Defending The Line, Achieving My Goal
As Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, “Self-trust is the first secret of success.”
Yet many of us are missing this.
Mental Health
A Matrilineage Of Wise, Magical And Creative Women
Mother’s Day is an important time to recognize our mothers and everything they do for us in our families, communities and society.
Ripping Out Life’s ‘Nasal Hair’
Whenever I’m asked, “What exactly does a weekly men’s circle bring you?” and “What has changed?” I pluck my nasal hair…
Making Your Mental Health A Priority
Many of us feel isolated, bombarded and overwhelmed by news of the horrors happening around the world (today)…
What In The World Are Executive Functions?
What are Executive Functions and how do they affect people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)?
Dog Gone Long Time
How a traditional walk helps make sense of life. Learning about stamina and resilience between Colville Lake and Fort Good Hope
The Simplest, the Smallest and the Most Profound
I was heading to the land for a night, to stay in a small cabin near Atlin. It would be me and the three dogs.
Welcome to my ADHD Brain
We hear ADD (or ADHD) tossed around, all the time. What does it really mean? When I forget where I put my keys, does it mean I have ADHD?
Talismans: Attracting a way through difficulties
A talisman is a physical object that holds specific meaning and intention. Talismans remind us events are cyclical and the magic remains.
Ruth Lera: Energy Healer, Meditation Teacher and Writer
I spent a night trying to decide. By the next morning, I decided teaching meditation and energy healing was the right fit for me.
Memories of the Yukon’s only psychiatrist: Still a Yukoner in his heart
From 1995 to 2001 Dr. Jaime Smith was the territory’s only psychiatrist. Jim Robb devotes page 38 in The Colourful 5% V:III to this Yukoner.
Through a Dark Wood
Jenifer Davidson, Yukon artist, has been creating art for as long as she can remember. More than a hobby, It’s benefitted her mental health.
Feeling anxious?
Anxiety can’t be avoided completely, but with the right tools and the right aids, no one needs to live a life destroyed by it.
Seeing your own brain
We rely on our brains, but how much do we know about them and their inner workings? Seeing your own brain when a doctor illuminates an X-ray is not an experience one may ever forget, especially if the doctor points to it.
Dementia and getting past the stigma, Part 2
There are 2 approaches to improving the quality of life of individuals with dementia. Dementia friendly communities & community engagement..
Dementia and getting past the stigma, Part 1
Dr. Andrew Kaegi lives in Whitehorse and he has dementia. Talking with Andrew and his wife, Susan Rae, it became clear that the impact of dementia on a person, as well as how each person initially reacts to the news, can vary greatly from one individual to the next.
Self-care as a daily practice
Living in today’s world can mean being bombarded by awful news about sexualized assault, microaggressions and violence in many forms. All this negative news can be frustrating, overwhelming and downright exhausting. If you’re starting to feel burnt out, you are not alone. This year, the annual Sexualized Assault Prevention Month campaign is spotlighting the need for …
Categories of Violence
Use of power by which an individual in a position of force aims to control another person. There are three categories of violence.
Murder and romance in small-town Alaska
With over 225 novels to her credit, Nora Roberts is a bestseller by any definition. Wikipedia says the books are all romance novels, so I’m not sure if that number includes the 47 mysteries in the In Death series. These sit on the light end of being science fiction and are clearly police procedurals, though …
Growing beats in the Yukon
What do you like about beats? I like that our heart is one. Also, they seem to grow well in the Yukon. Daniel Mackenzie started Free the Beat Foundation with a mission to “encourage people to express themselves through the art of rhyming, singing, beatboxing, freestyling, playing musical instruments, producing, recording [and] scoring, on a …
Helping the youth to heal
Motivational speaker Mike Scott of the Sturgeon Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan has a created the “Sober is Sexi” social media campaign and will present a talk called “Finding the Warrior Within” The Yukon Aboriginal Women’s Council (YAWC) will host the Gathering of Youth-Family members of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Kick Off …
Jack ‘n Sack
This is part four of a four-part series. In part three, the writer had been invited to caddy for Jack Nicklaus for the second time in his life, via their mutual friend, Vancouver entrepreneur Caleb Chan.
The power of art
Looking at recorded history, humans have been using dances and music as well as storytelling and visual arts as healing rituals. Art and health are a well known pair; a healthy mind in a healthy body.
They’re here to help
If something isn’t working, try differently, not harder. Art therapist Zoë Armstrong lives by these words, but last fall, she embodied this expression even further: she decided she needed a change from the local counselling agency where she had been working for five years. It wasn’t that Armstrong wasn’t connecting with, and forming meaningful relationships …
Stay for the Conversation
“Prepare to be moved, disturbed, engaged. Come for the film. Stay for the conversation,” says Canadian author and media critic Geoff Pevere. Pevere is director of programs for Rendezvous with Madness, a Toronto based film festival focused on movies that delve into the world of mental health and addiction. The festival is travelling across Canada …
Communication is the Key
I wanted to make people communicate better – with me and with each other. I didn’t see myself as the problem here.
