There’s always something to do. There’s always somewhere to be, something that needs your attention. With busy schedules, work, school, house repairs, and other life responsibilities, there’s always the temptation to just “push through” the mental stress and keep going. You’re expected to keep going, meet your responsibilities, tend to your relationships, and improve yourself physically and mentally. That’s a lot. Don’t forget to rest. Taking time for yourself, being comfortable, and allowing your nervous system the opportunity to calm down is just as – if not more – important than getting all of those other things done. Check out Slow Down: How to Stay Present When Life is Busy …
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Two Different Mornings Many of us start our day in a rush. It’s easy to hit snooze, and some of us just aren’t morning people. Sometimes the morning looks like waking up in a hurry after sleeping past your alarm, rushing to take a shower, halfway doing your hair, and getting somewhere at the last minute. Can you relate? For some of us, that’s just how the day starts. But what if you were more intentional about your mornings – about how you begin your day? The chaos of starting your morning in a rush echoes into the rest of your day. Not to mention, when you’re going about your…
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Authenticity Requires Consistency After Recognizing what feels off, Exploring the facts with curiosity, telling yourself the Truth, Understanding your patterns and needs, and Reclaiming the narrative of your own story – this is what comes next: you move forward differently. You make decisions from alignment instead of fear. That’s what it means to Navigate your life authentically. In the last step of the RETURN Method, we are free to move forward in our lives and live from a place of authenticity. That sounds exciting and rewarding, but what exactly does it mean to Navigate Your Life Authentically? What is it actually like? Most people value authenticity in theory but struggle…
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The Story You’ve Been Told vs. the Story You Choose Everyone tells themselves a story about their own lives. We all carry around a story of who we are and how we got that way. A lot of those stories were written when we were little, oftentimes during moments that felt bad and made us feel like we weren’t enough. Being bullied when you’re in middle school may have taught you that you needed to prove yourself, that you needed to maintain a certain image in order to have value. You may have created this narrative around an isolated, yet ongoing, event that happened and had nothing to do with…
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The Power of Understanding Yourself Many people try to “fix” themselves before they even really take the time to get to know themselves. How can you fix something you don’t fully understand?It’s common to: …without first asking ourselves: When you don’t understand the underlying problem, you tend to treat only symptoms. The result is often a series of chasing, reaching, and repeating affirmations – while subconsciously fearing that they might actually come to fruition. At any point in your journey, it’s important to be aware of how you’re feeling, your boundaries, and your values. If you don’t already know what your boundaries are or how you feel about a particular…
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The Moment After Curiosity So here we are. We have recognized that something feels off and explored the facts with curiosity. Now it’s time to be honest with ourselves. Here, we’ve reached the Truth step of the RETURN Method. Being honest with ourselves about our own truth and our own responsibility is a natural next step. While this type of honesty is very direct, it doesn’t need to be harsh or scary. Acknowledging a truth that you might not like doesn’t have to be a confrontation. We can consider it to be data that we use moving forward. The truth is stabilizing. It’s not something that needs to be avoided.…
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Once you’ve recognized that something felt off and spent some time with yourself to see how you feel and how you would like to respond, it’s time to take a look at the facts. In the second step of the RETURN Method, we aren’t fixing or reacting to new information – we are exploring it. We aren’t looking at something, assuming something about it, and then spiraling in our heads after. What we are doing is gathering more information. We look at the information that we have with curiosity and observe facts. What did you experience yourself? List what you know to be true. Take a breath and look at…
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The Subtle Signal Most People Miss If you aren’t in tune with your body, you might miss the subtle cues it gives you. Your body tells you when it needs something; its always communicating with you. When we don’t understand ourselves well enough to recognize the signals within us, it can lead to challenges in other areas of life. Have you ever felt anxious and uncertain, only to realize you hadn’t eaten at all that day? Maybe you had a headache and then later remembered that you didn’t drink enough water. We might have days where something feels “off,” but we aren’t sure what it is. Sometimes we just accept…
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The Exhaustion of “Fixing” It’s so common to feel like something is “wrong” with you. The idea that we aren’t good enough has been marketed to us our whole lives. Other people project their insecurities onto you and make you question yourself. Someone who doesn’t know how to handle their own emotions makes you think you are lacking in some way. There are a lot of things that separate us from who we are – from infancy all the way until now. Self-development is great, and I would say it’s actually quite important. However, there is a difference between growing as a person versus constantly trying to fix something about…
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Why Rejection Feels So Personal When we think about rejection, we usually focus on the pain of the rejection itself. Some of us think of rejection as the sting of being told “no”, or not being included in the group. However, if you zoom out a little bit, there is more to it. Many folks respond differently to rejection, yet an underlying feeling for many of us is panic around the question, “What does this outcome mean to me?” It could be, that you actually aren’t as worried about being rejected as you are trying to stay connected to the outcome you were expecting. Check out Healthy Detachment – What…
