​Feeling down today?  You have one of the most powerful weapons against that bad mood:  Your smile. Why is your smile so powerful? It can change your brain and your life.

​Smiling stimulates your brain’s reward system. An expert in behavioral psychology, Sarah Stevenson, tells us that the "feel good" neurotransmitters (dopamine, endorphins and serotonin) are all released when a smile flashes across our face. 

It seems smiling gives us the same happiness that exercising, eating chocolate, and falling in love do, at least in terms of how our brains respond. Apparently, our brains feel good when we smile, and it produces those "feel good transmitters" that help us cope with daily stress. One of those transmitters, Serotonin, is known to be a main key in our feelings of happiness and well-being. 

Even more impressive is the fact that we can paste a fake smile on our face and receive the same results. Facial coding expert, Paul Ekman, showed in his research that adopting a full smile, one that reaches clear to our eyes, produces a change in our brain activity that leaves us in a happier mood. 

Isn't that amazing? We can get the same health benefit of smiling, without feeling any real emotion. 

Who would have thought that faking a smile would actually make us feel better? I don't know about you, but I'm going to break out that full grin. As Yoko Ono once stated, “Smile in the mirror.  Do that every morning and you’ll start to see a big difference in your life.”

​"The one thing that stands between a child becoming a statistic or a success story is one caring adult," says Josh Shipp, someone who could have been that statistic.  

He didn't know it at the time, but that one caring adult was sitting right in front of him...a tough, yet caring man named Rodney.

Everyone deserves a Rodney in their life. 

Maybe all you have to do is look in front of you.

​It's a beautiful thing to see hands reaching out across the darkness in support of our hurting friends.  I am honored and privileged to have a small role in this process, and it touches me deeply. That's why I'm excited to share the next idea with you. It's a great way to encourage and support your hurting friend.  It's like handing him or her a little life jacket in a box, something to keep them afloat when the strong emotions of depression threaten to overwhelm or when the urges to self-harm flare intensely.  It's called a comfort box, and it is filled with items your friend will be able to turn to when they need a distraction from their stressors.


HOW DO I MAKE A COMFORT BOX?

1. Start with any box or container.
2. If needed, decorate the outside....your friend's favorite comic strip, some pretty paper - your own special type of bling.
3. Now comes the fun part. Fill it. Fill it with things that will make your friend happy. Find things that will make your friend smile. Find things that will involve their senses and create a distraction. Here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

     
Things to keep their hands busy: 
Stress balls, origami materials, puzzles, play dough, toys, coloring books and colored pencils...

Things to create sensory distractions:
Body sprays, essential oils, candy, gum, hand lotion (for rubbing on their arms instead of cutting), thick rubber band (for snapping against their wrist instead of hurting themselves), peel-able fingernail polish, mp3 player with encouraging music...)

Things to remind them the bad times won't last:
Inspirational books, meaningful photographs, cards, quotes, notes of encouragement, writing journal and pen...

Things just for fun:
Travel board games, DVDs, bubbles....get creative.  What would your friend love? What speaks fun?  What speaks life?

4. Once you've filled the box with all sorts of wonderful things, simply write a little note of love and include an explanation of the purpose of your box. It is now ready to be delivered in love and friendship. It is now ready to be used and loved. What a powerful thing.

​The way we can express ourselves online has changed rapidly in the last few years. Before Emojis existed, we had to describe our emotions through words to convey how we feel about something. It was a longer process and took more critical thinking to interpret.

Nowadays all we need to express a feeling or sentiment is just a few clicks away with a variety of emojis to choose from. Happy, sick, angry, in love, annoyed, and more faces are on our palate to choose from. Emojis are fun to use and there are now emoji options to express your race if you choose.

Emojis are also powerful. I have seen people tell entire stories solely using emojis to express their thoughts. Since emojis are so expressive you can literally say anything you want through them. They are symbols of how we are feeling and how we wish to communicate that to others. 

However not every combination is a positive one. For example, I have seen some people post an emoji face with the gun pointing at it to further express how they feel about a situation. However, I do not think these individuals who post these emojis understand how that emoji statement affects others. People who have been through depression or someone who has lost someone to suicide may feel angry, sad, and/or frustrated when seeing this emoji combination being used.

You can choose how to arrange emojis to express your emotion. The saying, a picture is worth a thousand words, rings true when discussing the power of emojis. Instead of explaining your feelings, you are showing people how you feel through them. And each individual who sees your message post, will interpret your use of emojis in a different way.

I’ve just finished reading a tweet that's got me thinking about the new year:

We have only a few hours to give some serious thought about whether or not we're going to take 2015's offenses into even 5 minutes of 2016.

Excitement is beginning to build.
  
       We can decide what we want to carry into our new year?

The thought of walking into a fresh, clean year without the hurts from the past makes me excited.

