I have long beat the drum on the idea that there are many types of poverty. Junger captured this idea in a simple illustration. He suggested that if you want financial freedom you might become a corporate attorney. You’ll make extraordinary money, but you’ll have no life outside of work. Then he talked about time freedom. (Brace yourself; this concept may blow your mind like it did mine.) He said for someone who wants time freedom should consider homelessness. A homeless individual has total flexibility without anyone imposing their schedule upon them.

Imagine if we considered wealth and poverty beyond our bank accounts. What if we measured it by our emotional and physical wellness, our environment and cultural health, our intellectual or spiritual condition, or our relationships? Could you feel like a million bucks and not have a fully-funded 401k?

You Might Think I’m Crazy

Shift gears with me for a moment. Imagine if you saw me picking up a rock and looking at it every 2-3 minutes. Imagine if I just spent 5 minutes staring at the rock. What if I spent 45 minutes or an hour staring at it? What would you think of my obsession with this rock? Perhaps you’d ask me if I’m OK. Perhaps you’d ask me if I could put it away. Maybe you’d ask if I have a therapist.

Now, imagine this rock has buttons and a screen on it. Would you still question my obsession with it? The truth is many of us, myself included, stare at our phones every 2-3 minutes and fixate on them for hours.

Take the Crazy out of Thanksgiving

Consider a Thanksgiving where phones are banished from the table, or better yet, from the entire dining room. A radical proposition, but consider the possibilities. What if, without the digital distraction, we rediscover the joy of unbridled conversations, the laughter echoing through the room unmarred by the constant hum of notifications?

The idea may seem daunting, our connection to our devices so deeply ingrained that the mere thought of separation may induce withdrawal. Yet, what if this Thanksgiving becomes a pivotal moment, a collective decision to put our phones away and be fully present with our loved ones?

Imagine if everyone at your Thanksgiving gathering was freed from their devices and fully present with one another? Honestly, our obsession may be so deep we may not respond positively to that. But, what if we respond well? What if we connect deeply with our loved ones? What if we find that putting our phones up is something to be thankful for?

For more content on relationships and personal wellness see our blog.

The post Keep the Crazy Away from the Thanksgiving Table first appeared on Circle of 5 Coaching.

Picture this: my wife, grappling with a minuscule earring piece lost amidst the loops of our shower mat. We’ve all been there, right? The frustration of searching for something nearly microscopic can be maddening. I attempted the conventional approach, getting on my hands and knees, but the endeavor proved futile. Instead of Googling for a solution I resorted to ingenuity.

Then, inspiration struck. As an inspector accustomed to using light to unveil hidden truths, I realized the solution lay in the brilliance of illumination. Armed with my trusty flashlight, a weapon boasting 3200 lumens, I entered the bathroom on a quest to rescue the lost earring back. In a mere 5 seconds, the elusive treasure revealed itself under the piercing gaze of light.

While the triumphant moment may have been met with a simple “Thanks,” the essence of the story transcends the quest for heroism. The real message lies in the difficulty of finding things until light penetrates the shadows.

How to Un-mess Your Mess

In life, we all harbor aspects we’d rather keep concealed, hidden away in the shadows. These are the facets we fear exposing because they might cast us in an unfavorable light. The truth, however, is that we are all grappling with our unique messes.

Just as I illuminated the bathroom floor to uncover the earring back, we must bravely expose the frustrating aspects of our lives to the light. It takes courage to share our vulnerabilities, acknowledging that we are not alone in our struggles. By inviting someone into the shadows, we allow them to shine a light on the hidden complexities, helping us find resolution and healing. They guide us through and help us un-mess our mess.

So, I encourage you to connect with someone you trust. Share your struggles, let them be a beacon of light in your life. In doing so, you relinquish the need to hide in the shadows and instead embrace the freedom that comes from living openly in the beautiful, peaceful light. Together, we can navigate the intricacies of life and find strength in our shared humanity.

Pro Tip: Share your life with people full of hope.

The post Shine the Light and Come Out of the Shadows first appeared on Circle of 5 Coaching.

Reading Time: 5-6 minutes

The time change is upon us.  I’ll spare you another Cher meme.  The end of daylight savings time is a change that we have forced upon us.  We don’t really have a say in whether or not it will happen.  But, we do have to deal with the impact of it.

This simple act of setting our clocks back is often billed as “gaining an hour of sleep.” While that sounds like a great thing it can actually be disruptive for people who have a pretty consistent rhythm of waking up and going to bed.

It can impact many aspects of our lives.  Today I want to talk about how it affects three specific life elements (to understand all nine elements read this blog post).  They are our Environmental, Physical, and Emotional elements.  

