We tend to over commit. Say yes to things because it feels bad to say no. We just try to squeeze everything in to make people happy, putting our own needs on the back burner. It can be difficult to decide where our responsibilities lie, and everything begins to feels as though it's a requirement. Instead of jumping in with both barrels, is it possible to move to a position of balancing our priorities with our demands ? Three questions that we can ask ourselves before we say

We speak a lot about the skill of being able to say no. That 'no is a complete sentence.' That we are within our right to not always have to say yes to someone's request. There is no doubt that to a people pleaser, this is a skill that takes time, effort and convincing. Yet what about the idea of respecting no? In the book "Choosing Civility" by P.M. Forni , he talks about the importance of being able to respect even a subtle no: "Someone has turned down your request or i

There are five areas of our life that help contribute to our overall level of satisfaction; our work, our intimate/family relationships, our spiritual life, our sense of self and our social life. If we are able to achieve a good sense of balance, and feel as though these areas are for the most part in our control, we feel more secure in our sense of well-being. There are times however, when we feel out of balance and perhaps one or two of the areas are not in our control as

When we think about our sense of psychological well-being, what often comes to mind is how we rate the general satisfaction of our lives. How good do we feel about our lives in general? How content are we? If we sat and thought about the elements that contribute to either a valued sense of well-being or a poor one, we would most likely come up with many factors such as the strength of our support system, our job satisfaction, our financial state, the condition of our health

When I was a little girl I can remember being very fascinated by the moon. If we were traveling home anytime at night, I believed the moon was following me home. I even recall telling my mom that once and although she kindly told me that it "just felt that way", I can also distinctly remember thinking that she was wrong. :) When we are children we have a lot of magical thinking; it is why we can tell our kids that a big, jolly man comes down the chimney at Christmas and leav

There are times when we reflect upon our work schedule and know that it is off balance. Sometimes this may come from a difficulty in saying no, a strong work ethic, a heavy caseload, the need to achieve. In any case, we are not doing ourselves any favours by ignoring the importance of setting personal work boundaries - ones that are created with self-care in mind. Book end your day. Have a start time and an end time that is reasonable and achievable. Not sticking to this dai

Perhaps one of the biggest myths that society continues to reinforce is the notion that "the more I have, the happier I'll be." We see it in the shows we watch, the advertisements on TV, the influence that we place on celebrities. Social media has exploded the pressure that young people feel to get 'likes' or followers - most often tied to their appearance. The myth that the more we have the happier we'll be gets tied to material possessions and the notion that happiness is

In our last post on "The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom" by Don Miguel Ruiz , we explore the fourth and final agreement: "Always do your best . Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best and you will avoid self-judgement, self-abuse and regret." - Don Miguel Ruiz. If you were lucky to grow up hearing "Just try your best," you learned a ver

Moving right along in our series on "The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom" by Don Miguel Ruiz , today we explore the third agreement: "Don't make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life." - Don Miguel Ruiz Making assumptions is something we all do. S

Yesterday's post featured one of four agreements featured in Don Miguel Ruiz' s book entitled "The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom." Today's post features the second agreement: " Don't take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering." - Don Miguel Ruiz I ca

In 1997, "The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom" by Don Miguel Ruiz was published. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, Ruiz offers a code of conduct, known as the Four Agreements that promote a life of peace and contentedness. The next few posts will feature Ruiz's teachings; today's post is about the first agreement: " Be impeccable with your word . Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip abo

There are two truths in life that continue to show us that we are better served to accept them than to rail against them: We cannot get through life without challenges. As much as we may focus on living a life to the fullest, there will always be times when we are faced with challenges that we will need to overcome. A relationship may end, we may experience a job change, a friendship may shift, we may lose a loved one, something occurs completely out of our control. Sometime

Our healthiest communication style is assertiveness; it is a way of communicating that validates our own needs without dismissing anyone else's and delivers the message "I am important and so are you."  When we want to honour our own importance, the first step is to be able to recognize our own needs. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves, "What is it I really want in this situation? How do I want to be treated?" Once we can identify what we need, the next step is to be able

Moving right along in our series about communication styles, today's post is about passive-aggressiveness. True to its name, it is a combination of both the passive and aggressive positions. In this style of communication, you sacrifice your own needs, and although it feels okay to do so, it also comes with some resentment attached to it. And as a result, usually somewhere along the line, you get back at the person who asked you to sacrifice your own needs in some way. The me

Yesterday we looked a how a passive style of communication can position ourselves into unimportance; today we will focus on what tends to be an aggressive or dominant form of communication. What characterizes this form of communication is the pull to have your own needs met first . Typically, a person has learned that their needs trump others' either because as a child their needs were not met (and they defaulted to elbowing their way to the front of the line) or they were ta

We tend to adopt a certain style of communicating based on our temperament, learned behaviour and our experiences growing up. You will most likely see yourself, as well as others in your life, in one of four styles of communicating. Today we will look at what it is like to communicate in a passive way. If you are apt to communicate in this style, you tend to sacrifice your own needs for others; and you do so willingly. This is an important distinction because it actually f

I was sitting once in a colleague's office and I noticed a poster she had on the wall and it made me think about how we attain wisdom. We certainly see our elders as wiser than us, but does it just come from the process of maturation? So I looked up the the definition of wisdom in  Webster's Dictionary and I especially appreciated reading: intelligence drawing on experience and governed by prudence.  The poster quoted: Four Statements that Lead to Wisdom: "I don't know" "I'

We have both a rational part of our brain and an emotional one. And it is important to remember that emotion will trump reason every time . We can make decisions when we are angry, fearful, guilty etc. and those decisions made in the midst of twirling emotions, often also come with regret. The “why did I say that” or “what the heck was I thinking” will come in the aftermath of a decision made in too much emotion. That being said, decisions made with pure logic can also go sid

Stephen Covey, in his best selling book entitled "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," spoke about emotional bank accounts. Covey's concept of an emotional bank account refers to the effectiveness of our relationships with others. Very much like a financial bank account, we can either make deposits or withdrawals - deposits will create greater bonds with others, withdrawals lead to damage and depletion of the relationship. His theory includes 6 major deposits: Understa

One of my favourite quotes that I use in therapy comes from the movie Dumbo, featuring the lovable, Disney character born with larger-than-life ears. Having been mercilessly teased for his big ears, he has learned to dislike his appearance and his growing lack of self-worth reinforces what becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; Dumbo begins to feel and act as a bumbling, useless elephant who can't get anything right. Eventually separated from his mother, he befriends a mouse who