Summer Solstice! Welcome Summer!
This year the solstice happens on Sunday, June 21, at 4:24 A.M. EDT when the Earth is at the point in its orbit where the North Pole reaches its maximum tilt (approximately 23.5 degrees) toward the Sun (Almanac, 2025). This is also the time when the Northern Hemisphere is exposed to the Sun at the most direct angle of the year. This time of year has some profound implications for neurobiology and psychological well-being. These are what we are going to explore in preparation for June 21st!
Boundaries! Spiritual Boundaries
When we are looking through the lens of mental health, spiritual boundaries are the protective limits that we set for ourselves around our core beliefs, values, and practices that give our lives meaning and purpose. These boundaries help define our right to follow our own internally developed compass and protect our connections to a higher power or purpose, nature, or our inner self from being coerced, shamed, or diminished by others. Spiritual boundaries are necessary for existential safety or the feeling that we are allowed to exist as our amazing, authentic selves in a world with many different perspectives. With all that said, let’s dive into a deeper discussion.
Boundaries! Social Boundaries
The focus for this post brings our awareness to social boundaries. Social boundaries are the boundaries or limits that we set regarding our time, energy, and availability within the context of our relationships and community. These boundaries help us moderate how much energy we use to engage with the world around us in both the in-person and digital contexts. The goal here is to be able to ensure our social life nourishes us rather than depletes us overall. Before we dive in, it is worth clarifying something about emotional boundaries and social boundaries. While our emotional boundaries help protect our feelings, social boundaries help us protect our capacity. Social boundaries function like gatekeepers of our schedules and our social batteries.
Boundaries! Emotional Boundaries
We have covered mental and physical boundaries thus far in the series. Today we arrive at emotional boundaries. Emotional boundaries address the invisible line that distinguishes our feelings and internal experiences from the feelings and experiences of those around us. They help us understand how much emotional energy that we are willing to share and even receive to ensure that we don’t get lost in others’ emotional worlds. Simply stated emotional boundaries help protect our inner peace and emotional stamina and allow us to take responsibility for our own feelings.
Boundaries! Mental Boundaries
When we talk about mental boundaries in the context of mental health, we are looking at our cognitive space that contains your thoughts, values, opinions, and beliefs. Unlike physical boundaries where we can potentially see or touch them, think about our body boundaries, mental boundaries are invisible. They separate our internal world and experiences from the experiences and thoughts of others. Our mental boundaries guard our intellectual autonomy and psychological sovereignty just like our physical boundaries protect our bodies.
Boundaries! Physical Boundaries
Because they set personal limits that help us feel safe, and they help us negotiate our behavior and choices in relationships outside of ourselves. Boundaries also help us prevent burnout and reduce stress because they allow us to establish clear guard rails about our time and energy. Ultimately, boundaries serve many purposes in our lives, and the above sentences only cover a few of the many. If an argument was to be made, though, boundaries as safety stands out as one of the most important reasons for them.
Mental Health Awareness Month: Why Do We Need to Care About Our Mental Health?
Welcome to May, Mental Health Awareness Month! This is a special month in the year where mental health professionals and organizations take additional time to remind us all about the importance of mental health. That is not to say that professionals and organizations don’t do this all year long because of the importance of mental health in our life. And, yes, our mental health is essential in our daily lives, and that is what this post will focus on. This post will serve as a gentle reminder about why we need to care about mental health, not just our physical health. While we will not be able to cover every reason in depth, nor can we cover every possible topic, hopefully, everyone reading this post renews their commitment to take care of their mental health.
Stress Awareness Month: Stress Relief and Resilience
Resilience is our ability to bounce back from stressful situations, which helps buffer the impacts of stress (Bajaj et al., 2022; Chen et al., 2022). The other key feature of resilience is that resilience is not about avoidance, but rather our ability to adapt to, manage, and recover from stress. Avoiding stress is something altogether different. And, resilience is something that we can develop through things like social connections, building our self-awareness, etc. Believe it or not, positive affect can be a resilience resource as higher levels of positive affect can help protect people from impacts of stress (Egan et al., 2024). The focus for today is diving into what helps us build resilience so that we can flip challenges on their head and turn them into growth opportunities.
Stress Awareness Month: Mediating Factors
What are mediating factors? Mediating factors is a fancy way of saying factors that explain how or why a stressor ends up in a specific outcome. These factors help explain the mechanism that conveys the effect of stress on us as humans, whether physically, psychologically or both. For example, why do some people end up with a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and others do not, despite going through the same event? The simple answer is because we are not the same. The long answer is because of mediating factors that we cannot necessarily see on the outside. These factors are worth talking about because they help us understand ourselves better and our relationship with stress.
