Substance use and overdoses have skyrocketed in both El Paso County and Teller County, Colorado. Those struggling can enroll in Khesed’s pro bono program to receive 16 free sessions.
While mental health concerns are universal, those of us with marginalized identities (such as BIPOC, LGBTQ, disabled, veteran, Spanish-speaking, or other demographic characteristics) bear the weight of additional mental health barriers.
Whether you're sober curious, looking for a place to celebrate New Year's Eve sans booze, or preparing for Dry January, here are 65 spots in and around Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, and San Francisco to enjoy an alcohol-free drink this season.
Khesed’s Illinois State Manager Dawnn shares a personal story about where her passion for mental health stemmed, why accessible therapy in Chicago matters - especially on the South Side, and how Khesed aligns with her values.
Feeling overwhelmed? Take a few minutes to breathe and rest with this four minute guided meditation. Click below to play.
Interested in mindfulness and holistic wellness? Schedule a free intake to learn more about our offerings.
- Jenni Kay Long, RYT, LCSW, ADS {Learn more about the author}
For many of us, the idea of befriending our anxiety would be akin to befriending the quicksand that we feel ourselves sinking into. How can we ever learn to accept and appreciate something like anxiety when all it has ever done is make us feel miserable and out of control?
In my opinion, the first step towards befriending anxiety begins with understanding it. Have you ever wondered why human beings experience anxiety? While anxiety does have a bad reputation it is also a universal human experience that is hardwired into our DNA. Whether we like it or not, our anxiety has a purpose.
Anxiety, at its core, is a biological alarm system designed to notify us of a perceived threat. When we are extremely anxious our brain descends into fight or flight mode. As a part of instinctual survival, when we perceive a threat our best possible options are to fight the danger or to run away from it as fast as possible.
This would all be perfectly fine if human beings were still living in an era where survival was literally dependent on your ability to fight or run. In the modern era however, we are more likely to experience threats like midterm exams or uncomfortable conversations with coworkers. Anxiety has evolved over millennia so that it can be triggered by emotional and existential threats as well as threats of physical danger.
This may seem like a malfunction of evolution, an obsolete system of alarm that is now causing chaos and havoc in our modern lives. However, I believe that anxiety has adapted to the new modern standards of survival and at its best functions to keep us in alignment with our values and beliefs.
This theory of anxiety operates under the assumption that there are at least three unique types of anxiety:
1. Existential Anxiety- This is the anxiety associated with being alive. Our fear of death, our questioning of reality and why things happen. This type of anxiety plays an essential role in our pursuit of meaning in life because without questions we would never seek answers.
2. Motivational/Moral Anxiety- This anxiety identifies when we are behaving in a way that is inconsistent with our values. If being truthful is important to us, this anxiety will arise when we tell a lie. The theory of conscience could be attributed to this type of anxiety as it is foundational the development of our moral code and idealized sense of self.
3. Neurotic Anxiety- This is the type of anxiety that gets the most attention. Neurotic anxiety is attributed to anxiety disorders. This anxiety can develop due to several factors: genetic predispositions, imbalances in brain chemistry, trauma, etc. Unlike the two previous types of anxiety, the anxiety is purely symptomatic and indicates that there is an underlying cause that needs to be addressed.
Understanding which type of anxiety we are experiencing means that we can respond to them appropriately. Each of the three types expresses a specific and essential need to resolve the anxious feelings and grow from the experience.
The essential need for Existential Anxiety is to pursue answers and meaning.
The essential need for Motivational/Moral Anxiety is to change either our values or our behaviors until they are in alignment.
The essential need for Neurotic Anxiety is to address the underlying causes and to develop healthy coping strategies.
The key to befriending our anxiety lies in our ability to respond to these essential needs. When we give our anxiety what it is asking for we accomplish more than an end to anxious feelings. We grow closer to our idealized selves, we mature and develop resiliency each time we come out on the other side.
To be able to identify which type of anxiety we are experiencing we must learn to listen to what it is telling us. Awareness will follow a willingness to view our anxiety as the messenger rather than the enemy.
Imagine anxiety as the check engine light on a car. If we ignore the light, cover it up, or continue driving we risk causing even more danger to our vehicle. The same is true of our anxiety, if all of our effort is placed on turning off the feeling without discovering the cause, we not only deny ourselves the opportunity for growth, but we risk causing ourselves more damage in the long run.
