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Are we grieving the loss of the life we knew?

15/4/2020

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If you've been struggling (like me) to make sense of what's happening in the world and get a better sense of how to navigate it all, then the worksheet below will come in very handy. 

The last couple of weeks have definitely been very 'interesting for me'. I've been through some funny ups and downs, trying to understand this new norm that has left us all feeling so helpless. And this is why I've been putting out so much content with helpful resources to stay calm and find resilience - as I've been trying to tap into those myself. 

Anyway, it wasn't until a couple of days ago when I watched a video about the 'five stages of grief' that I understood a little better what I was feeling (and still am). 

And so I thought I'd make some graphics (see worksheet below) to help illustrate this idea. Now you can check for yourself whether you are also feeling this way and maybe going through this 'mass grieving process' that so many of us seem to be experiencing.

Letting go of what was and welcoming what is can be a tricky process. Hopefully understanding the emotions and stages that lie behind this (as per the graphics below) might give you a sense of hope in this journey.

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Click to download in PDF

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Click to download PDF version
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Today, I give myself permission to...

8/4/2020

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You can print me out and stick me in your fridge.

Yes you get to give yourself permission to do what you need to feel calmer, lighter and better.

The better you feel, the better all those around you will feel, because we emit the energy that we carry. How many times have you walked into a room and immediately felt the tension? You probably run out wishing you'd never walked in there. 

Now, you can be the beacon for a different kind of energy and vibe. You can help others feel lighter without having to do anything for them. Simply do something for yourself that lights you up.

Taking action towards our personal wellbeing and sanity is a great thing. It puts us in a better state of mind, it fuels us and regenerates us and everyone benefits from the effects. 

I know life feels complicated right now, but I invite you for 5 or 10 mins (or more, if you can) to do something for yourself. Something that will put a smile on your face and then take a moment to acknowledge how you feel. I promise you, it makes a difference.

Our physiology changes depending on the activity we are engaging in and the thoughts we are entertaining. So challenge yourself today - 5 to 10 mins of something that is just for you. Go on, why not?

And then it would be great if you could share what you did and how you felt - using the comments box below. 
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Finding calm and building resilience

7/4/2020

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We may not have control over our outside circumstances but we do have a choice about how we respond to them. In this blog and upcoming posts I am sharing some easy to access tools to help you (and me) navigate through these tricky times.

1. Try out these great meditations and breathing exercises from the Heartmath Institute:

Tools to help you ease anxiety and nurture resilience.

The HeartMath Experience was first released in November 2019, prior to the COVID19 outbreak.The tools it provides can especially help people find balance and clarity through the current challenging times. And it's NOW FREE for all of us to access!9 chapters with over 90 minutes of compelling content. Downloadable PDFs with chapter summaries and technique steps. Technique review videos for easy learning. A special bonus chapter on the Inner Balance coherence-building technology to enhance your practice.


2. Listen to Elizabeth Gilbert's awesome words of wisdom in her most recent TED talk

Elizabeth Gilbert: It's OK to feel overwhelmed. Here's what to do next

3. Join Deepak Chopra and Oprah's 21 day meditation experience
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Oprah & Deepak's 21-Day Meditation Experience

Finding hope in uncertain times. Harness strength. Find peace. Create connection.Register for free! 21 DAYS OF MEDITATION


4. Connect and have fun with your friends
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Houseparty app - keeping us connected

Group video chat to help you and your friends be together when you're not together. An app to help us all stay in touch and get through these periods of social isolation.

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THE SANITY KIT

26/3/2020

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Carefully selected links to help you stay sane during these difficult times.

HUMOUR
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22 Reasons Why Parents Shouldn't Text

ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS
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Activities and online resources for kids at home.

Schools worldwide have closed in response to COVID-19, leaving parents and caregivers scrambling to find daily activities for their children that are educational, creative and entertaining. If you're facing this challenge for the first time, there are many online resources that you can turn to during this uncertain period of self-isolation, social distancing and quarantine.


