About once a week I hear the same question from a reader, “What keeps you going?” The short answer is lots of things. I use a variety of tools to persevere through my struggle with depression because what works on one day doesn’t the next. I have to break some hours into 15-minute intervals and...

Shortly after the death of Robin Williams I wrote a post called What I Wish People Knew About Depression. It was a small effort to chip away at the stigma associated with depression and to raise awareness of the complexities inherent to mood disorders. I have expounded on those statements here and rearranged them to read...

I sprouted early as a kid. In the fourth grade, I towered over many of my classmates, and especially over my two best friends. Lining up for school processions, they gathered at the beginning of the line, while I was the second or third person from the last. I recall one Saturday afternoon coming back...

I am big on gratitude. Let me say that upfront. Study after study on gratitude shows how simple exercises of appreciation build emotional resilience, improve our relationships, and promote our well-being. Gratitude researchers like Martin Seligman, PhD, director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; Robert Emmons, PhD, director of the Emmons Lab on gratitude research at the University of California in Davis;...

In her book, Self-Compassion, Kristin Neff, Ph.D. offers a beautiful mantra she developed to help her deal with negative emotions, a reminder to treat herself with self-compassion when discomfort arises: “This is a moment of suffering. Suffering is part of life. May I be kind to myself in this moment. May I give myself the...