Work/Life Balance

As someone who travels quite a bit (in the next few weeks I am going to Philadelphia, Toronto, Ottawa, Cuba, Mississauga, Thunder Bay and Newfoundland, in that order), I often find it a struggle to eat healthily and exercise when I’m on the road. It’s not just a matter of willpower, it’s also the fact that healthy food is always harder to get your hands on than refined carbs when you’re away from home. We know it’s cheaper to put danishes on a table than a fruit tray, so conference organisers with tight budgets opt for the danishes and muffins. Thankfully, this is improving gradually – I was thrilled to find a juicer in the last hotel I stayed at: in the buffet line, next to the sausages and pancakes was a tray full of fresh cut up vegetables and fruit and a juicer! Heaven. The Toronto Eaton Centre has a new vegan fast food outlet in their “urban eatery.” I now try to pack a cooler before I leave home, when that is possible. I pack fresh fruit, cut up vegetables, almonds, nut butter, hummus, healthy crackers, herbal tea, water, Lara bars, an avocado and some dark chocolate (you gotta live a little!). Sometimes I make a quinoa salad to eat on the road. I try to eat protein and vegetables and skip the refined carbs. If I don’t have time to pack food or if I’m crossing the border, I bring nuts and seeds and Lara bars and try to eat sushi and find some juice bars along the way.

I may not have the time or energy for a full workout, but I try to do pushups, planks and squats in my hotel room, if I’m too tired to go down to the hotel gym (and some of those “fitness rooms” are seriously awful – rattly treadmill in a broom closet, anyone?). If you only travel once in a while, you can get in the mode of “this is special – let’s treat ourselves” but at some point, those special exceptions turn into regular habits and pretty soon you’re a bloated, tired, out of shape road warrior.

Whether you travel or not, you may find that you struggle with sticking to healthy habits. Many people say “I don’t have time to exercise” or “I’m too out of shape, I don’t even know where to start”. Just for you, here’s a good read from Leo Babauta’s website Zen Habits: “5 excuses that keep you unhealthy.” 

Let me know if you have any strategies to battle the inertia of healthy eating and exercise when you are on the road!

(Image from gameanna)

It’s February 14th. Heart day, V-Day. Whatchamacallit day.

Yesterday, I stealthily baked heart-shaped cookies for my children and their friends right before my daughter came home from school. I aired out the kitchen so it wouldn’t smell so good, cleaned all the mixer bowls and hid the evidence. It was a fun and relaxing thing to do – something they did not expect at all, and seeing their happy and surprised faces this morning was well worth it. As I baked yesterday (and because I’m self-employed, I was able to do that at 2pm, not 10pm…) I reflected on the fact that some years, I would not have had time, the energy or the interest to bake for many different reasons: too busy at work, too tired from looking after little kids, interested in some other project…What was fun about making the cookies is that it wasn’t a should, it was a “Just because I feel like it” kind of thing. I may not do it again next year, it’s not a tradition or something I expect of myself (Martha Stewart – you do not have me!).

Is there room in your schedule for “Just because I feel like it” events once in a while, or is life so jammed-packed that there is no space left for spontaneity?

Now that we’re hitting the middle of February, it’s a good time to check-in with yourself and see how you are doing post-holiday. Whether we adopt formal New Year’s resolutions or not, most of us make or renew commitments with ourselves when we start back at work in January. Now that the holiday ornaments are back in the basement storage, and that our attention is turned towards Spring rather than Winter, where are you at with those New Year’s commitments to yourself?

The goal of taking stock is not to beat yourself up about what you haven’t done, but rather to take a compassionate and loving look at the past 6 weeks and see why/how things got off track, if they did. Maybe your goals were too lofty, and not realistically achievable? The gym is full of future marathon runners in January, but in March the gym returns to its usual suspects…

So, once you’ve eaten all the Valentine’s Day chocolate you can handle, I invite you to sit down for ten minutes, and start by taking a few deep calming breaths. Then,  jot down a few thoughts about your current goals: Where are you at with reaching them? 1% of the way? That’s worth celebrating too, not just the massive leaps. If things have been really hard for the past six weeks, why not write down a compassionate, loving statement about why you have not been able to stick to the plan. Finally, why not scale down the goal into much more manageable increments: a walk around the block, saving $5 a week by not buying a latte, having a kind thought about someone instead of gossiping, eating one more vegetable per day. Research shows that true lifestyle change (the ones that stick) is really about the little daily decisions, not the crazy cabbage soup cleanse you attempt and fail at, or the austerity budget you blow after a week because you feel so restricted.