MINDFULNESS
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Live Guided Meditations - Ten Percent Happier

Every weekday, we'll offer a free live sanity break, featuring our host, Dan Harris, and some of the world's best meditation teachers, streaming from their homes to yours. We'll start with a five minute meditation, and then take questions from the audience.Streaming live on YouTube at 3PM ET every weekday. If you miss it live, you can catch past episodes below or on the Ten Percent Happier app.


HOPE
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The Good News Network: Positive Stories 24/7

Take a break from all the bad news and come here for a hit of hope in these difficult times.


IMMUNE BOOSTING

The Secrets to Creating a Healthy Immune System

The DOCTOR'S FARMACY show. A great conversation on all things immunity and wellness between Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Leonard Calabrese.


FITNESS

The Body Coach TV

Welcome to the Body Coach TV: weekly HIIT workouts to help you burn fat and get fitter, stronger, healthier and lean. You don't need a gym to get...


Yoga With Adriene

INSPIRED ACTION
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Anonymous Love Letters Lift the Spirits of Anyone Signed Up On This Website

Coping Calendar

This Coping Calendar has 30 suggested actions to look after ourselves and each other as we face this global crisis together. Download it as an image for sharing or a PDF for printing. Pass on to others and help spread the word.


PERSPECTIVE
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Pandemic Math - A Video To Help Ease Your Nerves

Thank Goodness for Dave Asprey. If you've ever heard of "Bulletproof Coffee"- he's the guy who created that. He's an author to countless books, including "The Bulletproof Diet" and "Super Human." Now this video is part 3 of a 3-part video series about the Coronavirus that he called "Pandemic Math." In the video, he demonstrated how people react to mortality estimates when a pandemic is involved. He broke it into 4 sections: population, the "magic number", the total number of people infected who self-report, and actual deaths from the virus.


CONNECTION

Stay connected: 4 steps for throwing your digital party

Just like with an ordinary dinner party, it takes a bit of organisation to pull off a group hang online via video chat, but the rewards are worth the effort.


NEW LEARNING
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450 free Ivy League university courses you can take online

The eight Ivy League schools are among the most prestigious colleges in the world. They include Brown, Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, and Columbia universities, and the University of Pennsylvania.These Ivy League schools are highly selective and extremely hard to get into. But the good news is that all these universities now offer free online courses across multiple online course platforms.


Google Arts & Culture

MEDITATION

Guided Meditation: Boost Your Immune System (Self-Heal All Disease) - Marisa Peer

​"Everything can be taken from us but one thing:

the freedom to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances"
~ Viktor Frankl
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YOU ARE ENOUGH

13/8/2018

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Everyone needs to watch this. Such a wonderful reminder - that yes, we really are enough!
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Watching this helpful video by Marisa will give you the confidence to say:
I choose to do ...
I choose to feel great about doing ....
And I am enough

Simple but incredibly powerful phrases that will crush those insecurities.
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Happiness is not in the getting; happiness is in the becoming.

28/2/2017

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Rohn: Happiness Is Not in the Getting, Happiness Is in the Becoming

George Leonard, in his book Mastery, talks about “enjoying the plateau.” This is an important point. So often, we find ourselves racing to get ahead, thinking so much about our next achievement that we can’t appreciate the time in between. We find ourselves losing our motivation. Happiness is not in the getting; happiness is in the becoming. Happiness is a universal quest. Happiness is a joy that comes as a result of positive activity. It has a wide variety of meanings, a wide variety of interpretations. Happiness is both the joy of discovery and the joy of knowing. It’s the result of an awareness of the full range of life. It’s opening yourself to experiences, sounds, harmonies, dreams and goals. It’s the joy that comes from designing a life that practices the fine art of living well.

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Effective morning routines

27/2/2017

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Make Mine O'Clock Part of Your Morning Routine
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Live in the moment: Name the moment

19/2/2016

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By Elizabeth Aylott Pope - Take time to BE YOU contributor. 

