Roger K. Allen's Blog, page 20

Help for the Holiday Blues

Ever feel like the holidays are more of a hassle than pleasure? Do you become stressed, irritable and even depressed during a season that’s supposed to be merry?

The period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day can be stressful for anyone—so many social events and family gatherings; questions about how family dynamics will play out; decorating, baking, preparing meals, and buying gifts. Stores and malls are crowded and Christmas shopping becomes an elbow-to-elbow, pocketbook-draining exper...

How to Communicate with Your Children

http://Photo by Josh Willink from Pexels

A lot of parenting goes on day-to-day as we casually interact with our kids. These interactions have to do with managing life and proceed without incident. Some interactions, however, are more significant because they are emotionally charged and potentially fraught with conflict.

I call these key moments–situations or events which present a challenge and demand our response. We cannot not respond to a key moment. The question is, are we conscious and...

Calm Heart and Clear Mind

“When you cannot see what is happening in a group, do not stare harder. Relax and look gently with your inner eye.

When you do not understand what a person is saying, do not grasp for every word. Give up your efforts. Become silent inside and listen with your deepest self.

When you are puzzled by what you see or hear, do not strive to figure things out.  Stand back for a moment and become calm. When a person is calm, complex events appear simple.

To know what is happening, push less, open up...

Learning to be Optimistic

We often think of certain attributes such as optimism and pessimism as givens, permanent and ingrained into our personalities, something that we have little control over or can do nothing about. That’s not a very helpful point of view. It renders us helpless, powerless, victims of either our genetics or early child upbringing.

However, scientists are learning today that we are much more fluid in personality, biology, and even intelligence than we have long believed. Epigenetics asserts that...

Bouncing Back-Lessons from Watching a Child Learn to Walk

How fun is it to watch a child learn to walk? It takes time—months of struggling (rolling over, getting up on all fours, crawling) for a child to finally stand up…only to fall. He gets back up and falls. Yet he doesn’t give up. He gets up, falls, gets up, falls, gets up….

I’ve noticed that in the beginning, most children will climb to their feet while holding onto something like a couch. After lots of practice they are able to get up and scoot as long as they are holding onto the couch. Then...

Five Secrets for Coping with Setbacks

We’ve all heard that there are only two things we can count on for certain: death and taxes. But anyone who has ever lost a job, suffered from an illness, or become estranged from a love one can tell you, there’s a third certainty that can be added to that list—setbacks. Setbacks happen, and they happen to everyone.

Here is the positive spin. Setbacks are how we develop personal character and emotional resilience. It is not when the waters of life are calm and sailing is smooth that we grow,...

Oh Well! supporting myself no matter what

A few months back I was invited to join a cowboy band, not a band that sings country western but old-school cowboy music like Cool Water, Tumbling Tumble Weed, Ghost Riders in the Sky and many others songs that I’d never heard of before. In addition to cowboy music, the band also has an extensive repertoire of Hawaiian Music.

The band is made up of five of us—a lead singer (and organizer) who plays acoustic guitar, someone who plays electric bass guitar but doesn’t sing, someone who plays a...

The Courage to be Imperfect

I heard from many of you a few weeks back about my article entitled “The Belief That I’m not Enough.” Not surprisingly, the topic resonated with a lot of people and so I’d like to continue this theme by exploring ways we can conquer this self-damaging belief and create self-acceptance and confidence. I thought I’d start by republishing an article I wrote seven years ago entitled “The Courage to be Imperfect.” I want to encourage you to read the article (below) and do the exercise. Remember t...

The Belief that I’m Not Enough

I remember skiing with a few friends a few years back. These friends are excellent skiers who hit the slopes 25 plus times a year. Until a few years ago I was fortunate to get up once or twice.

One of them had a GoPro camera and loved to record himself swooshing down the steepest and toughest terrain on the mountain. He was a great skier. On one trip down, he hollered up the mountain that he was turning the camera on me. I suddenly felt very self-conscious as I started down a large track of...

Self-Doubt

Most people believe that those who have achieved greatly are free of self-doubt. Or that if they, personally, achieve their biggest dreams, fame, or fortune they’ll be free of self-doubt.

If only.

I believe that whenever we set big goals or choose to stretch and grow, we’re going to have self-doubt. After all, we’re moving into new and unfamiliar territory, which brings risk, uncertainty, and requires development of new mental strategies and skills. How could some degree of self-doubt not be...