Family Life Balance

03/03/2023

09/21/2022

06/09/2022

💞💞💞🦋

12/08/2021

🙏🏾🤸🏽‍♀️

When we’re compassionate to ourselves when we struggle, our awareness is no longer completely consumed by suffering; it’s also full of tenderness toward that suffering.

We are bigger than our pain; we are also the love holding the pain. 🌎

11/24/2021

Acts of Compassion for Yourself 💯

Created by the brilliant community at

Whatever lies ahead here are just a few suggestions about what we can do practically to offer compassion to ourselves. ⁣
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Give yourself permission slips. So often we live by other people’s standards and rules. It’s easy to fall into the trap that we should be/do/have everything like everyone else. Personal permission slips provide the freedom to say screw that, I’m living my life honouring my whole self. ⁣
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Deep breathing - Yep you’ll hear it a lot from us because it works. Why? Because it helps regulates your nervous system, slow down and focus on the moment. ⁣
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Celebrate the wins - Acknowledging the things you can do and focusing on them will help change your mindset to one where you feel you can try new things and acknoweledge with love what you didn’t manage because you also have a list of things you did. ⁣
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Laugh more - Find things that make you laugh. It’s so important to get the giggles when things feel tough, give yourself a break and lighten the load. ⁣
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Say no when you’re at full capacity - Don’t wait till you’re brimming over. You don’t have to be rude when saying no a great way is “That sound’s like a great opportunity, thanks for thinking of me but right now I have full plate and can’t commit to anything else right now”. ⁣
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Receive - So often we focus giving but also pay attention to when you stop yourself receiving. A good start is accepting compliments over brushing them off. ⁣
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Seek joy - Pay close attention to what lights you up, when you know what it is do more of it. ⁣
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Rest - Don’t treat it as punishment, rest because you’ve set time to. ⁣
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Forgive yourself - Write a letter to past you and offer forgiveness. You have grown and didn’t know then what you do now.⁣
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Allow the feels - Let yourself feel it and find helpful ways to express it. Journals, creatively, talking, walking, whatever works for you. ⁣
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Boundaries - They can be difficult but so worthwhile.

08/15/2021

my brain and
heart divorced

a decade ago

over who was
to blame about
how big of a mess
I have become

eventually,
they couldn't be
in the same room
with each other

now my head and heart
share custody of me

I stay with my brain
during the week

and my heart
gets me on weekends

they never speak to one another

- instead, they give me
the same note to pass
to each other every week

and their notes they
send to one another always
says the same thing:

"This is all your fault"

on Sundays
my heart complains
about how my
head has let me down
in the past

and on Wednesday
my head lists all
of the times my
heart has screwed
things up for me
in the future

they blame each
other for the
state of my life

there's been a lot
of yelling - and crying

so,

lately, I've been
spending a lot of
time with my gut

who serves as my
unofficial therapist

most nights, I sneak out of the
window in my ribcage

and slide down my spine
and collapse on my
gut's plush leather chair
that's always open for me

~ and I just sit sit sit sit
until the sun comes up

last evening,
my gut asked me
if I was having a hard
time being caught
between my heart
and my head

I nodded

I said I didn't know
if I could live with
either of them anymore

"my heart is always sad about
something that happened yesterday
while my head is always worried
about something that may happen tomorrow,"
I lamented

my gut squeezed my hand

"I just can't live with
my mistakes of the past
or my anxiety about the future,"
I sighed

my gut smiled and said:

"in that case,
you should
go stay with your
lungs for a while,"

I was confused
- the look on my face gave it away

"if you are exhausted about
your heart's obsession with
the fixed past and your mind's focus
on the uncertain future

your lungs are the perfect place for you

there is no yesterday in your lungs
there is no tomorrow there either

there is only now
there is only inhale
there is only exhale
there is only this moment

there is only breath

and in that breath
you can rest while your
heart and head work
their relationship out."

this morning,
while my brain
was busy reading
tea leaves

and while my
heart was staring
at old photographs

I packed a little
bag and walked
to the door of
my lungs

before I could even knock
she opened the door
with a smile and as
a gust of air embraced me
she said

"what took you so long?"

~ john roedel

08/15/2021

Pain is a given but suffering is optional:

“There is a distinction I am beginning to make in my living between pain and suffering. Pain is an event, an experience that must be recognized, named and then used in some way in order for the experience to change, to be transformed into something else, strength or knowledge or action.

Suffering, on the other hand, is the nightmare reliving of unscrutinized and unmetabolized pain. When I live through pain without recognizing it self-consciously, I rob myself of the power that can come from using that pain, the power to fuel some movement beyond it. I condemn myself to reliving that pain over and over and over whenever something close triggers it. And that is suffering, a seemingly inescapable cycle.”

― Audre Lorde, Your Silence Will Not Protect You: Essays and Poems

08/02/2021

How does that feel? 💜

07/14/2021

I’m not talking about seeking solid opinions or advice. I’m talking about desperately polling people whose opinions are often not relevant. It’s a red flag that no one talks about, but it emerged as very common in the research. From “Should I get bangs?” to “Should I let my child do this thing that feels scary to me?”

It’s like when you lose your keys and you start looking in the freezer. Time to take a deep breath and re-evaluate. Normally, we just need quiet and stillness so we can hear our own voice. That’s way harder than polling. spoti.fi/UnlockingUs

07/08/2021

Charlie Mackesy

06/28/2021

As we transition out of pandemic closures and into whatever is coming next, Jay Michaelson says: don’t forget gratitude!
https://www.tenpercent.com/meditationweeklyblog/enjoy-some-gratitude