Anxiety- What's running wild in your mind?

What thoughts do you let run wild in your mind? A tiny bit of fear, nervousness or worry can turn into full blown anxiety or panic if we do not monitor our thoughts. Some fear is normal. Even some nervousness is normal. But when anxiety is consuming our thoughts, feelings and days, it's not normal. Anxiety sends us whirling into the future wondering about all kinds of "what if's". It takes us from the here and now and we begin to spiral towards panic. To break this spiral we have to tell ourselves to "stop". Stop dwelling on the fear, stop focusing on the "what if's". Choose to focus your mind on the here and now. You have control over what you think. We can't control the automatic thoughts that pop into our minds but each thought after that we can choose! Deep breathing can help you to refocus and regain control over your thoughts. Distracting yourself is another way to help get your thoughts out of the negative spiral and focused on the here and now. Inserting positive, rational, present-focused thoughts then helps to decrease the fear and anxiety. Anxiety can reap havoc on your life and relationships. You do not have to let anxiety control you. Choose to refocus your thoughts and stay mindful of the present moments. Individual counseling can help you identify further ways to decrease anxiety and take control of your thinking. Counseling can also help you understand the fears that trigger your anxiety and help you to learn how to manage them. You can learn to change your thinking which will change your feelings!

It's First Friday Raleigh!

First Friday is something I love about Raleigh. It gets us out and about, shows us great local art and lets us enjoy some amazing local venues in a unique way! Grab a friend and make it a girl's night out. Grab your significant other and tell them it's "Date Night"! Grab the family and tell them it's time for a new family experience together. Head out to First Friday. This can be a cheap idea too if you are on a budget. Spend some time intentionally pouring into your friendships, relationships, family with a new experience!

Care for You too, Ladies!

I work with many women in my counseling practice: single, married, divorced, kids, no kids, women who work inside the home and women work outside the home. A running theme with the women I counsel is a lack of self care. They are stressed out, burnt out, anxious, depressed or just flat out tired and they haven't been caring for themselves well. Self care is taking steps to be good to yourself, care for yourself, soothe yourself, nurture yourself, grow yourself, reflect on yourself. It's a time when you are only taking care of you. Self care isn't being at dinner with a friend and helping them through their problem; that's caring for them. Self care might look like a leisurely walk, reading a book, sitting and resting with a cup of tea, taking a class on something that interests you, getting a massage or pedicure, exercise, getting counseling for yourself individually. There's no right or wrong self care as long as it's caring for you and not others. Women tend to pour out more naturally than they tend to pour into themselves. Pouring out might look like work, career, child-rearing, taking care of the house, errands, time spent helping friends, etc. Anything we do to give of ourselves, our time, is us pouring out. Pouring out is not a bad thing at all; it's a healthy part of a balanced life. Most women love it, even thrive on it. It becomes destructive when we are not pouring back into ourselves or allowing others to pour back into us. When was the last time that an hour of your day was all about you, no one else? I know, I know..."I don't have that kind of free time." Truth is you must create it, carve it out of your day or else it won't happen. The day will slip away and you will have cared for everyone else except yourself. Some women find this kind of self care time to be selfish. It feels wrong to spend a few minutes a day on themselves. If this is you, it could be time to slip into counseling and explore this negative self talk or beliefs that prevent you from pouring into yourself so that in turn you have more to pour out into others! Take some time today, even 15 minutes and do something that pours into you, that requires nothing of you but instead gives back to you!

Couples, there's an app for this!

Couples there's an app for all this deep conversation I have been suggesting for your relationship in blogs here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. An app that is designed to help you emotionally connect beyond surface topics and the daily grind. We were out to dinner with my sister and her husband at Cantina South (a great spot for a Raleigh date night by the way - amazing Guacamole, seriously so good!) and talking about how it can get hard to come up with really good conversation topics at the end of the day (or the week) when you are tired and drained from work, child-rearing or life in general. My savvy sister showed us an app (for iPhone/iPad users) on her iPhone that had amazing conversation starters, great questions to use with your spouse for thought-provoking conversations and questions to get really emotionally connected. I love it! It even has a fun spin-the-bottle feature! So all you wives who deeply desire your husbands to connect with you at an emotional level- here is one great solution: ask your husband to download the app "twoignite" and then schedule a date night. Husbands, wow your wife and download this app and then start asking her some great questions over a nice meal. Once you've settled into your table, pull the smart phone out (if it's even been put away yet), and start connecting. You'll be surprised how easy it can be to connect when you have great questions like these to get the conversation started. There's even a "couples only" section of the app that gets you talking about physical intimacy (husbands, don't start your date with these questions). :) If you are still having trouble connecting after trying several date nights with intentional questions like these, it may be time to consider some counseling together.