Yes, I know some of the difficult issues in my life will remain, and they will continue to hurt me at times. That's just how it is. But walking into the new year without any worry distracting me will enable me see a world of possibilities ahead.  It'll give me some hope.

When hope comes in, it pushes out the darkness and makes the heart light. 
It whispers what no one else can hear.
It says, "You can turn it around."
You’ve got this.
You can break that habit.
You can repair those relationships.
You can feel happy again.
 
Hope is the ingredient that brings dreams to pass.
We can’t live without it.
 
That's why I'm walking into the new year with hope.
I'm grasping it tightly, and I'm letting go of that other stuff:

Every offense and hurt.
Been there.  Worried about it.  Done.

Hope makes me smile.  Hope pushes me forward.  Hope scatters joyful seeds of possibilities all over my future.

It's a wonderful word.
It's a perfect word for 2016.

It's a word I'm willing to share if you'll join me.

Take a paper and write down everything that's causing you pain and worry.  Label it 2015.
Fold the paper and rip it into a million tiny pieces. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but it'd feel good, wouldn't it?
Now take another paper and label it 2016.

      Look at the lovely emptiness, so full of possibilities. 
      Yes, good things are in store for both of us.  I can feel it.

 As Christopher Reeve once said, "Once you choose hope, anything’s possible."

Welcome to the year of possibilities, friend.  Happy 2016.

​Not a lot to say today, but this, my sweet friends:

Hope is only one step away.

​Dear family members and friends,
 
We know we don’t say it often enough, but thank you.  Thank you so much for being here for us.  For being our strength when we want to give up.  For listening and believing in us.
 
It can’t be easy always worrying about us, watching us hurting and not knowing how to help.  But we are so grateful we have you sitting up with us at night, putting arms around us when we’re sad, asking about our day and encouraging us in your special way. 
 
Even if we don’t express it, you are our hope….the light in our darkness. You keep us hanging on.  What a gift you are. There are no words to express how grateful we feel.  And we don’t say it nearly enough, because the pain keeps the words from coming out of our mouths.
 
So thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you. Thank you.
 
Thank you for seeing our worth hidden beneath our pain.  Thank you for not walking away when things get hard.  Thank you for staying and loving us in our hardest moments. 

Thank you for loving us, always loving us.
 
We love you so much,

Your Depressed Teen

​There will always be people who will only see my failures.

​They will criticize and gossip, making me think:

I'm a failure.  I'm a failure.  I'm a failure.

I wish they could see past my mistakes...past my appearance...past my history, and notice me for who I really am. I wish they would accept me. Is there a way I can get them to see me for who I really am?

Give them acceptance.

Sounds counter-productive doesn't it? Yet, it's so powerful. By speaking words of encouragement and forgiveness over others, we take our eyes off of our hurts and begin to recognize the value of who we are.

We are someone who is kind. 
We are someone who accepts others.
We are someone who loves and encourages. We are the people we wish others would be.

​It is said that we reap what we sow, and it's true.  When we sow validation in others, we ​discover it in ourselves.

True validation comes from within, not from the perspective of people.  

And one of the most beautiful gifts of this validation is the releasing from the disappointment we feel when others don't live up to role we'd like them to play in our lives. 

​''Ever gotten up in the morning and wondered why your life is such a mess?  Why you can't seem to get it together?  Will you ever get it right?

Welcome to the club.  "That's life," people will tell you.  Life is a puzzle. One day it's going well and then all of a sudden... WHAM!! Crisis strikes and you just can't seem to get going again.  You're stuck.

But knowing how life can be doesn't help make it any easier, does it, especially when your life is in pieces?  So what advice do I have?

Use the strategy you use when you're putting together a real puzzle.

When you're putting together a real puzzle and begin to have difficulty, you take a break and focus your attention on another spot of the puzzle that is going well.  After taking a break,  you usually find that when you go back to the original tough spot, you look at things with a fresh perspective and can often find the solution.

What does that look like in real life?

Let's say you're having difficulty with a friend.  You've tried and tried, but can't find a way to heal your relationship.  In fact, the more you try, the worse it gets.  Things with your family and other friends are going pretty good, however.  So, you decide to focus your time on building and enjoying those relationships and ease up on trying to do things with your friend.

Does that mean you give up on your friend forever?  No.  It just means you won't try so hard.  You won't worry about it constantly.  You'll focus on filling your social needs with the relationships that are going well.  After a while, you can go back and think about your friend again.  You'll be in a happier frame of mind, making it easier for you to decide on the best way to restore your friendship.

You don't have anything good going on in your life?

Look again.  No life is totally bad.  There is always something good you can find, and if you have trouble thinking of something, ask someone close to you.  They'll be able to tell you the positives in your life.  There is hope if you look for it.