To achieve work-life-balance and self-care, it’s as individual as the person needing to incorporate it into their lives. Here are some suggestions that will help take a person from exhausted to exhilarated.
These are tips that I find not only helpful but powerful in raising one’s energy and mood.
Go into your metaphysical toolbox and use one of the following ways to bring in a work-life balance.
• Meditate – Meditation will help you get grounded, rested and refreshed, and feeling renewed
• Journaling – Journaling will allow a person to clear their mind through the art of written release. Since your journal is a sacred space, anything goes.
• Take some time in nature – walk, sit, take in all the miracles of Mother Earth
• Relax with a bath – Add some Epsom salts, essential oils, music or candles as desired. This will clear your energy field and support relaxation and rejuvenation.
• Move your body – get the blood flowing by doing something physical; yoga, running, biking, or dancing.
Making sure you do something to take you out of that work mindset; mentally, physically and emotionally is the key.
• Socialize with friends
• Grab a coffee
• Meet for lunch
• Call a friend or family member during your break
Great conversation and laughter with friends is the best medicine to balance one’s life. Fun is not overrated to bring a spring to your step.
Take a long weekend or a vacation
• Change your environment
• Unplug
Every once in a while, changing your environment and unplugging will help you recharge in a way that will allow you to come back refreshed with new energy to help tackle the tasks at hand.
• Step away from the project
• Fill your drink
• Take a walk around the office
• Switch tasks
Taking a break and coming back can help give you the refreshed energy you need in the middle of a big project and/or mind block.
Identity Magazine is all about guiding women to discover their powers of Self-Acceptance, Appreciation, and Personal Achievement.
We ask that every contributor and expert answer the Identity questions in keeping with our theme. Their answers can be random and in the moment or they can be aligned with the current article they have written. In that way, and as a team, we hope to encourage and motivate each other, thus inspiring you to Get All A’s.
What have you accepted within your life, physically and/or mentally? Additionally, what are you still working on accepting? Now, we’re not talking about resignation, rather stepping into, embraced, and owned.
Over the course of my life, I’ve learned not only to accept myself and some of the circumstances that used to plague me, but I learned to truly embrace the areas of my life that I used to resist, challenges that I wanted to avoid and pain that I felt would overtake me.
I went from being a young woman with shaky self-esteem, low confidence, and based on many of my choices that reflected my lack of self-love/sense of self-worth, into an empowered, strong and proud woman. I no longer feel the need to please others at my own expense.
Through all of the releasing and growth that I’ve experienced, all the hard work I have done on myself, I have learned who I am as a person. And, most importantly, I am confident in my beliefs and I like the person I have become.
In my book My F*cking Long Journey To Loving Myself: A Guide to a Shorter Path, I share my journey and how I was able to turn my life around from a very dysfunctional/challenged being into one who now is self-assured and able to address life in a positive and welcoming way.
It wasn’t an easy road, but one I’m grateful I traveled. My journey helped me to become and embrace the person I am today.
I am always working on accepting something in my life. Some of these experiences or people are easy for me to address or welcome into my life. I find that when something comes into my field that challenges me, I ask myself if this is something that I need for a full and happy life.
If the answer is no, then I let it go. If the answer is yes, then I take the steps I need to find peace and acceptance. I go on the journey once again, now, of course, a much shorter one.
Appreciation is everything. What have you learned to appreciate about yourself and/or within your life, physically and mentally? On the other hand OR in contrast, are there elements of who you are that you’re still working on appreciating?
My role models growing up didn’t seem to appreciate much. They were not gracious gift-givers or receivers, and that had a profound influence on me. I talked the talk, but I didn’t walk the walk. I didn’t really know how to feel nor truly show appreciation. The feelings of deprivation were too strong.
When I started down my spiritual path, I learned for the first time what gratitude and appreciation actually were and what it felt like to experience them. I not only said the words, but I felt the emotions. Today, I start and end my day in gratitude; stating my appreciation for everything in my life, positive and perceived negative, as that has been and still is a mirror for my growth.
I’ve been practicing daily appreciation for more than fifteen years. I can’t imagine a day when I’m not saying thank you for my life and everything and everyone in it, and in turn, I am now living the life I’ve always wanted.
Share with us one of your most rewarding achievements in life? Tell us not only what makes YOU most proud but also share the goals and dreams that you still have.
I have done a lot in my life. I have founded and run five different businesses. I adopted my first husband’s children and raised them to be self-sufficient and successful individuals. I was in three art shows and I started a successful podcast and wrote a best-selling book.
However, the most rewarding achievement for me has been to change my life from what it used to be to the life I’m living today. It wasn’t easy, and it took a lot of work and effort to release repressed anger, to learn to forgive others as well as myself, to accept myself “warts, wrinkles and all”. That, by far, has brought me the most happiness and satisfaction.
At this time, I am working on three new projects for my business, my husband and I just moved to a new home and I keep moving forward, continuing to add new adventures; personally and professionally to my ever-rotating list of things I’d like to achieve and experience.
Of course, we all have imperfections, or so we think. In truth, we are all perfectly imperfect. What are your not-so-perfect ways? Likewise, what imperfections and quirks create who you are—your Identity?
As I look around my office and the home I recently moved into, I would say my biggest imperfection is my lack of domesticity and organization in the traditional sense. I eventually get both my home and office put together, but my schedule has been so tight that in the few hours a day that I have to wind down, unpacking and organizing hasn’t been high on my priority list.
I also have a dry, sometimes “quirky” sense of humor and try to find some humor in almost all things. At times, I have been told that some people may not get my sense of humor.
However, it is a part of who I am so I will try to explain it (which if the course takes out “the funny”) so people know that I am not always such a serious person. I use my humor as a lighter touch in my teachings and presentations. The message may be strong and intense but the delivery is not. Life can be funny even during the darkest times.
When I was thirteen, a friend of mine told me that they thought I was eccentric. I’ve always felt myself to be different and I believe that those eccentricities make me who I am.
“I Love My…” is an outlet for you to appreciate and express all the positive traits that make you, YOU! In fact, sharing what you love about yourself will make you smile, feel empowered, and uplift your spirit and soul. (We assure you!) Therefore, Identity challenges you to complete the phrase “I Love My?…”
I love my life as it is today. What about my life do I love? I love my work and how I’m moving forward. I love my husband with all my heart. I love my friends and colleagues. I love who I have become; a grounded, heart-centered, fun and compassionate woman who loves to paint, dance, sing, shop and create.
I love how I’m aging, and that I still workout, which includes aerial yoga and paddleboarding. I love how I challenge myself and will try almost anything once. I love the wisdom I have gained as well as the self-love I now possess. And I love how I don’t feel limited the number which stands for my physical age.
