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.
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, …
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
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.
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
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,
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…
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. …
Owning Your Expertise: A Personal Journey Beyond Imposter Syndrome
A lot of people feel they are a fraud. Even Maya Anjelou felt that way sometimes. Members of traditionally underrepresented groups tend to feel this more. There are lots of motivational talks, books and videos that can help you if you suffer from this.
I spent an entire week of teaching and listening to others teach. For the first time ever, I can honestly say I did not feel even a touch of imposter. …
Behavioural Ripples: Understanding the Impact of Our Emotions on Others
When we feel badly, we behave badly, often without knowing it.
I’m pretty sure all customer service reps understand this: the customer is already feeling badly and the less mature ones frequently try to take it out on the rep.
I was at one time one of those less mature ones, before I understood my impact on others. …
The Best Time is Now: Turning Regret into Resolve
Have you ever regretted doing something, even long after you did it, and can never undo it? Then, not only regret the action, but also the amount of time you spent not doing anything about it. Yes, the best time to have corrected your mistake might be just after it happened, but for any number of reasons, that didn’t happen.
I still remember …
The Freedom Of Attitude
My dear husband is a kvetcher. He claims it as a birth rite. At least he has an excuse.
I’m not a kvetcher, but I can get my shirt in a knot over things that haven’t even happened, and probably never will. I worry. Worrying puts me in a particularly negative frame of mind, so that I go into a situation expecting the worst.
Viktor Frankl spoke often of a basic freedom we humans have, …
From Cluttered to Clear: Creating Room for Life's Surprises
When I sold my house and moved into what many thought of as a spacious apartment, I had to downsize by two thirds. And still, every millimeter of that apartment was stuffed with my belongings.
I used to regularly carry a purse. That purse, no matter how big, was always overfilled. …
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.
My hope was that I would be challenged and be able to meet those challenges. …
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, …
Crossing the Line: Understanding Boundaries and Bottom Lines
The other day, a dear friend and colleague of mine was accused of being unprofessional without any real data to back it up. My friend was upset enough to sever ties with that person.
Why? She did it because the accuser crossed a bottom line by questioning my friend’s professional competence. …
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 …
Watching is different than doing
I’ve noticed how expert I am, and others are, at seeing the flaws in others who are working at accomplishing something. It might be leading a group, or doing housework, or baking a cake, or crafting something new. I think there’s a term for it – armchair critic. Probably akin to backseat driver.
It’s easy to see the flaws,