Dr. Charles Raison said in an interview recently with The Sun magazine: “We’ve replaced a fictitious certainty with an honest confusion.” A statement has never felt truer.

Whatever certainty we may have thought we possessed has since blown away like an empty plastic bag in the wind. These past few years have been unprecedented and challenging, with disruption felt to our core. The pandemic has taught us many lessons, and one shouts louder than most: we affect one another—profoundly. In times like these, emotional fitness, resiliency, empathy, and inner peace are priceless treasures.

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What will make this year one to remember…and treasure?

According to Pew Research Center, consistent polls show that spending time with our loved ones creates the most meaning in our lives. Yet if anger, anxiety, and knee-jerk reactions dominate our emotional experience, they can profoundly detract from our ability to make meaningful connections with others—even those we deeply love.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

A client asked me recently, “What’s wrong with pleasing people? Isn’t it kind to please others?” This question inspired me to write about the topic from a new perspective. After all, there is a lot written about the dark side of being a people-pleaser and how habitually pleasing others can deplete personal power and destroy relationships. If you’re a people-pleaser, this can be disheartening. Luckily, there’s also a light side to being a people-pleaser, one which can help provide a happy life with great fulfillment. 

Estimated reading time: 4.5 minutes

Whether you’ve been with your partner for six months or married for ten years, poor boundaries create dependency and unhappy couples. If you want to develop a healthy and happy relationship, you must each have healthy personal boundaries.

Often, we consider boundaries to be something that pushes people away, or we’re afraid that the other person will react negatively or feel hurt. However, healthy boundaries in relationships are a prerequisite to happiness. They define us and what is essential in our lives. Without them, there is too much room for drama. Boundaries help to create a  [...]

We may not be able to control unexpected events in life, but we can control our outlook, attitude, perspective, and how we respond to events. And setting and achieving goals we set for ourselves is also something you have power.

Setting and writing down goals with a plan to achieve them has been shown to increase the likelihood of their attainment. Why not set a goal to improve your emotional fitness? Just like physical fitness, you can become emotionally literate and learn to regulate your emotions for better results in life and relationships.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

When the seasons change and the holidays approach, many people experience a building sense of excitement. Just the thought of decorating, shopping for gifts, planning holiday get-togethers, and organizing family travel is enough to make some people feel merry. If thinking of the holidays doesn’t make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, however, you’re not alone.

If you’re worried about the holiday blues and feeling the pressures of the pandemic, here are some simple tips to keep your mental, emotional, and physical health in balance all the way through to the New Year.

Resilience is defined as the capacity to recover quickly from hardship or difficulties. We've all known difficulties. However, it is how we respond to what happens to us that determines how we greet the future. Without resiliency, life's hardships can weigh us down, and we become an unbending tree that breaks off in the high winds of a storm.

Estimated reading: 3 minutes

We have all had others come to us for support. Friends, family, and even colleagues trust each other by the nature of their relationships. Whether the relationship is personal or professional, a part of relationships is developing bonds through a connection that develops trust, closeness, and camaraderie. We lean on people to be there for us for life’s challenges and celebrate our joys and triumphs. What helps to create bonds in relationships is our ability to relate to and genuinely support others in a way that resonates with what they are experiencing.

Most people think when they please someone, their action is kind. Yes, their action may impact others positively. It feels good for a person to do things for us, to help us out in a time of need, to volunteer on a committee, or watch our kids for a couple of hours. However, if this act of supposed kindness is wrong or even hurtful to the giver, it’s not kindness. It’s people-pleasing. People-pleasing is a habit that undermines authentic connection in relationships and cuts the pleaser off from their true self, limiting individual potential. Each of us needs to set boundaries to be at our best [...]