For most of us, life is so busy! Even if you’re not experiencing necessarily negative emotions, the obligations and pace of life can create stress. De-stressing is essential for health in the short and long term. This how-to list focuses on accessible tools - ones that can be accessed alone and on a minimal budget.

I was once working with a client who was stuck on this idea that she was a failure and would be destined to fail forever. Can you relate? Her negative self-image was only fortified by a her skewed and ceaseless rehashing of the past. “I’ve failed so many times… I left those jobs, and quit that school. Those relationships didn’t work out either.”

From kindergarten we are asked this question - What do you want to be? We may conjure a fantasy or two, but over time these become remolded by the pressures of our peers, parents, teachers, culture and obligations of life. Endless distraction takes us away from ourselves and we loose direction. How can we come back to ourselves and move forward with clarity and confidence?

It’s easy to get down on oneself for not accomplishing what we set out to do. Followthrough is important, but there is also something to be said for having faith - that in each and every experience, there is value, even if the experience appears superficially as “failure”.

Do you ever have the irrational urge to run away? When we are uncomfortable - we seek to escape our present reality. Maybe there is boredom or sadness, maybe there is loneliness or fear, and then there is an impulse to “run away” to alcohol, to cigarettes, to weed, to food etc.

When we’re in the darkness of depression, where is the light? When we’re as fatigued as can be, where is there energy? Amazingly, there is an antidote to hopelessness that will provide nourishment even when the world seems bare.

The house can’t always be neat, we’re not going to always be on time and plans wont always come to fruition. Sometimes it flows, but life, it can also be downright messy.

Simply put, we all want to feel good. Depending on where our balance lies, feeling good will mean accessing different resources at different times. In one moment or another we may be in search of comfort, joy, connection, stimulation, rest, inspiration, purpose or safety, for example.
 If we aren’t in this present state of feeling satisfied, we can catch ourselves not present at all, but rather off in a past or future fantasy world.