A reflection from Dr. Muñoz’s ‘The Healthy Management of Reality’. — For almost a year now, I have been working under the wing of Dr. Ricardo Muñoz, a Distinguished Professor of Clinical Psychology at Palo Alto University and Founder of the Institute for International Internet Interventions for Health (i4Health). In 1996, he wrote the book The Healthy Management of Reality as…

All the “one days” you have imagined for yourself can be possible. — I began going to my local gym again the day after my dad’s funeral. This was slightly over a year ago. Although public gyms in Los Angeles had reopened during the pandemic months prior to me going back, I decided against it. …

How emotions drive our most primitive parts. — You’ll often hear many professionals say that communicating with the people in your life is essential to building long and healthy relationships. Intuitively, you may believe that it’s simply the act of talking that builds a deeper connection as each person gets to know where the other is coming from…

We force ourselves to chase after an ideal of safety. — Recently I met with a co-worker that I hadn’t seen or spoken to in over two years. She had been one of my role models when I was working at a wellness center. A job I obtained after graduating from college. …

Recently one of my mom’s friends gave me a bag of their daughter’s clothes. My mom told me to choose what I liked and leave the rest for my godmother to sell in her yardsales. There were a few crop tops in the bag. A style of clothing I always…

Growing up, I remember how taboo the concept of mental health was, both in my community and in the general culture. It was thought that only “crazy people” needed therapy and that issues related to mental health problems were all in people’s heads. As time has progressed, we’re now seeing…

Even the darkest, most frightening things in life have a light of beauty within them. — In the weeks leading to my dad’s death last year, I began going on my early morning walks even earlier than months prior. I would go for these walks weekly on whatever day my mom had off from work. …

A token of awareness and maybe a little bit of hope. — When it comes to mental health, it’s evident that every individual has their own experience. In addition to this, the extensive role of all the possible influential factors that contribute to our mental health is still not fully understood. Childhood and family history, genetics, nutrition, sleep, gut health, immune system…

A reduction in my symptoms of cPTSD — I’m slowly approaching the two-year mark of when I started writing on Medium. The surreal aspect of this is not so much the time that has passed, but the growth in the quality, expression, and vulnerability of my writing. When I first began writing here, I was having perhaps the…