How to Stay Calm When Life Keeps Adding to Your To-Do List

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How to Stay Calm When Life Keeps Adding to Your To-Do List

2020 has been a year of transformation, change, and adaptation for a lot of people. With life shifts and constant uncertainty in the air, people have had to overcome challenges they’ve never experienced before. Between juggling the risks of COVID-19, job losses or changes, unplanned moves, and the rise of grassroots movements for systemic change, we’ve all been handed many balls to juggle. And now, many of us are about to take on another role as we enter the new school year…

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Pandemonium Day

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Pandemonium Day

There are different ways to acknowledge and celebrate Pandemonium Day, all of which are worth exploring. One way is to simply embrace the chaos of life. If the past few months have taught us anything, it is that chaos is an inevitable part of existence. Sometimes the universe blows up your plans and disrupts all the order you have carefully created in your life. It is important to realize that this is not necessarily a bad thing. It is unpleasant to our egos who want to control things and want everything in its right place, but chaos is actually part of the natural order of things…

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Earth: Stay Grounded During Uncertain Times

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Earth: Stay Grounded During Uncertain Times

For the final element of our series, and to me it is a fitting element to end on: earth. Let us all return to the grounding and security that earth affords us. Earth nurtures and nourishes us. It is associated with the warmth of late summer, the time of harvest. Just think of a garden full of vegetables. Throughout the ages, harvest time was a time of great celebration, as earth had blessed us with the foods that enrich and sustain us. Earth gifts us with abundance and supports us unconditionally. When our earth energy is out of balance, we end up in chronic stress, worry, anxiety and overthinking...

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Fire: Let Your Light Burn Brightly

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Fire: Let Your Light Burn Brightly

As summer approaches, the element of fire moves into focus.  Fire is the blazing sun that gives us life and illuminates our days.  Like the center of our solar system around which all life revolves, it makes sense that the organ that corresponds to fire is the heart, the life-giving center of our bodies.  Aside from the essential function of pumping blood throughout the body, delivering oxygen and nutrients to all its cells, the heart is the source of love, passion and connection with others.  Healthy heart energy is expansive energy, full of enthusiasm and joy.  The heart wants to go out into the world and engage fully with life…

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Wood: Channel Your Frustrations and Expand

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Wood: Channel Your Frustrations and Expand

This week we explore the element of wood, which is associated with the liver and gall bladder and also corresponds to the energy of springtime. Like the tree, wood energy is both rooted in the earth and reaches upward and outward in expansion. This pandemic presents a few challenges for wood, as when liver energy is activated within us at this time of year, the impulse is to move up and out, to burst forth with renewed robustness. As the emotion related to the liver is anger, it is no surprise that many people are experiencing anger, frustration and other related emotions as a result (aggression, irritability, etc.) But the wood element has much to teach us about how to weather this situation we are in…

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Water: Riding the Waves and Finding the Flow

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Water: Riding the Waves and Finding the Flow

This week we are exploring the element of water and how its properties can be particularly beneficial at this time. Water has always had a calming effect on me personally. When I was a teen, I lived near the ocean, and at that time in my life I remember how looking out at the sea always had an immediate calming effect on my restless soul. Now I live within walking distance of a river, and it still amazes me how the sight of it can lift my mood and make me feel instantly refreshed…

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Metal and the Lungs: The Breath as the Instrument of a Calmer, Clearer Mind

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Metal and the Lungs: The Breath as the Instrument of a Calmer, Clearer Mind

As COVID-19 has swept the globe, it has brought many of us back to the awareness of our cherished breath. The feeling of being able to fill one’s lungs with air from top to bottom and then have a satisfying release is not to be taken for granted. In the West many of us tend to habitually breathe rather shallowly as we rush from place to place and as we sit hunched over our computers. While the adoption of yoga and meditation by the mainstream have made us more aware of the importance of breath for health and mental clarity, there are so many benefits as well as layers of meaning that seem quite apt at this time when the pandemic has impacted all of us…

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Stress Awareness Day: Finding New Ways to De-stress

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Stress Awareness Day: Finding New Ways to De-stress

As April is Stress Awareness Month, I wanted to address this topic, especially as what is stressing us out this year has a different flavor than usual. National Stress Awareness Day was originally set for the day after Tax Day, so we could reflect on how much we had let the matter of filing and paying taxes stress us out, but this year that doesn’t exactly apply because that particular stressor has been delayed. There are any number of things you might be stressed about this April…

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Staying Grounded During a Pandemic

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Staying Grounded During a Pandemic

The novel coronavirus (COVID19) has taken the term “viral” to a new level. In viral fashion, it has spread quickly throughout the media, bringing with it waves of anxiety and panic. At these times we need the media in order to stay informed of the latest measures that are being taken such as school closings and containment zones. But it can be difficult to keep perspective when there is so much news unfolding in real time and various opinions about how to respond to the outbreak…

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The Importance of R&R

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The Importance of R&R

Living in a culture that emphasizes the importance of hard work and hustle leads many to prioritize their work over their well-being. Our society tells us that if we work hard, we will become successful. But that “work hard” mentality leads to sleep deprivation, overwhelm, stress, anxiety, depression, and burnout. This is why making time for R&R in our busy work schedules is important…

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