Walking across the street outside the office today, I nearly slipped on the wet pavement. In reality, I did a Scooby-Doo kind of footfall, but managed to stay standing, if slightly embarrassed.
Slipping on the Rainbow
Category: General
Gratitude and Thankfulness
This past weekend, my family and I celebrated an early Thanksgiving. Although the holiday is only next week, Isabelle and I will be out of the city for most of the weekend, so we thought we would simplify matters by inviting the family to our house for an early Thanksgiving dinner. This got me reflecting on everything that I am thankful for in my life. And this, in turn, got me thinking about my topic for this post – gratitude.
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And Now for Something Completely Different (for us)
It was a new experience for my wife and I over the last two weeks of August. While we always take vacation during this time of the year (both of our birthdays fall at the end of August, some 5 days apart), it was a bit of a departure for us this time. Firstly, my wife, no longer working in the school system, was relegated to only having a few weeks of vacation to use for the year rather than having the summer off. Secondly, we opted to not take any trips this year for our vacation. This meant that we had two weeks of rest, relaxation and quiet.
And boy did I need it.
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Mental Junk Food
While walking to work recently, I was catching up as I often do with some of my favourite podcasts. The selection for this walk was an episode of Chris Hardwick’s ID10T podcast, featuring Chris Jericho as the guest. (You can listen to the podcast here.) I would be remiss if I were to say that I truly wasn’t expecting the conversation to become as deep as it did. The portion that struck me the most was when they began discussing what they referred to as “Mental Junk Food”.
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We’re Off to See the Wizard
Eleven years ago today, Isabelle and I had one of our double header movie nights. We would do this semi-regularly and pick two movies (usually there would be a theme – like Stephen King night). We had only been seeing one another for a couple of months at this point, but this is the night that started the ball rolling to where we are today.
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The Trouble with Negativity
Show of hands – how many of you have that friend, that family member, that co-worker who’s just plain old negative? No matter what’s going on, they’ll find some way to complain and criticize something. I’m guessing that most of you have your hands in the air. (You can put your hand down.) Now, take a step back and wonder if maybe you’re that person in someone else’s life.
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Candy Land
When a work day starts with you getting things ready for a candy bar for 150+ people, you know it’s probably not going to be too bad a day.
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Catastrophic Thinking
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
How often have you asked yourself that question? It seems that it’s human nature to always go to a worst-case scenario when we’re looking at possible outcomes. Some of us do it because we’re mimicking the thought process our parents followed, others do it because of a bad experience that occurred that you just can’t shake. Or maybe it’s related to anxiety, chronic depression or other mental health issues.
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Letting Go
This will be a slightly longer, work-related post dealing with some frustrations I have and learning to move forward. Just giving fair warning to any who dare venture forward. 🙂
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Silencing the Critic
Everyone has their own moments of doubt and self-criticism. For some people, the voice is hard to tune out, or to turn off. Even the most successful and well-grounded people have that little voice that creeps up from time to time and makes them question themselves and their abilities.
Over recent months, that little voice of mine has been resurfacing more regularly, more insistently. It’s definitely caused me more than a few moments of mental downward spiraling. I get caught up in the negative self-talk, which causes even more negative self-talk, which leads to moments of crushing panic and despair.
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