How Healthcare Works, LLC

By Jeanette R. Harrison, MPH  Homelessness Isn't Always What You Think: Patterns and What Actually Qualifies I have decided to write a series about how I started over with $2,400, sometimes less, over and over again. I know some people considered me "homeless," and others did not. However, based on HUD's specific criteria, I have not experienced chronic homelessness. Before I get started, I want to clarify that the four patterns discussed in this article are descriptive terms, not the four official HUD categories. HUD's four categories determine eligibility for certain federal housing programs. Likewise, the McKinney-Vento definition establishes criteria for certain programs and assistance. The personal experiences I share are examples of housing instability, temporary displacement, and, in some cases, situations that may meet a formal definition of homelessness. I am not suggesting that every experience automatically qualifies under HUD or McKinney-Vento criteria...

 By Jeanette R. Harrison, MPH Content Warning: Domestic Violence.  This post discusses domestic violence and abuse. Some of the topics may be difficult or triggering for survivors. Please read only if you feel comfortable doing so. Some days, some weeks, some months, some years are just hard. You know those times when even as you are going through it, you think to yourself, "How am I going to survive this? How am I going to get out of this situation? What am I going to do?" And you pray every night, every chance you get, "God, please help me!" So much to the point that you wonder if there is even a God. You wonder, where is God in all of this? Yet, you are told to keep your chin up, have faith, or endure to the end. None of it touches you because the pain is so deep, and that is all that seems real. I kept my pain hidden because it wasn't allowed. I wasn't allowed to say that I was being abused, that I was mistreated. I wasn't allowed to talk about it or...

Guest post by  Brenda Williams, BCH, CHP , a Board Certified Consulting Hypnotist   Question: I’m thinking about using hypnosis to stop smoking, but I’m not sure what to expect. How does it work? What happens in a stop-smoking hypnosis session?    As a Board Certified Consulting Hypnotist with Awaken Hypnosis ,  nicotine and smoking cessation is often one of the easiest issues I work with. When someone genuinely wants to cease nicotine/cigarette use, hypnosis gives us a way to directly work with the related underlying expectations, beliefs, associations, and automatic behaviors.  Sometimes the nicotine habit is all that needs to be addressed. Other times, the smoking, pouches, etc., connect to deeper emotional patterns , and the work becomes about much more than nicotine. These clients are often surprised by just how much they get from the process.  The Pre-Hypnosis Interview Every session, for smoking and otherwise, starts and ends with an intervie...

by Jeanette R. Harrison, MPH I have shared a lot about how alone I was after moving away from Kansas City. How I had to move to Idaho with nothing. And people acted like it was no big deal. Like it was a joke, almost. Like I somehow deserved that because, in their minds, I was "too much" or "too much drama." But moving and leaving your things behind is hard. I didn't just lose my whole family and my social standing, but I lost everything that I was. Leaving everything behind is more than "stuff." It's a sense of identity. It's the memories you made, the life that you built, the person that you became. All of the "stuff" gives someone a sense of ownership over their life and a sense of worthiness. I've moved a lot of times, 42 times now, and the hardest moves are the ones where I had to leave everything. Because that wasn't just leaving a place. It was losing pieces of me, watching my footsteps behind me get erased. Knowing tha...

  Community Spotlight: Independent Business Share As part of our commitment to supporting independent business owners in our professional network, we are sharing the following information from a community acquaintance. Please note: How Healthcare Works, LLC provides this space strictly as a courtesy. We have not evaluated, reviewed, or endorsed these specific commercial wellness products, lines, or supplements. Visit Becci's Trunori site at https://trunorilaunch.com/beccic9 I never thought of myself as someone who would promote good health or supplements, but I am completely sold on TruNori and don’t want to be without these products.  I chose TruNori because I believe in supporting overall wellness in a simple, natural way, and because the company is built on integrity.  What stands out to me is the focus on quality ingredients and products that easily fit into everyday life.  I’m excited to keep learning, share my experience, and help others discover something...

by Jeanette R. Harrison, MPH This is a rewrite. Not because I am retracting anything I said in my earlier post, but because after rereading it, I realized I had completely missed the point. Today's gratitude practice was supposed to be about being grateful for myself. Instead, I spent almost the entire post talking about other people. That realization, in and of itself, taught me something. Today's lesson is this: we often have a much easier time seeing the good in other people than we do in ourselves. Over the past several years, I have spent a great deal of time trying to understand why certain people have treated me the way they have. Some of those relationships go back decades because I continued attending the church that sponsored the college I attended, and many of those same people continued to intersect throughout my adult life. Whether people agree with my interpretation of those experiences really isn't the point. The point is that I have spent years trying to und...