Aaron Croom, Author at Dr. Joan Rosenberg

How Are You?

Confidence, Emotional Strength, Emotional Well-Being

I have been thinking a lot about you, whether you’re an active reader of my weekly emails, or perhaps the casual blog reader of content on my website. I try and provide you with a sense of direction, a sense of peace, and hopefully give you a jump start in the middle of your weekly schedule. As we continue to deal with the effects of the pandemic, I have been drawn more deeply into thinking: how are YOU genuinely doing?

How are you right now? Are you safe, are you healthy? Are you struggling and facing great difficulties in your life? How is your family doing? How about your finances?

I am asking about how you’re doing, because I am mindful of how I’m doing, and the experience I am most aware of, is missing face to face, heart to heart, real life and real live human touch. I welcome the opportunity for that to be back in all of our lives.

And so, this weeks blog post isn’t about guidance, it isn’t about my teachings that I might want to guide you through. This week is about connection, it’s about reaching out for that “human touch” that our society has missed so dearly.

If you could, I would love if you reached out to me in some manner of sorts and let me know how you are. You can send me an email, you can follow my Facebook page and send me a message, or below is a link to my Facebook group, where you can reach me.

Thinking of you, and wishing you well.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg

Join my group on Facebook LOVE MY LIFE and let me know. Feel free to share my series with your friends or colleagues as well.

Working Towards Change And Self-Reflection

Confidence, Emotional Strength, Emotional Well-Being

How can you use this time to take stock in yourself, self-reflect, and work on the changes you’ve always wanted to work on?

It may feel like our world has been separated into two parts: pre-COVID19 and now. And as I have been reflecting on what things were and what could be, I wanted to share with you a perspective that you can use as it relates to the future.

When I’ve gone through challenging times in my life – and this COVID-19 experience counts as one – I use what I call “resilience thinking”. One main focus is to turn every life experience I have into a learning experience to grow me. Right now, I’ve been asking myself, “How can I use this this COVID-19 time to bring out the best in me?”.

If you can use this experience to grow you, that’s awesome! Yet, if you believe or feel like you’ve accomplished all that you’ve dreamed of or desired, perhaps you’ve noticed that there’s a part of you that keeps nudging you toward whatever is next.

As I’ve made my way through life, I, too, have always desired more. I didn’t want to have more things in a physical sense; instead, my aim was to become a better person: more knowledgeable, more thoughtful, more generous, and more loving.

As human beings, we are always seeking a freer, fuller, more expanded version of ourselves and that life is always seeking its fuller expression through us.

Take some time here and really think about how this might manifest itself in your life. Consider the following questions:

1. How do you want to live your life once we start our new normal?

2. If you weren’t truly living the life you loved, what would it look like if you could?

3. What would your health it look like?

4. What would your relationships look like – romantic, family, or otherwise?

5. What would you be doing with your time?

As you start to begin your journey in to the world after this pandemic, I would encourage you to take stock in how you lived your life before, so that you can work on the things that you want to change in the future.

Join my group on Facebook LOVE MY LIFE and let me know. Feel free to share my series with your friends or colleagues as well!

To A Life You Love,

Dr. Joan Rosenberg

Understanding feelings of helplessness while cooped up at home.

Confidence, Emotional Strength, Emotional Well-Being

Understanding feelings of helplessness while cooped up at home.

I’m wondering if you’re like me and more ready for a transition back outside the home, and into a community and city you recognize.

While staying inside is the healthy, safe, and smart practice to follow, I can empathize and understand that the stresses of being constantly indoors can be difficult. You maybe facing taking care of children, the stress of not being able to work, or the loss of attending events you had planned over the past couple months or even well into the future – sort of a loss imagined futures. Those are real losses too.

It’s possible that many of your plans have been upended with the ongoingness of “sheltering in place”, and that being in place with less to do has triggered some feelings of helplessness … and with those feelings of helplessness, perhaps also feelings of sadness, anger, or disappointment.

Believe it or not, I want you to lean into the feelings I mentioned immediately above. There is likely to be a gift hiding underneath those feelings. Take some time to pause and reflect what is triggering those feelings right now, and notice too if any of the feelings also relate to the past.

