As I discussed in my previous blog, The Gift of Gratitude, gratefulness is one of those gifts that keeps on giving.  When we embrace an attitude of gratitude, it does wonders for the health & happiness of both ourselves and others.

So where do we start?  It is helpful to talk about gratefulness as an active process or practice.  This reminds us that gratitude is like a muscle that gets strengthened through use.  

Here I have provided some strategies for developing your personal gratitude practice.

I was recently interviewed for an online article about motivation. One question that seemed deserving of some extra attention was whether or not I have any morning rituals that keep me positive and motivated throughout the day.

And the answer is a resounding yes.

Hope you enjoy this guest blog from Vanessa & Stephanie of Modern Flourish!

It’s late afternoon on Wednesday at the office. As I start wrapping up some last minute emails, I start to think about my after work plans.

“Do some exercise, make chicken lettuce wraps for dinner, laundry, finish up some reading and writing, prepare lunch for tomorrow...”

Twenty minutes later, I arrive home by bike. I enter my living room and make eye contact with my couch. It’s a four-year-old, three seater made with soft, creamy Italian leather. The kind that envelops you in coziness from the moment you sit down.

With all of the negative connotations around resolutions, it’s perhaps not surprising that there has been a move in recent years towards setting positive intentions instead.  The key here is to make sure we’re not just talking semantics. I’m not advocating calling your planned 10 pound weight loss an “intention”. The whole feel, the essence of an intention is different.

Intentions are more like road maps than destinations.  They are about manifesting your dreams and living the life you envision for yourself in the present.  

I was recently interviewed for an online magazine and the first question asked was how I keep myself motivated, “even when everything seems to be going wrong”.  We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Motivation waxes and wanes, and it can be especially demoralizing — and easy to throw in the towel — when you feel like you are turning your wheels and just not getting anywhere.

I certainly don’t have all the answers — for myself let alone anyone else.  But I do have a personal prescription that seems to keep me pluggin’ along, even when the going gets tough.

Hard to believe that another month and a new season are upon us.  As I get older, time truly does seem to go by faster.  How is it that the kids’ spring break just ended and now the school year is hurtling to a close at breakneck speed?!?

Thinking back to my childhood, the summers seemed to last forever.  We would play outside from dawn till dusk, taking little breaks to munch on Mr. Freezies and ketchup-dipped grilled cheese sandwiches (yup, the ones with Wonder Bread and Kraft cheese slices). Fast forward to present day and I turn around to find that it’s late August and we’re in the throws of back-to-school shopping.

I write about the passage of time now because I am acutely aware of my need to be more actively engaged in the present.  This is something I often struggle with.  I spent so many years pre and post med school planning, worrying about — and frankly living for — the “next thing”.  The next class, paper, exam, clinical rotation, course, accomplishment.  That future-focused mentality permeated everything.  Truth be told, my husband and I would be on vacation and find ourselves missing the ocean sunset as we made plans for the next vacation.

“I’m a great believer in luck, and the harder I work, the more I have of it.”

-- Thomas Jefferson

In one of my previous blogs, Luck & Love, I discuss how some of our success in both love and life is simply out of our control.  That being said, we do know that luck is at least partially self-induced.  So-called lucky people often employ ways of thinking and behaving -- whether consciously or subconsciously -- that actively increase their good fortune.

Now I don’t know about you, but I am certainly open to the idea of bringing more good fortune into my life!  And how exactly can this be done?  Well, after mulling it over and reviewing the literature, I’ve come up with what I believe to be some simple “luck-generating” strategies.

“I am not looking to escape my darkness, I am learning to love myself there."
- Rune Lazuli

In previous blogs, I have talked about perfectionism as a roadblock to inner peace, fulfilment & joy.  In this era where we are inundated with picture-perfect #everythingisfiltered social media, I think it’s worth a revisit.

When I started examining my own relatively extreme perfectionistic tendencies, I wondered how to go about “fixing” myself.  I looked at my attention to detail, my drive to be good at what I do, even my colour-coordinated closet and uber-organized home.  I wondered if letting go of perfect meant that I had to “let it all go”...

What language do you speak?  And I’m not talking English or français here.  I’m talking “the little things”, words of appreciation and affirmation, physical touch...  Yes, I’m talking love languages.

This may not be a new concept for some of you.  Gary Chapman’s best selling book, “The 5 Love Languages”, has sold over 10 million copies.  Still, if you’re anything like me, a little re-reflection on the subject can be helpful from time-to-time.

I recently posted a pic on Instagram of our first trip to Barbados in 2006.  We had a calm and quiet stretch of beach near our rented flat that was perfect for our first born chicklet.  And days and days of beautiful sunshine.

Our current reality here in Canada is far different for the vast majority of the year.  As I post this, it is a relatively cold, grey and dreary day in January.  This brings to mind the importance of vitamin D - the so-called "sunshine vitamin".

