Let it hurt, then let it heal. There’s nothing wrong with feeling bad, with being unhappy, or with anger. When you have negative emotions feel them. Don’t push them away, don’t pretend they aren’t there. Acknowledge them, bring awareness to what you’re feeling, get curious …
We go out of the way for the people we love. It’s often how we show them we love and support them. We make extravagant homemade dinners for our families, we pick out the perfect presents for our friends, we buy bagels for our meetings …
Challenge: make a list of the times you have felt genuinely happy or at peace.
This list will remind you that your happiness never came from things looking seemingly perfect on the outside. Your happiness came from being present and open and connected to yourself and to the moment. Let that be a guide as you move forward.
Brianna Wiest talks about this in her book “The Mountain is You.” Have you read it? If you have let’s chat about it! If not, I highly recommend it! It has a lot of great thoughts that will help you become the best version of yourself!
Everything in life is temporary. So when you feel content and satisfied, ground yourself in that feeling. If you’re used to chaos it can be tempting to focus on if or when things may go wrong. Worrying about all the ways your peace can be …
The holidays are a joyful time of year for many but it can also be overwhelming. It’s the season of more. Many times that’s more love, more yummy food, more warmth, more family, more rest. But it’s also more money spent, more parties to attend, more cooking to be done, more conversations to be had, more expectations you want to meet. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and drained it doesn’t mean you’re a grinch, it means you’re human. It’s normal and it happens.
If you are able to step away this holiday season without it having the adverse effect of making you more stressed once it’s time to step back in, that’s great. Keep doing that. But if you find your stepping away is creating more stress than perhaps it’s doing more harm than good. Here’s 7 tips to combat overwhelm this holiday season.
Burn out can happen for numerous reasons such as your daily activities not lining up with your values, from feeling stuck, from feeling like you’re doing too much, or not doing enough of the stuff that makes you genuinely happy. While doing less may be beneficial for some of us, for others that isn’t necessarily the answer or even an option. There may be children counting on you, bills that need to be paid, pets that need to be cared for, things we want to do to get us to where we want to be.
Take an honest look at your life or hire a coach and see where you can make things easier on yourself. If there isn’t much that can be changed at this time: 1. Remember you can do hard things and 2. Make sure you’re noticing and appreciating the beautiful things in life.
It’s amazing how not much factually may change in our circumstances but everything changes when we shift what we focus on.
Look for the beautiful things. Notice the beautiful things. Dwell on the beautiful things. Even in the most difficult situations you can look around and find one thing to be grateful for. It can be a warm memory, it can be looking forward to the first snow, it can be that your kid finally fell asleep, or that the holidays are coming up, or the scenery outside the window on your commute. We often let these moments pass us by without much thought, choosing instead to divert our attention to the aspects of life that are hard or uncertain. It’s not our fault, human brains are wired to look for danger and to focus on the negative. But we can rewire it, we can retrain it. We can focus on the beautiful things.
Add more beautiful things into your life. Send a text to a friend, just to let them know you’re thinking about them, call your sister when you’re folding the laundry, play your kids favorite game with them and focus on how happy they get. Everyday look for the beautiful things. Before you go to bed at night write out the beautiful things you encounter and the beautiful feeling they create in you. After consistently doing this practice, your brain will start to automatically look for and focus on the beautiful things.
We already know life can be hard, I’m not discrediting or disregarding your hardships, but if you want to change the narrative of your life then focus on the beautiful things. Talk about the beautiful things. Share the beautiful things with friends and family. Call your friend to tell them the amazing thing that happened at work. Journal about what is going well for you, about how beautiful the rain looked hitting against your window while you were curled up on your couch.
What we focus on creates our experience. Make your experience, your life, nothing sort of what life is, beautiful. Don’t miss it.
And that’s what I wish I would have told my younger self when she was called “too much” of anything. That she was perfectly enough. That the people who didn’t see it that way, simply weren’t her people. And that is okay. That those individuals’ thoughts on her too-much-ness meant everything about them and nothing about her. They could go find less. I did not have to make myself less to keep others comfortable.
