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Turning Mistakes into Milestones: Embracing Imperfection Through Perspective-Taking
Mistakes are a natural part of life. Yet, many of us treat them as proof of failure, something to hide or feel ashamed about. What if we flipped the script? What if we saw mistakes not as setbacks, but as vital stepping stones that shape us, teach us, and lead us to where we need…
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Seeing the Beauty in Brokenness: How Perspective-Taking Transforms Challenges
Life’s challenges often leave us feeling broken. Whether it’s the pain of abuse, the trauma of divorce, or the weight of mental illness, these experiences can strip away our sense of wholeness and control. But what if brokenness isn’t the end? What if, instead, it’s an opportunity for growth, healing, and a new perspective? Perspective-taking—the…
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Boiling Points: Will Adversity Harden or Soften You?
We all experience stressful moments, and times of upheaval in our lives. Our natural responses to these instances are, to a great extent, based on our previous life experiences, our beliefs, and our personalities. In other words, we are likely to respond differently to stress than someone else, even someone in our own family. Some…
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Seasonal Depression: How Changing Weather Impacts Mental Health and Tips to Cope
Seasonal changes, particularly the shift into colder, darker months, can significantly impact our mental health. This phenomenon, often referred to as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) or seasonal depression, is more than just the “winter blues.” It’s a real, diagnosable condition that can affect your energy, mood, and overall well-being. Additionally, unpredictable weather patterns due to…
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Rising Above Challenges: The Parable of the Divers
How do you handle when someone else wins or gets something YOU want? What are the challenges faced in life and how do you face them with fortitude and perseverance? When life gives you struggles, how can you build resilience instead of resistance? There are so many hard things we face in life, from childhood…
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Climb Smarter, Not Harder: 4 Tips for Navigating Life’s Mountains
Years ago, I watched a video of a toddler climbing a 4’ climbing wall. She couldn’t have been more than 2 years old. She was free-climbing without a harness. I was amazed that she often stepped BACK to move forward. We may believe we must keep moving forward in one direction, no matter how difficult…
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Managing Life’s Burdens: 6 Tips to Unpack Your Emotional Backpack
Many of us carry the weight of past traumas, life’s hurts, unkind words spoken by or to us, angst against others for their behaviors, and many festering emotions. These weights are like rocks in a backpack which we carry around at all times. How many of those ‘rocks’ belong to us, and how many belong…
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The Whirlpool Analogy: Teaching Choices & Accountability
Life is all about choices and the natural consequences we receive from our choices. Helping children and others understand this can lead to increased accountability and learning, gaining more responsibility for the outcomes of our choices – whether we like the outcomes or not. Much of our world seems to believe and engage in the…
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The Power of Incremental Improvement: How 1% Gains Lead to Extraordinary Success
In 2021, Michael A. Dunn shared the following story about how choosing to improve incrementally over time increases outcomes astronomically. Rather than making huge changes to our lives or habits and behaviors, and failing because it’s often too difficult to achieve if we choose to make small changes in needed areas over time, we find…
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Understanding and Managing Emotional Tripwires: How to Defuse Automatic Responses
Tripwire = the process wherein a pre-set response is triggered by an event, person, place, smell, etc. and which sets off an AUTOMATIC chain reaction. For most of us, we are fairly unaware of the tripwires which set off our emotional responses, fears, anxieties, anger, or emotional meltdowns. That is because these responses are automatic,…
