LiveWork Blog
What is the Process Journal?
The process journal is the dynamic cousin of your high school diary. It is a creative, effective tool for self-growth and professional development - not just a landing pad for capturing the day’s events.
What does it do?
It acts as a powerful release valve for internal pressure. Amazingly, studies have shown, that just knowing that you have access to a trusted outlet, is enough to reduce anxiety. A regular practice provides even more benefit, like illuminating deeper insights and helping halt negative patterns.
When you hear that inner mom-guilt voice whisper, "you're not good enough," here's what to say to yourself instead
Parenting is hard enough without a pandemic to navigate. We should be congratulating ourselves for just getting through the day, instead of us beating ourselves up for not measuring up to the Pinterest post next door.
We all want our child to internalize the best of us and leave the rest. That's why modeling self-love and kindness for yourself is a gift you give your child. Lead by example and you will end up raising a compassionate adult, with healthy boundaries and lots of love to give.
Cell phone addiction is when, instead of choosing to use our phones, they are just somehow always in our hands, glowing their electric blue promise of being the answers to our every need and desire. They create a dopamine fix of pleasure that keeps us hooked, lusting for next like, engaging text, or candy crushed.
People are addicted to social media now more than ever. We think it will fulfill the Covid sized hole in our social lives. Some connection does happen online, but more often than not, readers leave feeling deflated by how much fun Everyone Else seems to be having. Then, ironically and tragically, we stayed logged-on, scrolling for the happy thing that will bring us up again, or at least back to our baseline.
I love how so many artists are finally being given a platform, to expose all the hidden ‘isms that are somehow so much more glaring under Trump. From #MeToo to Black Lives Matter, I hope we’re on a roll that doesn’t end, until we are completely free from all pervasive systems of injustice.
I wanted to take a moment to highlight some great programs that provide beautiful insight into ugly truths:
You’ve been doing your part to keep your family safe by quarantining at home, washing your hands and cleaning household surfaces regularly. Most of your loved ones have been careful to practice social distancing and wear a mask in public settings.
But what about that relative who doesn’t practice the same level of care? If you’re stressed about their refusal to take the dangers of coronavirus seriously, those feelings are warranted. Differences in understanding the risk of COVID-19 have been straining family relationships since the pandemic began.
With the holidays approaching, these arguments might escalate if you don’t address them ahead of time. Here are 10 steps you can take to navigate family interactions when you disagree on the risk of catching or spreading COVID-19:
There are a lot of advantages to having extended family close at hand (it takes a village!), but it would be helpful to understand that it will also bring some challenges. Here are some tips for mindfully navigating a smooth transition.
1. Self-Compassion…
2. Nuclear Family Meeting…
3. Establish Ground Rules…
During times of great upheaval, there’s a sense that we should “to live today as it were your last.” This sounds really appealing, but what does it really mean?
Spiritually speaking, living each day as your last isn’t bestowing worldly possessions and checking-off bucket lists, but about holistic integrity. As Adlai Stevenson famously said, “it is not the years in your life, but the life in your years.” The following are topics of contemplation, calls to action and operating instructions for more mindful living. Try using one of these teachings a week as a focus for your meditation, as journal prompts, or for deepening conversations with loved ones.
In my practice, I often coach parents about how to move from the punishment model, into creating reasonable consequences that positively shape their child’s behavior. One crucial tool in this toolkit is the three strikes method. Giving your child three strikes before enacting the consequence, provides your child the opportunity to reflect, reshape their behavior and redeem themselves.
Our great nation is also a nation built on great injustice. From the near total annihilation of hundreds of nations of indigenous peoples, to the brutal enslavement of 12 generations of Africans who build the foundations of our prosperity. Our nation has a responsibility to educate our selves and perform consistent actions to address and redress these wrongs. Unfortunately, it has taken the ugly pressure cooker of COVID-19, racist presidential policies and the murder of innocents like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, our nation is reigniting a movement which hopefully can create powerful and lasting change.
It is not always easy to locate joy these days, but we must keep trying. Our spirits must be fed, not only so that we may persist, but so may help help other to do so. To that end, I’m sharing some examples that make me laugh/cry (craugh?). The New Yorker artists are brilliant at creating poignant levity from the ineffable. Here are my current favorites…
The COVID-19 crisis, with its mandated social isolation and pervasive threat of infection, has created a kind of atomic fusion, a clash of mind-numbing monotony mixed with a steady undercurrent of existential crisis.
With the widest lens, this pandemic is a clarion call to see the deep roots of our interdependence. On a smaller scale, it shines a spotlight on the best and worst of our social structures; from the heroic dedication of our first responders, to the disproportionate deaths of our most vulnerable. Finally, on a personal level, we are all connected in the quest to stay flexible in mind and resilient in body, while we the illusion of certainty shatters around us.
The following are some mental health directives to help adapt to the daily (hourly!) seismic shifts in our internal microcosmos, without succumbing to despair.
One myth, stubbornly persistent in our culture, is that needing therapy means one’s mentally ill. In reality, most people seek out therapy for what I like to call emotional coaching. A holistic therapist serves as a translator between heart & mind, helping create a pause, between stimulus & response. Therapy does not have to be about what’s wrong, but about uncovering all that’s right.
Ever cursed the rain, only to hear a sunny, “Nice weather for ducks!”? My first year in Portland, Oregon was a neon green, love affair with the constantly watered environs (the honeymoon period wore thinner Year Two). We can find ourselves wondering how our, seemingly objective, dreary day, could hold delight for another. Happiness can be contagious and joy can be referred, but how do we achieve a perspective shift when we’re deep in the gloom? Here are some quick happiness boosters…
I am excited to be interviewed this upcoming Monday by Business Talk, on TuneIn Radio. They asked a few deceptively simple pre-interview questions, which provided an opportunity to reflect on my career, my practice and where LiveWork Solutions is headed.