Next time you start to let yourself feel bad about what someone is saying about you, remember you are choosing to let yourself feel bad. You can choose for it to mean nothing about you. People who speak badly about others usually have turmoil within themselves. Take their actions for what they are, a “them” problem and let it go. Choose the higher feeling thought. Don’t let it become personal. Remember, the only way someone can make you feel inferior is if you let them. Don’t let them.
Have you read or seen Harry Potter? If you had the prestigious honor to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, into which house would you be sorted? Most people in my life thought I was surely a Hufflepuff. I agreed. Yes, I’m definitely a Hufflepuff. Hufflepuff isn’t entirely well represented in the Harry Potter Movies. It’s oversimply seen as being the “nice” house. One day I completed the official sorting hat experience on Pottermore-the experience created by J.K. Rowling herself. I was shockingly sorted into Ravenclaw. At first, I was stunned. But then, it made perfect sense.
Ahh yes, I thought to myself, Ravenclaw; why didn’t I know that?
Fortunately, or unfortunately, we don’t live in Hogwarts. We don’t have to be labeled as either Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. We can be both.
The sorting hat experience illustrates the point I’d like to make. I have two sides. I have many sides. I’ve never thoroughly considered it before, but I do. Our society likes labels, it likes stereotypes, and clear cut lines. If you are X, then you can’t be Y. If you are Z, you will never be T. But this isn’t how life works. There is no one size fits all. Trying to fit people into boxes created by who-knows-who only limits and harms us.
One part of me is relaxed, fluid, unnerved. Another side is serious, strong, disciplined. I’ve thought my more serious side was a façade. One I put up to protect my childlike side from scorn or ridicule. When people saw how relaxed I was, how easily I could take a joke, I was a target for those looking to boost their own self-esteem. Sometimes I would say things or act without thinking. I would randomly dance or sing. I would pick the dandelions on the softball field instead of looking to the sky for the ball. When I didn’t believe a situation called for seriousness, I wasn’t serious. It was easy for people to mistake my nonchalance for foolishness. Easy for people, who did not even know me, to tell me how I was and was not “supposed” to act. Too easy for people to tell me who I was based on a small look into my world.
As I saw how people reacted to my insouciance, my serious self took a forefront role. She would speak as an “intellectual,” find flaws in reasoning, focus on the tiresome details, pretend to care about things that weren’t vital. She would prove you wrong. This got people’s attention, this got people’s respect. It perturbs me. Because whether or not I felt the need to prove it, I was always capable. It’s unsettling when people equate simplicity with lack of intelligence. As if seriousness and competency somehow go in hand. Like the more lighthearted you are, the less capable you are. This is a falsity. Fluidity allows you to bypass drama and focus on what actually matters. It prevents you from getting caught up in semantics and to focus on the things that will move the dial. But I was young and the people I was surrounded by didn’t understand their assumptions were wrong. Growing up I was given the message by my peers that girls acting “spacy” = stupid girl. Girl acting serious = smart girl. Whoever determined these stereotypes was obviously incorrect. My serious and lighthearted side was also always there, with the exact same level of intelligence and the exact same level of competency. Coexisting. Letting the situation dictate which took the lead.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to harness the power that comes with the ability to be many. I’ve found power in my ability to be seemly different people while knowing they are all entirely one and the same. When I first meet people at social gatherings, I let them form their own opinions. If my relaxed and spirited demeanor lead them to believe I am foolish or easily manipulated then so be it. I love to see the look on their faces when they realize they’re wrong. Just as I love when others see there is more to me than book smarts, learned understanding of corporate dialect, and finding the flaws with arguments.
I’ve had times when I thought I was a Wolf with a Sheep’s heart, and times I thought I was a Sheep with Wolves’ resolve. But that’s not accurate. I do not just pretend to be a either a Wolf or a Sheep. And those stereotypes are not fair. Sheep are strong. Wolves are loving. I am neither a Wolf or a Sheep. I am a Wolf and a Sheep. And why limit ourselves to the Sheep or the Wolf, why not be the entire damn forest.
How to be confident. Everyone wants to be confident. We know the tips and tricks to make us appear confident; look people in the eyes, use a firm handshake (pre-Covid), don’t apologize, take “um” out of your vocabulary, speak slowly, keep your shoulders back, your …
