Handling The Hard Stuff

Tag: Self-Help

  • Respect the Stress

    The end of year holidays are joyous and wonderful and exhausting as all get out. We have more gatherings, more travel, more expenses, less structure, less healthy food and activities, and lots more peopling. It’s delightful and also hugely stressful. For some it’s just plain stressful. Maybe you’re dealing with in-laws that create constant tension…

  • Forgive Yourself

    So much of what we do when we are young follows us into adulthood. Decisions we make about schooling, working, relationships, and how we solve problems as young adults has ripple effects that we end of dealing with for the rest of our lives. As an older adult the consequences of your young-self’s decisions can…

  • Find Enough

    We live in a world of hustle culture. We need more, we need to climb the corporate ladder, we need to have our kids in all the best activities and schools, we need to join all the right clubs and participate in all the things, and we need to make all the meals homemade, and…

  • People are Rooting for You

    It’s hard to trust when you’ve had family, friends, and relationships that have let you down. We develop lots of baggage and chips off of our heart that leave us more fragile than we once were. We assume that people are secretly speaking ill of us or we assume that we are a burden or…

  • Be Honest with Yourself

    This time of year we all seem to find ourselves reflecting on the year that’s ending and setting big goals for the year to come. I always have these ambitious plans that I’ll then end up ignoring or sabotaging somewhere along the way. Admitting the sabotage is the thing that gets me. We all have…

  • Behavior is a Language

    How often have you been frustrated because a child or a partner or a friend isn’t behaving in a way you think they should? They’ve ignored you or they’ve shown up belligerent, or they haven’t shown up at all? That person is telling you something with their language. We’ve all heard “If someone shows you…

  • Decision Fatigue

    If you’re in charge of a household or raising children or recovering from a relationship ending, you don’t have a lot of extra mental space. This is when decision fatigue comes into play and you find yourself overwhelmed by everything by the end of the day and ordering pizza for dinner but making someone else…

  • Self-Sabotage

    So many of us have the best-laid plans and for various reasons we sabotage our own progress. I realized recently that part of the reason I self-sabotage is somewhere in the realm of anxiety and control. If I sabotage myself, then I know when it’s going to happen and it’s within my control. If I…

  • Your Inner Voice

    My inner voice can be super mean. The older I get the better I am at shutting it up, but there are still plenty of times when my inner voice tells me I’m useless and unlovable and there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s hard to fight yourself. It’s hard to remember that that…

  • Perspective

    It’s hard to get a sense of progress when we’re just trying to hang on day to day. Taking a step back and analyzing our lives is virtually impossible when we’re in the throes of it. I like to take a single data point and compare where things are every year on that day. For…