Tag: balance

You are sitting on a bench at your local playground. It’s sunny (despite Michigan’s temperamental weather). Your gaze begins to wander and settles on children climbing. They are climbing everywhere. It’s amazing, actually, how many things children can climb on. You further notice how they run, walk, slide down slides, play tag, squeal with delight on swings. Toddlers trundle off in a big, new-to-them world. They seem to take up space with ease; it’s their world, we’re just living in it. They are so sure that they belong wherever they go. Do you have this scene? For me, this imagined space invites lots of emotions: joy, wonder, delight, curiosity, and sadness. Yes, sadness. Because I, as an adult, have a harder time feeling so present and excited and happy and confident of belonging. I have more awareness and more to my story as to why these emotions make sense for me.

What is play, and why does it make sense for all humans of ...

Turning off endless thoughts and rumination can be a difficult task for many people (in fact, 6.8 million people across the US).  So, it should not be shocking that we all may experience similar instances, or even times of day when we find it difficult to turn off the worry.  Some people may experience anxiety in the morning, throughout the day, or all-times revolving around sleep.  Have you ever been abruptly woken up from a deep sleep trying to figure out the world’s problems—many of us have! Or, are you the jealous type who envies your spouse for catching ZZZ’s moments after hitting their pillow—meanwhile, you are left alone with your thoughts for hours on end?! The thoughts can be endless, and thoughts do not necessarily have to be distressing in nature to be, well, distressing. 

Humans have the ability to think and think and think, without ever really finding the end of the thought—we simply ruminat ...

A sense of direction, purpose, and identity. Most would agree that these are factors contributing to a fulfilling life. At some point most of us have also experienced the anxiety or depression that accompanies a loss of these.

As we attend to the daily concerns of life, we experience the satisfaction and positive emotions that come with caring for family, making progress toward work, financial and health goals etc. At the same time, the immediacy of these concerns can sometimes take almost all of our focus, distracting us from parts of ourselves that may have been buried under the daily routine.

To bring balance, it’s important that we check in with ourselves from time to time to ensure that we are moving forward with internal integration, an awareness of who we are and where we want to go. 

A simple exercise for doing this involves making two lists. 

For list one, make a list of the to ...