Teena Evert, MA, LMFT, LAC, PC is an intuitive therapist and coach who specializes in helping her clients achieve transformation in their lives both personally and professionally. She is of great help to busy professionals on a quest to have it all: life satisfaction, a meaningful career, sane work/life balance, and healthy relationships.
Teena encourages you to develop your own unique self-care plan and give yourself the gift of deeply caring for and loving yourself, so you can thrive in a forever changing world.
Everyone experiences stress in life, and as a Life and Career Coach, many of my clients come to me wondering how to better manage it. We actually need stress in order to thrive and continue to actualize as human beings. We also need to be okay with getting out of our own comfort zone so we can learn to thrive in a forever changing world.
The problem with stress is that we can often get stuck in a chronic state of stress that doesn’t allow us to thrive. When we are under too much stress for too long we are living in a state of survival that is headed down a path of self-destruction.
When we can manage the stress in our lives on a regular daily basis we learn to reset our nervous system back to a healthy baseline of rest and relaxation. Rest and relaxation is part of our natural state of being, without it we go into overdrive and lose touch with caring for ourselves, those we love, and the planet.
A self-care checklist is an excellent first step in bringing awareness to how you manage the stress in your life. Notice the areas of your life that need extra attention and begin to develop your own self-care plan.
_I get adequate sleep every night
_I eat healthy meals regularly
_I drink lots of water throughout the day
_I walk or exercise at least 3 times per week
_I keep focused on how I can be more loving and kind with people in my life
_I share appreciation with those I love – friends and family throughout the day
_I am open to resolving conflict in a healthy loving way
_I am able to speak my truth and set loving boundaries with others
_I have fun on a regular basis
_I laugh freely and easily
_I take breaks for fun and relaxation – I don’t work non-stop
_I have things planned in the future that I look forward to
_My home is well organized and clean
_I live in a home that I love
_My work environment is well organized and inspiring
_I love my lifestyle – the way I live my life
_I feel peaceful and happy in my life
_I am pursuing my dreams and living my purpose
_I know my own intrinsic worth and feel loved
_I feel my life has balance and I have plenty of time to do all that I want to do
_I know that I am a spiritual being living in a human body
_I feel a deep connection with my spiritual connection
_I have activities I do on a regular basis that nurture my spiritual life
_I have faith that my life is unfolding exactly as it should for my highest good
Learning how to manage stress in your life is an essential part of skillful living and life satisfaction. It takes practice to know what works best on a regular daily basis. A self-care plan also needs to have some flexibility and adaptability, as it will change throughout the different stages in life, as well as with the seasons of nature.
What’s on your self-care checklist? Share with us below in the comments section.
Wishing you all the best,
Teena
Rachel Harder, M.A., LPC, LMFT-C | Apr 19, 2019
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby | Jan 7, 2019
Zachary Gaiter, M.A., LPCC | Nov 17, 2017
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby | Oct 19, 2017
Rachel Harder, M.A., LPC, LMFT-C | Jul 6, 2017
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby | Nov 9, 2016
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby | Jan 18, 2016
Rachel Harder, M.A., LMFT-C is a positive, solution-focused “change agent” with a fun, empowering approach to personal growth and couples therapy. Rachel helps couples achieve a more balanced life both in their personal and professional lives.
As a relationship counselor and life coach, I have had the opportunity to work with couples who both value their career and their relationship, yet do not know how to properly balance the two. Understanding this work/life balance is essential for not only individuals looking to cultivate a happier life, but especially for couples in long-term committed relationships.
For many of us, we become aware of how off balance our priorities are in unexpected moments. For me, I was typing furiously on my computer one evening, multi-tasking (or more attempting to multi-task). I was trying to carry on a conversation with my partner and tie up loose ends from the work-day when my partner said, “Work isn’t our whole lives.” I often revisit his words during moments of overwhelming stress or when I struggle to find balance. This little statement took me by surprise. Mainly, because this really hadn’t occurred to me.
I’d spent years in school to foster a career I could be proud of. In fact, many components of my life have revolved around the idea of creating success. In living this way, I had fallen into the trap of working long hours and forgetting to devote quality time to my other values. I was treating work like it was my whole life.
Now perhaps you’ve had a moment like this, where you’ve noticed you derive a sense of worth, value, or even freedom by focusing on your career. Perhaps, you’ve done this at what might feel like a cost (your social life, time with loved ones, less time doing hobbies, etc.).
