b'Effective communication: the process of exchanging ideas, thoughts, opinions, knowledge, and data so that the message is received and understood with clarity and purpose. The goal of effective communication is to ensure both the sender and receiver feel satisfied and accomplished. Some ways to practice effective communication, especially in scenarios where your mental/emotional wellness may be taking a toll are:Use clear language when sending a message. If you are feeling a strong emotion,be careful to use clear, neutral words to get the point across. Be empathetic. Adapt to your audience by considering which words are helpful versus which ones are triggering. Use body language to help you convey your message. For example, if you are upset about a topic, crossing your arms might come off as being closed off to the other persons point of view.Healthy Boundaries: this may be one of the most difficult challenges when it comes to our social wellness. The challenge with healthy boundaries is not creating them as much as it is trying to implement them in your relationships. According to studies, it can take anywhere from three weeks to two months for a habit or behavior to change. This means, during the entirety of that time, you have to keep practicing placing boundaries while respecting that the other person is trying to change. Lets face it, this seems hard. But its not impossible. To begin setting boundaries, you must rst assess your relationship with yourself. How do you see yourself and therefore, how do you want others to see you? Once you can gure that out, you can start dening boundaries on conversations and relationships you are comfortable with. Your Relationship with Yourself After MS Self-esteem plays a key role in our mental health. Adapted from an article by Carissa Sawyer and Tyler Brown, Psy. D., for MS Focus Magazine Multiple sclerosis comes with a multitude of changes in physical abilities, cognitive functioning, social relationships, and emotional difficulties. Receiving this diagnosis typically leads to emotional responses of frustration, anger, depression, and anxiety related to the uncertainty of ones prognosis and how the symptoms of the disease may affect important relationships. One consequence of living with MS is there are important changes to your identity (e.g., work or hobbies). It may be helpful to consider your lifelong journey of adapting to MS as a grieving process, as it is normal to mourn the personal losses brought about by MS and to oscillate between thevarious phases of grief.Our self-interpretationGiven that MS is a condition in which ones body attacks its own nervous system, it is common for individuals to develop resentment toward their bodies or themselves. This resentment may manifest as increased negative self-talk (e.g., Im worthless, I cant do anything right), diminished self-worth, and lack of self-care (e.g., prioritizing others needs before your own, missing medical appointments, etc.).11'