Southwest Raleigh / Raleigh's Creative District

I'm proud to live, work and play in Southwest Raleigh, also known as Raleigh's Creative District. My husband and I have been following this blog for a while; my husband followed one of the bloggers before in another blog about our neighborhood. Keeping up with this blog is a great way to learn about things going on in the area, find new restaurants to try and keep up with super-local news. I am honored to be featured on the blog today! Check it out then stay and peruse the blog to see why I love Raleigh's Creative District and have chosen to live, work and play in Southwest Raleigh! Being a part of a community is important. I often talk to clients I'm counseling about social support, community and friendships. It's important to have healthy people around you that you can be honest with and derive support. This helps keeps us healthy and stable; it acts as a buffer between us and stress, crisis and trauma. I hope you have a solid community around you and if not, look around and see what steps you can take to become an active part of a healthy community. 

Raleigh Date Night Idea

One key to a great date is doing something new and exciting. Lucky for those of us in Raleigh, that happens each month on First Friday. All kinds of galleries and local businesses open up their doors (and walls) to all kinds of art. A great way to pour into your relationship is to see and try new things together. I encourage the couples I see for couples counseling and marriage counseling to vary their date nights. Do different things; try new things. See things you haven't seen before. Maybe you're not into art and that's OK. It doesn't mean you can't appreciate it and have a great night exploring something new together! Head downtown this Friday and see what there is to see. Make it an all out date and do dinner downtown. Some ideas for dinner are Poole's, Chuck's or The Raleigh Times. Great local Raleigh restaurants, fun atmosphere and great food! Then wander around the First Friday events together. Afterwards stop in at a local coffee shop like The Morning Times and grab something warm to drink and enjoy conversation about what you saw. What was the most intriguing piece you saw? What piece did you want to have in your home? What gallery do you think your significant other liked the best? Then spend some time talking about your relationship. It's a new year; set some goals together for your relationship. What things would you like to improve upon and how might you go about doing that? How can each of you contribute to those goals? It's a great time to reflect on what you did well last year and how you can continue to strengthen and grow your relationship in the coming year. 

Easy to Forget

Sometimes with all the hustle and bustle at this time of year, it can be easy to forget what this season is really all about. We get "wrapped" up with so much else going on: shopping, trying to find all the right gifts, decorating, Christmas party-ing, cooking, traveling, and don't forget all the wrapping, etc. So much is out there to distract us, from the sales to the new tech-y toys. I found myself getting wrapped up with my Christmas shopping list and then stopped and realized how much I was in the rush of the season. I'd forgotten to acknowledge the whole meaning behind it during my shopping fury. In the Church calendar, Advent falls before Christmas. It's a time to prepare, anticipate, and get ready for the birth of Jesus. When I was a kid we had chocolate Advent calendars. Each day we'd open a little door, read a Scripture from the Bible about the coming of Christ or prophesies about His coming, and then my sister and I would get to split a piece of chocolate in half and eat! We loved those calendars. I think likely at the time we looked much more forward to eating the chocolate than the birth of Christ. But I think it still taught us about the season of Advent, about being excited about something, anticipating someONE. This time of year has such excitement associated with it. We have Christmas carols whose lyrics get us excited about the season and there are radio stations devoted to only playing said Christmas carols 247 so we can really get excited. There are Christmas tree lots everywhere, the stores and malls are all decorated for Christmas. Why even last year in Raleigh we got snow for Christmas and had a real "white Christmas". It's fun to be excited and enjoy the season, but it's so easy to forget Who is at the center. Have you gotten too hurried this season? Is your focus on gifts and Santa and the things of Christmas rather than the Who of Christmas? When I see couples or families for counseling we spend time talking about their family traditions, their rituals. Traditions and rituals bond families together in unique ways. I talk a little about this concept in a blog post here and here, if you'd like to read more. What traditions does your family have this time of year? Are there any you might want to add?

