How to Avoid the Monday Blues with Michael Arnold’s New Podcast

Monday morning is a stressful time for many people. Anxiety about work or a depressed mood are not beneficial for anybody but they can be dangerous relapse triggers for people in recovery from addiction.

One way to deal with the Monday blues is to confront it head-on and make a virtue of it. Michael Arnold is the director of alumni and recovery support services at Harmony Foundation. She has found an engaging way to help people in recovery snap out of any dark moods they may be experiencing.

In May, Michael started a podcast called “Monday State of Mind” to give the recovery community a positive start into the workweek. Her sheer boundless enthusiasm alone will cheer up your Monday—or any other day for that matter. “I know the good that happens when I choose to be consciously aware of my state of mind,” explained the woman known as the “Hurricane of Happiness” in episode one. An alumna of Harmony herself, Michael continues to use the tools that were given to her while she was there as a client.

The fuel behind “Monday State of Mind” is her intense desire to “recover out loud” and in the process help others in the same situation. “ At Harmony, I get to help alumni implement the foundation they learned into their daily lives and help show them how to continue to take their power back by creating and living lives that are filled with continuous growth, meaningful connection, service, gratitude, and so much more.”

“Monday State of Mind” means to tackle thought-provoking questions that relate to recovery and how to apply the answers into the daily life of listeners. Michael aims to challenge listeners to ask themselves whether their state of mind is helping them catapult their week forward, or whether it is harming their week.

And when things don’t go your way, you just have to deal with it—appropriately. The week leading up to episode nine reminded Michael to keep it authentic when she realized that her request for listener questions had resulted in zero replies. In typical Michael Arnold fashion, she turned that Monday disappointment around and made it the topic of the episode that followed four episodes about humility after all.

At first, she got anxious and started blaming herself for this “failure.” Destructive, self-defeating thoughts showed up: “Why are you even doing this podcast?” and “No one is listening!” Then her ego chimed in: “Michael, you can’t admit that no one submitted questions. Just make some up!” But she felt fairly uneasy about making things up—she didn’t want to be a fraud. Instead, Michael called a friend who put her straight: “Michael, this is your opportunity to really show what you have been talking about. Your topics are happening to you. You have a great opportunity to be humble to the world and talk about it.”

Michael realized that “in order to change your state of mind you have to make tough decisions to grow. You have to be prepared to be a little uncomfortable.” She understood that she can’t expect listeners to be transparent, truthful, and vulnerable if she is not prepared to be so herself. After all, nobody is perfect and you can’t beat the Monday blues by faking it.

_____________________

Catch the podcast here: https://harmonyfoundationinc.com/monday-state-of-mind/
Michael Arnold is the co-author of
Drowning in Addiction: A Personal Guide to Recovery

Subscribe on any of these podcast platforms!
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Google Podcasts
Stitcher

 

WestBridge Treatment Center

Welcome to the Harmony Foundation podcast series. I’m Gina Thorne and I’m really excited today to be joined with Barbara Ryan, who’s the outreach and provider specialist for WestBridge, out of Manchester, New Hampshire. Welcome.
Really happy to have you on campus today and I’m glad the weather turned out because we’ve had some sketchy weather lately, so it’s great to have you here visiting the Rockies. I don’t know, is this your first time at Harmony?

Continue reading “WestBridge Treatment Center”

Magnolia Medical

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Harmony Foundation podcast series. I’m Gina Thorne and I’m pleased today to be joined with Soroosh Ehteshami. He’s the Chief Operating Officer for Magnolia Medical Center or Magnolia Medical Group in Denver, Colorado. And we’ve had the pleasure of having you on campus today to visit Harmony and we’re so grateful for that. Thank you. 
Continue reading “Magnolia Medical”

Soul Reflection Healing Arts

Hi, everyone. This is Gina Thorne with the Harmony Foundation podcast series, and I’m really happy today to be joined with Megan Ramos, who is the owner and practitioner of Soul Reflection Healing Arts in Boulder, Colorado. Welcome.
It’s good to have you here, and really glad that you had the chance to come up to Harmony and visit with us and give us a chance to learn a little bit more about your practice and to see how people can possibly use your services. It’s great to have you here. In doing my research around your background and your practice, you are a trained somatic psychotherapist and also trained in energy medicine, which is really a great combination. Can you share more about your area of specialty and what someone could expect when working with you?
Continue reading “Soul Reflection Healing Arts”

Opioid and Chronic Pain Response Program

Thank you so much for coming up to Estes Park on a day that’s not snowing, which is nice.
You guys were very fortunate. Although I think you probably would have come up anyway-
You guys are Colorado people. So I’m really excited to hear more about the program that you all are running because obviously there’s a tremendous need for the work that you all are doing. And what’s exciting to hear is how Boulder Community Hospital has adopted this program into the community. So I want to talk a little bit first and I’m going to look to you Amanda first to talk about the nature of the program.
I understand that the focus is to address the opioid crisis in our communities and also the growing issue of chronic pain because I know that they go hand in hand.
Can you share more about the program and specifically about the three primary initiatives of the program? Continue reading “Opioid and Chronic Pain Response Program”

Heart Centered Counseling

Podcast Photo

Welcome to the Harmony Foundation podcast series. I’m Gina Thorne and I’m pleased today to be joined with Kim Sharpe, director of provider outreach and community relations for Heart-Centered Counseling. You’re based out of Fort Collins, but you actually have sites in Denver.

We have offices in Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley, South Denver, Inglewood, Littleton, Aurora, Castle Rock and Colorado Springs.And we also reach out into the mountain communities and rural communities through Telehealth. So we are really statewide. Continue reading “Heart Centered Counseling”

Colorado Recovery

Colorado Recovery

I’m really excited today to be joined with Kelly Grebe, who’s the community liaison. Community liaison for Colorado Recovery and then Dr. Kathleen Daly, who’s the Medical Director for Colorado recovery. It’s nice to have you both here. Really excited to hear more about what you all are doing. You’ve had an opportunity to spend some time with us here at Harmony and we got really excited when we get to talk to people who work with folks with mental health and want to learn more about services because obviously there’s such a need for it in our communities. And so, we’re going to talk a little bit about what you all do and then ask a little question or two about you personally as well.

Thanks for having us. It’s been wonderful to tour Harmony. It’s been really great. Seeing everything you do.
Continue reading “Colorado Recovery”

Summit Malibu

Welcome to the Harmony Foundation podcast series. I’m very pleased today to be joined with Steven Buchan who was working with Summit Malibu out of Malibu, California. 

Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. It’s beautiful here.

It’s no Malibu, but it’s definitely beautiful.

It’s different, but it’s… I mean, so I was talking to Marlyce about this. We have the ocean. You guys have the mountains.

And we are very grateful for that because we believe that it makes all the difference in recovery, especially with the people that we have that come up here. I know that Malibu has some beautiful places, the beaches are amazing there. We’re really excited to talk with you a little bit about Summit Malibu, but before we do that, let’s talk a little bit about what got you into the field of addiction treatment.
Continue reading “Summit Malibu”