MoreSee Less

E.18-Anna Debenham: You are Not Broken

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Anna is the founder of the Insight Alliance, an organization that works with men and women in prison and in the community sharing two simple, but profoundly life changing ideas: We have everything we

Beyond Well With Sheila Hamilton

7 days ago

After the Show Notes on Laurel Braitman from Dr. Jenna LeJeune.

If you know anything about me at all, you’ll know, Laurel Braitman had me a “non-human animals”! Her pioneering work about what we can learn from the emotional lives of non-human animals, including her New York Times bestselling book, Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves helped us see how we can learn a lot from our non-human animal counterparts.

In her most recent work, Laurel is doing something of a pivot, working with physicians and medical school students in Stanford’s Medicine and the Muse program where she helps them connect with the their own humanity through the power of writing. Connecting with humanity, both their own and the humanity of their patients, is something that is often drilled out of physicians in typical medical schools.

So, what do these two things, dogs with OCD and teaching physicians to write, have in common? The healing power of empathy, connection, and compassion!

I remember when I first started graduate school to become a psychologist. People kept talking how I needed to learn to “keep your distance” and “don’t become emotionally involved.” I tried that. And again, if you know anything about me, it probably won’t come as any surprise to you that I totally sucked at that! But then I realized, my power in being able to sit with suffering comes from my willingness to connect, not in my ability to keep my distance.
As Laurel says in her TED talk, “Mental health is a two-way street.” All social animals, whether then be dogs, cats, you, your therapist, or your physician, need to feel connected to at least one other critter. Regardless of the form of suffering, one consistent thing I see in my work with clients is that those who don’t have at least one other creature who they feel connected to, who they feel “gets” them are not doing well. That is most especially true when we are suffering. And yet, we (maybe especially “healers” like physicians and therapists) have been taught that we’re supposed to disconnect, see suffering as some externalized pathology that must be “cured” rather than seeing the fellow being who, like us suffers, loves, hopes, fears…
In my work with clients, I talk about two different routes to a sense of belonging and connection, the interpersonal and the intrapersonal route. Both are needed. We need others. But maybe you are feeling totally alone in your suffering. Maybe right now, you don’t have that one other critter who you feel “gets” you. Well, you do have one relationship you have right now in which you can develop more empathy and compassion. And it just so happens it is the relationship you spend the most time in-- your relationship with yourself! This is the intrapersonal route to connection, belonging, and empathy.
One simple exercise you can do to help foster some empathy and compassion for yourself is to do an exercise called the “Self-Compassionate Letter Writing”. The amazing folks at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center have a great outline for how to do this simple, yet very effective exercise that you can find here (ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/self_compassionate_letter). I would encourage you to give it a shot. Just think of all the things you’re willing to do for a friend or a loved one you really cared about? What if you were being that friend to yourself?
We could all use a little more empathy and compassion right now. Sometimes that starts with having empathy for others, like Laurel Braitman is working on. And sometimes that empathy and compassion starts with ourselves, like the folks at the Greater Good Science Center are working on. Either way, it’s a win-win for all animals, human and non-human alike!
Aft ... See MoreSee Less

Self-Compassionate Letter (Greater Good in Action)

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Stop beating yourself up for flaws and mistakes.

Beyond Well With Sheila Hamilton

2 weeks ago

Laurel Braitman teaches writing and communications skills to medical students and doctors at Stanford University, helping healthcare professionals connect more meaningfully with their patients, their peers, and themselves.

The NYTimes bestselling writer also studied what we can learn from the emotional lives of non-human animals. Her New York Times bestselling book, Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves helped us see how we can learn a lot from our non-human animal counterparts.

"In the long run, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much love and support I offered, what I learned is that sometimes we can't save the people and other animals that we love so deeply."

#mentalhealth #depression #anxiety #doctors #medicine #suicide #medicine #dogs #anis #mentalillness ... See MoreSee Less

Ep.17 - Laurel Braitman-Writing as a Path to Empathy

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For the last few years, Laurel Braitman, has been teaching writing and communications skills to medical students and doctors at Stanford University, helping healthcare professionals connect more meani