I recently read the following statement on a healthy eating blog: “You are only one meal away from healthy eating.” The same can be true about any lifestyle change: you are only one walk away from being someone who exercises, one cup of tea away from being someone who doesn’t have a stiff drink after work as a matter of course. One meeting away from not being the office grouch.

Feel free to share your new commitments with us on the comments below!

Please be kind to yourself.

Over ten years ago, Robin Cameron and I met over coffee and talked about the pressing need for more resources on compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma. That conversation lasted for hours and at the end of that day, we had decided to do as much research as we could and design a compassion fatigue workshop that would speak to the needs of helpers around us. Walking the Walk, our one day compassion fatigue workshop, was the product of this meeting of the minds.

For the past decade, we have wanted to offer a coaching group for helpers but the time was never right (babies, a round the world trip, work, life got in the way). Well, now we are ready!

Robin and I are thrilled to be able to offer this unique experience: an eight week coaching group for 8 helping professionals in Kingston! This group starts on April 17th and will offer 5 in person sessions as well as email support and tons of additional resources for eight weeks.

Click here to read more

If you have a few minutes, take a look at this captivating scientist practitioner talk about the connection between your endocrine system and the four phases of your body in a monthly cycle. Fascinating.

Alissa Vitti on Tedx FiDi Women

If you still have time and want to watch a wildly entertaining video on the need for women to reconnect with pleasure (yes, that kind, but also other kinds of pleasures), watch Mama Gena’s Ted talk. She’s a vibrant, inspiring whole lot of woman! Imagine if I made my entrance at one of my workshops like she does!

TEDxFiDiWomen – Regena Thomashauer

Let me know what you thought of those two inspiring videos.

Wishing you a happy, sane enough, full enough, calm enough week.

A few days ago, a lovely person in my life asked me for advice on how to start running. He’s in his early 40s and concerned about staying healthy and keeping some not so good family genes at bay. I love writing about running and exercise, and thought I would share my reply here. Read more ›

[...] by developing the deep sense of awareness needed to care for ourselves while caring for others and the world around us, we can greatly enhance our potential to work for change, ethically and with integrity, for generations to come.

Lipsky, 2009

Last week, I had the honour of co-presenting with Dr Gabor Maté at a workshop organised by Gluckstein Law of Toronto – Dr Maté was doing the bulk of the day, and I was closing the event. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to hear the presentation based on his book “When the Body Says No” a second time – I always find that I get something different out of each time I reread a great book, or hear a thoughtful, inspiring speaker present. In fact, the second iteration is often the one where I learn the most. I can’t wait to have Dr Maté present at the Compassion Fatigue Conference in June.

One of the key messages in Dr Maté’s work is on the importance of self awareness – Read more ›

This is reprinted, with permission, from Leo Babauta’s blog, ZenHabits, which I love to read:

“I’m not a designer, but I’ve always been in love with the design concept of white space.

It’s the space in a design that isn’t filled with things — as you can tell from the design of Zen Habits and my other blog, mnmlist, it’s something I use (perhaps too) liberally.

But white space can be used in the design of our lives as well, not just the design of magazines and websites and ads. By using white space in our lives, we create space, balance, emphasis on what’s important, and a feeling of peace that we cannot achieve with a more cramped life.

Let’s look briefly at how to do this. Read more ›

Hi! Here I am, after a bit of a silence. Last week was Thanksgiving and thus no Monday post.

I am just back home after a long weekend in Chicago. Once every two years or so, I try to arrange childcare (my wonderful friend and I have a great arrangement where we help each other out) and get enough air miles to join my partner as he attends a scientific conference. The kids and I teasingly call him and his friends “neuronerds” as they are all neuroscientists and really into their science. The nerd quotient was fairly high this time around (25 000 attendees). But nerds can let their hair down with the best of them, I assure you.

Chicago is a beautiful city with stunning architecture. We walked a lot, visited the Art Institute of Chicago and ate one of the best meals I have ever had (no joke) at Topolobampo. If you love authentic mexican cuisine and are going to be in Chicago consider booking a table (way ahead of time) at this spot.