The best ways to handle feelings of helplessness include reaching out to others (connecting with your support system or community) or to take action. If you have experienced these types of feelings, think about what conversations you may need to have or the actions you may need to take to deal with whatever is triggering your feelings.

This weeks action step:

1. Call the people you identify to help you sort through your thoughts and feelings, so they can help you brainstorm possible resolutions to your concerns.

2. Take the actions you’ve identified to help you resolve the issues and concerns you have.

I’d love for you to respond on my facebook group if you feel comfortable!!

Join my group on Facebook LOVE MY LIFE and let me know. Feel free to share my series with your friends or colleagues as well!

To A Life You Love,

Dr. Joan Rosenberg

Creating A Routine To Create A Sense Of Calm

Confidence, Emotional Strength, Emotional Well-Being

How can you “Calendarize” your day, to better bring about a sense of calm?

I hope I am finding you healthy right now, and I want you to know that I have been keeping you in my thoughts that you remain safe during these uncertain times.

As you’ve been following I’ve been focused on providing you different ideas to help you more effectively handle “sheltering in place”. Today’s idea, has to do with your calendar and schedule…or “Calenderizing” your day.

Creating a schedule or establishing a sense of routine, helps create a sense of order; a sense of order leads to a greater sense of predictability, and a sense of predictability often elicits a sense of calm.

Given the above, here are some suggestions to consider:

1. Set up a schedule for yourself and your family to establish a sense of routine.

2. Get out of those pajamas! You’ll find that you can feel more upbeat when you are dressed and ready for the day.

3. Clean up/shower as if you were going somewhere…it has the same effect as the point above, that of feeling more upbeat and prepared for your day.

4. Identify and build in to your day activities that are more important to you. If, for instance, you wanted to build in time for meditation, journaling, or exercise, build that time into your current redesigned schedule.

5. Remember to take breaks and create rest points throughout your day.

The act of physical distancing that you are engaging in right now, is an act of generosity and kindness that you are taking for yourself and others. So while these days may be challenging, when you take steps to organize and provide structure for yourself, it can help you feel a greater sense of calm.

This weeks action step:

1. Have you established a schedule or sense of routine for yourself while you remain at home?

2. What have you been wanting to build into your daily routine, but haven’t yet incorporated?

I’d love for you to respond on my facebook group if you feel comfortable!!

Join my group on Facebook LOVE MY LIFE and let me know. Feel free to share my series with your friends or colleagues as well!

To A Life You Love,

Dr. Joan Rosenberg

Staying Resilient: Consider Completing and Creating

Confidence, Emotional Strength, Emotional Well-Being

I hope this blog post continues to find you safe and well.

As many of us stay the course on “sheltering-in-place”, similar to last week, my intent is to keep sharing thoughts to consider and tips that can help keep you feeling more centered and balanced.

As I am now well into my 3rd week of sheltering, I am even more reflective about what is taking place. I’m usually good with words, but the only one I can find for now is that it’s a little ‘weird’. Yes, I know that is pretty vague; just know that I’ll be way more descriptive when I figure out what’s percolating underneath. If nothing else, know we are fully in this experience together.

As an aspect of resilience, I continue to hold an optimistic view of humanity and who we can become on the other side of this experience. And I hope to learn as much as I can from this to help me grow as a person – with greater compassion, kindness, generosity, deeper friendships and more that can emerge from our current cocoon.

I’ve talked about this time as being one of profound loss, and with so much change going on, I think of this time as a time for completion. Particularly if you are sheltered at home and have been able to establish some sense of routine (and if you have the energy or resources), consider de-cluttering or reorganizing different spaces . . . you’ll know which ones. Or think about completing unfinished projects. When things remain undone, your subconscious mind remains aware of the tasks or activities that haven’t been completed and keeps some of your energy tied up in that uncompleted task. You’ll actually free up energy when you see the task or activity all the way through.

The flip side of completion is to be curious and creative. Maybe you can put all your extra energy here! This time may offer you an opportunity to create in areas or with skills you already have (e.g., you used to play guitar or sing or paint or draw or . . . ). Reclaim those skills. I have one friend who has actually returned to playing guitar and another who has returned to painting. Likewise it’s an opportunity to learn new skills – for me in particular, once I complete an important project, then my goal is to learn a new language and another is to enhance my cooking skills.

