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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…
Your Emotional Energy – Drained Or Used Well? A lot of people are crazy, cruel and negative. They got a little too much time on their hands to discuss everybody else. I have a limited amount of energy to blow in a day. I’d rather read something that I like or watch a program I…
“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.