What if I told you that you didn’t have to pick between a successful career or successful relationships? In working with clients (and based on personal experience), I’ve found a few tips to be very helpful in creating balance.
Dr. John and Julie Gottman describe this conundrum (balancing work and relationships) as a “simple” numbers game. If you and your partner both work 60-70 hours per week, this means there are simply fewer hours available to devote to your relationships. In these situations, they recommend maximizing the time you do have together (make that 10-minute break count) and to also evaluate what is sustainable for your relationship, long-term.
Look at how much time you and your partner actually have together and discuss if this will be workable over the long haul. If the answer is no, this is an opportunity to really evaluate your goals as a couple (which I’ll talk more about next).
In the meantime, establish routines and rituals that allow for you to create meaning with the limited amount of time you do have together. For example, if you have 10 minutes together before heading to work, try putting your phones away and take the first few sips of your morning coffee together.
Certainly, it’s positive to derive satisfaction from your work, but what are your priorities in the “big picture?” Typically, most people don’t wish they’d spent more hours at the office…but we do often remember and, maybe even regret, the missed moments with loved ones or doing the things we love.
So, what’s important to you and your relationship? Take a moment to write out a list and prioritize it according to what YOU feel is best and then discuss it with your partner. How do your priorities line up? Are there opportunities for growth both in your personal priorities and the priorities of your relationship?
Talk openly about what you have in common (and what you don’t have in common). From there, you can identify ways to support one another as well as longer-term plans that will allow both you, your partner (AND your relationship) to have their respective needs met.
Often our relationship to work is rooted in what our work represents to us. For some it might symbolize a paycheck, a means to an end. For others, it might represent self-worth and validation. Understanding what work means to you will be a critical component in not only communicating with your partner or loved ones but also better understanding yourself.
What I mean by this is, if you rely on work as your primary outlet to feel validated or accomplished, it may be helpful to find other avenues that meet these same needs. In doing this, you will have more flexibility to set healthy boundaries around work and you won’t need to rely so heavily on work in and of itself. Put bluntly, you’ll start feeling better!
My hope for you is that in evaluating these different pieces, you’re able to put your career into context (what’s the big picture and what matters most to you?). In doing this, it doesn’t mean that you value your job any less but instead, you may find you’re able to let go of unnecessary pressure and devote time to the relationships you truly value.
To sum it all up, by fostering open communication with your loved ones and by being clear in your values and goals, you certainly can have a satisfying career and satisfying relationships. You might even be able to find that tricky “balance” everyone is talking about.
Wishing you success,
Rachel Harder, M.A., LMFTC
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby is the founder and clinical director of Growing Self Counseling and Coaching. She’s the author of “Exaholics: Breaking Your Addiction to Your Ex Love,” and the host of The Love, Happiness & Success Podcast.
Here we are, just a week into the new year. If you’re like many people, your track record on those resolutions may already be spotty. Or perhaps you’ve tossed the whole plan out the window already. Let’s face it: It’s hard to make new habits stick.
Here’s some advice from an experienced therapist and life coach: Making changes is not about doing the thing perfectly every time. You don’t just hop in a car, point the steering wheel in the general direction of the grocery store, and then expect to get there do you? Of course not. From the moment you pull out of the driveway you’re turning, speeding up, slowing down, taking detours, stopping for gas — you adjust and flex the whole way there.
Likewise, real and lasting change is not about setting your sights on a distant goal and then beaming yourself there in a straight line. Actually doing things involves making mistakes (lots of mistakes, friends) learning from those mistakes, and then using that new information to course-correct your way to success.
BUT. That’s not to say that it isn’t helpful to have tools and strategies to help you along the way. Just like you use your handy Google Map App to get you from A-Z, there are many useful tricks and life-hacks to make doing what you want to do easier than it would be if you just wandered out without a map.
Particularly if your goals for the new year involve creating a new keystone habit, and making it stick, there’s an easy way and a hard way. Here at Growing Self, we’re all about making growth and success as simple and painless as possible. So, here’s a bonus episode of the Love, Happiness and Success Podcast to support you on your journey.
I’ll be discussing:
You can do this!
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
PS: As promised on the podcast, here are the links to some of the resources I discussed:
As a life coach and therapist, I often talk to people who feel stuck in situations that are not ideal, especially in their careers or their relationships.
Why? Because even though they are not “in love” with their current circumstances, keeping things as-is feels safer and more comfortable than the idea of making a big change. Even though they know they can do more, or have more, they resist embracing their full potential because change can feel hard. Even scary.
