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!
The Art of Honest Expression: Making Your Truth Matters to Others
I come up with blog ideas usually months in advance – I hear, read, or experience something that interests me and feel it might also interest my audience, setting up the title and overall subject-matter. Then the week prior, I write it.
That’s the truth. It’s also the truth that what I write about happens to us all. So, if you read something in my blog and feel it might be about you, it both is and isn’t: it is, because you have probably experienced something like it and I may have seen you recently; it isn’t, because I really did plan this a long while ago.
The Simplicity Solution: Tackling Overwhelm and Embracing Change with Confidence
I listened with fascination last week to a friend who was faced with some unexpected issues that prevented her from doing what she’d planned. I watched her complicate matters to the point that she felt overwhelmed and unable to even begin anything at all. It got me wondering about how often I’ve done that myself, especially if I was already feeling a little pressured. And especially if it went counter to what I’d planned. It's always been my fondest fantasy that I embrace change. But if that’s so, then why does anything that disrupts my plans put me off so much? In this, I suspect I may be like many of you: that I like some change, that I like the idea of embracing change, but that I also want to accomplish what I’ve set out to do, and if some extra thing threatens that possibility, I begin to get overwhelmed.
Good times, bad times
When I was a teenager, a group of us would crowd around the dinner table of the Dutch mother of one of our friends for their traditional Friday evening meal. I remember that meal as being so much fun – choice prepared meats and cheeses, ripe sliced tomatoes and a selection of hardy breads. It’s a memory I cherish, filled with delicious food and a lot of laughter.
What matters?
When you have to make a decision about something that is super important to you and your happiness – like whether to give your faltering relationship one more try, or move away from your family and friends for a number of years, or buy a house in Toronto during these very expensive times, or other decisions just as difficult – it’s really hard to decide on what to focus on to even get near making that major life-changing decision.
5 Why's
This week I thought I’d offer a useful coaching tool, when you’re feeling stuck and need to choose. It’s called the 5 why’s. It was given to the world in the early 20th century by Sakichi Toyoda, a Japanese inventor and industrialist. I find that it’s really useful in getting clarity about something I’m fogged up on. It’s a very simple method: ask why 5 times.
When is doubt a good thing?
One of the main issues that stop me and many of my clients is self-doubt. It makes us hesitate and freeze because we question ourselves. It depletes energy and motivation. It’s, frankly, a killer.
I spend a lot of my personal and professional time developing confidence and helping others develop confidence, which is the opposite of self-doubt. Confidence provides energy and motivation. It probably floods our bodies with dopamine. It’s feeds life.
Love Conquers
The topic of love conquering all sometimes, to me, sounds too cute, as if all I have to do is put aside the anger I feel towards injustice and ‘just feel love’.
I don’t know about you, but ‘just feeling love’ like that doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t even work for my husband, who’s way nicer than I am.
Letting go of my attachments
I'm with a dear friend who can’t let go of a desire she’s had for years. She's tried everything imaginable to make it real, and nothing she’s tried has worked. I’m not saying that if she tries one more thing, that thing might do the trick, but I’ve seen this too often before – in me!
When I want something to happen, it used to be that I could not let it go. It could be a work idea, a home idea, a relationship idea, anything that I became passionate about. It would fill my vision, my thoughts, my dreams. I really would try everything I could imagine, then imagine some more, until I’d either get want I wanted, or find a different passion. My friends could not talk me out of my current obsession – because that’s really what it was. It would literally consume me.
What's the matter with comparing?
I have a confession to make: I compare myself to others all the time. How I look. How I eat. How I am received. And so much more.
I read and hear that we shouldn’t. That we should be happy with who and how we are. Then, on top of feeling inadequate from all the comparing, we also feel guilty for doing something we “shouldn’t” do.
Comparing is a major problem among young girls, who view touched-up images on tictoc and decide they’re too fat, or aren’t good enough in some other sense. According to research, many hurt themselves in an attempt to attain the impossible image they see. Complete self-acceptance and self-love is so important for them to grasp, and so hard for them to do.
I see you
I had a best buddy a few years ago – Seamus. Seamus was my jogging partner, my co-host when I entertained, my confidant. He was fun, filled with life, and endlessly entertaining. He was always there for me, and I was always there for him.
Seamus was an Irish Terrier. When he died of bladder cancer, I felt as though a large part of my insides disappeared, leaving a huge gaping empty hole.
Next door to my house lives Luci, short for Lucipurr, a pitch black cat with green eyes. Whenever Luci is outside, she runs to greet me (and every other neighbor), demanding attention for as long as I’m willing to provide it.