Image: Karmalize on Flickr

The holiday season is officially here.  If you feel stressed about the upcoming festivities, here are some tips to remember when spending large amounts of time with your entire family:

• Huge family get-togethers only occur once or twice a year.  Try to focus on the positive for just a few days.

• Go in with a positive attitude, but without high expectations.  Don’t expect that everything will perfect, but do expect that you will be able to calmly handle whatever comes your way.

• Focus on doing the best you can to help.  A lot of times family members disagree because they don’t feel that everyone is pulling their weight equally.  Focus on doing what you can to help (make plans, cook, decorate, chauffeur, etc.) without worrying about what other people aren’t doing.

• Don’t sweat the small things.  You have a lifetime of history with your family, which could cause you to get upset over small things.  Try to focus on the big picture and let small battles slide.

• Give yourself a break.  If you find that a situation is getting overwhelming, take yourself out of it.  Family get-togethers can be overwhelming with tons of people around all the time, so take some time to go for a walk or go workout by yourself to clear your head.

• This is not the best time for confrontations and interventions.  Again, focus on maintaining a positive attitude and enjoying that you all get to spend time together.  If you have issues with someone, discuss them in private at a separate time.  Don’t form alliances or gang up on anyone…it will cause more hurt than help.  Don’t start arguments.

Enjoy being around your loved ones and appreciate that you have the opportunity to spend the holidays together.

Post from: Blisstree

Tips For Dealing With Holiday Family Stress

Image: sxc.hu

Do you ever notice how children respond to a smile?  Even a baby who, you think, is too young to really notice people.  Smile, and so often the child will smile back at you, perhaps wave its arms and make sounds if it hasn’t learned, “Hi.”

I’ve often wondered what’s in the power of a smile that a tiny tot will respond.  What  if your whole family begins to smile?  What would that mean to the attitude of your home?

It’s difficult to be angry if you’re truly smiling.  Often this dissolves into giggles.

What about trying a campaign of smiles with your family, your friends and even the strangers you meet?  Teach your children the power of a smile.

Post from: Blisstree

The Power of a Smile

Image: sxc.hu

They text intimate messages, post family photos, even place financial information on the most modern of these communication devices. 

Have you considered how truly secure they are?  Even after you think you’ve deleted the information?  Do you know how your activities and that of your family can be tracked through these phones? 

Do your youngsters realize that the information they send over the phone is accessible long after the call or text is made?  One teen I know had her cell phone checked by the police because she and a friend sent text messages deemed improper or harrassing by a classmate’s mother.  (Unknown to them, the classmate had used his mom’s cell phone.  Later these messages popped up when Mom used it.)

Is your information safe?  Can others access your data for unsavory purposes?  Will people obtain information you don’t want made public?

I came across an interesting article in New Scientist, The pocket spy: Will your smartphone rat you out?    It seems almost too “James Bondish,” but modern technology can spy on us almost anywhere!

You might want to consider how you and family members are using your cell phones and discover what can and can’t be learned from it.

Additional article:

Is Your Home Business Safe on Your Cell Phone?

Post from: Blisstree

How Secure is Your Cell Phone?

Image: D Sharon Pruitt

Perhaps we can’t choose what comfort foods our kids crave, but when they do crave it, it would be ideal to cater to their craving. It gives them a signal that we are here to provide them comfort. It gives them a signal that they can always rely on us when they are in need of security and familiarity. Food can help fulfill that longing.

What’s your family comfort food? Is it a bowl of macaroni and cheese, prepared by your Mom on Sunday mornings? Is it the Chinese noodles Grandpa cooked with you growing up? Is it a bowl of raw cookie dough, much like the one you and your sisters ate when you baked together? Comfort food, especially one associated with family memories, warms not only the tummy but also the heart.

Post from: Blisstree

What’s your family comfort food?

Maybe you have a new job, new city, new school, new goals, new family member, new relationship, or new hardships that will challenge who you are and require you to give more to certain areas than others.  Oftentimes one area of your life can be extremely demanding and you can forget that you need other areas of your life fulfilled in order to find balance.

It’s a good idea to set aside some time to think about the different aspects of your life that are important to you and make sure that they are all getting the time and attention that you need.  Here are some areas of your life to think about:

• Relationships w/ Friends & Family – Think about your friends and family that are near and far.  How much of a part of your life do you want them to be?  Are you being a good mother/daughter/sister/friend?  Are you spending time with people who are important to you?

• Relationships w/ Love Interests – If you are single, are you giving people a chance?  Are you socializing and meeting people?  If you are in a relationship, are you talking and communicating properly?  Are you seeing your relationship similarly?

• Physical – Are you taking care of your body?  Are you exercising and eating foods that make you feel good?  Do you feel comfortable and confident in your skin?

• Mental – Are you learning?  Are you challenging your mind on a daily basis?

• Creative – Have you found a way to express yourself creatively?  Even if you don’t think of yourself as an artist, have you tried new ways to explore your creative side?

• Visual – Are you creating a living environment for yourself that fits your personality and comforts?  Do you see beautiful things around you?  Do you dress yourself in a way that represents your inner self?

• Natural – Are you interacting with natural environments?  Do you want to have a connection with the earth?

• Spiritual – Does religion have a role in your life?  Have you explored different types of spiritual ideas?

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Tips For Maintaining a Balanced Life

I bring up this issue because we live in a stress-inducing world!  There are a million tiny occurrences everyday that could build up to create unwanted feelings of a lack of self-control and being overwhelmed.  Think about traffic, parking, grocery stores, lines, bills, pets, emails, text messages, and the list goes on and on.  You might feel that you have it all under control, but maybe you have been releasing stress in ways that you haven’t noticed.