Remember The Matrix? How our hero Nero / Keanu had to make a choice between staying in the comfort of the life he knew, or waking up to the uncomfortable truth of what was actually happening?
We’re all faced with that same choice. Do we stay in our comfort zone and pretend that the life we have is all that is possible? Or do we wake up to the anxiety-provoking truth that we can do more… but that it will probably require being less comfortable for a minute, while we create our new reality.
Sometimes simply recognizing that the life we are living is not in line with who we truly are can bring on a lot of uncomfortable feelings. Some of us feel better when we just keep doing what we are doing, in order to remain comfortable. It’s easy to lay around and not exercise. It’s easy to avoid tough, but necessary conversations with our partners. It’s easy to punch in and punch out at a mediocre, unfulfilling job that pays the bills.
It’s hard to push yourself to do more.
Herein lies the majority of the problem: we are ALL conditioned to be satisfied with “comfortable.” Many people feel so threatened by the possibility of discomfort that they create “reasons” (aka, “excuses”) for why change is not possible, or blame others for the condition of their lives. While feeling helpless is not a great feeling, believe it or not, being the victim can feel less threatening than the possibility that you actually are in control of your life… and that you do have the power to change it.
What I’ve learned as a life coach who specializes in helping people get motivated is that there’s tremendous opportunity in discomfort. The truth is, we do NOT often progress, grow, and/or accomplish great things by remaining comfortable. If the early American settlers wanted to stay comfortable, our country would have stopped in Pennsylvania. If Susan B. Anthony stayed comfortable in the early 1900’s, when would women have been able to vote? If Martin Luther King Jr would have stayed comfortable, we may all still be using different water fountains.
If you want to change your life, you must learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. How appealing does “being comfortable” sound if it’s synonymous with “mediocre and stagnant.” The truth is that feeling uncomfortable can push you towards great things. That is how we grow! We learn to make fire because we are uncomfortable with cold. Imagine what it would be like if we just learned to be comfortable with the cold. Burrr.
Embrace the feeling of knowing that you NEED to do something else with your life — don’t avoid it. If you are brave enough to entertain the idea that what you are doing might not be enough, then you are uncomfortable in your current situation. That is the starting point of growth. Don’t lie to yourself, or those around you, as a way of playing it safe. Be uncomfortable with your situation. Embrace it. And BE the change that you need to see in your life.
Zachary Gaiter M.A.
I’m a big fan of feelings. Feelings carry important information. Feelings help us understand ourselves, have empathy for other people, and feelings can help us live a values-based life. However, some kinds of feelings are more complicated than others. Sometimes we need to figure out if our feelings are worth listening to and taking guidance from, or if we need to override them in order to be our best selves.
Like feelings of depression or anxiety, guilt is one of those potentially confusing feelings. Believe it or not, some types of guilt are actually healthy and good; healthy guilt can help us be better people. However, some types of unhealthy guilt are not at all useful or constructive, and can even trap us in bad situations; stealing our voices and our power.
Unhealthy guilt, and it’s even nastier sidekick shame, can lead you to beat yourself up for everything. Or take responsibility for things you shouldn’t. Or heap more and more onto yourself until you buckle under the pressure. Or fail to set boundaries with people who want more from you than it’s healthy for you to give.
So figuring out the difference between healthy and unhealthy guilt is essential, in order to stay in a good place mentally and emotionally. How can you tell whether your feelings of guilt are something you should listen to, or whether you should push them away?
First of all, what is Guilt? I think of “guilt” as being that sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach that tells you that you’re wrong. You’re out of line. You screwed up. And sometimes… it’s right. We all mess up sometimes.
Healthy guilt is the voice of your conscience, letting you know that you need to do better next time. In fact, responsible, caring, hardworking people tend to feel guilty on a regular basis. Conversely, people who don’t struggle with guilt often don’t have inner emotional brakes that tell them to “stop.” They may even have difficulty empathizing with others. As they sail through life, guilt free, they may never fully understand the consequences of their actions…. and hurt others in the process.
So, in that sense, guilt can be a very positive thing. Guilt helps us monitor ourselves and do well by others. However, that’s not the whole story. In addition to good, appropriate, or “healthy guilt,” there is also inappropriate guilt.
