Manon Dulude Counseling Services

04/28/2026

04/27/2026

A wish for the week ahead ♥️ ~ Nanea

04/24/2026

Why Self-Care is Important to Your Well-Being
by Manon Dulude

If you want to be effective in either your personal or professional life, take a look at how you manage your self- care.

Most of us lead busy lives and experience the pressure of responsibilities encroaching on every hour of our day. As a result, we often adopt the mindset that “with so much to do, something has to go”. For many, it is self-care that loses the battle.

What is self-care? It is essentially the conscious effort put forth to actively and purposely do something that energizes you. Self-care means you are making yourself a priority and treating yourself like you have value. Attending to your self-care will likely increase your resilience and give you a position of personal power regardless of the challenges you are facing.

Women often neglect self-care as they develop the habit of nurturing others. The needs of children, spouse and parents seem to, in their mind, be more immediate. They may willingly forego sleep or personal activities in order to serve the needs of others.

There are many ways to enhance your self-care. It can be as simple as getting enough rest/sleep, eating a balanced meal or creating personal time for a favourite activity. Maintaining healthy relationships through clear communication, respect and balanced responsibilities can help improve how you view yourself.

Getting back into a hobby can be wonderful for self-care. Creating art, woodworking, scrapbooking, knitting etc, will make you feel happier. That is because doing things with your hands triggers a pleasure reaction and a feel-good state in your brain. Once involved in a hobby, people lose track of time and purely enjoy the process and the moment. Hobbies induce a state of relaxation called “flow”, even when acquiring new skills or problem-solving.

Include a dose of self-care in your daily routine, and you are likely to notice an improvement in your overall well-being and your effectiveness.

04/23/2026

The 6 Pillars of Brain Health
by Debra M. Kawahara Ph.D.

Every March, Brain Awareness Week is a global campaign to foster public enthusiasm and support for the progress and benefits of brain science. It is also a perfect time to reflect on how our everyday behavior can strengthen and protect the brain throughout our lifespan.

Our brain is the command center for everything we do: thinking, remembering, moving, feeling, and even maintaining physical balance and coordination. When we care for our brain, we support our overall health, longevity, and quality of life. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Duke Han, a clinical neuropsychologist and an inaugural member of the Global Council on Brain Health (GCBH), on the Wellness in Today’s World podcast. The GCBH has found that brain health is deeply interconnected with physical health, mental well‑being, and lifestyle choices.

Following are the Six Pillars of Brain Health identified by the GCBH, along with practical strategies to achieve them that you can start using today.

1. Physical Exercise
Regular physical activity is one of the most consistently proven ways to support cognitive function. Exercise increases blood flow to the brain, improves memory, and stimulates the release of growth factors that help brain cells thrive.

Continued at https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/seeds-of-wisdom/202603/the-6-pillars-of-brain-health

04/21/2026

How Fawning Leads to Distance in Adult Relationships
by Fern Schumer Chapman

Growing up in an unstable, abusive, or chaotic home is one of the risk factors for estrangement. In these homes, love is conditional, authenticity is not valued, and children often feel unsafe.

To survive an unpredictable environment, children learn to "read the room." They take the emotional temperature and gauge the moods of unpredictable family members, subsuming their own desires and their true selves in an effort to get along and maintain calm.

Children living in these difficult homes struggle to see themselves and understand who they really are. Instead, these children train themselves to hide their discomfort while minimizing their own needs. They avoid confrontation. They appease.

In her book, Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves and How to Find Our Way Back, psychologist Ingrid Clayton explores how this trauma response, developed in childhood, fosters distance in adult relationships. Fawning is an adaptation that kept the fawner safe in childhood, even though it can take a terrible toll in adulthood. “Fawning is not a conscious choice,” she explains. “It is a relational trauma response.”

Though fawning looks like people-pleasing, Clayton makes a distinction. She reframes fawning as a survival skill, rather than a personality trait or character flaw. People-pleasing, she explains, is more intentional; it's a strategic, transactional behavior to avoid conflict, seek approval, and grease social interactions. “Labels like 'people pleaser' or 'codependent' can carry an implicit judgment,” she told the British Psychological Society, “as if the person is simply making bad choices or lacks boundaries.”