Creating a Men’s Circle in the Yukon
When I decided to remove my mask last summer I had to face how lonely I was, how isolated I had become. In a desperate need to present only my best self at work, on social occasions and even at home, I had withdrawn, hiding the not-so-great parts of myself from everyone. I was deeply …
Too Busy to Be This Busy?
Tara Larkin of Pursuit Coaching will be hosting a five week seminar for women entitled Put Busy to Rest:Coaching for Women Taking on the World. The seminar runs every two weeks starting on March 1st from 11-1 pm and is focused on helping ambitious women who feel overwhelmed by their busy schedules reclaim their time …
When You’re Ready, The Door is Open
There’s a warm glow as soon as you step inside the front doors of Hospice Yukon – a feeling of being held, as if inside a cozy cocoon. Afternoon sunlight streams in through a southern facing window and a heart-shaped pillow makes a loveseat more loveable. Rows of neatly arranged book spines line shelves edging …
Shedding a Little Light on a SAD Season
They consulted with Dr. Brendan Hanley, the Yukon’s Chief Medical Health Officer, and he thought it was a worthwhile experiment. The next question was where to put the devices so that they could be used by the most people and at times when people might need them the most. Libraries seemed like a good idea, …
Team Care
Most people are less intimidated by dogs with floppy ears, and consider white dogs less scary than black ones. That’s just one awareness Angela Neufeld has picked up in the years she has been using dogs as therapeutic assistants in her practice as a registered psychologist. “I’m not by any means suggesting that black dogs …
Learning to Fly
Jonathan Henkelman lies on his back on a yoga mat, legs lifted and bent, the bottoms of his bare feet facing the ceiling. I am standing at his feet, looking down at him. He asks me to lean forward and let his feet press against my lower belly to support me. I try a few …
Life is Tough with The Little Nag
My dinner dishes don’t always get done after dinner. There is a chair in my living room that has a continuous pile of laundry to be folded. Sometimes I forget the kid’s helmet, or swimsuit, or permission slip for school. The dogs haven’t been bathed for two weeks. I try to be a calm and …
500 Moments of Mindfulness
Think this whole mindfulness meditation thing is just woo-woo mumbo-jumbo that could never really do anything for you? Do you scoff at the idea and get defensive or evasive when the subject comes up? Your stress is real! Your pain is true! How dare people dismiss your complaining! How could just sitting around and doing …
How Yoga was Practiced in the Ancient Past and Today
The yoga practiced today is not at all like it was practiced in the ancient past. Faeq Biria, a well known Iyengar Yoga teacher in Europe and the director of the Iyengar Yoga Centre in Paris said that Patanjali, who wrote the ancient text The Patanjala Yoga Sutras (500-300 BC) would not recognize the yoga …
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Some Advice on How to Stop Negative Self-Talk
Our mind has the power to take us places we don’t truly want to go. If we’ve had people in our lives telling us things about ourselves that are not true too many times, then we can start to believe it. This can happen when beliefs have been in our minds for so long they …
The Little Nag: What is Mindfulness? And Why Do It?
You’ve heard the word on talk shows or around the water cooler at work, seen it on the cover of Time magazine and books on every shelf, but what is mindfulness? What does it mean? And why is everyone talking about it? The world is a mess right now; the division and fear and hatred …
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Keep Your Bus on the Road
Mindful breath in, mindful breath out, mindful breath in why did he say that to me what a jerk I can’t believe he blamed me it’s not my fault, crap, right, mindful breath in… Yup, I know you’ve experienced this. Anyone who has ever tried to meditate or be mindful has experienced this. You sit …
In Support of Mental Health
The Second Opinion Society (SOS) is holding its annual barbecue on Thursday, July 28th, from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and all are welcome. SOS is located at 304 Hawkins St. adjacent to the Yukon Conservation Society offices. There will be hotdogs and burgers, as well as vegan and vegetarian options, thanks to generous donations …
Managing Health with Meditation
Today many people practice meditation for stress relief and to improve their overall quality of life. However, is there evidence that meditation is effective? If its effects can be proven, how can meditation be practiced by people with different fitness levels and abilities to concentrate? A study conducted at Johns Hopkins University in 2013 show …
Neuroscience and Everyday Living: Part 3
Gridlock. We hardly ever have it in Whitehorse and if we do we can likely, easily, take another route to get where we are going (okay, not over the Riverdale Bridge). It is much like the fiber optic cable that is carrying our email to Paris. One moment it might go by Rio de Janeiro …
Neuroscience and Everyday Living: Part 2
According to Israeli physicist Moshe Feldenkrais, “hurrying is bad for learning.” How many of us hurry through our day ensuring that the garbage has been put out, the car has gas, the kids arrive at school on time, that we are appropriately attired and prepared for work, that dinner arrives on the table and that …
Inclusion Expo Gets Jazzy
