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The holiday season is upon us! Warmth, joy, and connection with loved ones are all part of the festivities. It’s also important to maintain healthy boundaries for our mental and emotional well-being. Here are some tips for navigating this season with grace and self-care:

1. Define Your Limits:
   Start by identifying your personal boundaries. What activities or interactions bring you joy, and which ones drain your energy? Knowing your limits allows you to make conscious choices that align with your well-being.
2. Communicate Openly:
   Healthy boundaries thrive on open communication. If there are specific expectations or concerns, express them calmly and assertively. Letting others know your needs helps prevent misunderstandings and promotes mutual respect.
3. Prioritize Self-Care:
   The holiday season can be overwhelming, with a flurry of events and obligations. Prioritize self-care by scheduling moments for relaxation and recharging. Whether it’s a quiet evening with a book or a brisk walk in nature, make time for activities that nourish your mind and body.
4. Learn to Say No:
   Saying no is a powerful act of self-care. It’s okay to decline invitations or commitments that don’t align with your well-being. Remember that setting boundaries is not a rejection; it’s a mindful choice to prioritize your mental health.
5. Create Rituals of Connection:
   While it’s essential to set limits, the holidays are also a time for connection. Create meaningful rituals with loved ones that foster a sense of togetherness without sacrificing your boundaries. Whether it’s a shared meal, a game night, or a simple conversation, focus on quality over quantity.
6. Practice Mindfulness:
   Mindfulness can be a valuable tool in maintaining healthy boundaries. Stay present in the moment, and listen to your inner needs. Being mindful allows you to respond to situations with intention, fostering a sense of balance during the festive season.
7. Seek Support:
   If you find yourself struggling with boundaries, don’t hesitate to seek support from friends, family, or a mental health professional. Sharing your concerns and experiences can provide valuable insights and help you navigate the holiday season more smoothly.

Remember, the essence of the holidays lies in creating joyous memories and nurturing relationships. By embracing healthy boundaries, you can ensure a more fulfilling and balanced experience, allowing you to savor the magic of the season while safeguarding your well-being.

As summer arrives with its sunny days and vibrant energy, it’s easy to assume that stress levels naturally decrease. However, the reality is that summer brings its own set of stressors that can sometimes overwhelm us. Balancing work, family, social commitments, and the desire to make the most of the season can leave us feeling stressed and depleted. Let’s explore some effective stress management strategies specifically tailored to help you navigate the summer months with ease and maintain your well-being.

1. Embrace the Power of Self-Care: Summer is the perfect time to prioritize self-care and recharge your batteries. Make time for activities that bring you joy and relaxation, whether it’s taking a walk in nature, practicing yoga, reading a book, or enjoying a hobby. Prioritize adequate sleep, eat nourishing foods, and stay hydrated. By focusing on self-care, you’ll replenish your energy levels and better cope with any stress that comes your way.
2. Practice Mindfulness and Relaxation Techniques: Engaging in mindfulness practices can significantly reduce stress levels. Take a few moments each day to focus on your breath, observe your surroundings, and bring your attention to the present moment. Consider incorporating meditation or deep breathing exercises into your daily routine. These techniques help calm the mind, improve focus, and reduce anxiety, allowing you to approach summer challenges with a clearer perspective.
3. Plan and Organize: Summer can be a busy time, filled with vacations, social events, and family obligations. To manage stress effectively, create a schedule or use a planner to stay organized. Plan your activities, set realistic goals, and allocate time for relaxation and downtime. Breaking down tasks into manageable chunks helps prevent overwhelm and allows you to enjoy the season without feeling rushed or burdened.
4. Stay Active Outdoors: Take advantage of the beautiful weather and incorporate outdoor physical activities into your routine. Engaging in exercise not only promotes physical health but also releases endorphins that boost mood and reduce stress. Go for a hike, swim, bike ride, or simply take a leisurely walk in nature. Spending time in green spaces and connecting with the natural world can have a profoundly positive impact on your mental well-being.
5. Set Boundaries and Prioritize Rest: It’s tempting to fill up your summer schedule with endless commitments and obligations. However, it’s important to set boundaries and prioritize rest. Learn to say no to activities that don’t align with your well-being or may lead to excessive stress. Allow yourself downtime to relax, unwind, and recharge. Giving yourself permission to rest is essential for maintaining balance and preventing burnout.

Summer should be a time of enjoyment, relaxation, and rejuvenation. By implementing these stress management strategies into your summer routine, you can navigate the season with greater ease and maintain your overall well-being.

The new year can bring a flurry of motivation for a “new me” in the areas of physical, emotional and financial health. This year, remember that small, specific changes can be a sustainable way to see big change over time. Often, this initial burst of energy to “fix” ourselves can lead to burnout, discouragement or even injury. A slow, steady path can help to keep your momentum going, seeing small wins and building confidence over time. For exercise goals, think in terms of small, frequent intervals of movement rather than long sessions at the gym.

Expecting the inevitable missteps and greeting them with compassion will allow you to get back on track quickly. Didn’t move too much today? Try saying, “Change is hard. We can keep going” instead of harsh self-criticism.

What is important to you? Use those values as your carrot, instead of making changes to avoid the stick. Instead of saying “I want to lose weight”, reframe your goal into a plan that moves you toward your value: “I want to feel stronger when I’m playing with my kids because physical fitness is important to me.”

Happy New Year!

