To be clear, though, it’s also fine if you DO lose your mind while grieving. Even if you’re feeling pressure to “hold it together” from loved ones, coworkers, or others, it is totally normal to not be able to live up to your usual obligations.

While it’s totally fine to not “have your life together,” you still deserve to feel supported and grounded as often as possible while you’re grieving. So here are some tips for lightening your burden.

How to live with uncertainty

Life can feel so much safer and more comfortable when we’re living in black and white, so our brains tend to cope with uncertain situations by thinking in more black and white terms.

But unfortunately, living in black and white often robs us of the ability to see our reality accurately. And seeing our reality as we wish it were as opposed to how it actually is often leads us to behave in ways that aren’t likely to get us the things we really want, like safety, security, and connection.

So how can we shift our thinking to become more comfortable living in the gray space? I’ve come up with some specific tips.

Ashley KirsnerMay 18, 2021uncertainty, limbo, how to live with uncertainty, how to sit with uncertainty, how to be with uncertainty, waiting for diagnosis, waiting for a diagnosis, waiting on a diagnosis, waiting in limbo, how to deal with uncertainty, deal with uncertainty, black and white thinking, cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, CBT, cbt, self-care, cost exposure, probability exposure, cbt exposure, CBT exposure, CBT exposures, happiness, resilience, people are happier than you expect, people are happier than expected, people are surprisingly happy, how to be chill, be chill, self care, self-compassion, how to reduce anxiety, how to deal with anxiety, how to anxiety, anxiety, anxious, i'm anxious, I'm anxious, feeling anxious, feel anxious, I feel anxious, feel less anxious, how do I feel less anxious, how can I feel less anxious, cope with uncertainty, how to cope with uncertainty, uncertain, uncertain times, affective forecasting, immune neglect, Dan Gilbert, Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness, stumbling on happiness Comments

How to support a friend

Every so often, I’ll see some content floating around the internet encouraging people to ask their friends and loved ones how they’d like to be supported.

I think that’s a great conversation to have, but in practice, it’s often best to have that conversation **before** anybody actually needs support. If your friend is crying on your couch, that’s often NOT the time to ask them how they prefer to be supported; people who are actively in pain often are not in a state to do the mental work required to educate others on how to best support them.

So, how are you supposed to know what to do when your friend IS crying on your couch? I’ve gathered some tips here based primarily on my suicide hotline training.

Ashley KirsnerApril 8, 2021support, how to support a friend, how to listen, listening, how do I support my friend, how do I support my grieving friend, how can I support, how can I be more supportive, how can I be supportive, Maslow, Maslow's hierarchy, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, validate, validation, validating, reflect, reflection, reflecting, open-ended questions, strategic open-ended questions, strength-based, strengths-based, make people feel heard, how to make people feel heard, how to help people feel heard, how to help someone feel ehard, how to help someone feel heard, suicide hotline, what do they teach you at a suicide hotline, suicide hotline training, difficult conversations, how to have a difficult conversation, how to have a hard conversation, how do i have a hard conversation, how do i have a difficult conversation, problem-solving, self-care, self-compassion, Skip the Small Talk, Skip the Small Talk blog, Skip the Small Talk blogpost, Skip the Small Talk blog post, how can I be a better friend, I want to be a better friend, I want to be a better boyfriend, how do I be a better boyfriend, how can I support my girlfriend, how do I support my girlfriend, how do I support my boyfriend, how can I support my boyfriend, how can I be there for, how can I be there for my friend, how can I be there for my friends, how can I be there for my girlfriendComment

Resource Roundup: How to not ruin your relationships in a world of "Me Too"

Are you nervous about interacting with women and gender nonconforming folks these days? That’s understandable; if you know at least 33 men, 6 women, or 2 nonbinary folks, statistically speaking, you probably know a survivor of sexual assault, whether they’ve disclosed it to you or not. And it can be tricky to know how to interact with someone who’s gone through such a horrendous experience (or who is likelier than you to go through such a horrendous experience) that you might not be able to fully empathize with. How can you help them feel safe with you, and how can you support the people in your life who fear sexual assault without overstepping their boundaries? Here are some resources to help you navigate just that. There is no one right answer to how to be there for others, but we’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback about these articles. We hope you or someone you care about finds them helpful.

Ashley KirsnerOctober 4, 2018sexual assault, assault, trauma, self-care, metoo, me too, #metoo, me, too, resource, resources, resource roundup, communication, talk to women, how to, how to talk to women, nonbinary, how to talk to nonbinary

12 Nayyirah Waheed poems that Skip the Small Talk

We're excited to either introduce you to or remind you about made-famous-by-Instagram-but-actually-because-of-talent-not-just-because-her-stuff-is-on-Instagram poet Nayyirah Waheed. Her books salt. and Nejma are brimming with unpretentious poems that capture human experiences we don't usually talk about in everyday life. So, obviously, she's very much our jam. Here are some of our favorite poems of hers that capture some of the ideas we've discussed in other blogposts or at our events.

