CHANGE IS GOOD LOGO & LEAF DESIGN BY CLAIRE SANDERMAN

INTRODUCTION & INFOGRAPHIC BY ARYN HENNING NICHOLS

A

Change is

nyone will say there’s been a lot of change over the last year… but honestly, when I look back, there’s a lot of change every year. For starters, our daughter grows by inexplicably large leaps and bounds each turn ‘round the sun. Literally, more than three inches this year! And she keeps growing in other arenas – mentally, emotionally, and socially as well. It’s an amazing thing to witness. There have been some good changes in my life recently too. I’ve been doing Noom (an app that promotes mental and physical health) for the past six months or so, and have learned so much. One of the week’s lessons was about neuroplasticity – the notion that the brain has the ability to recover from trauma, repair itself, and create new connections after learning or having new experiences (i.e. undergoing change). I found it fascinating, so I was excited when our mental health writer, Olivia Lynn Schnur, proposed we include information about it in her piece in this issue (check it out on page 37).

This idea that we can improve ourselves with hard work; that we can change our lives by training our perspectives – I feel like it’s the key to everything! I’ve always been a pretty positive person, but having mental tools to help me through tough times has been truly life changing. As was the first time I ever went to therapy (nine years ago after my c-section with Roxie), and the revelation I had after – that working on our mental health is SO important (I don’t know what took me so long!), and we should be normalizing it in our every day conversations. I’m so glad we’ve added it to our regular features here in Inspire(d) – it’s one of those changes we’ve implemented over the years – and I am embracing it with both arms. Here’s to finding a path forward in the coming year that takes all the changes in stride.

Good

XO - Aryn

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