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
- Emotional awareness
- Empowerment and Living
- Epigenetics
- Expectation
- Healing
- Hope
- Introversion
- Leadership
- Personal Boundaries
- Resilience
- Self-reliance
- Shame
- Trauma
- Victim Mentality
- Vulnerability
- Worry
- avoiding conflict
- balance
- conflict resolution
- connection
- emotional eating
- empathy
- imposter syndrome
- intentions
- mindfulness
- perfectionism
- procrastination
- regret
- visibility
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
Moving On Towards A New Path
This past Sunday marked the end of my Presidency in a psychological organization I’ve belonged to for 18 years. I was on the Board of Directors for 16 of those years, culminating in holding the role of President.
It was an experience that changed me:
Perfect Humans
Is it my imagination, or are people more sensitive to everything? In politics, I rarely hear people who disagree with one another have measured discussions; more often, it’s about taking sides and vilifying the other side and the other person. In meetings, same thing: it isn’t enough to simply dislike someone’s words or stance without making them a bad person in our minds.
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,
Transforming Conflict: A Path to Understanding and Connection
Conflict-aversion is something many of us feel: we’d rather get along and feel safe and comfortable than get into an argument with another. That isn’t necessarily what conflict has to look or feel like, but that is how many of us think about it.
Conflict is scary and we’d rather avoid it.
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…
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 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. …
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 …
Nature's Wisdom: Embracing Abundance Through Human Connection
I know I’ve been writing a lot lately on connection. Mostly, it’s because I see so little of it, and that makes me both sad and worried. We are social animals and we need to connect with other humans to survive. Yet we aren’t connecting very much. Instead we isolate and that makes us feel even worse. …
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,
The Courage to Stand Alone: Navigating Group Pressure and Personal Boundaries
Recently I witnessed an emotional altercation that involved group-think, sometimes referred to as confluence. The issue was whether to award a particular person for an achievement, or to award a different person. The person the members of this group wanted to award was a friend of theirs; the other person was not a friend of theirs
From Spectating to Participating: Breaking Free from the Sidelines
For a long time – longer than I care to admit – I would hold off saying what I really thought or felt. Instead, I would tell myself that I wanted to hear and sit with what someone said before making any comments. This wasn’t true with friends or family. It was true with teachers and strangers.
Will this time be different?
I’ve struggled with my weight all my adult life, believing I was too big and needed to lose just a little weight. Even though it’s only a little, that few pounds never stayed off, except when I was sick. And of course, the older I get, the harder it is for me to keep to a particular weight, even allowing for aging.
It’s suspicious.
The Ever-Evolving Quest for Perfection: Lessons from Personal Experiences
In my teens, I would spend many weekend hours sewing and creating for myself, my family and friends. I loved to do it; it fed my imagination and my sense of accomplishment. I recall one Christmas deciding to make a garment for my boyfriend. When I finished, I noticed a hole in the material, and spent the next 4 days meticulously creating a patch that became an art statement. That was a cherished moment for me: I’d elegantly solved a problem, and nobody but me knew it had ever been a problem.
For me, that’s perfection.
The Power of Anticipation: Building Resilience Through Dual Expectations
Plan for the worst, Expect the best. This is advice I give clients, and myself, all the time. Why? Because I tend to do the opposite and end up at minimum disappointed, and at worst, in shock and even trauma. “Opposite” isn’t quite what I used to expect: I wouldn’t expect the worst; as it turned out, I had things in the wrong order – I’d expect the best without any real consideration, then plan accordingly. In addition, I’d expect everything and everyone except me to be perfection, then spend all my waking moments worrying over how I could mess it all up.