Here is a question I liked in The Daily Stoic Journal and my answer to it:
What would happen if I took a second to cool down?
If a phone ring makes your spine crawl, something has to change.
Are you worried you will receive another request from a client, manager, colleague, or partner?
This visceral reaction could be one of the following:
The underlying feeling of resentment is surprise, surprise, envy, not anger, as Brene Brown revealed in her book Atlas of the Heart. You feel resentful because you want to experience what others are experiencing.
For example, if you resent someone for resting, it’s not about being angry they are not doing their share of the workload; it’s because you want to rest.
If you resent someone for dressing nicely, it’s because you want to dress nicely too, not because you are angry they are wasting their money.
David Allen said he felt the phone call spine crawl at some point, which means his business burdened him because he felt the transaction with the calling client was unfair; his company was doing more than they were getting paid for. So, how did they solve it? They raised their prices, and the phone call dread went away.
Where do you feel resentment in your life?
What do you feel is missing?
What do you want more of? And less of?
Sitting for a few minutes and writing answers will help you define where you need to ask for help.
Is it the kids’ homework, the house chores, or the monthly report?
Do you feel resentful because other people are having alone time, seeing their friends, or traveling?
These feelings can turn into goals with action plans. They could be conversation starters with significant people about support and what it looks like for you. These feelings could be your signal to learn to say no and to ask for more.
How can you make an easy wish happen soon?
Do you need connection time? Plan that coffee date with your friend.
Is your body aching and needs movement? Look at the week ahead week and allocate time for walking, or better yet, with a friend; health and relationship goals in one.
Resentment is a masked wish for change. Listen to it with curiosity; it is here for guidance.
I am reading the brand new book All it Takes Is A Goal by one of my all-time favorite authors, Jon Acuff. He shared an idea I loved about how the objects we keep tell a story. We love the objects we own or want to own because they make us feel one of five feelings:
He used the example of his 64-pack of Crayola crayons set as an example of an object that makes him feel younger. I never considered my multiple coloring sets as objects that make me feel younger, but they do!
He mentioned that the Lego sets he assembles and collects are objects that make him feel young but also successful because, as a kid, Jon couldn’t afford to buy a toy like The Porsche Lego set that cost $400, but now he can.
Books are examples of objects that make him feel inspired. Don’t we all feel the same about books? He also mentioned a bowl of acorns he keeps on his desk because an acorn symbolizes potential, which is what all his excellent book is about.
Cool is something we define, like he humorously said, “Cool is the younger cousin of successful. They’re related, but not exactly the same”. Jon feels cool when he uses his notebook on a plane to write ideas.
Objects that make Jon feel connected could be mementos from family members, like the Bible his grandfather used to have, with his scribblings all over. Objects that make you feel connected could be reminders that you belong to a community, like a Harley motorcycle.
Jon invited us to use these feelings as filters when we buy new things and declutter our house. If an object does not invoke any of the above feelings, it may be time to let it go.
Just for fun, here are some objects I own for each category:
Did you like these object filters as much as I did?
Can you create a list of objects you own that make you feel terrific, then categorize them according to one of these five categories?
It’s a fun self-awareness exercise.
This is a question in the morning section of the Five-Minute Journal -which I adore-that did not sit with me right when I first used it; because the answer, in my opinion, is always: me.
I used to think of the answer by looking over my day and what events I was expecting to happen, like receiving a shipment or a meeting going well. Then I shifted the way I read the question. I now ask myself every morning: How will I make today great?
It’s up to me to make today great.
I will make today great through my actions and attitude. Therefore, I answer this question with my intentions for the day such as being kind, leaving to/from work early, respecting my writing practice, and enjoying my time with my kids. Or I answer this question with my top three priorities for the day, or what the book Make Time calls “the highlight of the day”, which could be work-related like finishing a presentation or as simple as spending time with my husband.
So, yes, good things are about to happen today; YOU will make them happen.
New perspectives are going to emerge; YOU will start seeing differently.
Fantastic progress in your goals is actualizing; YOU finally realize progress is more important than perfection.
It is totally up to you.
You get to choose how you will show up today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life. Please, don’t let yesterday’s mistakes ever hold you back from starting over. Not giving yourself permission to start over is, in fact, self-punishment. You are not making amends by remaining stuck. Choose to forgive yourself and move on. Forgiving yourself means believing you are worthy despite your mistakes. You are worthy of new beginnings. No matter what your darkness is trying to tell you, believe in your light because that is who you truly are.
P.S: Happy March, subscribe to my newsletter here to get the Sunday Spark.
As I reflected on the last year, a theme that I had not anticipated emerged.
