What To Do About Your Guilt?

Time to read: 1 min, 2 seconds

From my garden

When I asked "what do you need?" earlier this spring, a number of you said, "I feel guilty about lots of things. Please say more about guilt."

Always happy to talk about guilt because guilt is a useless waste of time. There, I said it.

Here's what I mean:

Guilt is a false emotion. It's something you throw up in front of a situation or a real feeling to give yourself credit for "taking action." And yet, the guilt persists in a way that is unpleasant and unhelpful to you.

A couple of examples:

• Let's say you have a relative in a nursing home, and you feel guilty because you never visited. Your guilt doesn't help you feel better, and it also doesn't inspire you to visit.
• Or you feel guilty when you play golf with your friends instead of cleaning your garage. Your guilt gets in the way of fun with your friends, and the garage still doesn't get cleaned.

So what's happening and what do you do about your guilt? I tell clients to look for what is more real. Let's go back to our examples and unpack what might be more real in each situation.

• You are sad that you don't have a relationship with that relative that makes you want to visit them. Or you are grieving the person you loved and are having a hard time seeing them so diminished. Or you're pissed that you are the only one caring for this relative when other family members won't step in. Instead of feeling guilty, give yourself permission to experience your real feelings - sadness, grief, or anger and then do something about those feelings instead of steeping in guilt.
• You may feel like you don't deserve to have fun when there is work to do. Or you may not feel like you deserve to enjoy yourself at all. Work on those more real things rather than ruining a beautiful day out with friends feeling guilty.

Does this make sense? The bottom line is to go for what's more real and feel or deal with that. Then the guilt will lift and leave you free to make clearer decisions about what you want.

As always, reach out with your questions and stories. I love to hear from you.!

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How To Manage Your Nervous System

Time to read: 55 seconds

One of my doctor friends says, "Mental health is physical health." What she means is managing your physical body is key to managing your brain and stress. So, to our reader last week who asked about how to manage her nervous system, here are some tips:

• Pay attention to your body and the effect of stress on you. Learn to read your body's cues.
• Take care of yourself physically. Move. Eat. Drink water. Sleep. These strategies are basic yet vital to your ability to cope.
• Each of you will respond to different techniques for managing your nervousness. Find the strategies that work for you. Here are some possibilities:
• Breathe. A simple sigh, deep breath, box breathing, and other fancy breathing techniques can quickly ground you in your body.
• Rub your fingers together, draw circles on your leg, or use some other physical sensation to distract the stress and bring you into your body.
• Get up and move around if you start to feel overwhelmed. Walk and take calls.
• Get outside.

Things like yoga and meditation are excellent practices for managing your nervous system, and you don't have to go to a studio or buy special equipment to find the strategies that work for you.

I hope this helps!

Give Yourself Grace

Time to read: 1 minute and a few seconds

This picture has nothing to do with anything. It's just something I like.

When I asked you what you need, I received many responses. I am going to work through your emails and address your questions one at a time. This week's question comes directly from a reader and has a 2-part answer.

"What I need most right now is how to give myself grace and how to handle the gazillion requests and tasks thrown at me every day. This includes focus and regaining control of my nervous system when it goes into overdrive."

Part 1 of this answer will address how to handle the gazillion requests. Part 2 will be managing your nervous system.

Do you have a gazillion requests or emails or tasks every week? Can you relate to this reader?

In our hyper connected, DM, email, text, Instagram world, people can contact you anytime, anywhere to ask for anything. Here are my best tips for managing the overload:

• Set clear boundaries. Decide when you will answer email and when you will not.
• Figure out which requests are urgent and which are important. Urgent does not always equal important. Focus on important unless urgent is truly urgent (like you will get fired if you don't reply ASAP).
• Turn off notifications so you are not constantly interrupted. Interruptions drain your mental energy.
• Manage the inflow of requests. Consider how to train the requesters. Create a process and communicate it clearly so everyone doesn't think you are on call just for them.
• You likely have more than you can accomplish in one day. Get comfortable with leaving loose ends so you can go home and enjoy other aspects of your life.

I hope this helps!

Difficult Conversations: Tips and Tricks Part 2

Time to read: 1 minute, 16 seconds

Who knew that difficult conversations could be so fun! For the past few weeks, I've received many replies and additional questions. I'll address one here in another Tips and Tricks for Difficult Conversations.

Question: How do you hold people accountable when they are late for meetings or don't deliver on tasks?

Answer: Being late for meetings and not delivering on tasks are two different things.

Handling lateness

The person leading the meeting is in charge of creating the container. Make it clear from the beginning that you start meetings on time. Then start and end on time, even if everyone isn't there. When you start on time, people learn they miss important content and will adjust accordingly.

If someone is late once, let it go. Things happen.

If someone is chronically late, pull them aside in private and be curious. "I've noticed you've come late to the last 2 meetings. We value your presence. Is something making it difficult for you to get here on time?" There may be a legitimate reason for their lateness. Be prepared to listen and perhaps make adjustments to the meeting.

When someone doesn't complete tasks

When someone is not completing tasks, you want to discern what is getting in the way.

Is there a real reason they aren't completing tasks? Like...

• A sick child
• A parent in the hospital
• Sick or out of town
• Doesn't have the skills or information needed to complete the task

In these situations, offer grace and find solutions to enable them to complete the task.

If the situation is chronic, meaning, they often don't complete tasks over a period of time or they take issue with the tasks or generally have a bad attitude, then that's a bigger conversation. Refer back to the previous week's breakdown of how to have a hard conversation.

I hope this helps!

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