My hope is that you would be willing to give your anxiety a voice. Allow it the opportunity to express its needs so that you can respond in kind.
The path to friendship can be difficult, but well worth the effort.
The alarm goes off, you roll out of bed, with your eyes barely open you brush your teeth, start your shower. BLINK! You grab your coffee and head to your car. BLINK! Your in your cubicle checking emails. BLINK! Your on your way home.
You're in the drop off lane, kiss your kids goodbye. BLINK! In the checkout line at the supermarket. BLINK! Making dinner and getting homework done. Another day goes by and BLINK! Another goes by.
This is what we refer to as “Auto Pilot.” You move from one activity to the next not fully being present or experiencing it. This is the opposite of mindfulness. Have you taken that coffee to go, instead of enjoying the sweetness of the drink? Have you planned a vacation for your family just to rush through activity to activity to make use of every minute? Do you tell your friends and family that you don’t have time for yourself with all that you have going on? Have you sat in silence and stillness? You may be so busy and distracted while reading this that you think “hurry up and get to the point.” My point is Have you H.E.R.D? Healed, Encountered, Relaxed and Destressed? If your answer to any of those words is No! Keep reading, this blog is for you.
Khesed Wellness are partnering with Promise Ranch to bring this amazing oppurtunity to you. Both Khesed Wellness and Promise Ranch are passionate about helping those in their community and see a need for people to have to opportunity to de stress through the medium of amazing four legged beauties (horses). This is a one of a kind opportunity that is not available anywhere else but with Khesed Wellness and Promise Ranch.
As adults in our fast pace world we are often left rushing from work to soccer practice, to family and friend obligations, to doctors appointments. We eat in our car, we hire people to do things we don’t have the time for. We hear the phrases, “Time is money.” “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” In a society where more is ALWAYS better and putting yourself as a priority is so selfish; where and how are we to find inner peace? I mean come on, the inside of our heads looks like a NASCAR race track or Grand Central Station. What if you were able to trade that NASCAR Track or Grand Central Station for this….
What if you could start the Healing from our fast paced, never stop world? What if you could have an Encounter with something outside of yourself? What if you could Relax and get a road map of how to De-stress yourself? Would you jump at the opportunity to reset your mindset? Well JUMP, that opportunity is here. Have You H.E.R.D?, is a workshop created to help busy people find inner peace in a unique and different setting.
This workshop will be an opportunity to learn more about stress and its effects on us. We will work as a small group with the horses and come to understand what true relaxation means. Each person will get the opportunity to create their own tool box of mindfulness and de stressing activities they will take with them. In a nutshell this workshop is a chance to hit the pause button on two Sunday afternoons and put ourselves first. As I frequently say to moms, those who care for others as part of their career, “It’s not me first!, It’s me too!” It’s important to take scheduled time for ourselves to have that space to hear our inner selves that is often drowned out by facebook, to do lists and our busy world. Let this time be one of retreat for you.
The Nuts and Bolts:
When: Saturday, January 21st
Where: Promise Ranch 6230 E. Highway 86, Franktown, CO 80116
Cost: $175
No horse experience is necessary. Due to working with live animals we have only 10 spots available and will be filled on first come first serve basis. This workshop is for persons 18 and older.
Context first and then we will talk principle.
First, I intentionally chose one of the most guttural-and-difficult-to-pronounce-in-English words for the name of this organization for a reason. The word is that important. In fact, it was that important to the Ancient Hebrews where this word originated.
Khesed means loving kindness. To better capture the translation, it can mean reciprocating kindness. Khesed isn’t just a good feeling of loving kindness, it’s a lifestyle. Kindness is a generous quality, and when we get it, we want more. We also seem to want to produce more.
Growing up in Southern California I spent my childhood along shorelines. I love laying on my stomach just where the water last licks the sand and rushes back into the deep. If you lay still enough, long enough, with your belly on the sand and your chin laying on your hands, you start to see a whole world unfold. It’s amazing how that happens when we slow down.
Then, if you let your eyes dance a bit in-and-out of focus, like we do in those rare moments of rest, you start to see glimmers. The sand suddenly has layers of color and texture. Then, you see the gold flecks dancing among the rest of the bland-colored bits of sand.
