The Picture of Happiness – Wrapping Gifts

It’s The Picture of Happiness Month!

Today’s guest is Dr. Linda Baker, she says:

I am a full-time clinical psychologist and a part-time jewelry shop owner/refurbisher/photographer at Chainsaw & Co.  I get very excited by the concept and act of gift-giving, which likely explains my insistence on uniquely hand-wrapping each item that is sold.  As I’m wrapping, I imagine the receiver opening their gift and this makes me feel delightfully well-nourished.

Gift-Giving + Hand-Wrapping = Happiness for Dr. Linda Baker

Gift-Giving + Hand-Wrapping = Happiness for Dr. Linda Baker

Linda Baker, PsyD is the owner of Unstuck Therapy, a private psychotherapy and assessment practice in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver.  Unstuck Therapy has been featured on ManTherapy.org and AllTreatment.com highlighting specialty areas including men’s issues, secondary trauma, adolescent mental health, and depression.  These days, Linda enjoys prose, pop culture, fashion, and humans of all varieties.

Linda Baker, PsyD is the owner of Unstuck Therapy, a private psychotherapy and assessment practice in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver. Unstuck Therapy has been featured on ManTherapy.org and AllTreatment.com highlighting specialty areas including men’s issues, secondary trauma, adolescent mental health, and depression. These days, Linda enjoys prose, pop culture, fashion, and humans of all varieties.

CREATE Mental Health Week – Healthy Garden, Healthy Food, Healthy People

This is a guest post in the series CREATE Mental Health.  All week we will be exploring how different people use creativity to create and maintain mental health.  Today’s post is by Dr. Kaycie Rosen.  Dr. Rosen is a Naturopathic Doctor and also the owner of Golden Naturopathic Clinic in Golden, CO.  Welcome Dr. Rosen!

Dr. Kaycie Rosen with a bowl full of delicious tomatoes. Good for the body and the soul!

It’s springtime again and my yearly obsession is in full swing: tomatoes!  Every year for the past 10 years sometime in the middle of February I notice a warm breeze in the air and start dreaming. I dream of ripe, warm, luscious, juicy tomatoes picked right off the vine, sliced, drizzled with some good olive oil and a touch of sea salt.  My alternate dream is of fresh, toasted sourdough bread, crunchy thick-cut bacon, a light smear of mayo, a fresh lettuce leaf, and thick juicy slices of a giant tomato from my backyard.

The sprouts emerge!

This year the process is particularly special.  We just rebuilt our backyard and put in several new garden beds; we have been watching workmen transform a bit of the open mountain behind our house into a home for all our delicious dreams.  We’re putting in fruits, vegetables and herbs, hopefully enough to substitute for the farm share we used to get weekly.  Right now our garden is all anticipation, and for me is the fruition of many years of “halfway” gardening in various combinations of limited space, poor soil, pots only, unfavorable climates, or limited time.  This year, we are fully committed.

Gardening for me is an invaluable asset to my mental health for several reasons.  First and foremost, I love good food.  Fresh, flavorful produce is one of my greatest passions in life, and the best way to get it is to grow it myself.  I love to cook and to feed healthy, delicious meals to my family, and gardening helps me do just that.  Secondly, I love plants.  As a Naturopathic doctor and herbalist, I use plants as medicine, but even more than that, there is something amazing about getting to know the intricacies of how mother nature works.  Each plant has its own ideal soil conditions, watering needs, and interactions with other living beings from soil microbes to the animals who consume it.  For me to learn about and understand plants helps me feel more connected to the planet and to my spirit because it helps me understand how interconnected every living being on the planet is.  Finally, gardening gets me outside, breathing fresh air, moving my body and getting my mind off of things.  Somehow, fiddling around with the vegetables helps me lose track of time and lets the stress melt away.

Getting ready to be transplanted!

But back to February.  One of the most satisfying parts of gardening is that if you follow the process, you reap great rewards at the end.  In February, I buy my seeds and starting medium, resurrect the seedling trays from the garage, and start counting down the days to planting.  Mid-March, seeds go in, trays go under the grow light, and the watering and watching begins.  5 or 6 days later, we have sprouts, a couple weeks after that I transplant sprouts, a few weeks later transplant again, and a couple weeks after that we start hardening off so our baby tomatoes get used to living in the outdoors. Mid-May my tomatoes finally get to go to their home in the ground, and from there it’s just pruning, watering, and finally in August my BLT dreams come true!  I’m excited about all the food we’re growing, but there’s just something about tomatoes that feeds the soul.

 

CREATE Mental Health Week begins!

Welcome to CREATE Mental Health Week! I am so excited to be starting the blog party this week – it has been a long time in coming!  This week I will be featuring guest bloggers from all over the country who are going to be writing about how creating helps them maintain their mental health.  They will also be sharing secrets of their craft with us.  I am so excited to learn and create along with these awesome ladies!  Check back often as there will be lots of ideas shared this week!

Want to promote CREATE Mental Health Week?  Grab the button on the right side of page.

The first guest post will go up in a couple of hours, so come back soon!

Want to read more about how creativity and mental health go together?  Read my posts:

Craft Time and Mental Health

Stress Management: The Importance of Hobbies

CREATE Mental Health Week starts May 2nd!

CREATE Mental Health Week is coming!

Next week Dr Stephanie will be hosting crafters, artists, and other creative folks from around the country! Check back for simple, creative tutorials as well as information about how CREATING helps maintain mental health.

Want to promote the event on your blog or site? Thanks! Feel free to grab the button on the right! Thanks and look forward to seeing you next week!