I have a confession.  I have never made a New Year’s resolution.  Even as a kid.  Perhaps this results from my self-reflective nature.  Working on myself and setting goals is just what I do — part of my commitment to a growth mindset.  As a therapist, I have also developed a heightened awareness of the potential pitfalls of resolutions.  Winter can already be troublesome for many.  With the darker, colder months come changes in sleeping, eating, socializing and activity patterns and sometimes dramatic drops in energy and mood.  Throw in the post-holiday overeating overspending regrets and we are primed for negativity.  Far too many times, I have seen women use resolutions as a guise for self-beratement.  They compare themselves to others, think about what they loathe about themselves and mash their self-criticism into something that sounds like a New Year’s resolution but behaves more like a weapon for repeated self-punishment.  Suffice it to say, this is more destructive than helpful.

“A good life is a storied life…”

This is a meaningful message from one of Jonathan Field’s Good Life Project podcasts.  I first played the podcast just after decorating the Christmas tree with my husband and three children.  We had the wine and hot chocolate flowing and the holiday tunes blaring.  And I realized that stories are indeed what give meaning and richness to our lives.

I absolutely love our Christmas tree.  It is far from a Martha Stewart masterpiece.  Instead, it proudly displays an eclectic assortment of ornaments that have been collected from our travels and significant events over the years.  Each ornament tells a story.  These stories move me.  They lead my children to ask me each year about the places I have visited and the family and friends I miss.  We smile.  We laugh.  We sing.  We reminisce and reflect about the people and experiences that bring us vitality, connection and joy.

“Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to go shopping.”

                                                            — Bo Derek, American actress

For one of my recent Instagram posts, I did a flashback of my trip to Hong Kong.  HK is, by many accounts, one of the top shopping cities in the world.  It is absolutely packed with purchasing opportunities — from street markets selling trinkets to electronic shops with the latest and greatest, to high-end fashion boutiques and everything in between.

The experience led me to reflect on how spending money on “things” impacts people’s happiness.  According to market research company TNS Global, more than 50% of Americans admit to shopping for a mood boost — so-called “retail therapy”.  Given my recent blog, “Money Can’t Buy Happiness…Or Can it?”, I thought I would delve into the literature on this rather common coping mechanism.

A friend recently sent me Michael Norton’s TED Talk, “How to buy happiness”.  I was intrigued — mainly because I have been in the camp that posits that more money in-and-of-itself does not a happy person make.  A widespread stance in the literature is that once basic needs have been provided for, increases in wealth do little to improve personal well-being.  We all know rich people who are relatively miserable, and others with little who seem to have figured out the secrets of a happy life.

However, this talk made me add qualifiers to my position.  Let me explain...

Comparing ourselves to others is a fast-track route to unhappiness.  If we look, we will always find someone who is smarter, more successful, more attractive.  Whenever I get sucked into making comparisons, I quickly find myself in a downward spiral of self-doubt and self-criticism.

I used to think Monopoly was a long game, but it’s got nothing on this.  The Comparison Game has no end.  It’s up to us to shut it down.  Here are some strategies we can use to move from punishing ourselves with comparisons to making healthy personal connections.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” - Theodore Roosevelt

Yes, I, too, periodically struggle with that comparison beast.  And she gathers momentum by joining forces with people-pleasing, perfectionism & the all too familiar imposter syndrome.  When these brutes bare their ugly heads...

Truthfully, I resisted social media & the blogosphere for a long time.  I was too aware of the toll being “online” was taking -- the young people seeing me in therapy who were hiding in their bedrooms, agonizing over photos and likes.  So often, they would report being ‘connected’ yet confess to feeling desperately isolated and alone.  We talked about how they seemed uncomfortable in their own skin, disconnected from their ‘real’ selves.  They struggled with the sense that everyone else had picture-perfect lives, unable to recognize that others were also riddled with insecurity and hidden behind facades.

In both medicine and day-to-day life, how we label people impacts our perception of them and, as a corollary, our behaviour toward them.  Labels can stigmatize, limit opportunities, and trap often unwitting participants in a proverbial box.

I am thrilled to launch Dr. Tara’s Sunshine Food Joy page on the website.  I absolutely love experimenting with healthy foods and creating nutritious and delicious recipes for my family and friends.  As a doctor, psychotherapist, mother, and athlete, I have also seen firsthand the impact of lifestyle choices on physical, mental and social well-being.  I firmly believe that healthy habits relating to diet, activity and sleep are fundamental to engaging in a full and joyful life.  Our guts, bodies and brains are intricately and beautifully interconnected in ways that science is still learning to understand.  

Personal boundaries are kind of like the unwritten ‘rules of engagement’ in our relationships.  They determine the way we communicate, how much we give of ourselves both physically and emotionally, and what we are willing to accept from others.