What’s your plan?

1. Make a list of all of your “incompletes” – tasks or activities you have wanted to complete for a long time. Choose one small one and one larger one to work on this week if you have established enough of a routine to scratch them off your list.

2. No incompletes to deal with? Awesome. What new skill or skills would you like to develop?
If you have the resources, this is really a great time to learn something new. I would consider it a constructive distraction. And, it’s also more satisfying and hopeful.

There’s lots more to say, so watch for more information that hopefully helps you restore a sense of balance as you negotiate this new landscape.

Stay home. Stay safe. Stay well.
Know that I’m praying for and holding the vision for your safety and well-being.

Warmly,
Joan

How to Be More Resilient Dealing with Our ‘Not-so-normal’ New Normal

Confidence, Emotional Strength, Emotional Well-Being

I just want to use this blog post to talk more directly about reactions you may be having to this unprecedented life experience dealing with consequences of the COVID-19 virus and to offer my perspective . . . in other words, thoughts to consider and tips that can help keep you feeling more centered and balanced.

You are facing several very important challenges at once . . . at the minimum, your physical, mental/emotional and economic health and well-being are under the microscope. And who could have guessed that you would be asked to maintain physical distance alone (read, physical isolation + social connection) or with family members you never expected to spend so much time with?!

Despite everything that is taking place – and often at hyper-speed – I hold an optimistic view of humanity and who we can become on the other side of this experience. I’ll talk about that more in future posts; for right now I plan to talk pretty realistically about the way I see things and I do that because it’s one way I can support you. Heck, I wrote a book about dealing with unpleasant feelings; I’m not about to sugarcoat anything now!

I know that very legitimate feelings of fear and anxiety (yes, words I don’t commonly use) may be at the forefront of your thinking. Perhaps you have faced anxiety/panic attacks in recent days or felt like you had to be super alert or hyper-vigilant about whatever is coming next. You might even have reactions of numbness, confusion or shock then followed by an even greater range of feelings that might include sadness (and tearfulness), disappointment, despair (tied to helplessness), anger or rage.

All very normal given the circumstances. Let me repeat that: all very normal given the circumstances.

We’re going through an unprecedented time. The brain handles life experiences by taking our lived present (our current life experiences) and our anticipated future experiences by comparing them to the ones we’ve had in the past. Except no one has been through what we are going through right now. There’s no place for the brain to put this experience, and go, “okay, I got this one; it’s like what you experienced when you were ___.”

Consequently, you may end up feeling more disorganized and unsettled (vulnerable) because there has been nothing like this before and no place to mentally “put” this experience. When an experience / event / situation is unfamiliar, a common first response of the brain is to feel less safe and maybe threatened (again, vulnerable). The more familiarity, the more the brain can settle down. Given that the only thing to anticipate right now is uncertainty and unpredictability, feeling off-center, off balance and a bit wobbly makes a whole lot of sense.

Here’s what you can do right now:

1. Create a sense of ritual / routine by organizing activities during the day as if you were going to work or your children were in school. A sense of routine lends itself to a greater sense of order; a greater sense of order helps calm the brain.

a) Clean up and shower as if you were going somewhere – you’re typical more upbeat out of pajamas all day rather than staying in them.
b) Build activities into your schedule that you may have not been there before, such as exercise, meditation, journaling or prayer.

2. As I talk about in my 90 Seconds book, choose to hold attitudes that bolster resilience. The idea that ‘every experience in my life is or can become a learning experience’ is a nice place to start. [The list starts on page 225 if you’re interested.]

I’m being asked to share my perspective on a variety of interviews/summits regarding how to handle our mental/emotional reactions more effectively. I’ll post links or the interviews themselves as another resource for you.

There’s lots more to say, so watch for more information that hopefully helps you restore a sense of balance as you negotiate this new landscape.

Stay home. Stay safe. Stay well.

Know that I’m praying for and holding the vision for your safety and well-being.

Warmly,
Joan