It’s far too easy to reach the end of a busy day and to barely remember any of it. It swirls into a blur of appointments, mealtimes, childcare, housework, until you’re left wondering whether the day really ever happened. Not a single discrete instant stands out in your mind because it all moved by so fast. It feels like you’re losing the moments of your life – especially those precious few moments of “me-time” - in the tidal wash of days.
 
If you want your moments back, you can have them. Life moves quickly, but you still can live and remember it. It’s a matter of mindfulness, as so many things are, and a simple trick we like to call “name your moment.”
 
You will get so much more out of the time you can devote to yourself if you soak it in – sounds, sights, smells and emotions. Whether the moment is a cup of coffee or quiet time while your children nap or play, naming it will help you remember and appreciate it. It’s as simple as saying it, to yourself or out loud: “This is my time to …”
 
Starting the morning naming your moments can set the tone for the rest of the day. Try it over your cup of tea, or in the shower, or while making breakfast for the family. Take a breath, listen, and say to yourself (or out loud!): “This is my moment to breathe and get a shower.” Feel the water on you, close your eyes for a moment, and be present.
 
You are probably having these moments already and the pace of life simply causes them to blur into the surrounding haze of chores and tasks. For instance, if you're playing with your children, you have the chance to be present and say out loud "this is my one hour to play with my kids". Then, because you were fully aware that you were in fact playing with them, later on you are able to take a 15-minute break with a cup of tea guilt-free. When you do enjoy that cup of tea, say to yourself the same words “this is my time - these are my 15 minutes to enjoy my drink and have a read.”
 
By the time the day has ended you'll realise that you have not only accomplished a lot of different things, but, more importantly, you have lived.

Separating out your experiences so the lovely, daily treasures stand out, helps you slow down your internal experience of life, even when the outside pace is moving as quickly as ever. It’s not about checking off the boxes; it’s about being there for the moments of your life, naming and enjoying them. 

© 2016 Take time to BE YOU.com
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Putting mum guilt in its place

11/10/2015

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By Elizabeth Aylott Pope.

If you’re a parent, especially a mum, and you’re breathing, you probably feel guilty about something. Whether it’s about keeping the house clean enough, working or not working, breast or bottle feeding, how much time the kids spend in front of the TV, whether they have too many or too few toys… the list is never-ending. Whatever choice you make as a mother seems to generate guilt.
 
It’s hard to escape the image of the Mother we SHOULD be that takes up residence in our minds, and to constantly compare ourselves to this ideal. How do we ever measure up? The answer is not to become a perfect, flawless, domestic goddess, Stepford wife and Mum Machine. The answer is to learn to let go a little, and recognise guilt for what it is, and what it is not. 

 
At root, guilt is simply a feeling, along with the hundreds of others we feel on a given day. Like any other emotion, guilt is valid, and can be useful when addressed mindfully. We can learn from it, rather than let ourselves be controlled by it.
 
When guilty thoughts pass through your mind, you get to choose what to do with them. Sometimes, guilt can point the way to what you value. It always shows that you care. Let yourself feel what you feel, then ask yourself three questions:

1. Did you really do anything wrong?
Giving an extra hour of TV time so you can take a bath = not wrong. Remember the airplane adage: You need to put your own oxygen mask on so you can take care of others. Ask yourself, if my best friend told me she felt guilty over X, would you think it was justified? Probably not.
 
2. Could you actually control the outcome?
You can get your child to brush their teeth, but cavities still happen. There are simply things that are out of the most caring mother’s control.
 
3. Does it matter?
Mismatched socks, toys on the floor, disagreements… these are all normal parts of life. If you and your children are relatively uninjured and still speaking to each other at the end of the week, you’re doing your job.

Now that you’ve put your guilt into perspective, turn to it as a friend. Truly. What is your feeling trying to tell you?

