Practicing positivity can lower stress, improve physical health, yield healthier relationships, and more. I am drawn to books, articles, and podcasts that provide practical strategies for reframing my outlook and perceptions in ways that support my wellness and healthy relationships with others. There is no shortage of strategies. Strategies such as these worked for me at various life stages—until March 2020.

Grace, the experience of gifts freely given, is ever present; it’s the body breathing, and the heart beating, it is seeing, tasting, smelling, touching, and feeling (emotion), thinking, and it is language and speech, listening, laughter, kindness, generosity and gratitude, and it is the awareness that knows in and through all these and more. “Resting” in grace requires patience, the ability to stay and attend long enough to receive and savor what has been freely given.

Our success at work is often measured by metrics of productivity and efficiency, with working faster, longer, and harder sometimes presumed to be their own reward. Work also can be entangled with status judgments, in which our answer to, “What do you do?” brings a loaded assessment of our importance by another’s standards. Our work is not only about what we do or how fast we do it. It is also about who we are and choose to be. It is about the deep meaningfulness of our individual stories, values, and self-understanding.

Concerns around well-being affect learning, teaching, academic service, and overall work experience for many individuals and make it especially tough for those who measure their self-worth based on their success and achievement, as it is more difficult to attain high standards during times of distress and unpredictability.   

Times of transition and adjustment can also be times to rethink and reinvent. Positive change starts with valuing our own selves and wanting something better. Positive goals help us shift our attention back to ourselves. Now is a great time to contemplate, imagine, and plan what kind of future you’d like to see.

A common concern for our young adults is what has been termed “adulting.” Adulting encompasses the responsibilities, sometimes mundane, one must take on and manage as an adult. This can be everything from paying taxes, to buying a refrigerator, to becoming someone’s boss, to making a doctor’s appointment (and going to it), to following a budget, to simply staying home on a Friday night.

Work-life balance (WLB) by definition is an individual’s ability to meet their work and family commitments, as well as other non-work responsibilities. However, this definition has a problem; we don’t often put mental health as a responsibility in our lives. Managing responsibilities is good practice for our lives, but leaving out our mental health can have dire consequences.

As the pandemic marches on, and our work and play remain restricted, Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, is likely darkening the outlook for some of us within the University of Iowa community.

The practice of self-reflection is our ability to “turn our attention inward to consider our own thoughts, memories, feelings, and actions.” (Philippi & Koenigs, 2014, p. 56) It is a productive evaluation of what is working in your life and what is not, what emotions you are experiencing, and what physical sensations you have in response to memories, thoughts, and emotions. Self-reflective practice uses an “observer stance,” through the use of curiosity and self-compassion, taking a non-judgmental perspective toward yourself.

Do you remember your first car? Your first kiss? Your first heartbreak? The first sense of accomplishment that you felt really proud of, like high school graduation? First job? Placing at state for a sport or program? Your first failure? The first time you didn’t feel like part of the group? These are all examples of how experiences prompt identity change.