coronavirus Message

Hello Fulshear-Katy Chamber Member

By now your inbox is filled with similar emails, we’re sure of it. We’re getting them too.

If you skim over this, that’s fine. We just want you to know this message is coming from our Licensed, Mental Health Professionals, and a place of deep sincerity and appreciation for the work that you do and the people you serve as a Fulshear-Katy Chamber member. It’s why we show up for work every day as well, and none of us are alone in this struggle.

As you navigate your life right now, we know and understand how current events may be impacting your professional commitments, your personal well-being, your own family, and your business. We want to help you maintain as much normalcy as possible during the next few weeks, so we are sharing with our members what decades of research shows helpful to the vast majority of us all.. and will likely add value to your new Pandemic routine.

Please know the field of Psychology and Mental Health tells us that we all have an "innate capacity for resilience." It is a skill that we can practice daily, and build upon. As a mental health professional for 30 years, and an Incident commander following 9/11/2001 NYC, World Trade Center, I know that we can best thrive through even "wartime stress" by daily thinking, feeling and engaging in good health practices such as:

• Staying connected with others: practice "over-communicating" positives along with harsh realities I.e.: more people will recover and build immunity; I’m helping to "stop the spread" by sheltering in place. I’m too young to retire and I will have plenty more work to do provided I prioritize my health and community health right now.
• Revisit your purpose/focus: What can you do to help? I.e.: Pray, worship and offer your time/talents, whatever they may be. Know that certain things never change, such as the value of health, helping others, and faith. We get what we give! Our society will choose recovery, and leverage learnings from this pandemic moving forward.
• Tap into your built-in capacity for recovery: Make an agreement with yourself that you make good healthy choices during this time (you already know what they are) and begin with a positive end in mind. Journal strengths and what’s good about you and your life: Write these things out and share them with significant others. Ask them the same. Telling resilience stories allows your healthy brain chemistry to follow.
• Practice self-awareness & self-regulation: In other words, recognize and manage your anxiety. Your emotions are a helpful tool in building Emotional Intelligence. While I purchase the attached exercises with my clinical license, and they’re intended to work through with a Mental Health Professional, there are likely a shortage of MHPs right now to meet everyone’s need, so please practice good daily mental health hygiene on your own and call us when needed. (Please see attached exercises at our cost).

We are what we think about! We are what we repeatedly think and do! While easier said than done, "the recovery model" was born as a means for people struggling with addictions, to leverage fellowship and the practice of recovery. Today it remains a healthy approach to all our lives since we’re all likely in recovery from something, whether it's depression, anxiety, couple or family conflict, grief & loss and now Pandemic.

We each begin our day with good physical hygiene. Think about the equal importance of your daily practice of mental health hygiene. Do you engage in regular exercise, healthy nutrition, rhythmic breathing (oxygen is a powerful anti-anxiety drug), positive self-talk, negative-thought-stopping & thought replacement, journaling, prayer, spirituality and fellowship? Please see attached exercises, and call us for anything further.