Environmental Element

Your Environmental Element is anything around you that impacts your ability to thrive.  For example, if you’re in a office in a basement you may feel drowsy throughout the day because you do not get any sunlight.  You have no frame of reference for time from that natural light. That is an environmental impact.

In the same way, as the clocks fall back and the dusk occurs earlier, many of us do not even see the sun after we get off work.  This is an environmental condition because the government policy changes it for us.  However, it adversely impacts us.  

There are two things you can do to help overcome this change and adjust for this environmental impact.  
First, be sure to spend some time in the sunlight earlier in the day.  Take a walk at lunch or during a break.  Spend some time outside before you go to work.  Get some time with fresh air and sun and help your body feel the daylight.  

Second, take on activity later in the day after work.  Go to the gym and workout in the evening or bundle up and go for a walk after dark.  This activity helps your body not wind down as early and keeps you from getting restless in the evening because of the environmental change.  

Physical Element

The goal of achieving wellness in our Physical Element is to be capable of being active with limited dependency on medication.  When we are not getting adequate sleep our physical abilities diminish faster and our wellness is compromised.

There have been many years I’ve thought I’d try to catch lightning in a bottle with the end of Daylight Savings.  Since my body was used to waking up at 6:00 AM, on this day I’d just wake up at 5:00 AM and get more done earlier.  Then, I’ll just keep doing that moving forward.

In theory, this sounds great.  But, if  we adjust our wakeup time without adjusting our going to bed time, we are now taking an hour of sleep away from our body every night.  This will result in fatigue, weariness, and, as our next section will discuss, emotional instability.

If you are struggling to adjust your waking up time (some of us are blessed and cursed with waking up at the same time every day without an alarm clock), try to make it gradual.  With my example above, try to sleep in until 5:15 for a couple days.  Then move that to 5:30 for a couple of days.  And work your way back to your 6:00 routine.  But, make sure you do the same with your bedtime.  If you’re used to going to bed at 11:00, try to go to  bed at 11:30 for a couple of days to help you sleep in. Then 11:15 and work your way back to 11:00.  Be intentional about working your way back to a healthy rhythm so you can get your body back to the sleep you need.

(Continued Below Image)

Emotional Element

Having wellness in our Emotional Element means that we have clarity around our story and how we engage with it now.  It’s amazing how the changing of our sleep habits and having less daylights can somehow cause us to re-write what we believe about ourselves and our circumstances.  But, for many of us, these changes really do have a substantial impact on our Emotional Element.

Even with getting out during the daytime hours to get some sun the truth is there is less sunlight to take in during these months.  In the Summer months we get nearly 15 hours of daylight so we have a lot of opportunity to be in the sun.  In the winter months we get as low as 9.5 hours of daylight.  This can have an adverse impact on our emotional wellness. The term we usually associate with this is Seasonal Affective Disorder.

The first key to dealing with this is paying attention to how you’re feeling in the shorter days.  If you sense you are feeling down, your outlook is less optimistic, or you are getting less patient with those you love it is important to be intentional about self-care in those seasons.  During these times you need to invest in the things that help you feel emotionally well.  Keep in mind, these things you invest in should be healthy practices like exercise, seeing your counselor, and spending time with friends. They should not be unhealthy activities like excessive alcohol consumption, consuming excessive social media, binge watching shows, or excessive online shopping.  The healthy activities make you feel alive and hopeful.  The unhealthy activities are faux medications to numb the pain while the underlying issue is still present.  With Seasonal Effective disorder, be intentional about investing in your wellness, don’t try to merely cover up your sadness.

Intentional Adjustments

The changing of the clocks is a ritual that is thrust upon us.  We can’t change that….for now. But, we can be purposeful in transitioning with it.

Be aware of the impacts and be intentional about your efforts to make this transition as smooth as possible for your wellness.

Find more great issues of The Neighborhood: An Encouragement Email here.

The post Care For Yourself in the Changing of the Clocks first appeared on Circle of 5 Coaching.

Read Time: 3-4 minutes

I recently launched a product that did not go over as well as I’d hoped. Greg, a member of my Circle of 5 blessed me with the gift of a great question.  He asked, “Ryan, do the people you’ve been promoting this to see you as an expert in the area?” 

That question was a gift.  It’s been on my mind ever since.  I’m re-orienting so many things about how I operate because of that powerful question.

I want to encourage you with two questions today.  

• What are you wanting to be an expert in today?  
• Who’s the audience that you need to believe that about you?

See the following chart for some examples.

The post Are You An Expert? first appeared on Circle of 5 Coaching.