Health – Page 5 – Melissa Schlies

Why 2020 Makes Me Want to Swear, & I have a Feeling I’m Not Alone

Growing up in New England, sledding was often an every winter occurrence. One memory I have of sledding included me, my younger sister, and a boy from our neighborhood all pilling in our long, blue sled. We were at the top of a snow covered hill just down the street from home. Suddenly gravity took over and sent us careening downward. When our turn came, the boy sitting in front inched us toward the edge until suddenly gravity took over and sent us careening downward. Quickly, over the boy’s shoulder, I could see we were headed for the one big [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-04-21T15:36:49+00:00April 20th, 2020|Categories: Fear, grief, Health, Mental Health, perseverance, Social Distancing, Social Distancing Survival Guide|2 Comments

What To Do When Being At Home Is Hard

A friend of mine once told me that she hates spending too much time at home. When she was growing up, things were bad living with her parents. Home was not a good place to be. So now, as an adult, she’d rather spend her downtime outside of her own home—doing errands or being involved in activities. For her, being home means being still enough for all the hard things of her past to surface. Home is not always our place of comfort. Only now, that is where many of us are. We’re working from home or our jobs have [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-04-06T12:33:07+00:00April 6th, 2020|Categories: Anxiety, Conflict, Depression, Health, Hope, Mental Health, Self Care, Social Distancing|2 Comments

Five Ways to Approach Your Pandemic Grief

In the corner of our living room right now, there is a big stack of boxes. It had begun to form over a month ago, when our plans looked very different. Now, they’re a daily reminder that our lives have been put on hold. Tony and I were supposed to move this season. No, we haven’t found a house (though we came very close to putting an offer on one). But before Covid-19, we’d been actively looking. And as the boxes in our living room can attest, we were already packing. We were READY to move. Only now, everything is [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-04-01T23:16:50+00:00April 2nd, 2020|Categories: Acceptance, Change, comparison, Conflict, Depression, grief, Health, Hope, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, Mental Health|Comments Off

Finding Healing From Creativity

There’s this thing that happens when you make the most of a bad situation for longer than you should: once you leave, all the crappy stuff comes back to you. It doesn’t stay in the past, where you thought you left it. Instead it oozes out of you in the most inconvenient times. It weighs you down, in the very moment you’re ready to move forward. That’s exactly how I felt when I left church ministry. Just when I thought I’d made my escape, all the pain I hadn’t dealt with or even acknowledged, rose to the surface. And, as [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-03-19T18:24:31+00:00March 23rd, 2020|Categories: Creativity, grief, Health, Hope, Identity, Mental Health|Comments Off

Social Distancing: Five Tips To Working From Home

It’s a strange thing to find oneself at home interminably, when so much of your life has been at your job. If you live alone, all of a sudden everything is very quiet and still. If you have kids, it’s the opposite. And, if your home has become your work place, it is all the stranger. To do work in the place you rest feels unnatural, and terribly distracting. Yet this is where most of us have found ourselves this past week: Working from home. As I decided to pursue writing and life coaching a few years ago, this reality [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-03-18T23:19:26+00:00March 19th, 2020|Categories: Adulting, Balance, Change, Creativity, Health, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, perseverance, Preparation, Routines, Social Distancing|Comments Off

What if We’re Homebound Because of COVID-19?

Hello Friends, this post was written very early in the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, its implications and our understanding of them, have only grown. All that to say, there is so much this post doesn’t address (the loss of jobs, the stress on hospitals, etc.). But as many of us continue to practice social distancing, the spirit of this piece still stands. Just when we thought the world couldn’t get any crazier, a flu-like virus is shutting down entire countries and giving almost 300 million students an unexpected, scary spring break. Companies are asking employees to work from home, or at minimum, [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-03-24T16:03:48+00:00March 16th, 2020|Categories: Anxiety, Creativity, Fear, Health, Hope, Mental Health, Preparation, Self Care|Comments Off

Just What You (May) Need to Hear

It is the second to last day of January. How did that happen? I don’t know about you, but 2020 has already thrown me a few surprises. Some good, some really hard, and more than a few I am not ready for—yet here we are. And as much as my planner self hates to admit, there are only a few things we actually have control over in life. We can fill out our Start Here: Dream Planners, and come up with brilliant strategies for how we want to approach 2020. But that doesn’t mean everything is going to go to [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-03-26T16:40:25+00:00January 30th, 2020|Categories: Adulting, Balance, Change, Freedom, Health, Hope, Lead, Leadership, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, Mental Health, podcasts I love|Comments Off

Three Things to Remember About Making New Year’s Goals

As I shared last week, I love a good challenge. I am not talking about an in-the-moment dare to do something crazy. But rather a thoughtfully planned, thirty or so day challenge to do something that helps me grow and change. But even though challenges are great because they jumpstart us short-term, they can still be hard. Challenges are hard, because change is hard. Whether you have jumpstarted your 2020 with a Challenge, or you’ve gone the traditional route of modifying your habits to help you reach your goals—by now, I know you are feeling this. Cutting out indulgences, or [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-03-26T16:36:58+00:00January 16th, 2020|Categories: Balance, Change, Courage, discipline, Habit Making, Health, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, perseverance, Routines, Success|Comments Off

One Thing We Forget About Making New Year’s Changes

I have a confession to make: My jeans don’t fit. Sure, I can still button them. But you don’t want to see what’s rolling over. I promise, I won’t go into anymore details except to say, if you see me wearing big sweaters, you’ll know why. Slowly, over the past few years, I’ve been gaining weight. Last year was the worst. It probably didn’t help that my gluten and sugar-free standards were thrown out the window for our Team Schlies Bakery Tour of 2019. Or, that there were some other things I also let slide. But if I look at [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-03-26T16:36:00+00:00January 13th, 2020|Categories: Change, Courage, discipline, Habit Making, Health, perseverance|Comments Off

In 2020, Start Here

The few days right after New Years are always interesting. Like geese migrating with the change of a season, some of us flock to the nearest gym, where every treadmill or elliptical machine is taken. While others of us suffer through what I like to call the Holiday Hangover. It’s that exhausted, “What just happened” feeling we get when the alarm goes off for our first day back at work. Or, getting back into our pajamas as soon as we come home from said job, because we just can’t. And sometimes, if we’re truly unlucky, the Holiday Hangover includes [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-03-26T16:32:23+00:00January 2nd, 2020|Categories: Adulting, Change, Habit Making, Health, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, Preparation, Routines, Start Here, Uncategorized|Comments Off

Five Ways to Approach Your Pandemic Grief

Finding Healing From Creativity

What if We’re Homebound Because of COVID-19?

Just What You (May) Need to Hear

Three Things to Remember About Making New Year’s Goals

One Thing We Forget About Making New Year’s Changes

In 2020, Start Here

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