The Lifeworks Group, Inc.

By: Dwight Bain, LMHC, NCC, Certified Coach & Critical Incident Recovery Expert 🦃 10 Safe Conversations to Build Connection This Thanksgiving The holiday season can be a sacred time of reconnection—or a season of relational strain. When families gather around the table, the goal isn’t to win arguments. It’s to win hearts. That starts with intentional conversations that lower stress and raise empathy. As host, you set the tone. Your table becomes a sanctuary when you choose connection over conflict. This year, let’s focus on stories that heal, not headlines that divide. Because the most powerful conversations aren’t about what’s happening on Wall Street or in   Washington DC —they’re about what’s happening on your street at your house. 🛡️ Why Safe Conversations Matter They protect emotional safety and dignity for everyone at the table They create space for vulnerability, laughter, and shared wisdom They help family members feel seen, heard, a...

By: Dwight Bain, LMHC, NCC, Certified Coach & Critical Incident Recovery Expert Facing Depression in 2024: Understanding, Coping, and Reaching Out The holiday season often highlights joy and connection, but for many, it magnifies feelings of loss, sadness, and isolation. Unfortunately, depression doesn’t take a holiday break. In fact, for many, it’s even more pronounced as the world around them celebrates. If you’ve noticed yourself or someone close struggling this time of year, know this: you’re not alone.  Recent job uncertainty, family estrangements, and the rise of mental health struggles have made it clear that depression doesn’t discriminate. 2024 statistics continue to show troubling signs of increased depression, with experts estimating that nearly 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. will experience a mental health disorder this year, and 1 in 6 teens will face depression before they turn 18.  Depression remains one of the most common mental health challenges,...

  By Dwight Bain, LMHC, NCC & Certified Coach      Everywhere you look there are signs of a tsunami sized mental health crisis shattering our children and stealing their childhood. Teen boys are struggling, while girls appear to be drowning, especially middle-school age girls. Most young people are affected, and some to a life-threatening level. Consider the newest CDC study about the negative impact of social media on young females where they found: 54% of teen girls report being persistently sad 32% have thought of killing themselves 24% have planned on killing themselves 13% have tried      It is not just young adolescent females experiencing a mental health crisis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducts the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) study each year to track trends among those under the age of 18 in the United States and posted these shocking downward trends since 2010. Anxiety - ...

  By: Dwight Bain, LMHC, NCC    Community Care After a Crisis- Identifying Emotional Warning Signs and Trauma Symptoms   A community crisis can terrorize an entire community in just a few minutes, while the recovery process to rebuild from a major critical incident may take weeks or months to sort through. The more you know about how to survive and rebuild after the crisis, the faster you can take positive action to get your personal and professional life back on track.   Since community crisis events like shootings at schools, malls or churches, bombing or terrorism are unpredictable, it requires a different course of action than the crisis brought on from natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, fires and floods. What can you do right now to cope with the psychological impact of a major community crisis brought on through violence?   1. Deal Directly with Your Emotions   This will reduce the tension and stress on you, which allows y...

  By: Elizabeth McKeehan, LMHC When the Other Shoe Drops…   Surviving the unthinkable. Extreme loss & hard happen.  When multiple tragedies happen all at once or close together what do you do?   What is shoe dropping, much less the other one? Is it even possible in this life to keep both shoes on? Who does it happen to? When does bad happen?   What if more bad happens when things are already bad? What happens in our brains and body? How can we keep moving forward? How can we support those in it?   If Haley Joel Osment’s famous line (from the 1999 movie The Sixth Sense) “I see dead people” has become your mantra of “I see devastating/doom/danger/dreadful/dark/deplorable things”, this may be a sign you have experienced more than your share of compound loss. You may be experiencing PTSD symptoms and your body may be feeling the weight of carrying too much trauma. Notice and pay attention to what your body is saying.   Trauma = Unexpe...