Category: Exhaustion

“It’s fine.”  “Everything is fine.”  “I’m fine.”  Have you ever strung together these three sentences and thought to yourself, “shoot, I think I might not be fine”. 

About a year ago I was in a car accident that resulted in emergency surgery, a stay in the trauma center at the hospital, and a long recovery (in addition to other challenges). It was the most challenging and scary time in my life. I didn’t think that I was going to make it, and yet I would find myself telling my loved ones who came to visit me, “It’s fine.”  “Everything is fine.”  “I’m fine.” 

Why is it so hard to admit that sometimes we are not fine? It has taken me a while to figure out why I was so desperately pushing myself to be fine. Though I wanted those words to be true, what I wanted more than anything was for my loved ones to think and feel that those words were true.

Whet ...

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Becoming a 'Human Being' vs. a 'Human Doing'

When I was in college, I had a thoughtful professor who hated the 'b' word; as in 'busy.' He would say that too often people use the word 'busy' to describe how they have been and he didn’t understand why people felt the need to let others know that they had a ton going on. He also noted that the phrase 'being busy,' doesn’t actually describe how a person is feeling. I found this profound to think about. Why is it that some people feel the need to always be so busy and to let others know that they’re busy?

The way we choose to live our lives will shape who we become. Often that requires deep reflection of our habits and the kinds of relationships we are choosing to allow in our life. However, one of the greatest barriers to this deeper reflection is 'busyness.'

A lot of people recognized their addiction to busyness d ...

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Everyone deals with challenges to their mental health. 

At this moment you may not feel lost in a cloud of depression or ready to jump out of your skin with anxiety, but you may be in the middle of a really hard day, or a series of hard days.

Sometimes we are blindsided by a crisis. At other times, the little things just add up. 

Imagine your alarm didn’t go off, you woke up late for work and your kids were crying through the night so you only slept a few hours. On your drive to work, you suddenly notice a large pothole ahead of you. Someone is tailgating you so you can’t slow down, and someone is next to you in the adjacent lane, so you can’t move over.

You make it to work with a flat tire, but at least you’re there, and thankfully nothing stressful can happen at work. 

Within a very short time, your typical daily stress-load has been amplified, and you feel that it’s bey ...

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