Blog 5

            As it says in the Corey and Corey (2008) text, there is good stress, eustress, and bad stress, distress.  I wish that I could always have good stress, but I know that there are distresses in our lives that we cannot prevent like the death.  It all really depends on how you look at a situation and how things affect you.  I know I have gone through a lot of stressful things in the past couple of months because of my mother’s death over the summer.  It was really hard to bounce back and to keep on going to reach my goals in life.  I guess you can say I have resilience but I still think it was really hard for me because my sister and I had to do everything without a father.  I also think I have a lot of coping skills on my side and I have really good friends.  I feel like I have a good sense of humor, great time management and at times, I feel as if I am in good mediation with prayer for others and my family.  I worked hard through this time and I continue to work through it. 

One thing that is really interesting to me and stress is its impact on ones mental and physical state.  It is crazy how our body works when stress is in our lives.  I have wondered one thing; is stress the reason why first years in college gain 15 lbs?  These teens are coming into a very stressful situation, where they have a huge increase with the responsibilities that they have to do.  I wonder if students gain this because of stress.  With that, I know that people in the U.S. have very stressful lives that are busy and I wonder is America partly obese because of all the stress and busyness of our lives?  I always wondered if this was the case and I hope other people can respond to this blog so I can hear other people’s ideas.

When talking about the Greason and Cashwell (2009) article, I feel that a counselor has to have some kind of mindfulness if they want to help their client.  I also think that self-efficacy, attention, and empathy are also all important.  Based on the Greason and Cashwell (2009) article, I feel as if mindfulness is so important to the field then why don’t we teach it in our classes?  Or is a sense of mindfulness taught through self-concept and self-efficacy?  I know that mindfulness is important to have as a counselor and I feel as if I do have some form of it.  I may not be a master of it but there are a lot of people that come to me with their problems and I don’t judge what they tell me based on my values.  I want to help people and my values don’t need to get in the way of doing that. 

Corey, G., & Corey, M.S. (2008). I never knew I had a choice: Explorations in personal growth. (9^th ed.). Belmont, California: Thompson Brooks/Cole.

Greason, P.B, & Cashwell, C.S. (2009). Mindfulness and counseling self efficacy: The mediating role of attention and empathy. Counselor Education & Supervision, 49, 1-19.