Link to original article published via Elephant Journal

I have a cabinet full of cards and stationary—I have always loved expressing myself through the written word.The act of putting pen to paper stimulates a part of the brain—one that is as comforting as a soft and plush sweater on a cold dreary day.
Earlier this year I had a desire to write and started dabbling in a few gratitude letters to my closest friends and family.
The turning point was writing a letter to my grandmother, pleading with her to move closer so she could have the support of family in her last chapter of life. I had visions of learning more of her famous recipes, spending holidays together and just having my kids get to know her better. I hoped that if I poured my heart into the words and offered to help, how could she say no?

My grandmother politely wrote back saying no. At first, my heart felt heavy and sad, yet I realized at least I had revealed my true feelings. I politely wrote back letting her know I understood and offered an open invitation.
I felt as if I were in the olden days communicating via written letter versus the phone, email or text.

After writing to my grandmother, I had an ongoing urge to keep writing—what other feelings would be uncovered?

I trusted my gut and decided to write over 100 letters. I set no parameters or expectations, simply began to use all the beautiful stationary and cards I had accumulated over the years.
I wrote as if these were my last words to each person, so I expressed fully from gratitude for the first 80ish letters and felt a sense of appreciation that embodied me fully. I felt liberated, I had finally told my family how much I love them, my favorite coach how much he touched my life.
Yet, there was something unsettling. I called one of my mentors and she gracefully reminded me that I had yet to write about the other emotions, the anger and grief that had been bottled up and neatly stored in the depths of my inner soul.
The last letters were not neatly presented on fine paper, they were sloppily written on scrap paper and a complete release of all the yucky emotions trapped. These letters were burned, not mailed.

Ah ha, the spectrum of emotions which we all encompass was revealed. Let us start with love.

Love (serenity, joy, ecstasy): Love has always been present in many forms. Many times we are blinded by our other emotions to see who truly loves us.
I personally realized the variety of adult figures I was surrounded by that formed who I am today. I truly know there is more than one way to deal with the things in front of us, yet I know if we choose love, the world opens up.
Tears overwhelmed me when I saw how many loved and still love me.

Submission (acceptance, trust, admiration): I may have a wild and crazy family—don’t we all? I am not special, we all have pain and suffering from our childhood. I realized that even though times were crazy, there were lessons, knowledge and perseverance.
My family is one of the most accepting families I have experienced. Even if someone gets divorced, we still consider them family. We are always there for each other, even if we are fighting along the way. That is life, part of the emotional spectrum.
I was in complete admiration for the life lessons I learned from my grandmother being strong and stern. Once I forgave all the hurtful comments of not being good enough or skinny enough, I saw that she taught me to roll up my sleeves and not be afraid to get dirty, figuratively and literally.
She never held back and at least there was never a question of what was on her mind, with that honesty comes an unsounding sense of trust.

Disapproval (pensiveness, sadness, grief): Towards the end of the letter writing journey, I was confused and sad. After writing letters to my ex-husband and brother, I cried for a good hour. I had always been putting on a happy face—seeing the good.
Yet, I had not allowed other emotions. I had not fully processed the pain of rejection in my marriage or the lack of childhood.
I had never allowed myself to be sad that at the age of five, when I decided not to be a burden to my single mom, to be her helper and my brother’s stable rock. I see now nobody asked that of me, I made the decision. I have been the caregiver all my life. And I was sad that I rarely allow anyone to care for me.My catch phrase is “I will take care of it.”
Hmm, the lesson here, it is okay to be sad, grieve and ask for help along the way as it is part of the process.
Aggressiveness (annoyance, anger, rage):  These emotions are the ones that we tend to store as we don’t want to upset anyone or express how we are truly feeling. I have told many a friend or client to write about these emotions and burn it forrelease. Yet, I had not done this exercise fully.
In 20ish letters, I was able to, in a not so nice way, express feelings about things that pissed me off in my life. The best release was to my first step-dad. He is and was a big jerk that made my life miserable on many occasions. I allowed myself not to see a positive side, he may have one, yet never revealed to me.  And that is finally acceptable.

Optimism (interest, anticipation, vigilance): The emotional spectrum circled with the realization, we have to go through the good, the bad and the ugly for true healing to occur. I am overjoyed with excitement for what the future will hold. I have confidence to allow all the emotions and possess the imprint to allow versus bottle up the negative thoughts.

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy.
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen.
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened His own sacred tears.” ~Kahil Gibran
We must feel pain to have the contrast of joy.

