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Everyone gets bored once in a while. If it’s a chronic condition, it could be a symptom of depression. More often than not, it is temporary. As unpleasant as it may feel at the time, it is also an opportunity to let your mind wander where it will. Pleasantly surprising thoughts may arise. Boredom spurs creativity, and shouldn’t be avoided, swatted away or supplanted by distracting activity.
The trap of going on a diet to lose weight is that it doesn’t work. You need to be thinking more in terms of a permanent change in lifestyle. One that you can live with. The problem with diets is that when you reach your goal weight and go back to eating the way you used to, it all comes right back. They call it the Yo-Yo Effect.
A concept most of us have grown up with is that other people “make” us feel a certain way. Or, conversely, we’ll feel bad if we say or do something because it will “make” the other person feel hurt. Unfortunately we don’t have the power or control over someone else’s feelings, nor they over ours. We are responsible for our own feelings, and other people are responsible for theirs. The blame game is an immature way to approach emotions. Learn a more mature way.
If you’re wondering whether it’s time to stop therapy, you should talk to your therapist about your reasons for doing so. Sometimes the reason you think it’s time to stop is precisely the reason to stay – you may just not know it yet. Other times, the time to end therapy is clear.
Many people experience a lowering of moods during the late fall and winter months. It could just be winter blues, or it could be SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). It’s important to recognize the symptoms and deal with them appropriately. Read on to see if one or the other applies to you.
Social Media Fatigue is becoming a well-known phenomenon that more people suffer from than are willing to admit. The statistics are grim. Your mental health suffers from social media addiction. A false self is presented online and may not be who you really are. And you may just be sick and tired of all the posting and checking and counting up Likes as a determinant of your self-esteem. Read this post for more detail.
Many people make New Year’s Resolutions. Most of them are bound to fail. Read about how to make realistic resolutions that have a better chance of succeeding, and how to diminish the likelihood that you will fail.
The pressure to always be “productive” can be relentlessly stressful. It makes people “forget” to take lunch because they just have to answer one more email, to not take paid vacation time even when they’re entitled to, because they think it will reflect badly on them, and so on. The opposite is true. Your brain needs to rest, and when you take breaks, take time away from being “productive” and give your brain the chance to recharge, study after study has shown that you will be MORE productive than if you keep on working without those breaks.
For many people, the idea of not being “productive” at any given moment causes anxiety, guilt or boredom. There is a feeling of unworthiness, or being lesser than one’s best because of watching a favorite show, checking out Facebook, shopping, or any other activity that might be pleasurable. Relaxing, having fun, doing something that gives you pleasure is an important part of life. It rests the brain and does not make you any less worthy than would cleaning the apartment, doing work for your job, or any other job that is tedious. It’s ok to have fun.
“The Holidays,” starting with Thanksgiving, are supposed to be a time where we all feel warm and fuzzy. But for many people, it doesn’t feel that way. They’re supposed to feel joyful, but instead, they’re depressed. Understanding what it’s all about and how to deal with it is the subject of this post.
Compromise – The Art of Finding An Acceptable Solution to a Disagreement The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists. ~Japanese proverb We all know what compromise is, right? We disagree on, say, where to have dinner. You want Italian, I want Japanese. But I agree, ok Italian, so let’s go to…
If you don’t respect yourself, people will not respect you. Self-respect is related to but not the same as self-esteem. Self-respect is about accepting who you are, and liking who you are, regardless of what you think other people think about you.
What Is The Meaning of Life, or What Am I Doing Here? This is an impossible question to answer, because there is no single answer. There are infinite answers. Although nearly everyone wonders about it at some point in their life, the answers often seem contrived, shallow or incomplete. I, for one, do not have…
Stepping Out Of Your Comfort Zone – Why It’s So Hard and Why It’s So Valuable You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. ~ Wayne Gretzky – former professional hockey player, considered by many to be the greatest of all time. Stepping out of your comfort zone. You’ve heard this a lot, I’m…
Spontaneity: Free To Fly Or Mired In Mud? If you’re a naturally spontaneous person, you probably don’t need to read this post. Many, if not most people aren’t. They live in their comfort zones, their routines, their planned-to-the-last detail trips to the same places they go year after year. Maybe it’s simple laziness – just…
Emotional energy is not infinite. (Looking at a three-year old you might think otherwise, but even they collapse eventually.) What’s important is to be able to use what energy you have in a useful way – not squander it on behavior, activities or interactions with other people that you regret later.
“Passive-aggressive” is a term frequently used to describe what in fact is actually purely aggressive behavior. There’s nothing passive about it. This post describes what passive-aggressive is and isn’t, how to recognize it in someone, and deal with it effectively. It also challenges you to examine your own behavior for hints of aggression, passive or not.
When any kind of relationship ends, it’s important to achieve a sense of closure, the feeling of finality, in order to be able to move forward. Positive feelings about your future will depend on your ability to let go of the past, on what you wish would stay forever but didn’t. Some of the steps you can take are featured in this post.