Did you have one or more parents who tended to blame others for their problems, or make other people “responsible” for their actions or feelings? Blamers tend to raise children who are little guilt-factories. Even if your parents were lovely, at some point in your life you might have been involved in a relationship, or social system that was highly critical of you — leading you to doubt yourself or blame yourself for everything.
Another thing that can be true is if you are a highly conscientious, responsible, and competent person, you may tend to take on more than you can carry. When you inevitably fail — because you’re trying to do more than anyone possibly expects of you — you might feel guilty that you couldn’t do it all. (And if this is sounding familiar please oh please listen to my “perfectionism” podcast.)
If you’ve lived through these life experiences: having blaming parents, critical partners, or just being a supernaturally competent person, you may be more likely to feel inappropriate guilt, accept inappropriate blame from others, and criticize yourself for things that are not your fault.
Toxic, unhealthy guilt bubbles up when you feel responsible for other people’s feelings or misfortune even when, logically, you have no control over the situation at all. This kind of guilt leads you to “help” others by trying to solve their problems or sacrificing your own needs in favor of theirs. Unfortunately, this only serves to enable bad behaviors, which paradoxically perpetuates long-term suffering.
Inappropriate guilt disempowers you and can lead you to stay in abusive or unhealthy situations. Guilt can tell you that standing up for yourself or setting healthy boundaries is “being mean.” Guilt can tell you to try a little harder and heap more on yourself, even in situations where you are being mistreated.
In fact, guilt and depression often walk hand in hand. This team can easily trick you into believing that everything is your fault and that you are a terrible person. Guilt may even metastasize into shame.
This kind of negative self-talk can breed an avalanche of consequences because when you genuinely feel like a horrible person you will make choices that will often lead to negative life experiences. Then when you get “evidence” that you are awful, inappropriate guilt and depression become that much harder to fight back against and a downward spiral of shame begins.
But Brene Brown is here to save you from shame. Seen her amazing TED talk about shame yet? Check it out:
Don’t let unhealthy guilt grow into soul-crushing, toxic shame. Instead, try these strategies to bounce unhealthy guilt out of your life for good:
Get Some Perspective: One trick that works well is to think about the guilt-inducing situation as if it were happening to a close friend. Imagine your friend living through the same experience, and how you would feel about your friend under the same circumstances.
Would you feel legitimately annoyed with your friend for doing what they did? Would you want them to try a little harder next time? Or would you look at the situation they’re feeling bad about, and think to yourself that they didn’t do anything wrong and they shouldn’t be so hard on themselves?
When in Doubt, Ask For Perspective: This might sound weird, but there are situations where it can be confusing to figure out if you’re in the wrong or not using the above strategy. Uncertainty about whether your guilt is legitimate or not is more common when you feel guilty a lot; it’s hard to know if you’ve actually messed up, or if you might be taking responsibility for something that you shouldn’t. In this case, run it past a friend, your coach or therapist, or anyone who you trust to give you truthful, yet non-judgmental constructive feedback.
Cultivate a Growth Mindset: When you really do mess up (and not if, but when — we all do) do not engage in inner verbal abuse, and beat yourself up. That’s not constructive. Instead, recognize that mistakes are precious learning opportunities, and give yourself the same reassuring or motivating pep talk you might give your friend.
For example, help yourself to learn and grow by saying “You can do better than this.” Or, reassure yourself by saying, “You did the best you could, and it really, genuinely wasn’t your fault.” Good guilt will have done its inspiring job and led you towards positive change, and unhealthy guilt will be shown the door. Either way, you get to say good-bye to guilt, and start feeling better again.
Work on Boundaries: Lots of people are very pleased to hand over their issues, feelings, bad habits, expectations, and needs to a competent, loving person like you… and have it all be your problem to fix instead of theirs. If your guilty feelings are usually attached to having to be a certain way or do things to make sure that nothing upsets someone else in your life, you might want to do some personal growth work around boundaries.
Learning how to set healthy limits with loved ones is good for you, and it’s also really good for them too. Especially if you’ve been “over-functioning” to compensate for someone else’s “under-functioning.” When you lay down the load you’ve been carrying on their behalf, they’ll be more motivated to pick up what’s theirs and start moving forward under their own steam. And YOU, my friend, will be released of your unhealthy guilt. (Cue choir of angels).
There’s light and dark in everything. Though it often feels unpleasant to be in a state of “guilt” it’s an invitation to evolve. You’re being challenged to do better next time, or become more compassionate towards yourself. Either way, you grow.
All the best to you on your journey!
xoxo, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
