There have been a lot of disruptions in my wife’s and my world in the last two months. With the disruption there has been grief.

Grief is a mysterious thing. You expect it when you go through loss. But, it keeps jumping out in front of you when you’re just going about your life. You’re eating dinner, or driving, or listening to the radio and there it leaps out into you mind and your heart.

I know grief is necessary. But, it’s so hard.

To add to the difficulty, when you’re having a good day, someone you love may be having their off day. Their grief shows up again. It douses you like a sopping wet blanket, waking you up to reality. A reality, mind you, you don’t really want to face.

The nature of grief is to withdraw. You don’t feel like being with people. You don’t feel like creating new and good memories. But, the antidote to grief is often found in have someone to express it to. Someone who will listen without trying to fix you. Someone who embraces the fact that grief is a healthy part of the healing process.

If you’re in a season of grief and you need time with that someone, I challenge you to reach out to them today. Get time with them on your calendar to connect in a space where you can be authentic. If you don’t have someone I want to invite you to reach out to me. Don’t grieve alone.

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P.S. – Remember, you may be who they need, too.

Want to Dig a Little Deeper into Understanding Grief?

Check out this article from NPR that talks about the difference between grief and grieving and how to help people grieving.

The post Grief is a Mysterious Thing first appeared on Circle of 5 Coaching.

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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.

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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.

How many times have you not completed a mission you set out to achieve? I’ve done it more times than I care to admit. It’s very humbling. But, I’m going to share a few. Here’s a list of my attempts at business that have since closed:

• Consulting company for small churches
• Coffee roasting company
• Church planting pastor
• Real Estate Investor

Those are just the ice breaker conversations. I could go on to share the dozens of things within those and other efforts that failed. It could be easy to look back and say tell myself I’m not capable of success. But, not succeeding is not the same as not being capable.

Despite the voices in your head telling you you’re not enough, you are enough. I love what Jon Acuff says in his book Start: “Simply put, if you don’t kill your voices, they will kill you.”

What if you discover that you just haven’t gone after the thing you’re supposed to become great at? Here’s another quote from Acuff’s book: “I’m not a find of ‘finding your purpose.’ I’m a fan of ‘living your purpose.'” Check out Jon’s brief thoughts on purpose and resilience below.

Living Your Purpose

If you’re not living your purpose you likely haven’t found a place that fits. We’ve all been there. I’ve tried. So, have you. We’ve struggled, lost our satisfaction, and started looking for greener grass.

What would happen if we discover why we are here? Could our lives be better if we live that out even in our present role? Could living with purpose bring satisfaction and fulfillment? What if that uncovers new opportunities for us to thrive in our careers because we are living in purpose? By the way, this post won’t answer all the how-tos about this topic. But, I would highly recommend Acuff’s book to explore this further.

Your Missing Puzzle

You are a piece of the puzzle. There are parts that curve in. There are parts that stick out. The shape of each of those curves and points need to fit in the right place to complete the puzzle. You can’t cram a piece that’s the wrong shape and size into another puzzle.

What if there’s a puzzle out there that is almost completed and you’re the last piece they’re looking for? You are what will complete their picture and their goal. Your unique piece is the right shape, the right size, with the right image to bring about their success and fulfillment.

I can’t promise you that the next opportunity you explore will be the completed puzzle you’ve been looking for. But, I am 100% confident that you won’t feel like you complete fit until you are living in your purpose instead of trying to find a job to fulfill your purpose.

Where to Look

Instead of going after a new job to find your purpose it’s time to go inward. Spend some time considering you are, what you’re uniquely equipped to do, and who you can serve in doing that. Then put those realizations into effect so you can start experiencing the satisfaction of those experiences.

Your adventure in self-discovering may start with having just one or two opportunities a day. But, look for the chance to do it at work, in your neighborhood, or with a non-profit. When you start to experience the satisfaction you may also uncover new opportunities where you can put your purpose into effect. Who knows? You might even start likely the job you have when you deploy the purpose within that context.

If you need some encouragement to get going again check out my other blog posts. If you specifically need help figuring out how to get a good start each morning to check out my article on Getting Unstuck with Your Morning Routine.

The post When You’re a Piece Missing Its Puzzle – Feeling Purposeless first appeared on Circle of 5 Coaching.

Your life is a blend of several complicated aspects. When you’re living it, there are many challenges to keeping track of all of those dimensions. Building an intentional community around you helps you see where you’re thriving and struggling. Here are the nine areas I’ve identified as the Elements of Life we need to nurture.

Which Element of Life do you find most challenging to nurture?

The post The Nine Elements of Life first appeared on Circle of 5 Coaching.