Thank you so much for your interest in The Insight, by Sheba. I hope you enjoyed this week’s blogs about “Balance.”

Next week’s topic will be “Letting Go of Old Grudges.”

 Friday Review: Happy Reading!

1. Where Do I Belong?

• Balance cannot be achieved if we do not include ourselves and personal best interests in the process. Start small and make the necessary changes you see fit to create balance and to serve yourself. If you don’t, who will?

2. Keep it Cool!

• Cultivate self and situational awareness to emotionally prepare yourself to handle every situation. Keep an open mind to develop new perspectives in situations. Develop different coping methods for situations in which you can’t change your perspective. Master your emotions to achieve balance in any situation.

3. In Your Relationships.

• It takes attention, time and effort to understand our emotions and the emotions of others. The better able we are to recognize emotions, discern their meaning and understand what caused them, the better able we will be to control or diffuse them in a particular situation. Emotional intelligence and balance cannot be achieved without those efforts combined.

4. And Focused Attention.

• Mental balance requires that we decide for ourselves what is truly deserving of our attention, and give it to that task, thought or person. We perform better and feel less burdened when we create balance.

The Insight: Balance is one of those “easier said than done” things in life, but the benefits of cultivating balance far outweigh the effort it requires. Start small and make the necessary changes you see fit to create balance and to serve yourself. Cultivate self and situational awareness to emotionally prepare yourself to handle every situation. Decide for yourself what is truly deserving of your attention. The better able we are to recognize emotions, discern their meaning and understand what caused them, the better able we will be to control or diffuse them in a particular situation.

Have a wonderful weekend!

 By Sheba

www.bySheba.com

A Positive Perspective for Life, Love, and Relationships

The Scenario – You call yourself a “multitasker.” However, have you ever stared at someone when they were talking, pretending to listen when in fact you were distracted by the sound your computer was making as emails kept popping onto your screen? How about listening to someone tell a story that reminded you of something you forgot to do and yet you let that individual continue? Do you remember the story at all? When you do not pay attention to what your brain is focused on, it causes mental discourse.

Is it important to pay attention to our thoughts?

Alex Lickerman, M.D., argues that multi-tasking can be harmful to achieving balance if our attention is divided among distractions as opposed to meaningful work. How so?

Multitasking is…

1.     Detrimental to Memory

• The more tasks we are trying to complete at once, the more our attention is divided making it difficult to retain information for those tasks that may be useful in the future

2.     Hinders Performance

• We cannot put 100 percent of our effort to one individual task when we have more than one to complete, and therefore cannot perform to the best of our abilities

3.     Deters Appreciation for Work

• Since multitasking prevents us from being fully engaged in a task, we are unable to enjoy the task or appreciate the work we produce

(Read More)

The Insight – Mental balance requires that we decide for ourselves what is truly deserving of our attention, and give it to that task, thought or person. We perform better and feel less burdened when we create balance.

How do you find balance?

By Sheba

www.bySheba.com

Creating Positive Perspectives for Life

The Scenario – You sit down on the couch next to your partner who’s in the middle of watching the season finale of his or her favorite TV show. After a minute of silence, you ask, “Can I talk to you about something?” Your partner brushes you off at first, but then becomes frustrated after you press the issue.  You become upset, your partner becomes more upset, and neither of you really know what just happened.

Can emotional awareness improve relationship balance?

John D. Mayer, Ph.D., and Peter Salovey, Ph.D., developers of the Four Branch Model of Emotional Intelligence, argue that we should not be governed by our emotions, but rather we should control and harness our emotions to help us decide how to respond in any given situation. The model describes these four branches:

 1.     Emotional Perception

• Ability to accurately identify one’s emotions as well as others’ emotions

2.     Thought Processing

• Ability to use emotions to enable fluid thinking

3.     Derive Meaning

• Discern the meaning of emotions according to person and situation

4.     Manage Emotions

• Ability to control emotions to respond rationally and positively in a variety of situations

The Insight – It takes attention, time and effort to understand our emotions and the emotions of others. The better able we are to recognize emotions, discern their meaning and understand what caused them, the better able we will be to control or diffuse them in a particular situation. Emotional intelligence and balance cannot be achieved without those efforts combined.

Do you use your emotional intelligence to cultivate balance?

By Sheba

www.bySheba.com

Creating Positive Perspectives for Life

The Scenario – Your partner knows just how to push your buttons, but today is not the day. Work was rough and the traffic on the way home from the office was draining. You’ve got so many emotions racing through you, you’re not sure which one to address first, but you’re certain the last thing you need is to have that button pushed. When emotions get involved, it’s easy to lose control, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

How can we regulate our emotions to achieve balance?

The Emotional Regulation Theory by James J. Gross, Ph.D., proposes situational awareness and self-awareness to better regulate our emotions. Based on the situation, we may decide to practice:

1.     Situation Modification

• Taking control of the situation and making changes that you know will facilitate or produce positive emotions

2.     Attentional Deployment

• Directing your attention to something positive or more desirable in a potentially frustrating situation

3.     Cognitive Change

• Re-evaluating a situation, assigning it a different meaning or purpose that allows a more desirable emotional response.

4.     Situation selection

• Taking actions to make sure we find ourselves in situations with which we are familiar to our emotional responses, we know what to expect of ourselves in our emotional responses.

The Insight – Cultivate self and situational awareness to emotionally prepare yourself to handle every situation. Keep an open mind to develop new perspectives in situations. Develop different coping methods for situations in which you can’t change your perspective. Master your emotions to achieve balance in any situation.

What are your techniques for keeping your cool?

By Sheba

www.bySheba.com

Creating Positive Perspectives for Life

The Scenario – Do you sometimes overextend yourself to make sure your employer, family and friends feel supported? Whatever they need, you are there because you know you have the capacity to balance the many titles of your life. But who is responsible for you?

Where do “I” belong in a balanced life?

It’s okay and sometimes necessary to be selfish in order to reach balance and nurture your own needs. Jen Uscher, M.F.A., and Laura J. Martin, M.D., of WebMD, offer five tips to ensure personal time while pursuing balance:

1.       Schedule Downtime

• Schedule personal time and respect that time the same as you would any other activity in your schedule

2.       Disengage

• Cancel any engagements or activities that only occupy your time and drain your energy

3.       Delegate

• Review your to-do list and delegate the tasks that don’t specifically require your involvement

4.       Engage in physical activity

• Take every opportunity for physical activity throughout the day, whether that means walking or riding your bike to work, or parking all the way in the back of the grocery store parking lot

5.       Don’t Make Balance a Chore

• Avoid making drastic changes or unrealistic challenges to achieve greater balance, but welcome and take opportunities to relax

(Read More)

The Insight – Balance cannot be achieved if we do not include ourselves and personal best interests in the process. Start small and make the necessary changes you see fit to create balance and to serve yourself. If you don’t, who will?

Does your life balance include personal time?

By Sheba

www.bySheba.com

Creating Positive Perspectives for Life