Continued at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brothers-sisters-strangers/202510/how-fawning-leads-to-distance-in-adult-relationships

04/16/2026

Tips if You Are Feeling Bored and Challenged
by Manon Dulude, Ph.D.

When asked about what it is they want, many find themselves with an empty wish list. There are all sorts of reasons and excuses why individuals stop dreaming and wishing for what they want. Lack of vision, confidence, and negative personal beliefs are some of the challenges which interfere with creating a fulfilling life.

I often meet individuals who do not have a clear vision for their future. Whether they scaled down their vision and eventually let go of it due to failures and discouragement or they had achieved their goals and did not think of setting new ones, many are left with little direction and fall into an unchallenging routine.

The unfortunate impact of an unchallenging routine can be a sense of boredom and futility. When individuals are in that state of mind, they sometimes make poor choices in an attempt to shake the boredom they feel in their lives.

Coaching is a process meant to assist people in looking beyond their self-imposed limits and seeking a place where an exciting life vision, goals and “WANTS” can be found. Your coach will challenge your mindset, invite you to redesign a comprehensive life vision, help you to set goals and take control of your personal, professional and financial future. Coaching assists you in breaking down your vision into manageable steps and keeps you focused on working through them. Your coach will emotionally support you and encourage you to creatively overcome your obstacles.

Whether you want to take your business or career to the next level, reach a particularly challenging personal goal, or plan the next phase of your life, working with a coach is an effective approach to achieving personal clarity and success. Your coach can help you through the foggy patches and keep you inspired to stay the course.

04/15/2026

The Holistic Psychologist

04/07/2026

The 6 Pillars of Brain Health
Debra M. Kawahara Ph.D.

Every March, Brain Awareness Week is a global campaign to foster public enthusiasm and support for the progress and benefits of brain science. It is also a perfect time to reflect on how our everyday behavior can strengthen and protect the brain throughout our lifespan.

Our brain is the command center for everything we do: thinking, remembering, moving, feeling, and even maintaining physical balance and coordination. When we care for our brain, we support our overall health, longevity, and quality of life. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Duke Han, a clinical neuropsychologist and an inaugural member of the Global Council on Brain Health (GCBH), on the Wellness in Today’s World podcast. The GCBH has found that brain health is deeply interconnected with physical health, mental well‑being, and lifestyle choices.

Following are the Six Pillars of Brain Health identified by the GCBH, along with practical strategies to achieve them that you can start using today.

1. Physical Exercise
Regular physical activity is one of the most consistently proven ways to support cognitive function. Exercise increases blood flow to the brain, improves memory, and stimulates the release of growth factors that help brain cells thrive.

Continued at

Boost your brain health with six science‑backed habits from sleep and exercise to nutrition and social connection that will enhance memory, mood, and cognitive vitality.

04/06/2026

The Infinite Sorrow of Grieving a Spouse
by Sophia Dembling

Today’s post is for those of us who have lost a spouse or partner.

Of all the losses I have experienced in life, losing Tom has been by far the most difficult. I don’t downplay other people’s losses—each is its own unique pain—but the loss of a spouse is perhaps the most world-altering in the day-to-day. It is vast, encompassing every aspect of one’s life.

The Romance of the Banal
Most basically, I miss Tom’s company. Your spouse is the person you hang out with the most, the one you can talk to or be silent with. I ate dinner with Tom nearly every night for 35 years, give or take. Since he died, I have been eating on “his” side of our little kitchen table so I don’t have to look at his empty chair.

It was Tom to whom I reported the mundane details of my days each evening. He may not have particularly cared—a lot of life stuff is, let’s face it, boring—but he listened to me, and when I was upset, he had a way of putting things in perspective for me. He knew me well enough to know what would help.

And I miss the stories about his days—the people who stopped into his picture framing shop, the things they talked about, his accomplishments, his frustrations. His days were part of my days, and without them, I have lost the piece of the wider world he brought home with him each evening.

Continued at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/widows-walk/202206/the-infinite-sorrow-of-grieving-a-spouse