BlogAshley KirsnerMarch 13, 2018Nayyirah Waheed, Nayyirah, Waheed, poem, poems, poetry, poet, poets, woman of color, women of color, salt, salt., Nejma, nejma, a pinch of prose for those days, Instagram, Instagram poem, instagram, instagram poetry, Instagram poetry, relationships, what you need to say, split, hurt, vulnerability, vulnerable, pain, rejected, unable, masculine, culture, masculinity, men, strenght, strength from vulnerability, strength out of vulnerability, strength, honesty, yield, breakdown, break down, heal, healing, compassion, judgment, judging, judgmental, mindful, mindfulness, authentic, authenticity, people pleasing, people pleaser, people-pleasing, people-pleaser, self-love, self-care, speak up, speaking up, the freedom in fear, home, name, dam Comment

Three tips for surviving the holidays

Whether you’re spending the holidays with family, with friends, or with yourself this year, your celebrations probably won’t live up to the impossibly wholesome fireside gatherings that the media depicts as the norm. Well, the good news is that no matter how many pictures of glistening ham you see on Instagram, nobody else’s holiday is going to be perfect, either. So, we’ve come up with some tips for making the most out of your holidays, whatever they look like.

Ashley KirsnerDecember 21, 2017holidays, holiday, Christmas, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Hanukkah, Chanukkah, Happy Chanukkah, boundaries, setting boundaries, how to set boundaries, how to have boundaries, how to have a healthy relationships, how to connect, family, how to be with family, self-care, mindful, mindfulness, mindful acceptance, mindfully accept, three tips for surviving the holidays, survive the holidays, how to survive the holidays, depression, sad, lonely, I feel lonely, feel lonely, Skip the Small Talk, Skip the Small Talk blogpost, Skip the Small Talk blog, Skip the Small Talk blog post, missed my flight, anxiety, Maslow's hierarchy, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Maslow, boundary, set boundary, how to connect with family, visiting family, without going crazy, party, holiday party, holiday party ideas, Christmas party, Christmas party ideas, Hanukkah party, Hanukkah party ideas, hosting a party, host a party, how to host a partyComment

What to do about anger

Has your anger ever led to an action you regretted? Maybe you sent a text you didn’t feel great about, maybe some words came out of your mouth more harshly than you’d intended, or maybe your anger came out sideways and you spent some time silently fuming and distracted from your everyday life. Since anger can compel you to take action before thinking, it can be useful to have some tools ready for the next time you’re feeling peeved.

Ashley KirsnerSeptember 12, 2017Skip the Small Talk, Skip the Small Talk blog, Skip the Small Talk blog post, Skip the Small Talk blogpost, anger, angry, feeling angry, how to deal with anger, how to cope with anger, mindful, mindfulness, deep breaths, deep breathing, I'm so angry, I'm angry, express anger, expressing anger, how do I tell someone I'm angry, metaconversation, metaconversations, art, music, calming, calming music, DBT, dialectical behavior therapy, coping, how to cope, how to cope with feelings, feelings, emotions, overwhelming, overwhelming feelings, I'm feeling overwhelmed, feeling overwhelmed, support hotline, hotline, suicide hotline, journal, journaling, free write, freewrite, freewriting, free-writing, free-write, exercise, Maslow's hierarchy, self-care, anger physiology, fight or flight, fight or flight response, rash, rash decision-making, decision-making, problem-solving, how to make a decision, how to solve a problem, how to be angry, healthy relationships, healthy relaitonship, how to have a healthy relationship, how to have a healthy relationships, how to have healthier relationships, how to maintain your relationships, how to maintain your relationship, how to have long-lasting relationships, how to have better relationships, how to make your relationship last, how to make your relationships healthy, how to have healthy relationships, how to make your relationship healthy, deal with feelings, how to deal with feelings, I'm furious, I don't know what to do, what should I do, explosive anger, What to do with anger, what to do about anger, what to do with anger, anger problem, I have an anger problem, I think I have an anger problem, do I have an anger problem, problem with anger, problems with anger, do I have a problem with anger?, vent, just want to vent, just want to talk, blogsComment

Three steps to make yourself bulletproof to criticism

I used to be awful at receiving critical feedback or anything I perceived as rejection. I was so bad at it that it led me to quit things I otherwise enjoyed. I went to musical theater camp as a middle schooler and got turned down for big parts for two summers, so I quit. As a dance team member in high school, I had to hear about how I could improve on a regular basis, so I quit. The pattern pervaded pretty much all aspects of my life for years.

Ashley KirsnerMarch 29, 2017bulletproof, criticism, feedback, boundaries, mistake, mistakes, imperfection, making mistakes, thanks for telling me, resilience, grit, positive reinforcement, reward, self-care, suicide hotline, how to deal with criticism, how to cope with criticism, how to criticism, how to take criticism, how to respond to criticism, what to say to criticism, what do you say to criticism, how to make yourself bulletproof to criticism, communication, how to communicate, how to improve communication, how to take feedback, how to take harsh feedback, how to take hard feedback, how to respond to feedback, skip the small talk, Skip the Small Talk, thanks for sharing, harsh criticism, harsh feedback, communicate better at work, how to communicate at work, office, STST, talk big, talk big not small, get to the point, how to get to the point, managing relationships, relationships Comments

How to be lonely

America is incredibly lonely, but social norms and the nature of loneliness, itself, can make it difficult for people to take the actions that make them feel more connected to others; loneliness can lead to a feedback loop in which feelings of isolation make you perceive the world in ways that lead you to feel even lonelier.

Since this leaves a lot of folks feeling trapped in their loneliness and unable to see a way out, we decided to develop some activities to help break the cycle.

TIPS, STORIES, AND insPiration