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Living From Happiness

The Happiness Doc, Dr. Melanie Harth, and guests share thought-provoking convos every week on Living From Happiness. From mindfulness and neuroscience to positive psychology and creativity, the show's all about living well in transformational times.
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Now displaying: April, 2022
Apr 21, 2022
What's the connection between C-PTSD, activism and hope? Melanie and Artemisio Romero y Carver dive into all of it in this fast-paced episode. Arte is a Chicana artist, poet, and grassroots organizer. Santa Fe Youth Poet Laureate in 2020, Arte's voice is informed, intelligent, and vibrant with hope.

Sharing openly about his diagnosis of CPTSD, as a result of his early childhood experiences, he and Melanie talk about the stress of living in a chaotic world with so many challenges facing his generation, including the climate crisis.

C-PTSD, or complex PTSD, shares a lot of symptoms with PTSD, although it's different in one important aspect.

C-PTSD can develop as a result of repeated stressful or traumatic events that happen over months or even years.

"A recent study by the National Survey of Children's Health found that almost 50% of the children in the United States have had at least one significant traumatic experience. Even more recently, a study from 2019 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 60% of American adults report having had at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE), and almost a quarter reported three or more ACEs. These numbers are even more sobering when you consider that the CDC researchers believe them to be an underestimate" (from What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, Bruce Perry MD, PhD, Oprah Winfrey).

Some common symptoms of C-PTSD include

  • feeling overwhelmed,
  • anxious all the time,
  • having trouble sleeping,
  • emotionally out of balance,
  • irritable and angry and sad,
  • tired, and
  • hopeless.

If you're struggling with C-PTSD, you may find relationships challenging. You might have issues feeling emotionally safe with other people, and not understand how to trust others (or yourself).

You may avoid intimacy because you just don't understand it.

Conflict may feel terrifying for you. Or, on the other hand, you may be so comfortable with conflict and arguing that you push people away.

If any of this feels familiar to you, please reach out to the Santa Fe Therapist for a free 15-minute phone consult. Send an email to melanie@melanieharth.com and schedule a session, won't you?

Apr 7, 2022

Anxiety, depression, and addictive behaviors can be best friends. I'm talking about the kind of "best" friend that can suck you in so deeply that you forget who you are and how it feels to be healthy and thriving.

Yvonne Castaneda is a licensed social worker, adjunct professor of Boston College Graduate School of Social Work, online facilitator of BC School of Theology and Ministry, and author of the new book, Pork Belly Tacos With a Side of Anxiety: My Journey Through Depression, Bulimia, and Addiction.

She's an expert in anxiety, depression, and addictive behaviors. She's also super articulate and a lot of fun!

This thought-provoking, light-hearted conversation touches on a wide range of topics, including cultural identity. Yvonne identifies as Latina, writing that her identity "as a Latina is rooted in the core values we share as a people, in our ability to overcome hardships with tenacity, perseverance, and determination, in the underlying passion and respect for life that I've encountered in all of the [Latinos] who have crossed my path, our cultural differences not strong enough to drive us apart because combined we wrote the book on how to laugh, how to love and how to vivir."

In addition to Latina cultural identity, Yvonne and Dr. Melanie Harth, the show host, talk about how:

  • anxiety and depression can develop in children and adolescents
  • early signs of the eating disorder bulimia
  • anxiety and depression can lead to disordered eating in adolescents
  • low self-confidence and low self-esteem can contribute to eating disorders
  • shame develops and contributes to anxiety, depression, and addictive behaviors
  • Latino families can unknowingly encourage eating disorders in children and adolescents

As Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street, wrote"There are wounds of the spirit impossible to heal alone. Yvonne CastaƱeda is a healer healing others by sharing her own story. This book resonated deeply with me, as it will with many who are lost when their DNA contradicts the image of the ideal."

"Anxiety, Depression, & Addictive Behaviors" is a beautiful episode, with Yvonne Castenada and Melanie Harth sharing sensitive experiences with transparency, clinical knowledge, and the wisdom earned through painful personal experiences.

Dr. Melanie Harth, Santa Fe therapist and life coach, helps stressed women struggling with anxiety, sadness and grief, and low self-esteem. Click here for her website.

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