Reciprocating kindness is like the specks of gold in the sand of our lives.
My love for watching the ocean quickly grew toward my love for watching people, and soon, talking with people as they wade through their depths. The therapy room felt as sacred as the layers of sand beneath my bare feet, watching the water dancing back-and-forth with the deep blue.
Kindness is what allows the gold of therapy to shine. The kindness of safe space to process. Space where the only motivation for the therapist is the client’s well-being. Space to be fully human.
At it’s best, the therapy room is one of the kindest places on Earth. I don’t mean kindness that always feels good. I mean kindness that calls forth the client’s well-being; holding space for the twists and turns of the process.
Which is why it felt like such a whiplash every time I stepped out of the therapy room, and entered the chaotic nature of the mental health industry. It took about a week after grad school, immersing myself in this profession, to realize:
Most people can’t afford counseling.
Most people don’t get help for weeks because clinicians are overloaded and underpaid.
Most people don’t have sufficient insurance coverage for treatment.
Most people don’t know where to access help.
Most people can’t find a counselor that stays in the industry for long.
Most people aren’t able to find much help at all.
That feels drab doesn’t it? It frustrating, ridiculous, even unkind.
Kindness is “the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate,” according to Google. The mental health industry doesn’t feel very friendly, generous, or considerate. Which makes me sad, because I think this industry is filled with generous therapists ready to help.
So I began asking myself, “How does kindness start?”
It starts with believing in generosity. There is an abundance of kindness waiting to pour from us and sprout across our world. Abundance is an oasis that feels like a mirage to most people.
Imagine that time you needed help and someone said call this person they can help. And then you called that person and they said, “I can see you tomorrow.” And you found a way to make it work with your schedule, maybe reached between your seats to find cash for payment, if it was involved, because you were that thirsty for help.
Then you met that person and there was something about their presence that drew you in. Help didn’t turn out to be what you thought, you didn’t feel fixed, but you felt drawn in. They were present with you, believed in you beyond your performance, they saw you. They drew you in and they made you want to spread what you got in that space. You felt as if you found treasure.
The ocean, the therapy room, this kind of story and many more like it, led me to dream:
What if everyone has an abundance of kindness waiting to be tapped, wanting to help those who feel tapped out?
What if a mental health and wellness center’s mission was to provide affordable and accessible care, because the lack of affordable and accessible care feels most unkind when in the depths of life?
What if mental health and wellness practitioners were given a place to thrive in an environment that felt kind in-and-out of the therapy room?
What if businesses, temples, churches, and organizations (who have plenty of unused space) had a way to use space as a mental health and wellness center, making a tangible social impact in their community?
Basically, I kept layering kindness until it was a sustainable business model.
As I considered the different parts of a business model—how to keep the lights on, how to create a healthy work culture, how to engage our clientele, how to be a life-giving addition to a burnout industry—all of it, I knew it needed to be kind from beginning to end.
It’s amazing how an abstract word from an ancient tribe can transcend into a Colorado nonprofit believing that reciprocating kindness can transform mental health and wellness in our nation. And I believe we will.
A couple of weeks ago our team took a one day retreat. I talked with our counselors about creating an ethos of kindness in our organization. I think most assume their workplace will be kind but few experience it. Choosing a business model of kindness is actually terrifying and the hardest kind of work. Why?
It requires our whole selves to show up and believe in kindness, everyday.
In a world that leans on frameworks, forecasts, and fears, we choose kindness. In the unknown, we choose kindness. In the hurt, we choose to respond in a way that creates more authentic kindness.
In an industry that doesn’t feel kind, we believe kindness will change its’ trajectory. Above all, kindness is what brings us together when we feel divided in our relationships, in our world, and even within ourselves.
Everything Khesed does has the goal of manifesting more kindness in our world. It gives light to fractures. Or as my dear friend Kristin, who also happens to be on our board, quoted to me this week from the great Leonard Cohen:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
Kindness reminds us of light in our darkness.
Khesed Wellness exists because we believe in a lifestyle of spreading kindness. It’s the only way I know how to see light in such a dark world. I believe people are always drawn to light, even when they’re running from it.
Khesed exists because we believe that experiencing kindness can transform how we see the world, and even ourselves, especially as we ebb-and-flow with life.
That’s why.
Heather Nelson, MA, LPC, NCC