Stress Awareness Month: Impacts of Stress
We spent much time in the last post talking about the different kinds of stress. Now we will come back to this point. There is a lot of overlap of impact between the different types of stress. Let’s look at environmental stress as our example. In one study they looked at air pollution, climate change, solar radiation, and meteorological conditions and their impact on different health outcomes, such as respiratory, cardiovascular, metabolic and gastrointestinal, renal and urogenital, neurological and psychological health, infectious and skin diseases, and major cancers, and let’s say the outcomes were not good (Sundas et al., 2024). Additionally, many of us experience many types of stress throughout our lives, which leads to cumulative impacts. For people who report high levels of cumulative stress in many different life domains and across time the negative impacts of daily stress are worse for their health (Haight et al., 2023). It’s time to take stress seriously. Do not wait. Today is the day.
Stress Awareness Month: Types of Stress
April is Stress Awareness Month. While we have a month devoted to bringing awareness to stress, let’s call a spade a spade. We experience stress in our lives everyday. Before we spend more time on the challenges of stress, let’s remember why the human body has the ability to experience stress. Stress is a natural physical and emotional response to the challenges we experience in our lives as a survival mechanism that activates the “fight-or-flight” to face what our bodies or minds view as threats.
Athlete Identity: The Impact of Social Media
We live in the day and age of social media. We have Instagram, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp, Reddit, and Pinterest to name a few. Approximately 63.9% to 68.7% of the world's population uses social media. This number differs slightly depending on where one pulls the information and from what year. The idea here is that many, many people use social media, and athletes are no exception. Social media is allowing athletes to build personal brands, control their narratives, and engage with their fan base, which all impact their athlete identity. While the above are generally considered to be positives, there is another side that we need to consider - the negatives. Athletes are more exposed to intense public scrutiny, social comparison, and mental health challenges. In this post we look at the good, the bad, and everything in between.
Spring is Here! What About Our Mental Health?
As of Friday, Mar 20, 2026, 8:46 AM MDT, we are officially in spring. Depending on where you are in the Northern Hemisphere, the time may be different. That time is the spring equinox, veteran equinox, or what is also known as the First Point of Aries. Spring brings with it budding flowers, the fresh green of new plant life, the birth of baby animals, and days filled with more light. It’s a beautiful time of year.
With the changing of the seasons, we may need to stop and consider our connection with nature, as there is an essential link between the two
Neurodiversity in Sports
Neurodiversity in sports is a topic that probably doesn’t get talked about as much as we need. Scroll through any of your social media accounts or emails and see what you notice. Did you notice much around the topic of neurodiversity, sports, and athletes? Did you know that there is increasing evidence that suggests autism and ADHD may occur at higher rates in athletes than in the non-athlete population (Hoare et al., 2023; Hoare et al., 2025). Given that information, why are we not talking about this topic and taking more action?!
Brief Introduction to the Psychology of Athlete Retirement
Last week, we revisited the topic of athlete identity in preparation for this week. Why? For the following reason. As important as athlete identity is for driving high performance and motivation in sports, athlete identity is a key predictor of athlete adjustment trajectories, though the mechanisms are not as clearly established (Haslam et al., 2021b; Haslam et al., 2024). Whether athlete, coach, sport and performance professional, or mental health counselor, understanding athlete identity is crucial. It also means that, given we don’t know the mechanisms, we must pay attention and remember to work with an athlete as a whole person.
Athlete Identity: What Is It?
As a working definition, identity is the amalgamation of memories, experiences, relationships, and values that a person uses to help define a sense of self. New experiences and facets can be incorporated through time. Remember, no definition is perfect and researchers are always learning more. For now, this definition will serve our purpose. Let’s begin by highlighting a couple key points from this definition.
Fatphobia in Sports
This week's focus is fatphobia. As before with the previous posts on racism and gender inequity, we will not be able to do this topic justice in such a short space. However, hopefully it serves as a pathway for understanding more about this topic and how it’s a systemic issue that must be addressed.
What is Order - Emotion, Feeling, Thought - What is the Difference? And, Why Does It Matter?
There is a complex interplay between emotions, feelings, and thoughts. Learn more about this interplay and why it matters.
Racism in Sports
Last week focused on gender inequity in sports, this week we turn to another systemic issue in sports, racism. These topics can be challenging to dive into, and they are essential topics that must be addressed. This post may be triggering for some, please make sure to take care of yourself. Thank you in advance for diving in and facing racism head on!
Racism takes many forms in sports. Racism shows up in numerous ways and incorporates a multitude of acts and processes that operate on the individual level and the institutional level, either overtly or covertly (Hylton, 2010).
Gender Inequality in Sports
When it comes to gender inequity in sports, one blog post cannot do the conversation justice. There are many conversations and threads that must be discussed. Moreover, conversations need to be turned into action. However, we must begin somewhere. This blog post hopes to serve as primer to introduce the topic in hopes of inspiring more conversations and action to bring about lasting change.
DisclaimerThe information provided by AbunDANCE Somatic Center (“we,” “us,” or “our”) on this platform is for general informational purposes only. All information is provided in good faith, however, we make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, or completeness of any information.
Under no circumstance shall we have any liability to you for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of the site or reliance on any information provided. Your use of the site and your reliance on any information on the site is solely at your own risk. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental health condition.