by Dr. Heléna Kate | Jan 11, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
After years of working my tail off, I realized that if I didn\’t take care of myself one of two things was going to happen. Either I was going to compromise my health or I was going to compromise my results.
Self care became my battle cry. Over time, I learned the undeniable merits of self-care. I also came to understand that practicing self-care can sometimes be difficult to fit into a busy day-to-day schedule. When I made my practice of self-care a priority, both my health and my ability to get better results increased. This was a win-win for my life.
My strongest suggestion to help you be your personal best is: Self Care, Self Care, Self Care!
Self Care is an investment in your personal resources. Whether the achievement of your goals requires a lot or a little of your resources, you need to take care of your most important tool – your self.
Here is a list of 10 self care techniques you can use to be your personal best.
1. Move Your Body + Feed Your Body: Movement and nutrition are essential to self care. Learn to lovingly and joyfully move your body. Dance, do yoga, stretch, walk or engage in more vigorous exercise. Feed yourself everything your body needs to be healthy. If you\’re not sure what this is, start by drinking more water and eating more greens.
2. Spent Time in Nature and with Animals: Both of these experiences have a positive effect on our overall wellbeing. They help us de-stress and relax. Animal\’s playful and loving ways do wonders for our moods. And taking a walk in the woods can help us feel connected to the larger world. If you can’t get outside, get a plant, or two or three.
3. Unplug and Watch Less TV: We\’re wired 24/7 these days. We wake up and almost immediately look at our smartphone or TV. If you haven\’t already put yourself on a technology diet, I\’d suggest doing so. Limiting the amount of time you spend looking at screens can have a fabulous effect on your quality of life.
4. Be Less Negative and Spend Less Time Around Negative People: It takes two to tango. If you\’re in a negative mindset, then chances are the people around you are too. Take some time to work on your mindset first. Bring more positivity into the way you think and speak. Then choose to be around people who reflect your new mindset, whether they are new acquaintances or not.
5. Let Go of Grudges: Nothing pulls your wellbeing down more than un-cleared anger and resentment towards others. The only person suffering from your negative thinking is you. People can be short-sighted and can sometimes make mistakes. Yet, holding onto the mistakes of others is the biggest mistake of all.
6. Spend Time with Awesome Friends: Spending time with people you love and doing fun things with them – especially things that include lots of laughter – is a wonderful way to relax and connect two important aspects of self care.
7. Mental Hygiene: Obsessive thinking and worry are so commonplace that people think it\’s normal to act and feel these ways. While common for sure, these are not healthy patterns. Learn to stop yourself when your worry or catastrophic thinking gets the better of you. Simply say stop and focus your mind on something more pleasant or productive.
8. Make A Difference: Being of service is a powerful way to bring good feeling and wellbeing into your life. Service to others gives us a sense of purpose in the world. So, take a weekend to volunteer at a food bank, community garden or your local Habitat for Humanity. You\’ll put some good juju in the world.
9. Emotional Hygiene: Sometimes you just need to tend to your emotional backlog. If you have a lot of built up emotion or if you\’ve been dealing with a lot of stress, the best self care might actually be to throw a fit. Lie down on your bed and kick and hit the mattress with your arms and legs. Scream if it feels right. You\’ll feel like a million bucks afterwards.
10. Gratitude: Nothing changes your attitude like gratitude. Take a moment every day to write or state at least three things that you\’re grateful for. So many of us have so much to be thankful for. Remember this is a form of self care.
Give a Damn. Make a Difference.
Dr. Kate Siner
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Jan 2, 2016 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
Change can be a great thing. A new routine, or a new perspective, can really revitalize your life and sense of well-being. But what about the times when change presents a challenge? How can you build up your energy and joy when changes in your life leave you feeling drained?
For this week\’s newsletter, I\’m going to talk about how you can bolster your happiness in your everyday life. Because, the truth is that when you\’re connected to your sense of joy, you\’re better equipped to work with change when it comes your way.
We all too often forget that happiness takes practice. The good news is that small things can make a big impact on your sense of well-being.
Here are 5 small things you can do to cultivate happiness in your day-to-day life, no matter what comes your way.