It’a easy to get sucked into the idea that the longer and harder you work the more likely you are to succeed. Maybe. But at what cost? Being connected all the time, feeling you need to finish today everything assigned to you in the morning will eventually cost dearly. Your physical and mental health will suffer. Your relationships with your friends, family and significant other will suffer. And you will suffer. Burnout is real. So is feeling good about yourself, your work, and your life outside your work. Don’t become a workaholic. If you’ve already become one, read on to learn to remedy it. It’s not fun.
The phrase “being in the moment” is blithely bandied about without too much thought about what it really means, and what the consequences are for pretending it’s not important. This post offers an introduction to the concept, why ignoring it is detrimental to your physical and emotional health, and some tips on how to integrate mindfulness into your daily life.
Allowing oneself to be vulnerable is fraught with fears of being hurt. But it’s important to be open to it, to prevent the exclusion of other, deeper emotions, since you can’t exclude one emotion without excluding others. It’s also important because it’s one of the best ways to connect with other people. Understanding that one will cope with and survive feelings of hurt, rejection, or embarrassment will open doors to greater connections with people, and help you recognize the importance of it.
Forgiveness is a complicated trait. How do we forgive what someone who has deeply hurt us? Pretend it never happened? Not possible. But developing compassion for someone you have wronged will free you up to have more energy, reduce stress, improve your health, make better choices, and live a fuller life. When you are the person who committed an offense to someone else, your physical and emotional health will improve when you can find a way to make attempts to repair the injury done to another.
The importance of taking vacation time cannot be overstated. Physiologically, the brain literally needs rest to be restored to optimum functioning. The mind needs to be away from day-to-day preoccupations to be most productive when returned to the task at hand. Your overall health, including things as serious as heart disease and stress levels, is affected both by taking and not taking vacation.
Compulsive shopping that becomes an addiction can lead to serious problems. Initially, buying something feels like a reward and relieves anxiety. But over time the condition becomes chronic and cyclical, interfering with personal and professional relationships, and exacerbating feelings of shame, remorse and anxiety.
Even someone who has been in a job for many years can have a moment or many moments where it suddenly feels like you have no idea what you’re doing. You feel like a fraud, an impostor. What am I doing here? The post addresses this issue, and quotes many famous people you will have heard of who feel the same way. You are not alone. See the end of the complete post for quotes from famous people you will know who often feel like a fraud!
Trust is difficult. Knowing when to trust someone, especially if you’ve been hurt in the past, is a challenge, to say the least. But there are things to look for, in both yourself and the person you’d like to trust, that will make the outcome more likely to come out well.
Denial is a coping mechanism we develop to protect ourselves against unexpected situations or unwanted emotions. It is healthy and normal in the short term, and can be helpful in dealing with the resulting anxiety. But it doesn’t work over the long term and when it becomes habitual, it is unhealthy.
Getting over a relationship breakup is difficult and painful. There are things you can do (and not do) to make it easier for yourself. But most important is to not suppress your feelings. Giving them space to emerge will help you get past them more quickly.
Envy and Jealousy are not exactly synonymous. But they are both insidiously corrosive emotions that can eat at you and cause building resentment, fear and anger. You can cope with them. Here’s how:
Living with an addict is emotionally and physically exhausting. It is also not your fault. Read more to find out what you can (and cannot) do to help an addict, and to protect yourself while living with one.
Is It Hard For You To Just Say No? Being a People Pleaser Gets in the Way of Being Content With Your Own Life. “Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.” ~Mark Twain Doing things to help other people can feel good. You’ve done a good thing – you’ve made…
Low self-esteem is a state of mind, not an object, or “thing.” As such, it can be changed. It’s not easy, but there are a number of ways to get started on changing this image of yourself. Give yourself a chance – give yourself permission to feel you’re a good and worthy person. If none of the suggestions work, seek professional help.
Procrastination, a tough habit to break, is one of the ways we get in our own way. It offers short-term relief, but ironically, causes more feelings of guilt and regret in the long-term. It’s hard but not impossible to get past this insidious habit.
We often unknowingly get in our own way by repeating patterns that no longer serve us well. Recognition of these patterns and a determined effort to change them can making for a smoother and more successful ride through life.
Despite incessant connecting with people via social media, many people today feel lonely. Feeling genuinely connected to people is normal, natural, possibly built into our genetic makeup. You are not alone if you crave human contact and feel you don’t have it. Chronic loneliness can lead to health problems and depression. Being connected to devices rather than people contributes to a sense of loneliness. But it’s not hopeless. There are things you can do to overcome these feelings, and they all have to do with being with real people in real time.
Going to a therapist does not mean you’re weak. It’s a sign of strength.
Having to do things a certain way every single time is a way of relieving anxiety. But it becomes a problem in and of itself when it gets out of control. When there’s no Off button. And not doing it the way you like causes anxiety rather than relieving it. And expands until you become a prisoner of your rituals. Or maybe you just have habits that help you get through difficult situations or everyday life. This post helps distinguish the two.
All romantic relationships can be difficult and often, hard to come by in our busy, technology-saturated world. Some can be fixed, others not, most can be improved.