In our highly-driven culture, the common belief is that success depends on being competitive and pushing yourself to your limits. What if this approach proved to be more harmful than helpful? Recent research shows self-criticism and a competitive attitude create obstacles to achieving goals.
Forgiveness and Your Mental Health
The bottom line is that when people forgive, their thoughts, behaviors, feelings, and health become more positive. Deciding to forgive is a good first step. But, deeper forgiveness will have a greater positive impact on your mental and physical health.
Know Your Empathy Limits
A healthy form of empathy involves striking an emotional and intellectual balance between self and another person. One has the ability to pay attention to another’s needs without sacrificing one’s own.
Self-Care: Am I Just Being Selfish?
Self-care begins with taking care of your basic needs including eating, sleeping, bathing, and medical needs.
Self-care also includes activities to help you relax and de-stress. It is also maintaining relationships and finding balance between work life and personal life. Failure to attend to these needs could result in exhaustion, burnout, illness, and even possible hospitalization.
The Art of Comfort
Responding to another person’s grief can be incredibly difficult, not because we don’t care, but because we simply don’t know what to do. We can’t fix the situation, but we can be a presence that conveys care and comfort to those dealing with grief.
Letting Go of Understanding
Have you ever experienced a traumatic or extremely disappointing event in your life? Maybe you lost a loved one or special friend unexpectantly; or a significant relationship ended and you were devastated. Often times, we seek to understand the purpose of these painful events. We may have many unanswered questions about the hurtful event.
Lamenting a Loss
When loss occurred, the community took the time to surround those who had suffered and allowed them the emotional space to offer a cry of sorrow and grief. Often the community itself offered a cry of sorrow for a loss. This is far from our modern day thinking about grief.
The Landscape of Loss
We are a society that loves to acquire. So when loss comes (as it inevitably will) we find ourselves generally ill-equipped to respond.
Learning to Grieve Your Loss
By the age of forty, most people have experienced some form of loss at least fifteen times. The journey takes courage. Grief is not an easy path to negotiate and simply taking the next step forward is often fraught with overwhelming feelings. Is recovery from loss possible? Yes – although the definition of recovery may need some explanation.
On Grieving: Crying is not Weakness
Grief is a normal part of life. With every loss we experience, however large or small, there is a grieving process that ensues. We may not always be consciously aware that we are grieving or we may not allow it, but grief is there. And if we don’t grieve fully, it will harm us in the long run, popping up in unexpected ways.
