What research reveals about sighing and how you can harness your breath to feel good anytime
If you breathed a sigh of relief when you saw the Associated Press call the presidential race for Joe Biden on November 7, 2020, you weren’t alone. Sighs of relief were heard around the world. The New York Times reported that “Biden Victory Brings Sighs of Relief Overseas,” while The…
Life can be difficult, but knowing what to say to your child doesn’t have to be.
Miscarriage. Deaths. Medical diagnoses. Health emergencies. Pandemic. Police murder. Evacuation. Infertility. Burglary.
These are all hard things. In the last year, each of these has touched my family, and I have talked my little kids through every one.
My children, who are currently almost three and five years old, have…
Self-pity doesn’t help me or my kids
Whenever I tell people that my oldest child begins remote kindergarten this month, they simply say, “I am so sorry.”
To be honest, my default response is to feel sorry for myself, too. This is not how I pictured my five-year-old entering his first year of elementary school and his…
A reflection on living during the Covid-19 pandemic, social justice uprisings, and infertility
When my neighbor waved at me from the other side of the street, I imagined his lips moving on the other side of his mask as he asked, “How’re you doing?” I must have taken too long to answer because he squinted his eyes and added, “How’re you coping?”
His…
How the mindfulness practice of RAIN can protect your mental health during the coronavirus crisis
In beforetimes, the screentime bar graph on my iPhone, which shows how much time I spend on the device, was a neat collection of short rectangles. I took pride in my self-control. I enjoyed putting my energy elsewhere.
And after the coronavirus?
Well, on a typical June morning, I hit…
How perfectionism can undermine the work of dismantling White supremacy culture
In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in my neighborhood, I wrote about my experience as a White mother talking to my White children about race, justice, and how we can do what’s right. …
How I learned to live with pain and possibility.
When a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis, it has at most two hours to stretch out its wings. If it doesn’t, its wings will dry shut. The butterfly will never fly. It can’t live. That’s it. There isn’t anything anyone can do.
I learned that last summer when my children…
All parents, whatever our skin color, must demand something better for our country than a militarized police force.
“Mama, aren’t police supposed to help people?”
It was a reasonable question. We had, after all, called police “community helpers” in our home until May 25, 2020.
My 4-year-old, who is white like me, asked this question because of what happened that Memorial Day. That day, just a two-minute bike…
White people like me need to listen to black people and keep talking to our children about race, justice, and what’s right.
“What are the odds, do you think, that our house will be destroyed tonight?”
When we began to assign probabilities to the particular risks of our particular block in our particular neighborhood where the police murdered George Floyd — the gas station on the corner, the minority-owned businesses across our…
Emily PG Erickson
Writer with a master’s degree in psychology. Helpful, science-backed writing about mental health, mindfulness, and motherhood. www.emilypgerickson.com