It’s been awhile since the last blog post. The busyness of life, procrastination, dread, expectation and overwhelm: all contributing factors. The thought that, “it’s been so long! The energy it takes to start again is too much…”

In mindfulness meditation and Buddhist philosophy, there is a beautiful sentiment of using each breath as a chance to start anew. Your mind drifted away? No problem, you have this next moment and this next breath to refocus your attention. You’ve neglected your website for a year? No problem, today is a perfect chance to revisit the blog.

When stuck or overwhelmed about how far adrift you feel, offer yourself the opportunity to realize that the next moment is available for a slight shift toward movement. You missed that one and strayed away? No problem! Here’s another moment coming right up. And another. And another. And another.

An important part of healing and growth is accountability. Without it, apathy and cynicism spread like a virus, eroding strong relationships or institutions. Accountability does not necessarily mean punishment or destruction for the offending party. There can be accountability without cruelty. In fact, the most effective way to hold others accountable is through fierce compassion.

Holding a boundary while seeing the humanity.

When someone offends you, it is easier to call names, to dismiss their actions as that of a lesser-than person. Harder to acknowledge their humanness, our hurt or our own vulnerability to personal righteousness.

Try this: I see you, I hear you. You’ve hurt me. What repair needs to take place? If there is not willingness to repair, there are consequences. Consequences that address the behavior and ensure it will not happen again. Consequence delivered in a state of grounded belief in the humanity in each of us.

As we greet a new year, many of us turn to new goals, new visions for what may be. An essential part of this orientation to the future is hope. Using our imagination to conceive of a new existence for ourselves, our family or our community requires a hopefulness about what can be improved.

That is hard right now.

Often we see the concept of hope linked to naivete or a childlike innocence. In fact, opening ourselves to hope after experiencing life’s uncertainty, pain and struggle is about the most mature task we can embark on. Hope is the antidote to cynicism, a prophylactic for apathy.

But perhaps most relevant to weary travelers who have arrived to January 2021, hope allows us to keep going. To trust that despite fatigue deep within our bones, our only real choice is to continue to be open to ourselves, our family and our community.

A simple meditation for a day filled with anxious uncertainty:

Breathing in

Breathing out

May we know the truth of each person’s dignity despite our differences

May we recognize that fear blinds us from life’s truths

May we soak up the joy of community when we most need it

May we have courage to stand up to hurtful language

May we continue a search for understanding

Breathing in

Breathing out

It starts the minute we wake up: “What catastrophic/once-in-a-lifetime news item will greet me today?”

Our challenge now is to conserve energy. Our energy reserves are depleted, with none of the usual strategies to replenish available to us. We limit our social interaction to protect against a virus and this leaves us fatigued in spiritual and emotional ways.

“You don’t always need to process this!” says the therapist. Sometimes, deciding to turn away from information reflects a value of rest and restoration rather than an avoidance of fact.

When we encounter a crisis, there is often an arc of emotion that follows. Initially, we are energized to respond to immediate needs, our anxiety and agitation serving as momentum to quickly react and survive. Once the acute danger passes or the crisis continues as a more plateaued existence, our mood morphs into a lower energy, low motivation phase.

In this stage, we enter the Icky Middle. We aren’t yet feeling comfortable or safe enough to make changes to our situation or take reasonable risk that may provide novelty or growth. We are conservative in our movements and actions despite feeling unsatisfied with the status quo. The Icky Middle knows we don’t like our situation, but we feel unsure about how to proceed or averse to the options presented to us. The only way to make it through the Icky Middle is to trust that the phase of orientation to the future will be next.

In the final stage of the crisis arc, we experience clarity of direction, purpose and goals. We feel we have the resources behind us to take action on those goals. This becomes a period of growth.

I know we all feel immersed in the Icky Middle right now. Unfortunately, there isn’t a timeline for how long this lasts. But we know the Orientation to the Future is coming. Growth is coming. And we must take care of ourselves now so that we can rise to the moment then.

For many years, our nation’s approach to discussing racism has been avoidance. Statements like “we don’t see color” or “I didn’t own slaves” and formal or informal segregation policies in our communities have allowed those of us who hold racial privilege to move away from hard realities of injustice. The ability to avoid the topic of race is privilege.

As images of police brutality against Black people and the statistics of racial disparities in COVID 19 deaths fill our news feeds, White people are awakening en masse to this privilege and the destruction that avoidance can bring.

When we avoid emotional distress (such as considering the profound effect slavery has had on a people), it provides a short-term reprieve to our activated neurological systems. It is understandable then, that avoidance behavior gets reinforced and we may turn to it again and again as a way to feel better. When avoidance behavior becomes the only strategy to manage distress, we now have trapped ourselves into a small emotional world where any heightened emotion signals danger. Consider the studies on implicit bias against Black people or the racial disparities in prison sentencing.

When we finally turn toward our distress (often through a crisis moment), we can learn new ways of soothing ourselves that aren’t destructive to ourselves or others. We can feel more grounded in our values, less reactive to perceived or real criticism, more capable in holding space for any and all emotions. We can acknowledge the pain we’ve experienced and the pain we’ve caused. We can recognize the shared humanity in ourselves and others.

This is what I hope for our nation: that in this moment, we can invite the discomfort in. We can use this reckoning to feel shame, guilt, hope, love, grief, freedom and see the path forward toward healing and justice.