Tag: Dr. Amy Morin

Constructive wallowing after a serious diagnosis

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ❤️   Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky)

If you were a hippopotamus, wallowing would be comfort behaviour – “rolling about in mud or water to cool down or get relief from insect bites.”

But since you’re a human, wallowing is generally viewed by others as a negative response to coping with dark despair (like hearing a frightening new diagnosis with your name on it).  Aren’t we supposed to keep smiling and think positive and just get over it?  “NO!” advises Dr. Tina Gilbertson in her Psychology Today column called Three Good Reasons to Wallow in Despair: 
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Can “mental muscle” help us recuperate?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 1 Comment

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥    @HeartSisters

Dr. Amy Morin described her early career as a psychotherapist who“intended  to help others build mental strength”. She could never have imagined, however,  that she would soon need what she calls “mental muscle” to help herself. When Amy was just 23, her mother died of a brain aneurysm. Three years later, a heart attack killed Amy’s young husband, Lincoln – a tragedy that was followed by her father-in-law’s sudden death.

This is what she wrote about surviving the pain of those losses:

“I was a 26-year old widow with no Mom. Losing the most important people in my life sent me on a quest to learn how I could stay mentally strong.”  

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