Handling The Hard Stuff

Tag: Self-Care

  • Find the Fun

    Adulting isn’t a lot of fun. There’s a lot of responsibility and pressure and mundanity. It doesn’t always have to be this way though. We can balance the boring with the fun. If you’re anything like me, you’ve lost your sparkle at times as you go through the responsible and adult activities of day to…

  • Put on Your Own Oxygen Mask First

    So often we find ourselves working so hard to help others and solve problems that aren’t our own when we aren’t actually able to help ourselves. I have so many clients that report to me how they are providing homes for their adult children while being unable to pay the mortgage on their own. I…

  • Respect is Earned

    So many times I see and hear people demanding respect based on their position or circumstance. I reject that entirely. I have seen judges be petty and gossip. I have seen teenagers carry a family on their shoulders with responsibility. The idea that certain people in certain positions can behave rudely or cruelly and they…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Prepare for the Worst

    I’m a big proponent of hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. I like contingencies, but I also like safeguards. The basics to cover to be generally prepared for the worst things: (caveats – 1. this is probably only applicable in the US but I’ll try to be broad enough that it’s useful…

  • 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…