He’s only 24 years old, but American pianist Matt Savage has had a 15-year professional career as a jazz musician, playing with some of the biggest names in jazz including Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis and Chaka Khan. People Magazine described Savage as a “…jazz phenom (who) unlocks a door to genius using 88 keys.” Savage …
The Little Nag in Your Head
Peanut butter I have to remember to get peanut butter why did she wear that today what was she thinking did he pick up the dry cleaning who was that actor in that movie about the dry cleaner why did I wear this today what was I thinking… Sound familiar? That’s because it is. All …
Hypnosis is a serious business
The office is spacious, warm, comforting. An oh-so-welcoming leather sofa and recliner are along the far wall under a soft pool of light. One wall is painted a deep blue; another, a deep purple. “Those are my favourite colours,” says Lee Ann Thomson in a profoundly soothing voice. Then she admits, “And, yes, blue and …
Making A Choice to Think Positive Thoughts
As the days become shorter and colder, the desire to hibernate like a bear becomes stronger. Those dealing with stress, anxiety or depression may be more likely to succumb to this feeling. The Mental Health Association of Yukon is offering a course to teach people a different way of thinking. In the course, called Living …
The world watches as winter burns
For nine years, Burning Away the Winter Blues was a grassroots event that allowed Yukoners to come together at the Spring Equinox as a torch-wielding mob to, well, burn away the winter blues. This year, however, the entire world is invited to watch as Yukoners and guests bang on drums, chant and cheer as an …
Believing in the dog
First Prize PSAC Whitehorse Regional Pride Committee Short Story Contest It’s night. A man walks his black lab in the forest — and when the dog runs in between the pines, he’s almost invisible. The only sound is the man’s footsteps on the snow, the rustle of his jacket, his dog’s breathing. Normally, he enjoys …
Poets give ‘voice’ to women of the past
Nineteenth-century photographs of female lunatic asylum patients and Euripides’ play The Bacchae are the inspiration for two poets giving readings in Whitehorse at the end of October. Nadine McInnis was so taken by photographs of Surrey County Lunatic Asylum inmates that she reconstructed the subjects’ otherwise unknown stories in her poems and found herself exploring …
Burn this winter away
This could be the most-anticipated Burning Away the Winter Blues event in its history. says Arlin McFarlane. “It has been a long winter.”
Winter blues will burn
there is something infinitely satisfying about being a part of a torch-carrying mob on its determined way to burn a false god
‘Forward, onward, says the wind.’
For our children: Tashina, Alysia, Aprile and Joshua My eyes are closed, but I can feel the gentle wind blow my hair lightly into my face. Forward, onward, it says. The fragrance of moist earth, decaying leaves and living things, envelope my senses. Branches creak and leaves flutter, letting me know what I’m leaving behind. …
You are invited … to a ‘no-troublesome-thoughts’ evening
Serenity is set in subdued mauves and pinks as the sun sets above the Yukon River in a mural where trees and plants are alive with birds and butterflies. Serenity is the purpose of the Serene Room – a fulfillment of the vision Linda and John Lemphers-Fenton had for the Serenity Centre. “It was a …
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Being safe is just overreacting
Back when I was a high school student, I faced a conundrum every time an exam came around. Do I study for it or not? It seems it happened every time: if I studied for an exam, the teacher would give us an easy one. If I didn’t study, that would be the time that …
What Beer May or May Not Do – for You
During World War II, the brewing-trade industry known as the United Brewers Industrial Foundation worked with the U.S. government to create a series of ads designed to boost morale and highlight the positive aspects of beer. In Life magazine’s Aug. 4, 1941 edition is an amazing ad. Most of the body of the ad is …
Blue Christmas
Blue is more than a colour. And that is why Whitehorse United Church minister, Beverly Brazier, is planning another Blue Christmas service. “Often when your life isn’t at all like a Hallmark Christmas card … the conclusion that you draw is that there is something wrong with you,” begins Brazier, resting her chin in one …
Lights of Life … for everyone
A four-foot-something tree, adorned with angels, captures my attention as I enter Hospice Yukon. The lighting is soft and I am greeted warmly as I step through the door. Evelyn Kaltenbach, a volunteer who is finishing her training in Compassionate End of Life Care and Bereavement Support, smiles as she offers her hand, then leads …
No Round of Resolutions for Me
Before I seem like more of a curmudgeon than I actually am, allow me to state right off the bat: I’m not against New Year’s resolutions. I just know they ain’t for me. Not that you should necessarily follow my track, lying on the couch in a turkey-induced coma. I just know that as we …
Middle row, centre: Therapy and psychodrama
The last in Landmark Cinemas ‘Filmtastic Films series for this season screens this week at the Qwanlin. A Dangerous Method is the latest film from Canadian director David Cronenberg, and explores the historic origins of modern psychoanalytic theory with three very fine actors. Viggo Mortensen, (Eastern Promises, A History Of Violence) stars as Sigmund Freud …