If the wildfires in Canada this summer have disturbed you, what are options to cope with such distressing events? It’s not easy when there are no simple answers, and when contributions to a better solution mean taking the long view.

Connecting with nature can happen in any season, but each change in weather, temperature and the creatures and plants around us also shifts how we relate to it all. The arrival of each season signals transition, and an invitation to slow down and notice what is happening with nature. This is also an invitation to reflect on what is happening with us—as we are, after all, part of nature, not outside of it.

Sometimes, amidst the deluge of content on social media, I discover something that speaks to me on a deeper level and gives me pause.

Before engaging with Francis Weller’s Entering the Healing Ground: The Wild Edge of Sorrow, I was well aware of an intellectual/rational part of my system. I’ve come to learn that this one attempts to logically explain what I am feeling to help me feel more in control. While this can be helpful, it does have its limitations, especially when it comes to navigating grief.

It can seem like the bad news never stops. We have more access to news, and faster, from further reaches of the world, than any society before us.

Reflecting on how finances intersect with mental health naturally surfaces questions about the affordability of therapy itself. Money issues can be a significant factor that contributes to anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. But how many people who could benefit from therapy to gain support for these issues don’t pursue it because the cost of private therapy is prohibitive to pay out of pocket, or because their household lacks sufficient benefits?

Canada’s Eating Disorders Awareness Week is February 1-7, 2026, a week dedicated to bringing important information to light about the reality of eating disorders and the impact they have on people of all ages, genders, ethnicities and body types.

Mental health diagnoses play a powerful role in how we understand ourselves and others. For some, receiving a diagnosis can feel like a light being switched on: “Finally, there’s a name for what I’ve been experiencing.” For others, it can feel restrictive, confusing, or even shameful. Like many tools in mental health care, diagnoses are neither inherently good nor bad – their impact depends on how they’re used, understood, and held.

It’s mid-January, and perhaps there is genuine momentum around change from the new year being rung in so recently, as there can be for some. But often the desire for change heralded by the new year comes from outside influences that fuel a keenly felt pressure to suddenly bring improvement to longstanding issues in yourself and your life.

Grief often amplifies within our systems during the holiday season. From an Internal Family Systems (IFS) perspective, grief is not a problem to solve—it is made up of many parts that carry love, loss, and longing. The following prompts gently invite you to meet your grieving parts with compassion and curiosity over the holiday season.

It has been an unusually cold and snowy December in Southern Ontario, as snow has fallen thickly and stayed on the ground. Many branches are bare, but clouds of white cover towering conifers and ice has formed on our rivers. There is beauty in the season arriving this way, but the onset of winter can understandably bring mixed emotions and challenges to managing mental health.

As October winds down, there is less and less natural sunlight in the morning, and the days darken earlier. For many people, less light contributes to less energy in the body. Historically, in northern climates, late autumn and winter were seasons of slowing down and conserving energy and warmth to survive harsh winters. In our current world, we don’t slow down for any season of the year, save a few days or weeks of vacation booked when we can afford the time off.

Practices of gratitude are mentioned often in the world of mental health, and for good reason. Intentionally identifying something you’re thankful for can encourage both slowing down in the midst of our frantically busy days and a shift in attention in helpful ways.

It sneaks up so fast: the mean internal voices. The scared thoughts. The impatient, insecure feelings. They are so good at hiding, in fact, that we often don’t realize they’re there until there is a moment when one slips out verbally on the tongue.

Many people living in the Western world have been shaped by predominantly individualistic values that view a person and their problems in isolation from other factors.

Climate anxiety, eco-anxiety and eco-grief are all phrases that help capture distressing emotions that more and more people report experiencing in response to threats to our ecology, particularly the reality of a changing climate.

There is something undeniably tender about late summer; the golden light, the weight of warm air, the growing awareness that something is ending, even as the world still hums along. As August turns the corner, many of us begin to notice the quiet ache of grieving parts within our systems – some of these may be harder for us to name. They might be cued by the sadness of summer fading, or the anticipation of what's ahead. Or, it could be something even deeper: a mix of personal and global sorrow that feels too much for our systems to hold all at once.

As we navigate our lives, there are always two dynamic forces at play. The first is the relationship we have with our inner world or system (can be used interchangeably). We all have varying degrees of awareness of what the landscape of our inner world looks like, and there are different tools and practices we can access to help deepen our awareness (e.g. Internal Family Systems).

Only through connecting relationally with these emotions (or parts) can they be healed from the often profound sense of disconnection they have experienced at very crucial times in life.

Take a moment to consider what the prospect of saying “No” cues within your system. Perhaps some parts feel uneasy about doing so.