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Stronger Together Topics March-April, 2026

Here are the topics recently explored in our mental health discussion group, Stronger Together:

3/5/26: Emotional Resiliency
This week at Stronger Together, we will discuss how we manage to be emotionally resilient in the face of life struggles. This video talks about techniques for doing that. Join us to discuss their take on emotional resilience and discuss how we all work at managing it ourselves.

3/12/26: Friendships
Good friends offer support, encouragement, and perspective during both good times and difficult moments. Sometimes friendships face challenges and addressing these with openness can often strengthen the relationship. But when a friendship becomes consistently harmful or unhealthy, it may be wise to step back. Learning how to nurture, repair, and sometimes release friendships helps us build relationships that support our well-being. Join us to watch this video and discuss managing difficult points in friendships.

3/19/26: Dealing with Rejection
Rejection, or perceived rejection, is something we all experience, and it can be painful—there’s really no way to completely avoid it. Let’s watch this short video on rejection and then talk together about how each of us deals with it in our own lives.

3/26/26: Dissociation
Dissociation can involve a sense of detachment, and is considered a trauma response and a common symptom of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). What is it, and what is it not? We’ll watch this video about four types of dissociation and talk about it.

4/2/26: No meeting, Maundy Thursday

4/9/26: The Dopamine Loop
We all scroll on our phones when passing time, but what is the impact of that on our mental health, and why do we do it.?  Are we in control of it, or does the scrolling take over and become almost addictive? It is called The Dopamine Loop. Please join us to watch this short video and talk about it.

Expanding our Emotional Vocabulary: Inside Out 2

Hi folks!

This week’s topic is on a movie I really want to see but haven’t yet: Inside Out 2. (I haven’t seen the first one either!) This movie is getting applause for being a great illustration of how teens (and all of us) deal with anxiety and change, and for giving us some words to talk about it.

We’ll listen to an article/4-minute podcast from NPR: The ‘Inside Out’ movies give kids an ’emotional vocabulary.’

There’s also a 14-minute interview with a psychologist on what the movie got right. I won’t play that one tomorrow, but it’s worth checking out. It’s very affirming and normalizing of emotions and experiences surrounding anxiety.

Warm-up question: If you could hang out with any cartoon character, who would you choose and why?

See you soon!

Kirsten

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