Giving Back at the Holidays

Christmas can be both an exciting time of year and a difficult one. All the decorations, music and festivities can be great when things are going well for you. But when relationships are difficult, when you've experienced loss or when you are depressed, holidays can be very hard. If you are experiencing a recent loss, consider reading this short article or reading some previous blogs that reference grief. If you find yourself feeling sad or depressed, here's a short article on depression and here are some blog posts about depression. Whether the holidays are an exciting time or a difficult time for you, giving back can be a powerful, wonderful thing! I encourage you to take a look at these Raleigh organizations and find a way you can use your time or your resources to give of yourself! Doing this can reduce stress, decrease anxiety, improve mood and give meaning to your grief and loss. There are so many in need and so many small but meaningful ways you can help someone else. The Salvation Army, the Raleigh Rescue Mission, the Women's Center of Wake County, InterAct of Wake County, SAFEchild, and the United Way are just a few local organizations that have a multitude of ways you can help someone this holiday season. Take some time this week and find a way to give back. Schedule time to follow through. See if it doesn't improve your mood and lighten your load! If you are having difficulty this holiday season with sadness, depression, anxiety, grief or loss, consider giving the gift of counseling to yourself! Allowing someone to walk through your difficult time with you can be such a gift. Happy Holidays!

Winter Raleigh Family Fun - Great Date Idea!

So much to do in Raleigh this time of year. Winterfest downtown is one of those things! There is ice skating and other fun things to explore and experience. Bundle up and head downtown to City Plaza. This would be a great outing for families to do together. It would also be a great date idea. At just $8.00 per person, it's not too expensive either! Ice skating can be a fun activity and perhaps quite humorous even! Make a day of it or an evening of it. Wander around downtown and try some of the great local restaurants. You might find a few great shops to do some Christmas shopping as well! Stitch is a really great store with fun things to buy! Take advantage of your area Raleigh. There's so much to discover. Spend time playing together as a family or as a couple. Then spend some time reflecting on your relationships. I encourage couples and families I'm seeing for counseling to spend time both in "shoulder" time (doing the same things together) and "face" time (intentional conversations about your relationships). These combined help relationships grow and maintain their closeness. What fun holiday traditions do you have? Are there ones you want to implement? What are your favorite holiday memories? If holidays are a difficult time of year for you, share that with each other too. Be intentional about your family outings and your date nights. Intend to grow your relationships, nurture them and watch how spending time together draws you closer together. Have fun this Winter Raleigh!

Fun Raleigh Idea

This is a great time of year in Raleigh and there is so much going on in our area! One fun thing to get into this weekend is the Boylan Heights Art Walk on Sunday afternoon. Check out the website for a map and some sneak peaks of what art will be featured. This is a great experience (and great day-date idea!) for friends, families and couples! There will be lots to see (even if you don't want to buy anything) and it's a gorgeous neighborhood to explore. It looks like it's going to be a goodweekend weather-wise, so get outside. Move about! Do something fun in Raleigh. The Boylan Heights Art Walk is just one of many fun ideas!

Gratitude Improves Mood!

Thanksgiving is this week and is a good reminder to focus on being thankful for all we have! Gratitude helps improve our mood in so many ways. It takes the focus off where we aren't, what we don't have and puts it on where we are and what we do have! This greatly boosts mood and can decrease stress and anxiety too! When all we think about is what we are lacking or where we wish we were, we are dissatisfied with life and sad or angry. But when we shift our focus to the positive things about the place we are and the good things we do have, we have a more healthy perspective and our mood improves. In addition, stress and anxiety often decrease. Try making a list this week of all the things you are thankful for, all the things you do have and the things that are good about the place you are in right now. Be specific, think of small things too! For example, do you have a place to lay down at night that is safe and warm? Some people do not. Do you have clothes to wear and food to eat and a way to get from point A to point B? Many people don't. We tend to take things for granted and we need to remind ourselves that we have quite a bit! The fact that I can walk, talk, see and hear are great blessings that I often take for granted. It's good to get in the habit of being thankful for the things and abilities you do have as well as the opportunities available to you; this helps you get outside of your current situations or problems and remember that there is so much to be grateful for in your life! Happy Thanksgiving!

Holiday Family Fun!

I love posting things about Raleigh goings-on because I love downtown Raleigh and there is so much to do! The holidays are here and that means there is even more going on in Downtown Raleigh. This weekend is the Christmas Parade. What a great time to pile on warm clothes, pack up blankets and chairs and head downtown to watch the parade. So much to see and so much fun to be had. This is a great way to get in the holiday spirit and have some fun holiday family fun! I encourage you to grab your family, significant other or a group of friends and head downtown to watch the 2011 Christmas Parade. It's bound to be tons of holiday fun! Enjoy! 

