Handling The Hard Stuff

Category: Self-Care

  • You Can’t Control Their Narrative

    Someone mentioned the other day that you can’t control how others see you and somehow that was just mind-blowing to me. I tell my clients this all the time (and wrote about it in an earlier post) – you have to be prepared to be the villain in your former partner’s story. But somehow this…

  • Is it Worth Forcing it?

    I can think of a bunch of times in life when I hit a wall or barrier that made me stop and think about my path. Almost fifteen years ago this week I failed the bar exam. It was my worst nightmare come true. All the time and money I’d spent, the public nature of…

  • Live Softly

    I read somewhere the other day about a “softgirl” life. The theory is basically to not give anything “your all” because you won’t have anything left over for the rest. The prize for winning a pie eating contest is more pie. I spoke with a woman this morning who is close to retirement age. Her…

  • Stop Beating Yourself Up

    In the past few days especially I have had a number of friends and potential clients berate themselves for “putting up with so much” or something along those lines. They’ll talk about a million different ways their partners failed them and feel such shame for not kicking that person to the curb sooner. They look…

  • It All Draws from the Same Well

    Have you ever had a day where you spent the whole day in a meeting sitting listening to people talk and you come home EXHAUSTED? You’ve been sitting all day long but you have zero energy left. Have you had a day where you are dealing with grief or trauma or helping someone else deal…

  • It’s Not Your Responsibility to Make People Happy

    Some of us are people pleasers. Some people grew up walking on egg shells because they didn’t live in a safe place. People are averse to conflict for a million reasons. Many of us have to learn how to navigate a new relationship with a new person. I remember in college my roommate would periodically…

  • Micro-Joys

    There is much studied and written about the positive mental and physical impacts that regular gratitude can have. I will be the first to acknowledge I am terrible at this. I can’t get myself to sit down and meditate. I am terrible at journaling. I just can’t manage to stop my world and take the…

  • Quiet Love

    We aren’t all overt in our affection. Many of us are uncomfortable expressing ourselves with words. We show our love in different ways. My dad says he doesn’t want gifts, but he’s the first one to play with the kids’ toys on Christmas morning. He doesn’t say “I love you”, but he makes sure my…

  • Ask Yourself Why

    Why do you do the things you do? Why do you work yourself to the bone or sneak midnight snacks or disappear into a book when you have chores to do? What’s the root cause? Because you can’t expect to change the things that are causing problems for you, if you don’t understand the why…

  • Set Goals That Matter

    Any one of us that has tried to better themselves or learn something has set some form of goal – whether formal or not. If you’re anything like me, you’ve broken your own goals plenty of times over. We aim high and then the process of getting from start to finish is too long and…