1. Start Positive
The first few moments of your day can set the tone for the rest of it. So, start each morning with a quiet moment, an affirmation, a journal entry or any other activity that helps you tune into your feelings and intentions for your day.
2. Look for It
What you focus on gets stronger. Unfortunately, we often focus on what makes us unhappy rather than what brings us joy. Make an effort to recognize what\’s going well in your day and be present to the things you enjoy.
3. Get Clear On What Makes You Happy
This may seem like a no-brainer but it\’s actually something we often overlook. What brings you the most pleasure and happiness? Time alone or time with others? A home-cooked meal or take-out and a movie? Becoming conscious of the things you most enjoy means that you will choose them more often.
4. Say “Thank You”
To yourself, your partner, your child or co-worker. Make a point to express your gratitude for what\’s working in your life. Showing your appreciation will immediately make you and the person you\’re thanking feel more positive. And, by expressing gratitude for the things the people around you do, you reinforce the positive behavior as well as the positive feeling.
5. Slow Down
Slow down and savor the good parts of your life. Pay attention when you\’re eating something delicious. Chose to really listen to your friend while they\’re talking. Take the time to notice what\’s around you on your daily walk or drive. The more you can be present with your 5 senses to what you\’re experiencing, the better.
Life is always a mix of things. No matter how bad a day seems, there\’s always something in it that\’s positive. Use the list above to help you focus in on the good that\’s present in life\’s simple, daily events. These simple things can add up quick and drastically increase your happiness.
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Dec 23, 2015 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
In our culture, we have access to so much that we often lose sight of how luck we really are. We sacrifice our joy and we obscure our enjoyment along our quest to do or have more. We amass culture and commodities, yet, we have no time and sometimes no ability to appreciate them.
There are things that we can do to change this and these things are simpler than you\’d expect.
1. Slooooow Things Down
Symbolically, winter is the season of endings. Shorter days and colder weather – particularly in my New England hometown – drive people inward, both into their homes and into themselves.
We can learn something from this.
Over the holidays, it\’s custom to run from event to event, over-spend on gifts, and wrap things up for the year. These customs leave no time for us to pause or reflect. Instead, we find ourselves repeating the same-old-same-old, year upon year. No where in the cycle of our year are we cued to pause and take stock. Yet, what would happen if we did stop to ask ourselves: \”Am I doing what I want to do?\”
Taking time to reflect and gain perspective is an important part of our every day – and is an essential part of our every year.
I invite you to try this out. Ask yourself: \”What might be gained if I set aside some time in the next few weeks to pause and reflect?\” \”What is truly important to me?\” And \”What might happen if I made those things central to my plan for 2016?\”
2. Pay Attention to What You Really Love
Many years ago, I read a book about clearing clutter. It said: “If you don\’t love it, get rid of it.” That made a lot of sense to me at the time and I have since applied this idea to my life over and over again.
Clutter doesn\’t just build up in our closets – it also builds up in our relationships, our work environments, and even in our heads and hearts. We have a lot of choice about the clutter that we let persist in our lives. However, we tend to act as if we don\’t.
So ask yourself: \”Where is the clutter in my life?\” \”In which parts of my life am I squirreling away debris or sweeping things under the rug?\” \”Where am I just going through the motions?\”
If you don’t love it, maybe it\’s time to let it go. Give yourself the gift of uncluttered head-space, heart-space and home-space.
3. Recognize that Trade-Offs Aren\’t Such a Bad Thing
In his book Essentialism, Greg McKeown wrote that a person who is an “Essentialist” recognizes there are trade-offs in life, and so they make deliberate decisions. “Non-essentialists,\” on the other hand, try to do it all. Because of this, they often miss out on more of what life has to offer.
Those are some wise words.
This tends to happen A LOT this time of year. Many of us try to shoehorn time with family and friends into a tight and frenzied holiday season. In our over-packed lives, we barely have space time for ourselves, never mind spare time for others. Because of this, we can end up feeling resentful about spending time with the people we truly want to see. If that\’s not getting things backwards, I\’m not sure what is.
The hard truth for many of us is that we need to accept that we cannot do it all.