Teens & Stress

I see quite a bit of teenagers and their families for counseling. One of the biggest issues I see is stress - now it may also be accompanied with anxiety and/or depression, but stress is what a lot of teenagers are experiencing. What I don't often see are teens who know how to effectively handle that stress. So instead they act out, engage in sexual activity, get into drugs or alcohol, cut themselves or harm their bodies in other ways or yell and argue with their parents. What a lot of teens are saying through these actions is "help me, I'm overwhelmed and I don't know what to do!" Now this isn't the case for every teenager, but many that I see are feeling overwhelmed, under immense pressure from parents or at school, have difficulties in their friendships or romantic relationships. Perhaps they are being picked on or bullied at school and they struggle with low self-esteem. Sometimes what helps is to decrease the amount of activities teens are involved in so there's less stress. Other times they need to hear their parents say they love them and that A's are not the goal but rather trying their best is the aim. Open communication between parents and teens will often times decrease stress in a teens life when done in a healthy, supportive and positive manner. Stress is all around us; we have to know how to manage our stress or how to eliminate stress that can be eliminated. A lot of stress we bring on ourselves; maybe we are over-involved or haven't resolved conflicts with loved ones that need to be resolved. Maybe we aren't engaging in enough positive activities that we enjoy. Increasing positive activities in our life can help decrease stress for some people. We also often engage in irrational thinking patterns and negative self-talk that increase our stress. I work with clients in counseling (teens and adults) to identify their thinking patterns and the way they are talking to themselves. We often uncover unhealthy, irrational thought patterns that lead to increased stress, anxiety and depression. Also, we find a stream of negative self-talk running through clients' minds that is not helping them in any positive way! One way to decrease stress is to examine these things - thought patterns and self-talk - to determine if they are healthy and rational. If not, the next step is to identify a healthy, rational and positive alternative to the negative, irrational thought. It takes some time but the more we speak the rational, positive thought to ourselves, the less stress, anxiety and depression we experience. If your teen is experiencing stress, anxiety or depression, I encourage you to open a dialogue about that. If they are resistant to that, enlisting the help of a counselor can be a great next step!

It's that Date Night time again!

I place a lot of emphasis on date night when I'm counseling couples. Date night keeps the relationship growing and develops increased connection and intimacy. If we aren't intentional in our in our marriages, then the foundation of our relationship can slowly but surely erode. We have to be intentional: intentional about loving our spouse actively, intentional about continuing to invest in and get to know our spouse (yes, even after being married for 10+ years), intentional about sharing new experiences together. These are key ingredients to a solid marriage and they don't just happen automatically. They happen when couples intentionally set aside time and put effort into loving each other in these ways. One of our favorite Raleigh date nights includes David's Dumpling and Noodle Bar and Cup A Joe. I absolutely love David's, great food and a great atmosphere! My husband loves the quirky atmosphere at Cup A Joe and raves about their hot chocolate! I encourage couples to try new things and to go new places. But there's also nothing wrong with having a few favorites! Tradition and rituals are also important to a marriage. They add to the marital foundation as well. This date night is one of our traditions. What are yours?

Letting Ourselves Grieve

I work with a lot of clients who are grieving. They come to counseling overwhelmed and often times haven't really even started grieving yet. They have lost fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives and friends. They have lost sons, daughters, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, cousins, homes, jobs and dreams. Grief is a tough, complicated beast. It hits us out of nowhere and can knock us down in a split second. It comes in waves and never fully goes away. People experiencing grief often try to compartmentalize it, lock it away or save it for "later". Grief does not typically comply with these requests and rules. Grief invades, takes over and settles in when we least expect it and when we'd rather it not. Healthy grieving includes giving ourselves permission to grieve. It may not be pretty, it may not go according to our schedule or wishes but it's needed and healthy to walk with grief when it pops up. Clients tell me about the many ways they shove their grief aside, stuff it back down and hide it away. These reactions are normal; we typically do what we can to avoid pain. But it's healthier to find ways to incorporate the grief into daily life whenever it decides to show up. I'm not saying you have to take the rest of the day off work if grief shows up mid-morning (though maybe that's not a bad idea and maybe you need that- that's OK). It's important to find ways to honor the feelings, acknowledge the grief and then ease back into the task at hand. Perhaps that looks like taking a 5 minute walk outside thinking about the loss, the pain and the grief. Maybe it looks like sending an email to a friend or loved one about the pain and sadness you are experiencing. It might look like writing yourself a brief note about the memories, thoughts or feelings that grief has brought up and then scheduling a time later that day to come back to those and pay special attention to them. The key is to allow yourself to pay attention to the feelings, thoughts and memories that are there when they arrive; feel them, think them, remember them, even if it's only briefly. You can limit how much time you stay in that place but giving yourself time to grieve in that moment is an important part of healthy grieving. Counseling can help you learn ways to grieve as well as uncover patterns and reasons for pushing the grieve aside. I hope we can all work towards letting ourselves grieve.

