All posts by sherrietoews

Make Friends With Your Fear: How That Scaredy-Cat In Your Head Can Be Your Happy BFF

We are so afraid of the unknown – pregnancy (or the child birth part), skydiving, driving narrow and winding roads, big promotions, and first days at school, (go ahead and insert your particular fear here). It’s the newness that makes it all feel daunting. It’s the what-if-I-fail, the what-if-this-all-goes-horribly-wrong of it all that gets our […]

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The Sad Road to Happy: How Opening Pandora’s Box Can Be a Happy Gift

Ever notice just how much our culture lauds happiness as a virtue? Shiny smiling appearances, personable extroverts – they seem to get the personal and professional rewards. But what if you’re not Little Miss Sunshine? And is that happiness even real? A recent UC Berkely study says it’s not! This study looked at the connection […]

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If You’re Happy and You Know It Go Get Mad: How Anger Leads to Lasting Happiness

Happiness is The Goal, these days more than ever. Joy, Gratitude, Peace, Happiness… the buzzwords are everywhere. There are funny blogs about them, hilariously crass meditation parodies (warning: not for the easily offended), tongue-in-cheek memes. But it’s not just buzz and parody… there’s actually something to it. We’re wired to feel. Feelings are at the […]

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Birds of a Feather: Creating Happy Connections

Turns out, Barbara Streisand had it right. Well, almost: People. People who need people…are the HAPPIEST people in the world. Lucky, too, it’s true – because the friendships we build offer a sense of belonging, increase our self worth, and give us a feeling of security. In short, they hold us up when we need […]

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Social Support and Health

It’s no secret that a strong, supportive social circle – even a small one – benefits your mental and physical health. The feel-good chemicals that get released in our brains (oxytocin and dopamine) help to decrease depression, anxiety, and worry. Even better, close, caring relationships increase our self-worth. Amazing what a little community can do […]

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From Oops to Awesome: How Mistakes Can Make or Break You

The sweetest victory is the one that’s most difficult. That goal or dream that requires you to reach down deep, to fight with everything you’ve got. And in that moment of reaching you don’t know if your best will be enough. It’s not the failures that are in the history books, the novels, the adventure […]

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Perseverance: The Grit Behind the Glory

Raise your hand if you set goals… Raise your hand if you expect those goals to become reality… Now, keep your hand up only if you believe that the road from here to there will be a smooth journey, free of potholes and detours… There aren’t many success stories that go like that. Not relationships, […]

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Building Your Optimism Muscles: 5 Ways to See the Glass Half-Full

There are people in our everyday lives who must have invisible super-hero capes. You know the people who, despite tough breaks or bad luck, face the world again and again with optimism – a belief that good things will happen to them. Some of them do this facing adversity thick enough that we wonder, “How […]

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