8-week study gives spouses tools for better social and emotional health.
See this and more inside the December issue of Military Spouse Magazine!
Six months into our new assignment in Okinawa, Japan, my husband finally sat me down and pleaded for me to “get my head in the game.” He knew I was struggling to accept the news we received the first night on island that our tour was not two, but four years—shifting our “adventure” into a lifetime. The additional stress of the recent loss of my grandfather with no option to travel back for his funeral, unemployment, prolonged single parent duties, injured children, and distance from familial support systems left me feeling overwhelmed and alone. His plea forced me to accept my old coping skills weren’t working, so I sat down that night to devise a plan. Ironically, I stumbled across an email for words you can place on your wall. Then I saw it. Wake Up, Kick Ass, Repeat. I immediately ordered it in the largest, darkest letters and adhered it to our wall where it remained for four years. What I later discovered was by adding this mantra to the wall, my negative thoughts started to shift to positive ones, which ultimately improved my emotions. I knew I could use this experience to help military spouses do the same.
Military spouses experience significant levels of stress. None of us is immune, and we each have a breaking point. Though we may recognize the stress in our lives, my experiences taught me that we don’t always know what to do about it. What is the best way to handle the stress built into military life? I wrote “Wake Up, Kick Ass, Repeat” to help military spouses answer that question. It’s an eight-week study that gives spouses tools for better social and emotional health, ways to change our behavior by making specific changes to our thought processes and it is making a difference as noted below.
“I recently finished your book with six military spouses through virtual meetings and want to let you know the positive change we have all experienced. We are now more accepting of others’ stress, we know we are not alone, and your tools allowed us to take control of our own mental health. Thank you for writing this, it has been a true gift to our community.”
One of the most important messages for military spouses is that you are not alone. “Wake up, Kick Ass, Repeat” can serve as your personal resource for coping with the perpetual challenges of being a military spouse.
I cherish the past year having participated in multiple workshops and seminars promoting military spouse social and emotional well-being. Working with military spouses through this crazy, difficult year has served as an important reminder of how our spouses are required to endure constant stress yet can develop an ability to not just survive, but thrive!
“Wake Up, Kick Ass, Repeat” is the basis of a new book and companion notebook by Dr. Kendra Lowe, coming out in 2021 from Elva Resa Publishing, a traditional independent publisher specializing in books for and about military families.