Chasing Happiness

I hear so much in daily life (TV, movies, commercials, magazines, blogs, radio, etc) about "being happy". "I just want him/her to be happy." "If I just had (insert object, relationship, career), then I'd be happy." Chasing happiness has become something so central to our American society. I hear it all the time in my counseling office from various clients; teens, couples, families, men, women...they all claim if they could just figure this or that out, have this or that, or get rid of this or that, then they'd be happy. "Really?", I want to say. Really do you think you'd truly be happy then? Do you really think that getting him/her/it will make you happy? Of course, I tend to say those things with a bit more therapeutic tact than that. But my message is the same: do you think that getting what you want will make you happy? If happiness is your goal, will you ever truly find it and be able to maintain that state of happiness? I think not. Getting that relationship, career, object, or getting rid of either of those will not make someone happy. The way I see it, the problem is in the goal. If the goal is happiness found in the hands of other people or things, it will never last. People will disappoint us, there will always be some new object out there we just have to have, jobs are lost and interests shift. When happiness is our driving motivator, we'll always get let down. We'll always be chasing one thing or another or one person or another. As a Christian, happiness is not my goal. My goal is to know and love the Lord, to know and love others. If anything else is my goal, I'll be unfulfilled. If being happy is my goal then I'll be let down constantly. As believers in Jesus, we weren't promised happiness nor were we told that happiness should be what we incessantly strive after. We were actually told the opposite...Jesus said, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33) Wewill have trouble, things won't go our way, we will be let down, disappointed, suffer, hurt, etc. Those disappointments, hurts, sufferings can lead us to intimacy with Jesus and closeness with others. And in those things, there is great joy. Joy is deeper and much more lasting than happiness. Happiness tends to be based on situations and is fleeting. Joy is something that cannot be taken away by loss or change in situation. If you find yourself chasing happiness and ending up sad and disappointed more often than not, I'd encourage you to reassess your goal. Chasing happiness doesn't lead down any lasting path. Counseling can help you do that if you desire!

A (Cheap) Raleigh Date Night Idea

It's a great time of year, great to be outside and enjoying this Fall weather! This time of year, I'm a huge fan of outdoor dates. I encourage the couples and families I see for counseling to get outside, enjoy the weather and each other! This Friday is First Friday and there are lots of great things to see and do in Downtown Raleigh. (The website linked to "Downtown Raleigh" has a great calendar of events and you can find out what is going on downtown on any given day!) First Friday doesn't have to cost you a thing either; you can wander around the galleries for free! You could start your date in Cameron Village at one of the many delicious restaurants this great area has to offer. If you like, wander around the shops or grab something sweet. Then mosey on further downtown and start seeing what the galleries have to showcase this month. You can ride the free R-Line around town so you don't have to worry about parking more than once! Also if you are unfamiliar with Downtown Raleigh, the R-Line is a great, free way to see the city! :) This kind of date is a great way to see new things, spark new conversation and have a great experience together. Dates like that help to deepen your relationship and break the monotony of dinner and a movie or a night at home. Walk and talk together; discuss what you think about the art you see! Aim to really know what your significant other or your family member thinks about what you are experiencing together. Get to know each other deeper. Have a fun fall Friday date Raleigh! 

