Between Us Girls

4 Steps to Finding and Following Your Passion

There is so much talk about discovering your passion, following your bliss and living a life that you love. Hearing messages like these over and over, we can't help but to take a look at our own lives and to perhaps find them lacking. We wonder how we can live a life of purpose and meaning, how we can follow our bliss. Then we begin to wonder. What is my bliss? Do I have a passion? Did I ever?

How to Find Happiness the Easy Way

Finding happiness is all the rage these days, but why does it have to be so darn difficult?  Are we that out of touch with what makes us happy or have our expectations just become too high?

Those of you who have ready my prior post on the Power of Positive Emotions know that experiencing positive emotions can undo a lot of the damage caused by negative emotions.  Common sense tells you that the more often we experience these positive emotions the happier we will be.  Considering this, I've decided that happiness doesn't have to be so difficult.  I've proposed a simpler way to conceive of happiness and some easy steps that we can take in our pursuit of it.

Check out my guest post "How to Find Happiness the Easy Way" over at the Positivity Blog and let me know what you think. Your comments, anecdotes and suggestions are always welcome!

How to Stop Procrastinating and Start Doing

Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today? Well, because it's easier, you have more interesting things to do and, perhaps, you never really wanted to do those things in the first place.

Procrastinating isn't just about waiting until the last minute to get something done. It can also show up as the tendency to avoid confrontation, a reluctance to take risks or try new things, the ability to make big plans but to never follow through, the tendency to get sick or tired when faced with unpleasant tasks or the choice to blame others for your unhappiness instead of taking action.

Some of us have a bigger problem with procrastination than others, but we are all guilty of it now and again. What about you? Have you ever waited until the eleventh hour to pull together a term paper or a report for the boss? Can you always find a reason why that talk about boundary issues with your mother-in-law can wait? Do you spend hours or months researching the best brand of toothpaste or minivan? Do you keep talking about that new business you're going to start or that book you're going to write...someday? Whoops, that

How to Keep Your Cool When the Heat is On

Whether you're a chronic worrier or steady as a rock, chances are that you have experienced anxiety at one time or another. I'm not talking about panic attacks or anxiety disorders, just the run-of-the-mill anxiety we experience when we are about to face someone or something that sets those butterflies a-fluttering.

Think blind date, job interview, marriage proposal, confronting your nosy neighbor...any situation that might make you tense and fearful. You're worried about the impression you'll make, you fear you might embarrass yourself, you're afraid that you'll come across as unprepared or that you will get a negative reaction.

The anticipation of potentially stressful events can be worse than the event itself. So when the heat is on, how do you keep your cool? Next time you are worried about an upcoming event, try some of these ideas and see how they work:

Do Your Homework

Preparation is key. If you are worried that things will go wrong or that you won't be ready for whatever is thrown at you, take a hint from the scouts and be prepared. Gather whatever information or tools that you think you might need and have them at the ready.

7 Tips for Keeping Things in Perspective

We are all too familiar with stress and what it can do to our health and well-being. Each and every day new problems crop up that create the opportunity for worry and anxiety to stop us in our tracks. But every problem that we encounter doesn't carry the same weight. Difficulties, like people, come in all shapes and sizes and keeping our perspective is important if we want to avoid being sent into a tail-spin numerous times a day.

So how do we do this? How do we keep things in perspective so that we aren't overcome with anxiety every time an obstacle shows up in our lives.

There are many ways to maintain perspective – to see our problems for what they really are and to not let them balloon to larger-than-life proportions. It all comes down to stopping, breathing, and taking the time to ask ourselves some important questions:

Therapy, Therapists and Techniques: How to Find What Works for You

The world of psychotherapy is a very broad and varied one. There is a dizzying array of theories, techniques and approaches to therapy from which to choose and weeding through them to find the therapy style that is right for you can be almost as stressful as the problem that drove you to therapy in the first place!

From psychoanalytic theory to cognitive-behavioral theory, from “Gestalt Therapy” to “Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy,” from relaxation techniques to role playing exercises, the options are endless. So where do you start? Is there some easy answer...some secret formula?

Of course not. I wish I could give you a simple formula...some easy mathematical equation that would lead you to “the answer” but I can't. Finding what works for you is simply, or not so simply, a process of trial and error.

But let me tell you something that might help. Before I decided to stay home with children (and climb the walls on a daily basis), I did a little bit of counseling myself. What I mean to say is I counseled other people...but then again, I have counseled myself quite a bit as well. Never mind...the point is I have some training and experience in this area and I'm going to let you in on a secret. Counselors and therapists can sometimes have a hard time sorting through the piles of psychotherapeutic techniques as well.