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Posts tagged with “break”

Why We All Need to Pause More Often and How to Do It

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“Taking time to do nothing often brings everything into perspective.” ~Doe Zantamata

I have always been that person who just cannot seem to slow down. An overachiever? That’s putting it mildly. In every aspect of my life—work, relationships, personal goals—I have always pushed myself to the absolute limit. It is like I have this internal drive that just won’t quit.

At work, I am always the first one in and the last to leave. Deadlines? I would meet them days early. Projects? I would volunteer for extra ones, even when my plate was already full. And don’t even get me …

Why It’s So Hard to Just Rest and Why We Need to Do It

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“If you don’t give your mind and body a break, you’ll break. Stop pushing yourself through pain and exhaustion and take care of your needs.” ~Lori Deschene

In November of 2021, my autoimmune issues flared up. My doctor and I are still unsure which of my conditions—rheumatoid arthritis or fibromyalgia—was the culprit, or if they were acting in cahoots, but the overall achiness and debilitating fatigue were a solid indication that something was more active than usual.

I woke up tired, needed naps, and often ran out of spoons—a phrase familiar to many with chronic condition, based on a gorgeous …

Conscious Escapism: The Benefits of a Spiritual Cheat Day

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“The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom… You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.” ~William Blake

Many people discover spirituality through suffering. I found the path due to years of depression, anxiety, and psychosis. Part of the awakening process is identifying behaviors, traits, habits, or thoughts that don’t serve you. As your behavior changes, so does your diet. Not just what you eat, but everything you consume, including what you listen to, watch, read, and pay attention to.

Orthorexia is the term given to an unhealthy focus on …

20 Powerful Self-Care Quotes to Help You Feel and Be Your Best

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Hi friends! I decided over this long holiday weekend to give myself a break for some much-needed self-care, which I imagine we could all use right now.

We’ve all been pushed, stretched, and challenged this year. We’ve all given our all, done our best, and perhaps wondered at times if it was good enough.

That’s the thing about difficult times—we often make them so much harder by expecting a lot from ourselves, pushing ourselves, and beating ourselves up when we fall short.

We expect ourselves to always be happy. Or productive. Or confident. Or present. Or there for other …

What You Need to Hear If You Work Yourself to the Bone

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“Quiet the voice telling you to do more and be more, and trust that in this moment, who you are, where you are at, and what you are doing is enough. You will get to where you need to be in your own time. Until then, breathe. Breathe and be patient with yourself and your process. You are doing the best you can to cope and survive amid your struggles, and that’s all you can ask of yourself. It’s enough. You are enough.” ~Daniell Koepke

A couple years ago, a colleague of mine died from overwork.

In the days leading …

Why I Stopped Being Busy and Took a Pressure-Free Pause

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“When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another—and ourselves.” ~Jack Kornfield

It was a Monday a few weeks ago, 6:00am, and I was taking a morning walk. The only light in sight was the neon yellow glare of the street lamps.

My heart was heavy. It was as if someone had cut my chest open while I was asleep and slipped a cannonball inside.

My alarm had awoken me at 5:00am, as it had every morning since the start of the year.

My shoes crunch-crunched in the snow as I …

A Break from Your Routine

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How Short Rests Can Make You Healthier, Happier, and More Productive

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“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” ~John Lubbock

Do you ever fear taking breaks?

Maybe you think that if you stop working, everything is going to come crashing down?

Sometimes it feels like you’re riding a train of momentum, and if you try to stop or slow down you’re just going to come off the tracks.

I know the feeling. Believe me, I used to feel …

40 Ways to Give Yourself a Break

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“Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend.” ~Lao Tzu

It’s common among overachiever types: We like to push ourselves.

Sometimes it’s to get from A to B. Sometimes it’s to create the illusion of change when really, you’re just spinning your wheels. Sometimes it’s simply to avoid standing still and accepting the moment as it is.

All that pushing can feel so smart and productive—until you’re exhausted, overextended, overwhelmed, or otherwise ready to snap. I’ve felt all these things before.

There are days when I try to be everything to everyone and …

When You’re Hurting and Healing: Give Yourself a Break

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“Stop beating yourself up. You are a work in progress, which means you get there a little at a time, not all at once.” ~Unknown

Often these days, I would like nothing more than to move forward. If I could only figure out which way was forward, I would definitely start heading in that direction. If you couldn’t already tell, I’m going through a break-up, the most major break-up of my life so far.

Again, I’m often disappointed that if I were to check a box to describe my “relationship status” it would most likely be “It’s complicated.”…

4 Ways to Fulfill Your Needs While Helping Others

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“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” ~Dalai Lama

“Take care of the self.” This was the last line of an email I received from a professor many years ago. It was in response to my message explaining that I would not attend class that week because my brother-in-law had been killed by a drunk driver.

I had expected a standard offer of sympathy and a summary of the assignments I would be missing. Indeed, my professor offered condolences for my loss, but then he told me not to worry about …

When You Don’t Have a Clear Purpose: 4 Helpful Mantras to Adopt

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“Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out alive.” ~Elbert Hubbard

I have always defined my life by my career. I think that was my first mistake.

For the last six years, I worked at a publicity firm in Los Angeles.

It was a job where your email is the first thing you check in the morning before getting out of bed. A job where you are on your phone while eating your dinner. A job where your boss calls you out of a funeral in order to send out a press release. Frequent travel, evening events to attend, …

The Little Events That Shape Our Lives

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“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” ~Proverb

This morning, I sat through my third fall semester orientation in my graduate school career. While most of the time I sat begrudgingly listening to my professors, there were a few things that stood out to me. When I left the orientation, one thing was loud and clear:

I had not done nearly as much as my peers had done.

As I listened to my professors and peers talk about their research, their positions within the …

When Giving Up Really Isn’t: Taking a Step Back

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“A bend in the road is not the end of the road…unless you fail to make the turn.” ~Unknown

A year ago this week I was lying on a pile of laundry on my bathroom floor, sobbing, blowing my nose into a dirty t-shirt. I was in the last stages of packing up my apartment, selling my furniture, putting a few belongings into storage, and at 34 I was moving home to my parents’ house.

It was not a good month, in a less-than-stellar year.

It was a year filled with difficult circumstances. Two years earlier I’d given up a …

When It Feels Too Hard To Keep Trying: Rest or Push Harder?

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“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” ~Pema Chodron

When working toward a goal becomes difficult, it’s hard to know whether to push or take a rest.

In my early twenties, living 3,000 miles away from home as a live-in nanny in a very different lifestyle became very stressful. I quit. I felt I couldn’t adjust to it, and I also couldn’t tolerate feeling out of my element every day for months.

It was a decision I quickly regretted. The family I worked for was amazing, and as soon as I moved home I missed them—and …

How to Avoid Burnout and Take a Digital Break

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“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” ~Pema Chodron

By the end of 2011, I was trying my hardest not to see it: burnout.

I’d been going full steam ahead since I turned my part-time business into a full-time vocational mission, back in 2009. When people remarked that I was doing a lot, I would wave away their comments and say facetiously, “Well, you know—I’m a Sagittarius with three planets in Virgo.”

Part of the reason I didn’t want to really look at what was going on was that 2011 had been a banner year. After …