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
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, …
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
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.
Doing Nothing Effectively
A number of years ago now, my supervisor challenged me to go to a park bench and sit there for 2 hours. No reading. No planning. No inner story-telling. No fidgeting. … No texting.
Do nothing for 2 hours. She may have actually said 4 hours. It didn’t matter, …
Round Peg in a Square Hole: The Quest for Authentic Success
Is it owning your own house? Raising children with a loving partner? Having those children grow into balanced and happy adults? Is it happiness for yourself? Or being successful in what you do for a living? Is it simply feeling that you’re a success?
Success has meant many different things …
Nature's Wisdom: Embracing Abundance Through Human Connection
I know I’ve been writing a lot lately on connection. Mostly, it’s because I see so little of it, and that makes me both sad and worried. We are social animals and we need to connect with other humans to survive. Yet we aren’t connecting very much. Instead we isolate and that makes us feel even worse. …
The Ever-Evolving Quest for Perfection: Lessons from Personal Experiences
In my teens, I would spend many weekend hours sewing and creating for myself, my family and friends. I loved to do it; it fed my imagination and my sense of accomplishment. I recall one Christmas deciding to make a garment for my boyfriend. When I finished, I noticed a hole in the material, and spent the next 4 days meticulously creating a patch that became an art statement. That was a cherished moment for me: I’d elegantly solved a problem, and nobody but me knew it had ever been a problem.
For me, that’s perfection.
The Art Of Keeping It Simple
Keep it simple!
That small three-word imperative is like a tautology – it covers many, many things. For instance, keeping it simple can help you understand something better, or clarify your thinking around an issue; it might help you sort through how you feel about a personal problem. It can significantly impact how and where you live, right down to how you choose your friends and food.
In science, there’s an elegance to keeping it simple
A Hundred Things To Do
What is it about the week before going anywhere? All of a sudden, I am run off my feet with a hundred things to do so that by the time the trip begins, I’m in need of rest.
Does that feel familiar in your own life? A friend mentioned that in passing. We chuckled when I said it seems to be a common trait among people who think too much. It may be a go-to for us;
Attitude and Approach
I’m reminded of the Serenity Prayer – many times a week – as people, including myself, wrestle with the restrictions that continue to be a part of all our lives. The Serenity Prayer, originating from the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in the 1930’s, goes like this:God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. It reminds me that there are many things I want to be different and can’t make different. There is, however, one thing I can influence – the attitude I come to any situation with, and the approach I take towards it. Instead of feeling put out that appointments are being cancelled because of a new lockdown, I can change my attitude to something less painful.
Beyond the Limits: A Personal Odyssey from Overdrive to Balance
I am getting my branding redesigned – very exciting! Packing to go to a weekend workshop tomorrow. Finally cleaning up my storage areas after having moved to my current location 2 and a half years ago. Clearing out my gardens so that I can begin to plant. And, of course, doing the regular daily things that make up my personal and work day.
All wonderful. All exciting. All, to my mind, necessary. I could blame it on an early Spring… and it’s true that we all feel a hopefulness every Spring that gets us going. But that wouldn’t be all, because I habitually juggle many things at once.
I habitually tend to overstuff my days and weeks …
Holding on too tight: When to let go and thrive
I catch myself holding on too tight at times. Honestly, I don’t realize it until a friend mentions something, or after I let go and notice the difference. It’s always from some fear that takes me into holding on as if my life depended on it, because in the moment that is what it feels like. Apparently, it comes from the time movies first started to be made, and actors had to be their own stunt men or women – when they might need to dangle from a bridge, or dangle from the side of a rail car, “for dear life”.
Respecting the process in relationship
It’s good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the end. - Ursula K. LeGuin
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. Other than a medical emergency, my client made a decision to do something else. That is their right, as is my right to charge them. We both agreed to it, and it informs us both.
Expectations and Surprises: Decoding the Language of Confusion
A woman was sitting next to me in a coffee shop in deep conversation with someone over the phone. The discussion was animated, at least on her end. I couldn’t help but notice her expression because it, too, was very animated.
Shifting Perspectives: Embracing the Lion-Mouse Within
A friend told me about a time when she was in a typical work self-improvement seminar, meant to help build team spirit. One exercise involved choosing an image that represented each team member. Each individual would choose one for themselves, and then one for all the other team members, collectively. When it came to her, she chose a lion; her mates chose a mouse.
Striking a Balance: Embracing Hope While Managing Expectations
In a week, I’ll spend a day reviewing the past year and setting my intentions for the new year. In looking back over the year, I began it with hopes for the future and expectations on what that future would be like.
Reflect, Learn, Intend: A Year-End Journey
This is my final blog for 2023, and I wanted it to reflect on the past year to see how it went for me in my world, and set to intentions for the new year, based on what I want to improve and accomplish moving forward. I do this every year-end.
Ears of the Heart
I came across a Latin phrase the other day that sounded like something we could all use today. Today, so many of us are protecting ourselves from accusations and judgments because of misunderstandings or the heightened sensitivities of others.
Perspectives on Fairness
When I was growing up in a family with 2 competing brothers and a sister, ensuring the deserts were exactly the same size was of prime importance. Otherwise, it might imply that one sibling was getting special treatment. And that was not fair!