It’s self-trust.
It was a Saturday, I woke up feeling already overwhelmed by the back to back errands that all needed to get done that day. I felt I did not want to wake up. I felt that I wanted to hide under the bedsheets. I felt resistance, and even regret, due to committing to all this in one day because of a deadline the next day.
Then, I started to talk to myself gently. I put my hand on my heart and patted softly saying “It’s alright sweetheart, you can do this, it’s okay.” It really felt good. Just like we calm our children when they are having a hard time coping, we still have this inner child that stomps her feet whenever she feels too tired or not in the mood to go on. I observed my resistance and nurtured myself back to adulthood that morning.
I did not realize I even practiced self-compassion just like I learned in the book Radical Compassion until later in the day, this book got to me and I put it into action when the need arose. It is such a good book, and self-compassion never felt more clear to me than when I read this book. Give it a try.
The other day, I noticed I was being negative when I complained to others and in my head about someone being late to a dinner gathering. The complaining went something like this, “Where are they? Why aren’t they here yet? They usually arrive early, why so late this time (when I am so hungry?)”. I remembered that being hungry usually got me edgy. Therefore, I decided to get some food in me, so I would be more pleasant for the rest of the evening. It worked.
That’s what happens when our self-awareness expands. We become more sensitive about how we behave and catch ourselves early when we act negatively. We notice that unhelpful comments we make left and right are probably polluting the space we share with other people.
Let’s think before we speak and take ownership of how we feel without whining to have our owns issues magically fixed by others, just like we did when we were kids.
We are adults now.
When an idea presents itself to me more than once in a couple of days, my ears perk up, and I listen. This time, it seems I need to take care more care of being aware of and creating JOY in my life.
Here are the passages that presented themselves to me from three different sources in less than 24 hours:
“We can make joy and gratitude a daily habit and standard simply by measuring how often we cultivate such emotions. Several times each day we can assess our success by asking, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how much joy and gratitude am I bringing to this moment?”
There is power in this wording. We are not asking how much joy and gratitude we are experiencing in the moment, as if we are somehow entitled to such high emotions. We are demanding personal responsibility—how much am I bringing?”
-Brendon Burchard, The Motivation Manifesto
“Choose joy. Choose it like a child chooses the shoe to put on the right foot, the crayon to paint a sky. Choose it at first consciously, effortfully, pressing against the weight of a world heavy with reasons for sorrow, restless with need for action. Feel the sorrow, take the action, but keep pressing the weight of joy against it all, until it becomes mindless, automated, like gravity pulling the stream down its course; until it becomes an inner law of nature. If Viktor Frankl can exclaim “yes to life, in spite of everything!” — and what an everything he lived through — then so can any one of us amid the rubble of our plans, so trifling by comparison. Joy is not a function of a life free of friction and frustration, but a function of focus — an inner elevation by the fulcrum of choice. So often, it is a matter of attending to what Hermann Hesse called, as the world was about to come unworlded by its first global war, “the little joys”; so often, those are the slender threads of which we weave the lifeline that saves us.”
-Maria Popova, Learnings from 14 Years of Brain Pickings.
“Joy for human beings lies in proper human work. And proper human work consists in: acts of kindness to other human beings, disdain for the stirrings of the senses, identifying trustworthy impressions, and contemplating the natural order and all that happens in keeping with it.”
– Marcus Aurelius.
This week, I will ask myself often: “how am I bringing joy to this moment?”
I wrote the word JOY in my weekly planner and listened to this amazing Joy song this morning to keep it alive in my heart and mind.
Choose Joy.
I have done an Instagram LIVE on the topic of burnout, and it resonated with so many people.
I am grateful that sharing my story was this helpful. It was not easy. I have also shared it before in the first episode of my podcast.
Continue reading “Resources about Burnout”Are you really? I still need to practice some self-constraint when hearing adults complaining to me of being bored.
With all the resources of learning, connection and entertainment we have, maybe you need to dig a little deeper, and I can safely assume you have access to those resources if you are reading this, unlike many other people in this world who still don’t.
So let’s dig deeper: Could you be jumping to labeling your emotion way too fast? Could it be loneliness? Could the feeling be missing face-to- face in-person non-screen connection in the pandemic? Could it be nostalgia? Could it be doing something you don’t love at work or home? Could it be tiredness, sleepiness or low energy?
What you need to hear about this word is the hint of victimhood it conveys. Please save me! is the subtitle. Let me ask you this: Do you need to be saved? Who is the hero you are waiting for? Why are you giving up responsibility of your feelings and mood like that?
Continue reading “Bored?”