Upon my return, I had an interesting exchange with my eleven year old daughter. She reported feeling upset about all my travelling, and said that she liked it better when I didn’t do so many speaking engagements, but rather stayed home all the time. I said to her “but sweetie, when I was doing clinical work 5 days a week, I often came home exhausted and grumpy, I was short-tempered with you, and I never had time or energy for anything. Now when I am not travelling, I am home a lot more, I can pick you up from school, we bake cookies, we have time for crafts, for errands…things are way better now.” and she turned to me and said: “You were never grumpy. I never noticed that.” Now, I don’t think that is actually true, as her only goal at this time is to make her mother never leave the house again, but I thought “maybe I faked it better than I thought.”

Ah, the joys of being a parent – guilt on tap every time you turn around.

In actual fact, I am home far more than I am away, and this is by far the best career choice I have ever made (and the most professionally satisfying choice to boot.) But it did make me think about the juggling most of do between all of the demands on our time.

It’s never simple to simplify our lives. Ironically.

Whether or not we have children returning to school, many of us make resolutions in September. They often have to do with our lifestyle: to eat more fruit and vegetables, to sign up for a class, to go to the gym more often, to make menus and plan for the week ahead, etc.

Some of these resolutions become incorporated in our lifestyle, and others quickly fall by the wayside because they were either unrealistic, too ambitious or we got caught up in the busyness of life again and ran out of time. (Or, the therapist in me would suggest, we have not yet done the necessary emotional prep work to make this change possible.)

Suggested Activity:
Before the Fall gets too hectic, I would like to invite you to take a few minutes today to take stock of one of the following areas of your life:

Physical health
Physical exercise
Clutter
Finances

There are many other good categories we could explore, but this will do for today.

Take a blank sheet of paper and a pen (or your laptop) and select the first category that jumps out at you. Write this category down at the top of your sheet. Now, write down whatever thoughts or words come to your mind in reaction to this category. For most of us, these initial jots will likely be negative or “shoulds” e.g.: Physical health – haven’t been to doctor in three years, back is sore, worried about mole on back, etc.

Write as many items down as can fill a sheet. Now turn the sheet over and write down all the positives about that category – your strengths or things that you have improved on.

Once you have written as many things as you can, have a think about one micro-movement you could make towards improving that area of your life. Micro-movements are a concept put forth by SARK in her book Make your Creative Dreams Real. It can be as small as you want. Examples would be: “I will book a doctor’s appointment by the end of the month”, “I will eat one more fruit per day starting tomorrow”, “I will clean out one drawer in my messy office on Friday”.

Once you have this mini resolution, write it down in your daytimer, agenda or calendar. To make this resolution even more solid, ask a friend of yours to be your accountability buddy or, if you want, you can post your commitment on this blog (it can be anonymous) in the comments section.

I am quite pleased with my own Fall resolution: I decided to delegate lunch making in my home. My children now make their own lunches – I still make the sandwich and they do everything else. I’m not sure how I ended up winning the easiest job but they both seemed really pleased with themselves when I said “ok, I’ll do the sandwich and you do the three peanut-free, garbage free snacks which includes having to rummage through the plastic container cupboard in a futile search for the corresponding lid. Ok?” So I have now gained a full thirty minutes each morning (yes, that is how long it was taking me, don’t ask, I don’t know why, but it was).

Have fun with the resolution and make it realistic and achievable.

(free photo from Pediant, wikicommons)

I am going to be posting off and on this summer. I will not be posting every Sunday as I have been doing for the past year and a half but rather going to “summer hours”. To receive information about new posts, I invite you to subscribe (see left column of the blog). You will then receive an email notification once I post again.

I am spending most of July working half time. I am able to do this thanks to an “x over y” plan that teachers are familiar with: you save part of your monthly salary each month in order to be able to take time off later. Being self employed offers no benefits, no unemployment insurance and no job security whatsoever, but it does offer the flexibility of being able to work or not work as you decide.

So I am spending the month dealing with home improvement projects that have been lingering for years (that darned basement…, the leaky taps, the paint jobs that have been waiting, many trips to the local charity dropoff and Habitat for Humanity to get rid of all the clutter that we have accumulated, god knows how.)

I am also simply taking time to enjoy the all too brief summer we have in this part of the world. One of the things I most enjoy is to bike down to the shores of lake Ontario and go watch the windsurfers on Richardson beach. This is nearly olympic-level surfing – a very wild patch of the lake, and I love watching them fly in the air and flip themselves around. I like to pretend to myself that I too, have the upper body strength and the skill to be there with them (I don’t doubt my abilities to do other things, such as run a half marathon, but I seriously doubt my capacity to windsurf on this crazy lake! But it’s fun to dream…)

I hope you have some time to breathe this month, and are able to carve out a bit of time for you.