THE BRAVELY BALANCED BLOG
For the overachiever and the overworked!
How exhausted are you? I know the feeling!
Does being exhausted serve you? What if I told you that you could have it all without subjecting yourself to hustle culture?
Sounds divine, doesn’t it? Follow along and feel the ease!
Category
- Anger and Depression
- Anxiety Stress & Fear
- Balance
- Burning the candle
- Burnout
- Change
- Emotional awareness
- Empowerment and Living
- Expectation
- Healing
- Hope
- Introversion
- Leadership
- Personal Boundaries
- Resilience
- Self-reliance
- Shame
- Vulnerability
- Worry
- avoiding conflict
- balance
- conflict resolution
- connection
- emotional eating
- empathy
- imposter syndrome
- people pleasing
- perfectionism
- procrastination
- regret
- visibility
Rethinking Trust in Politics: The Appeal of the Outsider
I hear a lot about why populist-type people are popular and are winning most of the political races just now. I hear a lot about how they relate to those who vote for them, even if the populist in question has never lived in the same circumstances as the person saying this. Some say it’s because the populist feels authentic.
I understand this reason. I
How Failing Can Help You Succeed
I spoke with someone recently who believed he’s failed whenever he finds himself falling into an old, familiar, unproductive pattern. Yes, you could say he failed to move away from the pattern. That’s true. But then we took a closer look.
What he discovered i
Growing Through Tension
I’m in a meeting full of people intent on their own unspoken agendas, vying with each other to get their wants through. If I’m chairing that meeting, I can feel the tension it creates. How successfully I work with it is the measure of my ability to chair.
Emotional Honesty: The Gift of Vulnerability
I watched John Oliver on his weekly show last night. After seeing a few of them, I began to wonder if his desk beating is a way for him to gain energy to a fever pitch that he can then use to energize himself and his audience. I know Tony Robins spends 5 minutes running and jumping in place before presentations to do that. It’s their way of bringing a positive – albeit hyped up - energy with them.
I intentionally bring a calming energy
Beyond Intelligence: The Value of Emotional Awareness
I listened to an interview with David Brooks recently. It was on what he terms elite meritocracy. He was contrasting our current educational system of requiring high mental intelligence with other kinds of living, and finding that our dependence on intelligence as defined by high IQ or SAT scores is not getting us to any sense of collective happiness or fulfillment, …
Finding Balance: Moving Beyond the Worry That Follows Joy
“I just got my dream job, and felt wonderful for about an hour, until I began to dread what bad thing might come on its tail.”
If you’ve never felt this, or heard your friends and family say it and believe it, then you’re not a worrier or associated with worriers.
I’m a worrier, …
Trapped with Shame
A person can feel trapped into going along with something they don’t agree with. It could be because they don’t want to be singled out, or embarrassed, or shamed.
Sometimes, people who don’t like being singled out would rather not take the chance of being “wrong” and judged in public.
Choosing What Matters: Strategies for Prioritizing Life’s Tough Problems
Problems come in so many ways every day that I thought I’d write about them. Positive Psychology likes to term them “challenges” because that makes them sound less scary. However you want to call them, they are things all of us encounter repeatedly, and daily.
There are problems
Connection and Interaction
What if you could be a fly on the wall and overhear a difficult discussion between 2 people you didn’t know?
It might be that you heard
Never Waste a Good Hair Day
A colleague asked me the other day when I thought I could do a video recording… it had been on my list of to do’s for a while. Because I’d been so swamped with work, she was certain I hadn’t done it yet.
But she assumed incorrectly:
Sugar and Spice
A dear friend had a dream a few weeks ago. It wasn’t much of a dream: it was an image actually, of a large soup bowl filled to the brim. Exactly half of the bowl was filled with a nourishing soup, while the other half was filled with Crème Brule. The soup and sweet weren’t intermixing or ruining one another. They simply occupied half of the brimming bowl each.
So different from my friend’s life.
Empathy and Impact
I wonder if you’ve ever experienced the following: you’re listening to someone you don’t know at all go on at length about something incredibly personal; it begins to grate on you. Or, you’re having coffee with a friend who is going through tough times. After listening attentively for an hour, you begin to wonder when they will finish and find yourself judging your friend.
I’ve experienced both situations.
Independence Misread: When Living for Yourself Looks Like Controlling Others
Self-reliance. Personal achievement. Many want that for themselves. I do!
It gives me a sense that I control my own life. Growing up, it was my father who controlled my life. Then the minister. Then society telling me what I could or couldn’t aspire to. I’ve had interfering partners, and overbearing friends and acquaintances. I remember feeling at 12
Moving On Towards A New Path
This past Sunday marked the end of my Presidency in a psychological organization I’ve belonged to for 18 years. I was on the Board of Directors for 16 of those years, culminating in holding the role of President.
It was an experience that changed me:
Perfect Humans
Is it my imagination, or are people more sensitive to everything? In politics, I rarely hear people who disagree with one another have measured discussions; more often, it’s about taking sides and vilifying the other side and the other person. In meetings, same thing: it isn’t enough to simply dislike someone’s words or stance without making them a bad person in our minds.
Maintaining Hope In The Midst Of Frustration
I listened to a US pollster this morning remind us that the middle class are focused on day-to-day affordability. They don’t feel that in their own lives, anything’s changed or gotten better or easier. They continue to pay too much in taxes and continue to see prices rise for food, utilities, rent, and all the other things they must pay for daily, weekly, and monthly. With every pay raise, all the extra money they received goes to paying for increased costs.
And yet,
Transforming Conflict: A Path to Understanding and Connection
Conflict-aversion is something many of us feel: we’d rather get along and feel safe and comfortable than get into an argument with another. That isn’t necessarily what conflict has to look or feel like, but that is how many of us think about it.
Conflict is scary and we’d rather avoid it.
In the Stillness: The Beauty of Silence
I’m the silent type. Sometimes that’s called being an introvert. I like my own company, and I love quiet. Just like other silent types, I can happily spend the whole day in company with others and say nothing. Yes! I can enjoy that experience, and actually be acutely aware of my companions.
This experience was something I learned to cherish…
Authenticity in Action: Fostering a Culture of Respect and Empowerment
“I’m a people pleaser.” … “ I’d rather not rock the boat.” … “You’re the boss, not me.” … “I don’t feel safe here and would rather not speak up.” … “Am I going to be ridiculed if I say anything?”
These are things we might say if we either don’t want to get involved, or fear repercussions if we do get involved. We simply want to keep our heads down and get through the day in one piece.
Respecting the process in relationship
I have a late cancellation policy that I used to feel bad about every time a client cancelled late. Then, somewhere down time, I realized that everything that happens in a therapy or coaching session – it’s all a part of the therapeutic or coaching process. …