When we accept this, we begin to look at our lives and decide what is MOST important to us and organize our priorities accordingly. Knowing our priorities helps us to make the best possible choices. And these are the choices that bring us to where we truly want to go.
So ask yourself: What are you priorities for the upcoming year? How are you going to keep them at the front of your mind?
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Dec 7, 2015 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
It\’s easy to feel disempowered when reading the news, driving down the street, or simply moving through life. We read about the recent terrorist attack in Paris. We get stuck in traffic next to a driver who yells profanely at the person who cut him off. We find out that a family member became sick. And we slowly emotionally withdraw from the world around us.
Throughout our lives, we experience so many negative things that it can seem impossible that our actions could make a positive difference or have a lasting impact on this ever-changing world. We ask ourselves: how can one person change the world – how can I stop hatred, face adversity, and create social equity? When we don\’t come up with an answer, we resign ourselves to the \”fact\” of negativity. We stop ourselves from seeking solution.
The hard truth is, though, that apathy is noxious. Giving up in the face of adversity leaves us feeling like a half a person.
Yet – as many brilliant leaders have shown us – you can’t fight your way to a better world. When we use anger and angst to resolve a problem we only create a new problem or compound the old one.
We need different tools to create the change we desire. These tools are love, truth and compassion. They make up a set of holistic and healing approaches to adversity that transforms the world around us. The best part is that these tools have always been with us.
I believe that the entire world benefits when you choose to build your life with these tools. Bringing love, compassion and truth to each situation you face takes practice, though. And this is why I developed my LifeWork Virtual Program – which offers weekly practices that help you cultivate awareness and develop skills that make your life easier and more rewarding.
These practices are instrumental in creating positive change in the world around us. For this week\’s article, I\’m going to talk about three of these practices today.
Love
\”Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.\” Buddha
Love is the most powerful, world-changing tool we have. I\’m fully aware of how Pollyanna this sounds. My challenge to you, though, is: try it! Get your heart-broken, feel disrespected, lose something you really cherish and see how quickly you can move on from the negativity you feel into LOVE. It takes a high degree of awareness and sophistication to experience our negativity and move beyond it into a place of love. Anyone who has walked this path knows that this is the way of a REAL bad-ass.
The first thing we need to do is cultivate love inside ourselves. To do this we need to hunt down the barriers to love that live within us more ferociously than we hunt down barriers to love in the world outside us.
This does not mean that we turn hatred toward these parts of ourselves. It means we see them, accept them and let them go.
Truth
\”If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.\” Jesus Christ
Truthfulness is a time-honored and respected trait. To be truthful is to be honest and trustworthy. It requires a commitment to speaking and acknowledging the truth, and to acting with integrity. When we have our truth we also have our respect and love.
While philosophically there are many types of truth, the truth I\’m talking about here has a dynamic holism that is much more easily experienced than written about.
There is a paradox around truth, though, and it\’s this: truth does not make anything untrue. Whenever you negate something, there is a lie present. Truthfulness allows for multiple perspectives in a way that honors each of those perspectives.
One very common example of this is that if you make yourself wrong you\’re not living your truth – nor are you allowing others to live theirs.
Compassion
\”No man is a true believer unless he desireth for his brother that which he desireth for himself.\” Muhammad
To be compassionate is to open your heart to the suffering of others. Compassion, to me, is a healing action. When we offer compassion to ourselves or others we are, in fact, healing ourselves or others. One of the best ways to practice compassion is to tend to our own pain and suffering. Without a doubt, one thing we gain from our own hardship is an ability to give love to others while they experience hardship of their own.
Still, sometimes we might find ourselves feeling closed off or judgmental about others who are in a difficult spot. We can feel wronged and because of this feel justified in wanting understanding from the other person. When we do this, we withhold our compassion and do not give our understanding to the person we feel wronged us.
If you want to have an impact on the world, each time you feel wronged stop and take a moment to understand the other person\’s perspective.
While none of these skills are easy, they are all quite simple and in the reach of every single one of us all the time. We don\’t need to start a movement or become a politician to have an impact. We only need to focus on being a better person and sharing this with the world.
