I am not a person who sits well with my emotions. I mean really sit and reflect why I’m feeling the way I am. And for what reason? I know it may sound completely bizarre because I’m an insanely emotional person who wears my heart on my sleeve, and perhaps is a little too sensitive to, well, pretty much everything. But as I’m slowly learning through unfortunate situations with friends, stuff at work, and with life in general, having an open heart is not a weakness nor is it a bad thing. We all have our strengthens and weaknesses, reflecting on why our so called weaknesses are just that, weaknesses, is important to do from time to time. It’s good to check in with yourself. Because as we age and mature – or not – these strengths and weaknesses of ours can change yearly, monthly, or even daily.

Like most people I imagine, I tend to hide away when I’m feeling sad or throw and punch things, in the privacy of my own apartment of course, when I’m angry. Or I anger clean my house. Which is kind of efficient really. I don’t like showing my sadness or anger, rather I try and cope with it. This is not the best solution because coping is not a way of solving the real issue, it’s more of a deterrent from the root problem. As you can imagine a lot of this mentality came up in training. Emotions would run high and low and all around because a lot of training – in the most subtle way hidden under all the practicing and lectures – was connecting with yourself.

After a month of practice teaching and receiving feedback for my classes project number one was complete! Project two, the Wheel of Life as they call it, was designed for us to open up to the experience and emotions teaching brought up, but even more so, we were to reflect with what was going on in our lives leading up to training. Boy, this is getting deep.

I won’t bore you with the details of what I wrote, but as I was writing I found more and more stuff come up. Like why I was so driven with my career and less interested in romance. And why I would beat up myself for not being a good friend, and what I need to work on in certain family relationships. It was kind of weird. But therapeutic.

Our wheel of life was divided into eight categorizes: Business/Career, Finances, Health, Family and Friends, Romance, Personal Growth, Fun And Recreation, and Physical Environment. For each category we had to grade ourselves and explain why. Like I said it was weird, but therapeutic. Then we had to create another wheel, but this time we had to show where we wanted each category to be. This was even weirder. And more importantly how are you going to go about bringing these changes into your life to improve your grade. Not so easy now, is it? Again I won’t bore you with any grueling details of my wheel, but if you’re interested (or just curious) I’d be happy to share!

What would your Wheel of Life look like? What parts of your life could you improve or work on? Give it a try and journal it. You may just surprise yourself with the kind of circle you create.