As I’m trying to prevent workaholism-creep and a repeat of last winter, I’ve been thinking about productivity culture and the pressure to be “busy.” I have to be honest. I feel a lot of internal pressure to do a lot, for multiple reasons: I’m afraid of missing out on opportunities, I have a really hard time saying no in general, …
This quote from The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, referencing creative inspiration, made me think:
This is a helpful graphic that visually depicts wellness across eight dimensions: physical, emotional, social, existential, intellectual, environmental, vocational, and financial. In a class I took recently, we wrote about the one or two wedges of the pie that we are neglecting most right now and what we can do to nurture ourselves in those dimensions. I think this could …
I took the Wholehearted Inventory on Brené Brown’s website in November 2020 and again recently. It was amazing to compare the results, which I was unexpectedly able to do, since I still had the previous results in my email. I’ve gotten a lot calmer in three years. Most of the other measures bumped up, too. Sharing if you’re curious about …
I started to see a therapist when I started dating. I went on a family member’s suggestion; they had found therapy helpful themselves. The truth is that I knew I wanted more support but didn’t really know why, just that I had a sense that I didn’t know what I didn’t know about relationships/dating/marriage.
I read Self-Compassion by Kristen Neff about four years ago and it remains one of the most life-changing books I have ever read. Self-compassion is a gentle, open way of viewing ourselves that allows us to be imperfect and be in process. It has three parts: self-kindness, mindfulness, and common humanity. When we treat ourselves with compassion, we talk to …
I got this idea from Gretchen Rubin, and a similar idea, position statements, from Mary Pipher. Then a friend mentioned something similar this week and I thought about how I might apply this concept to my own life. It’s a simple idea: establish a policy for how you typically deal with a given scenario, and outsource your future decisions to …
Psychologist Christina Maslach, who studies burnout, identified three components of burnout (a result of chronic stress): exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. Most burnout studies focus on workplace burnout or caregiver burnout. I think this is a useful concept to think about regarding shidduchim.
Hello, all. First of all, if you are a new reader I’d like to say welcome! (Tisha B’Av was a high traffic day here, and I’m so glad you’ve found us). I’d like to take the opportunity to ask that if you find this blog to be helpful, validating, or enjoyable, please pass it along, as I am sharing in …
I had a thoughtful and interesting conversation with a friend on the subject of manifesting, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts. The concept of manifestation has become really popular in the frum world in the past several years (I’m not quite sure when this began?). The idea is that by following a series of steps (usually a variation …