I will leave you with this quote from Rumi. \”Listen with the ears of tolerance. See through the eyes of compassion. Speak with the Language of love.\”
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Nov 24, 2015 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
A quick scan of books on the ins-and-outs of \”relationships\” reveals four primary problem areas: money, time, communication and sex. While your romantic relationships may not suffer at all of these points, they most certainly will be challenged by one of them.
Even great relationships have their share of challenges. Often times these challenges are not an indicator of something unresolvable. Rather, they\’re a sign that we need to do something to change our perspective on the challenge.
I\’m going to cover 4 common relationship challenges and offer ways to reframe them. When we take the time to shift our perspective on what has seemed so difficult in our relationships, we can grow with our significant other and create a stronger partnership.
Challenge #1: Disagreements That Linger
Some of the things we fight about in our relationships don’t ever get resolved. Sometimes this is due to a lack of compatibility, which ultimately leads to the end of the relationship. Sometimes this is the result of poor communication. Yet, other times it\’s the outcome of our perspective on the disagreement.
Imagine if you always agreed with your partner. This would yield the most boring relationship ever. While some people are harmoniously syncopated at all times, for the rest of us, a little conflict goes a long way in keeping the spark in our relationships.
Without friction there\’s no progress. Disagreements help us grow. They also help us understand our partner more completely. Often, it\’s only when we disagree that we ask questions about our partner\’s perspective and pay close attention to what they say.
What if you saw your disagreements with your partner as an opportunity to get closer to them? Or at the very least, saw them as an occasion for you to get closer to your own truth? What if it was more important that you learn something about yourself through your disagreements and less important that you and your partner come to resolution?
Challenge #2: Different Sex Drives
People in relationship shy away from admitting that their sex drives or sexual preferences differ from their partners. They just don’t enjoy the same things or share the same level of desire. This undisclosed discrepancy leads people to have sex when they\’re not really into it or to meet their needs through an affair. It can also lead to resentment that acerbates the problem.
All too often couples look to their partner to fulfill their sexual needs. But, what if each person considered how they could express themselves as sexually whole person. In truth, a discrepancy in sexual interest is an opportunity to explore sexuality rather than a block to it.
So, ask yourself: How does my partner express his or her sexuality? Who am I as a sexual person outside of my partnership? And, do I feel like I\’m able to feel my sexuality as essential to my life? Questions like these help us reframe the circumstance of different sex drives.
Challenge #3: Getting the Chores Done
In a couple, one person is cleaner than the other. One person thinks that organized cupboards make a tidy home, while the other feels it\’s clean counters. One person feels they “always” have to do a particular chore. This same person tends to think that no one appreciates their effort to tend to their shared space.
Chances are if you\’ve cohabited with your partner, that you\’ve probably been rubbed the wrong way by some aspect of how your sweetheart lives in your shared space. Constructive feedback in these situations can be hard to give. No adult wants to hear that the way they\’ve been doing something for years is somehow wrong.
Too often we focus our attention on the negative. We see what the other person is not doing. Or we notice how they “did it again.\” But, what if we looked at our partner\’s frustrating habit as reminder of all the other things they do right? What if we chose to remember all that our partner does to contribute to your standard of living?
You could also re-frame it this way: would you rather have your partner in your life or be free from the problem of how they do – or do not do – a specific chore? The truth is that the dirty laundry on the floor, the dishes scattered around the house, or the foot prints on the floor are a sign that you have a special someone in your life.
Challenge #4: Lack of Time Together
Busy lives and work schedules take us away from the people we love. And while a little time away is supportive of a healthy relationship, a lot of time away can create problems.
In these instances, it\’s important to check in with yourself and ask yourself if this lack of time together is an outright avoidance of intimacy or indication of some other problem. If this is not the case, and instead life has conspired to give you a bit of distance from your mate, then take the opportunity to make the distance work for your relationship. Plan special things to do together when your busy schedules allow you two to connect.
Whether you\’re separated due to work or other reasons, it\’s wonderful to have some time to focus on your own needs and not your partner\’s needs. The time apart from your mate could be time that you dedicate to friends, family or studying something that interests you. Regardless of how you use it, take the time and give it to yourself!
Every challenge we face in a relationship is a portal of opportunity. Sometimes it just takes looking at it from another perspective to see how we can make it work for us rather than against us.
