When I was quarantining alone during the height of the pandemic, I started doing aerobic exercise routines I found online...
JoinedJanuary 19, 2022
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Mel Bender is a freelance blogger and artist who is currently living as an urban nomad to pursue her writing dreams. She is the founder of the blog the depressed cougar, where she writes weekly posts about mental health, trauma, creativity and dating as a mature woman. Visit her blog here.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been watching myself sink into a deep state of burnout. Work stress is getting...
BEWITCHING THE ELEMENTS: A Guide to Empowering Yourself Through Earth,Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit Gabriela Herstik [TarcherPerigee, 336 pages] “As...
Last year, I made a habit of setting intentions every time the moon went black. Well, it’s February 19, 2023,...
“You’re an unknowable mystery.” I’d never been told this before. The pastor with whom I was having a counselling session...
“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and...
I didn’t think I was a morning person. For decades, I’ve vehemently claimed to be a night owl. Everything changed...
At this time of year, I experience a flood of mixed emotions, and peace of mind is hard to come...
During long, stressful days, I find it difficult to pause and do the spiritual rituals I need and love. Instead,...
Adulthood is about learning to become a parent to yourself. If you’re single long enough, it’s also about learning to...
REFLECTIONS ON A TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE: Resolutions to end vicious cycles and emerge from the darkness
As I write these words, it’s November 7, 2022: the evening of a total lunar eclipse. I’ve spent the day...
No therapist has ever told me to use Microsoft Excel to cope with depression. Therapists are more likely to suggest...
If you’re a wounded healer who isn’t healing, aren’t you just the walking wounded? Someone who is trying to help...
We’re all just doing our best to get through the day. However, it’s important to slow down once in a...
My father’s father was an evangelical Pentecostal minister. He believed every word in the Bible was true. He believed in...
I usually consider myself pretty “witchy.” I believe there’s way more to life than meets the eye, and the storehouse...
I’ve had my share of dead ends and wrong turns in life, both in relationships and in my career. I’ve...
Whenever we try to push an emotion under the surface, it doesn’t disappear. It’s only a matter of time before...
I wish I’d known at the beginning of 2020 what was about to happen to the world and how it...
I’d seen it coming but it came too fast I had to make a decision at last. At the crossroads,...
You don’t have to be a warrior to achieve great things. In J. R. R. Tolkien’s timeless novel, The Lord...
For someone who extolls the virtues of meditation every chance I get, it’s interesting how much of a struggle it...
“What are you looking for?” This is the question I get asked most often on dating apps. Unfortunately, I don’t...
I’m currently between living situations. In other words, I’m homeless. I don’t own the key to any door, because there’s...
