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
- Dealing with Urgency
- Drive
- Emotional awareness
- Empowerment and Living
- Epigenetics
- Expectation
- Healing
- Hope
- Introversion
- Leadership
- Personal Boundaries
- Personal Strengths
- Resilience
- Self-reliance
- Shame
- Trauma
- Victim Mentality
- Vulnerability
- Worry
- avoiding conflict
- balance
- being alone
- conflict resolution
- connection
- decluttering
- duty and guilt
- emotional eating
- empathy
- energy
- feeling stuck
- happiness
- imposter syndrome
- intentions
- justice
- mindfulness
- overeating
- perfection
- perfectionism
- procrastination
- regret
- resolotions
- self-awareness
- taking risks
- unfairness
Why Energy Matters More Than Effort
Today, I feel energy-less. Today, I’m dealing with a chronic illness that has sapped me of my energy. I am envying anyone I see who has any at all.
About 10 or 15 years ago, I had a debilitating illness that would bring me down with very little warning. In those days, I really believed I could “push through” any situation…
Living Happiness Instead of Searching for It
As a counsellor, I often hear comments or complaints about not feeling satisfied, or happy. That’s a big reason people see counsellors. I remember complaining about the same thing when I was younger, …
From Autopilot to Awareness: The Power of Noticing
When I find myself watching another food video, when I end up reading a novel till 2am, when I eat so much at Thanksgiving I hurt … it isn’t that any of these are bad things to do (except for the overeating at Thanksgiving, but safe to say few of us haven’t been there), it’s that I find myself doing them automatically, unaware of it until I’ve been doing them for some time. …
How Risk-Taking Changed When I Stopped Overcommitting
What I want to talk about today is risky for me. It’s about going too far, something I am intimately familiar with.
What I mean by this is: the usual way I tend to overcommit is to …
When Duty Becomes A Distraction
A friend of mine has been riddled with guilt over several things – he doesn’t want to do them but feels duty-bound to do so. It’s so distracting that he’s finding he isn’t getting his job done or anything else.
I’ve done many things …
Why Some Decisions Feel So Hard (Even When They Shouldn’t)
It used to be, for me, really difficult to decide who not to invite to something I was hosting. I’d want to include everyone, even if it wasn’t very feasible. That went for Christmas gifting, and anything that meant the possibility of leaving someone I knew out.
I’d feel guilty, …
Expect the Unexpected: A Gentler Way To Build Resilience
I was speaking with a friend a while ago about how disrupting it is to him when something unplanned happens. Many of us don’t handle change well, especially change we hadn’t seen coming. …
The Trouble With Expectations
Every morning, I remind myself that when I have an expectation, to notice it, to let it go and instead be open to whatever happens.
Expectations are stories …
I Used to Worry About Everything - Now I Choose What Matters
I worry about the future, and have since I was too young to remember not worrying about the future. I would worry about getting things done, about getting things done right, about being accepted, about wearing the right clothes, about serving the right food, about being prepared for any possible disaster – no matter how remote.
…
Embracing Solitude
My husband and I were talking about living in very small communities – 100 or less. I’ve lived in such a community when I lived in the Rockies. In that community, people came together for community Bingo night and other such events, …
When Emotions Run High, Pause First
In planning for my weekly blogs, I write down any ideas I come across, then review them for my next blog post. The following idea popped up: how powerful a momentary pause is in becoming master of our personal world.
I was talking to a friend yesterday about a relative he loves who tends to get bossy …
A Strength And Its Shadow: Lessons From A Two-Toned Car
Green and orange: that was the colour of our family car – bright orange covering the top; dark forest green covering the bottom. My dad was a traveling salesman and spent a lot of time out of town. Apparently, this was his way of keeping track of my mom as she went about her day.
Needless to say, it failed:
My Grandmother’s Quilt
The following is a blog I wrote several years ago, about ties with my grandmother through the quilt she made me, and which I use every summer. I’d just switched from winter to summer bedding. That brought me my annual opportunity to feel her presence, and experience the closeness I had with her.
Here it is …
I’ve spent the last month of evenings re-sewing the quilt my grandmother gave me …
Decluttering Your Mind
I used to spend most of my time in my mind, dreaming, planning, worrying, and spiraling. It was not only off-putting to anyone around me, it could also be dangerous. …
When Hard Work Turns Harmful: A Story Of Change
I spent time with an old friend a few weekends ago, who was convalescing after a long illness that was caused largely from overwork. My friend was known for her relentlessly hard work, never stopping when she got tired, pushing through any physical barrier to finish what she’d committed to on time.
People admired her for her energy …
Mistakes Are So Awesone!
just spent a weekend away making mistakes: I locked myself out of my suitcase and had to go to a hardware store to get something to break into it; I rented a car and, in the process of picking out the one I wanted, left my backpack – that contained everything I work with daily …
From Knowing to Experiencing: A Journey of Self-Discovery
I spent time, recently, re-connecting with friends who I haven’t seen for a while. I loved those re-connections: they brought back past times where we worked together for a common goal and experienced, together, both triumphs and trials. I believe we grew and matured from the experiences, and that an essential part of that growth was our connection.
I was thinking specifically about the trials we met together in an organization we belonged to. …
From Reaction to Reflection: The Importance of Self-Awareness
I write about the importance of awareness a lot, especially over the past year. I’ve written blogs, and articles, and spoken about it in my videos. It’s just so critical to self-care – awareness. It’s the first essential step to changing how we approach issues and problems. Without becoming aware that there is an issue, and how we feel about it, there is no way to go further. …
Ready for a New Beginning? Embracing the Next Chapter of Your Life
What do you do when your spouse decides to leave? Or when you find yourself needing to learn to live without the one you can’t live without? Or when your business partner suddenly turns on you and demands a change you can’t agree to?
These are a few instances of major life changes that are visited on us many times over, …
From Stuck to Unstoppable: Confronting Perfectionism and Fear
I was speaking with a friend this week about something she was really stuck on – deciding what she wanted in her business by the end of 10 years. She actually had a good idea – she talked about it a lot. But when it came down to putting it on paper and executing it, she was stuck.
It turned out that what she was stuck on was her own perfectionism: …