  • Your priorities may be in conflict. If you want to go back to work, and feel guilty about it, or want to not work, and feel guilty about it, address the internal conflict as rationally as you can. What do you truly value and consider important? Lay out the pros and cons, and walk away knowing that you’re making the right decision; doing the best you can.
  • You may need to ask for help. Whether from your partner, or friends, or a professional or two. That might mean forming a healthy cooking club to share meals, or bringing in a cleaning service once a month. Take some of the burden off yourself – there’s a lot that needs to be done in every household, but you don’t have to be the one to do it all. 
  • Give yourself some time. The best thing you can offer your family is yourself, whole, happy, rested and feeling good. Make your “me-time” a priority: be there for yourself so you can be there for everyone else. Remember the airplane saying? Decide what your oxygen mask is on a given day (meditation, exercise, a phone call with a friend) and put it on!
 
In sum: You care. You feel guilt. Let yourself feel it. Ask yourself whether it’s warranted, and what it’s telling you. Take care of yourself, and remember you’re not alone.

© Take time to BE YOU.com

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Multitasking vs. Single tasking

19/9/2015

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What works best?

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By Elizabeth Aylott Pope.

When was the last time you did ONE thing? Can you even remember? Most of us – especially mums – are constantly doing everything simultaneously, simply because there is So. Much. To. Do. We feel that to be productive we have to be answering emails, cooking dinner, talking to the kids and cleaning the house at the same time or it simply won’t all get done.

But current research shows that there are definite costs to multi-tasking. First off, it’s not really multi-tasking. You may feel that you are doing it all at once, but in reality you’re “switch tasking” or “serial tasking.” That means that you are shifting gears between tasks and actually losing time and focus each time you do. You waste energy because you have to remember what you were doing and what you wanted to do next, incurring “switching costs.”  The American Psychological Association’s research says this can add up to a task taking 40% longer.

It’s also more stressful. And you never really get in the zone for any activity! Plus, multi-tasking requires a lot of working memory – think of it as temporary brain storage – which takes away from our ability to think creatively because essentially there’s no more room to work.

Good news: there ARE areas where you can background task. This isn’t the same as serial/multi-tasking. Background tasking means you do two activities, but only one requires mental engagement. The other is entirely automatic and routine, and/or uses completely different brain processing - like listening to music and folding laundry.

This means that you can divide and conquer, combining background tasking with single tasking to get everything done more efficiently, while also maintaining your sanity and the quality of your relationships. If, for example, your me-time today is going to be reading a book, then don’t try and multi-task with something else. You simply won’t get much out of your down time because it won’t truly be your time. And ask yourself: can you really listen to your kids or spouse while writing an email? No. You can put the washing on, boil the kettle and listen to the news, though! Place the line between the things that you do that make you feel fulfilled or require true concentration, and simple household tasks.

Here are a few simple ideas to help you get there:

1. Make a list of your top priorities for the day. Try to keep the big ones down to a top three that you choose to focus on exclusively while doing them.

2. Use routine to your advantage. If the household runs on a particular schedule that doesn’t require constant thought, it frees up whole sections of your brain!

3. Ask for and accept help from others. Find ways for your spouse and kids to pitch in, even in simple tasks. Everything that comes off your plate is a win.

4. Separate out activities best done while kids are asleep. This might be tasks that require concentration, or give you the most pleasure when you can focus on them.

5. Practise mindfulness. Especially with things that delight you. You’ll get more out of every moment of me-time if you’re truly present for it.
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<<Previous

    Previous posts

    • Today, I give myself permission to...
    • Finding calm and building resilience. 
    The SANITY kit
    ​• What's underneath your mask.
    • Putting mum guilt in its place.
    • Strategies for sticking with online learning.
    • Multitasking vs. Single tasking.
    • How to find your way back to work.
    • 4 top tips for reclaiming your morning routine.
    • How to become successful in 8 steps. 

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