Agency Over Control: Choosing Your Response When Life Chooses the Circumstances
“You can’t control what anyone else does. What you can do is decide how to use your own agency to move forward.” What’s the difference between agency and control? Making this distinction now might be more important than it's ever been for preserving our mental health when so much feels out of our control. Read to learn more about how when recognize agency when our choices are limited.
On Collective Grief: Caring for Our Emotions in Times of Political Unrest
Collective grief is a term used to describe the reaction of a group of people who undergo a significant loss or extreme change together. This can include experiencing any tragedy that affects a community or nation. We can feel this type of grief following a natural disaster, an act of mass violence, a hate crime, a pandemic, an act of war, or any event that threatens the safety and stability of our community.
Grief is a natural response to all kinds of loss - changing relationships, losing a job, moving to a new city, experiencing decreased physical or mental functioning, confronting our own mortality, or becoming disillusioned about the state of the world. We can also grieve the loss of a vision or expectation for the future.