Living Emotionally Fit

The Impact and Cost of Bullying

Lower Productivity -

How it costs the victim. When bullied at work, it's difficult to stay on-task and do one's best work. Bullied individuals likely feel distracted, disheartened, and disempowered. The stress of the situation also may be having physical effects, such as difficulty sleeping, fatigue, digestive problems, headaches, or muscle pain.

For many of us, our work performance closely connects ...

Being emotionally fit means we’re able to adapt gracefully in the face of stressful circumstances.

Improving emotional fitness has become an increasingly important topic. Traditionally, change was a short burst of disruption followed by a longer period of stable operations. Today, there are no longer any rest periods; change is continuous and enormous. The pace of change and unexpected challenges has become the new normal.

Change c...

Every time Grace, a loving single parent, took time for herself, she returned home with an awful sinking feeling. She didn’t understand why. “I had so much fun, and I'm proud of myself for making time for myself,” Grace thought to herself. Rather than expand from the joyous experience, or receive the delight and enthusiasm of her self-care, she contracted.

Grace’s contraction comes from the experience of shame, a poison that keeps ...

Conscious Leadership

With our constant stream of text messages, emails, meetings, conference calls, and so on, it is a minor miracle that any of us can accomplish anything. With our smartphones surgically implanted into our hands, our time is sliced so thinly that we never have room for error, focused time to develop big-picture perspectives, or the time needed for an action plan, let alone the time to execute it.

 “...

Exploring the Strengths of Seeking Help

Long before there were hypnotherapists, there were family members. Aunt  Helen listened or gave us advice, or sometimes  Granny Annie just told  us to toughen up and move on. If our family couldn’t help, there were  friends or a clergy member. However, most of us were likely warned not  to broadcast our troubles, and this led to people feeling they had to  suffer...

How do people turn what we say they want into what they actually get? 

Many articles, books, and workshops advise us to conduct one's self "as if." Behave as if you already have your dream job. Act as if you're successful—function from confidence.

If we support the theory behind our actions, it means that we behave in alignment with the intentions we desire, and we're more likely to achieve it.

Problems will a...

What many of us don't realize is that the shadow can be a beneficial aspect of ourselves that holds the key to transformation—a loyal friend bearing the gifts of depth, integrity, vitality, and wholeness—if we choose to meet it and love it. 

Awareness of patterns is always the first step towards the treasure box that lies within your subconscious behavior. But the elusive nature of our mysterious character can make it tricky t...

Believe it or not, stress is not the villain it's made out to be. Instead, stress can give an athlete the competitive edge or a public speaker the enthusiasm to project optimally in small, short-term doses. It can even boost the immune system.

However,  chronic stress over time—the kind commonly encountered in daily life,  such as work overload, financial difficulties, marital problems—can have significant adverse ef...

When unfavorable situations, actions, and emotional conflicts repeatedly happen in your life, you may find yourself in the same scene, with different characters, more often than you care to admit. If so, there’s a good chance you are in the presence of a negative “pattern.” Some examples: constant conflict with co-workers, people-pleasing, or picking unsuitable partners/lovers. At best, these negative patterns cause frustratio...