Tag: life

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to find fun ways to distract yourself from unhelpful thoughts.

I’ve had some worries about things in my personal life lately. Nothing really wrong, but I can let negative thoughts or experiences get me down or upset me. At times, I struggle to keep focused, or even be upbeat.

My wife often helps, but when she isn’t available, I have to find my own ways to cope. Recently, I did a couple of things that helped a bit after seeing this tip.

First, I took a break from life and read a bit. I’ve had an interesting book I’m working through (The Man Burned by Winter). I spent a few minutes reading, which distracted my thinking.

I also took a different break and worked on a small ranch project. Work helped me, especially physical things, so I took a few minutes to install a wheel on a gate. Something that I needed to do, and the focus on a small project didn’t leave me room for thoughts.

Time helps to dampen the impact of thoughts and feelings, so distractions are good.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to take a few minutes outside to breathe and enjoy nature.

I love living in Colorado, where the weather allows us to be outside on most days of the year. Today, I took a couple breaks to just walk outside for a few minutes and just be there, closing my eyes, breathing, feeling the sun, light breeze, and fresh air.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to challenge negative thoughts. Find an alternative interpretation.

In general, I tend to be a positive person. Not always, but most of the time. That being said, I do get negative about conflicts and discord when I don’t get along with others. Most of the time, I do get along, which is good for my mental health.

I’ve had some concerns lately about how I interact with a new person in my life. I will deal with this person regularly across the next year (maybe longer), and I don’t know them as well as I’d like. We had some tough interaction getting started, more about a situation than us not getting along. This lingered a bit as a decision was put off.

However, it was easy for me to take the disagreement personally. I struggled a bit to not feel that something was my fault, or it was the other person’s fault. In either case I felt upset, a little angry, sad, and concerned. Not good emotions to hold on to.

In talking things out with my wife, I tried to look at things from another point of view, from the other person’s, from an independent view, as if this were someone else. I could see that there might be other reasons why we hadn’t come to a quick, smooth, easy resolution.

Finding an alternative interpretation was good for me to step back and not take things personally. It isn’t resolved as of this writing, but hopefully soon.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to write down your worries and save them for a “worry time.”

There are plenty of things I worry about. Perhaps not as many as others, but I do have concerns and anxiety about different things in my life (work, family, friends, world, etc.).

One of my concerns is with the data community, speakers, and diversity. I worry about this in many facets and am unsure of how to move forward or what to do.

Rather than be concerned, I make some notes, I chat with people about ideas, and I slowly think about it over time. But, I set aside some time to worry about it and let it go most of the time.

Most of the time that works. Not always, but most of the time.