Category: Coping

I was talking with my daughter recently and she shared with me that she is teaching my granddaughter about setting and respecting physical space limits.  My daughter didn’t use those specific words, but it is essentially what she was referring to.  It reminded me of the importance of setting clear boundaries with others and the important responsibility of keeping and respecting boundaries of others and of ourselves.  It is good to recognize that we all have limitations and recognizing that and putting healthy boundaries up helps us to thrive.

My granddaughter is learning about a physical boundary, but there are other areas we may want to consider when thinking of boundaries.  Areas that I have learned to value and protect with boundaries include financial, time, energy, and emotional boundaries.  These can change as our circumstances change, but it is good to know what boundary I need or want to be in place for the c ...

Read more

Spaghetti and Hurt Feelings

I am a pretty clumsy person. Like a keep-an-eye-on-me-around-closed-sliding-glass-doors, probably-should-never-eat-spaghetti-without-a-full-apron-on kind of person. Suffice it to say, my childhood nickname lauded my propensity to accumulate minor bumps and scrapes through incredible feats of un-coordination. I won’t tell you how old I was when I nearly broke my glasses walking into the corner of a doorway instead of through the doorway - although, to be perfectly clear, it was part of the transparent wall of a racquetball court…and that was the problem: it was perfectly clear.

 

Anyway, as my luck would have it, I’m also a pretty relationally-clumsy person. At times I completely miss that I have caused emotional discomfort or harm. I put my foot in my mouth routinely enough that I< ...

Read more

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 ...

Read more