Week Two: Emotional Balance

Week Two of Seven Disciplines of Intentional Living is Emotional Balance.

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(transcript from Youtube)

Hi everyone, I am so excited it is week two! Yes, week two and I still got my pom-poms. I’m still cheering you on hopefully you gleaned something from week one when I talked about occupational and financial as the balance in the areas of intentional discipline the seven disciplines of intentional living. Yes, so week one I discussed occupational and financial balance and today week two and I’m so grateful if you’re able to watch this live.  If not, you can go back to this and play it over and over again, but we’re going to speak on emotional balance and why it’s so important to build emotional balance.

One must advocate and put themselves as a priority.  You can’t give your best to your family your community and your colleagues if you are overwhelmed and burned out.  One of the things that I use I keep the stress ball in my car and when traffic is crazy, or someone cuts me off I’m intentional I place this in my car, I grab it, I squeeze it, and I get re-centered and I count five, four, three, two, one, these are just a stress ball is just one of the ways to get emotional balance.  What does that look like? So emotional balance it’s about your thoughts your feelings your behaviors because they’re all interconnected.  I want you all to challenge what does that look like?  So again, I want you to go into a SWOT Analysis in this emotional balance.  This is where you really have to be courageous and keep it real with yourself.  So, a SWOT Analysis, many businesses use it to help them get really laser focused and create and develop a strategy to be able to answer what makes them different and what makes them unique from their competitors. So, SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.  So, for emotional balance what strengths do you have when it comes to emotional balance?  Maybe you are objective, and you don’t jump to conclusions right away.  You gather all the information. Or maybe you just are very animated, and you just see things just one way and that’s it.  What are some weaknesses?  This is where you can invite people that you trust and care about you to ask them what weaknesses or areas of improvements in the area of emotions that you could improve on.  Maybe you have irrational thoughts where it’s all or nothing, or everyone is out to get me, or nothing ever works.  That is irrational thinking.  Or having the feeling of where you’re constantly depressed and you just isolate yourself, pull back.

That is not healthy.  Or then you have the behaviors where you just drink. Or you do things that are not healthy to numb the pain instead of maybe going to a support group, reaching out for help, counseling, or therapy.  Again, stress balls. I also encourage taking uh soaking in a bath with Epsom salt.  They all come in so many different flavors like lavender and spearmint.  All that may be calming and relaxing.  Look into these things.  Also, I carry lotion in my purse that is orange scented because citrus wakes up our senses.  Have you ever peeled into an orange or a lemon or a lime?  That citrus, it really just brightens up everything and it gets you going.  Another opportunity to think about is breathing techniques.  Through the nose and out the mouth.  Just relaxing.  Just blocking everything out when you are working home remotely, or you’re struggling to find a job because your hours have been reduced, or everybody is wanting your attention.  You have to think about what you are willing to put in place to get emotionally balanced.  When the world is chaotic like we’re experiencing now or maybe even prior to.  What are you willing to do?  Because if you’re emotional, if you are emotionally off center, it’s going to travel to every other area.  Like your finances, like your occupation, and spiritually.  Some other opportunities is self-awareness.  Again, what are you willing to do to become self-aware?  It takes courage.  And boundaries.  You may have noticed that people take advantage of you.  Maybe you take advantage of other people.  That’s because boundaries are not set.  If you care more about something or someone more than yourself then you need to re-evaluate what’s going on.  Boundaries, healthy boundaries, and then self-care.  I mentioned some self-care opportunities.  Again counseling, therapy, stress balls, support groups, journaling.

So strengths, weaknesses, opportunity.  So, I discussed strengths and weaknesses.  What are some opportunities in the area of emotional balance?  Maybe it’s an opportunity to write a book.  Because you’re realizing you’re not the only one that feels this way or the only one that has experienced the situation.  So maybe it’s an opportunity to put it on paper and to write a book, or to start that blog, or that vlog.  So those are just a few opportunities that come from being emotionally balanced.   Be mindful of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.  What are the threats?  What are people perceiving in you?  What situations have gotten you in trouble?  What situations if you could take it back, you know what wasn’t a good call?   Again strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.  Emotional balance. I’ll repeat, to build emotional balance, one must advocate and put themselves as a priority.  Sometimes we don’t do that enough.  We make mama, daddy, our children, our husband, wife, the job, everybody a priority except us.  Are you taking your vacation days?  Are you taking those walks?  Are you meditating?  All of this is very helpful.  I know one thing that has helped me, I lost my mother in December, and I’ve struggled with sleeping.  Doing a lot of tossing and turning.  My mind was like a computer with a bunch of open tabs. Can anybody relate?  When my mind is just constantly zooming, thinking, rehearsing, and reminding myself of okay I need to do this tomorrow, I need to do that, I need to call this person, I better write this down, then I’m losing sleep.  Sleep is so important.  I try to get at least eight hours a day.  Many people operate and function just well with four to six hours.  That’s great!  I am not a morning person, so you know I love you!   Especially, if I am on here live at eight o’clock doing the Seven Disciplines of Intentional Living.  I am so not a morning person, but I’m trying to be consistent.  I found out about a Christian App.  I have it on my phone.  It’s called Abide.  It’s scriptural meditation.  There are various people who will help pray over you, they’ll use biblical scripture, there’s the sound of water, uh sometimes it’s nature sounds.  Therefore, I’m relaxed from my head to my shoulders to my back my legs my feet.  Before I know it as I’m listening to this meditation, I’m drifting off to sleep.  It works!  I absolutely love it.  So again, my name is Jennifer Foxworthy I am the Founder and CEO of Inspirationally Speaking, LLC.  It is my passion, my desire, to help you identify any internal and external barriers that may keep you from living a purposeful life. From living peacefully, from having joy, from being happier, maybe your production at work has decreased maybe you’ve isolated yourself during this time frame whatever it is it’s time to get centered. 2020 was the year of vision. Hopefully, you gained some clarity.  Now the year 2021, is the year of maturity. I want you and myself to mature through all aspects. There’s seven of them.  Each week I am covering them. So again, I love you I hope you find this fruitful.  Grab a stress ball and put it in your car.  Put it in your purse.  Whatever you can grab in those stressful times and start squeezing.  Start counting.  Get back to center.  Get back to focus.  I want you to have a Get F.I.T. Mindset.  Get F.I.T. is my brand and my motto for Inspirationally Speaking.  F.I.T. is the root word for fitness.  But we need to be fit in all avenues of our lives. F.I.T. stands for focused intentional and thriving.  Have a wonderful day!