Take some time to talk to the people in your life who you spend the most time with and ask them if they have noticed that you have been under a lot of stress.  Every American’s life has changed over the last couple years, so it’s possible that you have had to face some of the new challenges that have developed.  Dig deep and talk openly to each other about the possibilities of new stresses that might be surfacing.

Regardless of how calm your life is, it is extremely healthy to develop regular outlets for relieving stress.  Find what works for you and helps you let out your steam so you can come home to your family and feel relaxed.  There are a million different independent hobbies that you can pursue that will help you to relieve stress.  Try running, yoga, cooking, biking, sudoku, yardwork, or anything else that you might enjoy.  Incorporate one of these activities into your daily routine so you can have a healthy and balanced life and to ensure that you are also creating a loving and comfortable environment for those that you are closest to.

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Do I Take Stress Out On My Family?

A few months ago my apartment in Brooklyn suddenly burned down.  Luckily I wasn’t in the unit at the time, but I did lose my home and a lot of my belongings.  Obviously the situation could have much worse, but I still see the situation as a small crisis.  I suddenly had no place to live and very few belongings.

In situations like these I realized that everyone cares and wants to help, but it is the people who make a specific offer that are truly helping you.  Lots of people say “I’m so sorry.  Please let me know anything I can do to help.”  Although these are kind and thoughtful words, I found that they weren’t in actuality helpful because I didn’t have the time or clarity of mind to figure out how different people could be useful to me.  And even if I did come up with something I needed, I didn’t really feel comfortable asking when they only said “let me know.”

The life-saving help came from those friends and family who took action.  They made specific offers like “You can use my truck to move your belongings” or “You can stay at my apartment this weekend while I’m out of town.”  I can probably say that I accepted almost all of these offers because it was actually helpful!  Their offers helped to relieve some stress from my situation.  They didn’t require me to do extra analyzing to try to figure out how they could be of some help in my crisis situation.

If you know someone going through a crisis in their life and you know that they need help, please offer something specific.  Home-cooked meals, beds to sleep in, babysitting, pet sitting, rides, use of vehicles…all of these things are great ideas.  It is helpful for you to do some thinking and analyzing on your own to figure out what you can do and offer.  Then propose to them what you can do to help and be prepared that they will take you up on it!

I guarantee that they will be forever appreciative and you will feel that you have truly done your part to be supportive and giving.

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

How To Offer Support In A Crisis

I love American holidays for their celebration of families and traditions.  National holidays provide a day off so hopefully there can be that one special day when fathers and mothers get to spend time with their children, and friends and family can travel across long distances to see each other for a special weekend.

If you have are having a Fourth of July celebration, make a special effort to include friends who may not have anyone else to celebrate with.  The summer is finally here and we should all just relax for a day and embrace the happiness that surrounds a social atmosphere.

I think Fourth of July traditions have a lot to do with open-mindedness and everyone coming together to appreciate the country that we share.

Image: Flickr Jesse Michael Nix

Post from: Blisstree

Celebrating Fourth of July Bonding

Sometimes people get jealous. They worry that someone is slipping away, that they are losing their influence. They worry that they might be losing the love or complete attention of another person and when this happens, they turn to coercion. They hit on a person’s frailties, on his or her fears until they chip away a chunk of their confidence. I’m talking their self-confidence as well as the confidence that they may have in their relationship. I find this sort of selfish and destructive behavior disgusting.

When I heard the “deceitful” statement, it was clearly a case of an individual parroting another persons bad intentions. These teenagers are still figuring things out. They need a supportive environment to do that. They don’t need outside sources filling their heads with doubts. How are they supposed to develop healthy relationships if their biggest influences are not healthy to start with? If things do not work out between them, they will still take the lessons that they learned during this relationship with them. They will suspect the next person is deceitful or jealous or whatever term they throw at each other.

Sorry to be a bit on the cryptic side, but we just had a scene here that was ridiculous and totally without merit. I do not appreciate people messing with the kids. Teenagers are not property to control. They are young adults who will soon be on their own, especially when they are 17 and almost 18. They deserve the best guidance we have to give. 

Image credit: Chase Your Bliss Photography

Post from: Blisstree

Be A Good Example For Teens

They arrived when I was making dinner, packed his stuff up, and left. I had no idea he was leaving that day – Bay didn’t say a word. I knew that he was going to leave this Summer, but not when. Later, she told me that they were also broken-up. I’m not sure where they stand now. I don’t want to push her – she will talk to me about it when she feels up to it.

Bailey is doing pretty good. She can’t talk about it, but she’s not crying all day, so that’s a good sign. She’s talking about looking for a job and has plans to go hang out with her friend, Sarah.

I don’t know how Greg is doing. She’s spoken to him. He was okay when he left.

Our house is so quiet without Greg’s rumbley voice. I miss hearing the kids laughing in Bay’s room. He’s a good kid. I wish him the best, but right now, it feels like he broke up with all of us. Sarah and I miss him a lot. Kitty is pretty lost.

Break-ups suck. Plain and simple. I’ve been both the break-up-er and the break-up-ee. Neither feels good, both carry a large helping of pain and guilt. I hope that the kids are able to figure this out.

In the meantime, they can do some thinking, spend some time with their friends. They’ve been pretty much in each other’s pocket for awhile. They could use a little wiggle-room, a little growing up time.  They are very young and this could actually be a good thing.

I just want my daughter to be happy.

Image credit: Chase Your Bliss Photography

Post from: Blisstree

Maybe They Are Taking A Break