He's not a Mind Reader

Despite what you think, your significant other is not a mind reader. I admit that when I was in graduate school sitting in one of my Marriage and Family Therapy classes and heard my professor utter this statement, I was crushed! Then my professor had us take a test to see how strongly we believed our significant others or future spouses should be able to read our minds, to know what we wanted and needed without us telling them. Needless to say I scored off the chart; it impacted me so much I can remember where exactly I was sitting when I learned this truth! I fully believed that my future husband should be able to read my mind! I thought he should know what I wanted and desired and how to give that to me; it seemed easy enough for me. Oh how that belief has been changed after walking through my graduate program (thanks Dr. Coyle and Richmont Graduate University!) and after being married (thanks Ryan!). I was having a beautiful conversation with a friend the other night and this topic came up again. I'm beginning to think it's pretty common! Countless couples and I have this conversation during couples counseling sessions."He's not a mind reader" I say, he can't know what you need, want or desire unless you tell him- and really spell it out for him. Wives wonder how this can be love; how is it love when I have to tell them what to do, they say. It's love because he acts on what you have told him. He can't read your mind but he can follow through and love you with what you have shared with him. Tell him exactly how he can give you what you desire, need, want. I'm using him primarily because I see this mind-reading expectation mostly in women. But alas, I'm not ruling you men out - you may just as well do it too--if so replace all the "him's" with "her's". I have to remind myself of this truth quite often and have to remember to tell my husband specifically what I need and make sure he understands what I'm desiring. I walk with couples as they learn to ask each other specifically for what they want and need and then I have the privilege of watching them thrive when they receive that as love from each other. Try it out, ask your spouse for what you need, tell him how he can give this to you. Then choose to receive it as love when he does the very thing you've shared with him!

On Being a Family

It's hard being a family. Put together different personality styles and temperaments and you are bound to have conflict and clashes.Add to that people who have grown up in the same home and are reaching the teenage years, and things just get downright tough. I work with many teenagers and their families. We work on communication, relationship building and conflict resolution most often. What I hear most from the teens I counsel with is that they desire to be heard; some of them tell me that outright and with others I hear that more indirectly. But they all long to be known and loved at their core - even if they aren't sure who they are quite yet. That can be said for us adults as well; at our core we are desiring to be known and loved. Teens are seeking attention, affection and love - and often they seek this in the wrong places. It can be scary to seek this kind of love from our families. Maybe there has been pain or hurt in the family and they have been wounded in the family. Or maybe there hasn't been any major family trauma or tragedy but it is still hard for them to reach out; likely it's just a product of being a teen, searching for who they are and where they belong, needing connection yet desiring independence as well. I encourage parents to pursue their teens, pursue their kids' hearts. Chase after them even when they continue to run away or put up walls. Deep down teens do desire to be known and loved; they need their parents attention. It's just hard for them to ask for it, so instead they disobey, rebel or talk disrespectfully. It's hard to be a teen; there is so much pressure to perform - to make the grade. There's pressure to fit in, to look certain ways and act certain ways and if you don't you'll be an outcast or made fun of by your peers you so desperately want to love you. It's a tough world to grow up in these days. I admit though, I'm not a parent of a teen so I don't fully know what it's like to have your child rebel, disobey or disrespect. And I know I'm no longer a teen and that they live in a different world than what I experienced during my teens. Yet I think a lot of it comes down to pursuit of relationship- real, deep, consistent relationship. It's not going to always be easy or pretty, but that is life - messy and difficult. So parents...pursue your teens. And teens...be open to letting your parents in every now and then, even if it's hard. I encourage you to seek out Family Counseling if times are rough in your family; it can be a great tool to navigate the relational changes and challenges that happen during the teen years. 

Raleigh Art in the Park

There are so many great things to do in the Raleigh area! As you can tell, I really like sharing the fun things I find to do in Raleigh with you. I think utilizing all your community has is one great way to stay grounded and healthy! As a counselor I'm always discussing with my clients the benefits of being connected in your community and accessing what your community has to offer. I also encourage the clients I see in counseling who are experiencing depression or stress to get outside and exercise. The fresh air and movement really help to decrease depression and stress. The NC Museum of Art has a great outdoor exhibit that you can visit. You can stroll through the museum's "Art in the Park" leisurely alone or with a friend. You can also kick it up a notch and exercise while you take in the art if you'd like! I have done both and loved the experiences. The art provides some great conversation starters with friends or significant others. My niece and nephew really enjoyed the exhibits too, so this can be a great family outing as well! I have seen families bring bikes, picnics and balls to play and enjoy the park and the art! This fall take some time to get outside and enjoy what your Raleigh community has to offer!