Link to original article in Corporate Wellness Magazine

Keeping your wellness program fresh and fun is key to employee participation.  At Actualize Consulting, we offer at least one company-wide wellness challenge each year, and have discovered that our team is quite motivated by healthy competition.
In the past, our wellness challenges were focused on nutrition and movement, which was perfect for the wellness gurus, but not relevant enough for those not as in tune with their inner workout warrior.  We wanted to reach a broader employee population, so decided to add FUN as a theme.  
 
This year, we used Tavi Health’s Live Out Loud (LOL) challenge package, which emphasizes “making time for things that put you in a great frame of mind.”  The system rewards points for 30 minutes of daily fun and movement activities, such as walking, biking, yoga, swimming, playing with your kids or pets, reading a book, cooking, dancing, etc.  The system also includes weekly reminders, a leader board to encourage competition, a message board for employee interaction, and useful wellness tips. This combination of fun and exercise proved to be accessible to more employees, and many who had not participated in the past did engage in this challenge.
 
We decided to add fun and variety to our wellness program because we saw how easily we get caught up in the stress of work and family demands. While some professionals might consider fun a frivolous distraction from work, studies have shown quite the opposite. For example, the New York Times reported on a study of why laughter is so important to our health and wellbeing:  “The answer, reports Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist at Oxford, is not the intellectual pleasure of cerebral humor, but the physical act of laughing. The simple muscular exertions involved in producing the familiar ha, ha, ha, he said, trigger an increase in endorphins, the brain chemicals known for their feel-good effect.”
 
We all have experienced that feeling of happiness after sharing a good laugh or completing an activity we love. Think back to one of those times, and you will likely remember the energized feeling in the core of your being, while your body actually relaxes. Taking time to enjoy our life as we work hard reminds us to also play hard -- a balance essential to our overall well-being.
 
Our society doesn’t do a very good job of “playing hard.”  We are taught to think harder, to put our nose to the grindstone to squeeze out new ideas or clarity.  Personally, my creative ideas do not come when I am staring at my computer; they come when I take time to be in the moment exploring nature, playing, dancing, singing or having adventures with my kids.
 
Why do ideas come to us when we take time away from strenuous brain activity? The brain is like any other muscle in our body, requiring rest between extreme exercises. For instance, if you are training for a race, your trainer will incorporate required rest periods into your training program to avoid over-training. We need to do the same with our brains. In our current age of technology literally at our fingertips 24/7, the amount of our “brain on” time increases each year, making daily enjoyment breaks even more important. Otherwise, we soon suffer the consequences and feel depleted, unable to produce at our highest capacity.
 
 
Theresa Santoro, Senior Manager at Actualize quickly noticed the value of these breaks. "During the Actualize Wellness Challenge; I promised myself I would participate daily and really get myself out of the office to take time for myself and my personal thoughts.  I guess that’s why it is called a challenge, because as easy as that sounds, it WAS a challenge for me to do!  Thankfully, a gentle nudge from my Director came my way each day, and I started taking her advice to break away, even if only for a 15-minute walk to regroup.  Those breaks sparked my creativity! I was trying to think of a new way to reach our network other than the typical email blast, and on one of my walks, I thought of a new idea:  to create a monthly newsletter for our network. Now, I have an enhanced regular connection with our pipeline of candidates and am able to share all the latest going on at Actualize. I now make time to step away from my desk daily as I know it is how I can bring more innovative ideas to the firm.”  As Robert Iger, CEO of Walt Disney said, “The heart and soul of a company is creativity and innovation.”
 
A more playful atmosphere is the trend among the most successful companies, such as Google, one of our clients.  We have seen first-hand that they purposefully incorporate fun into their office environment. We, however, are a geographically distributed consulting firm, so we had to find a unique way to do this.  Our wellness challenge worked wonderfully as an innovative way to bring employees together virtually and encourage creating the space for fun. 
 
In fact, enough employees participated in the challenge that we are seeing the positive impact on our company culture, which is vital to our success since our people are the core of our consultancy business. We have felt the energy lighten and seen conversations flow more freely.
 
To continue our success with this theme of play, we hired an improv company to join the festivities at our annual all-employee off-site retreat. After our welcome dinner, the improv company performed, including inside company jokes in their material (for example, the villain of the show was our “dreaded” time and expense reporting system).  The next day we offered a gentle yoga class followed by our company meeting, which we kept light and fun. We celebrated four employees that had been with the firm for 10 years, and played a game of Family Feud to learn a new topic. To close our meeting, the improv company returned and engaged employees in the show.
 
As Radulian Pop, a Senior Consultant with Actualize, reported, “During the retreat I expressed that it was very refreshing to see everybody so genuinely happy, laughing and having a good time. I was excited to be a part of such a positive group of people and it made for a memorable experience.”
Since our employee wellness challenge of fun/exercise and the playful retreat, the enhanced wellness of individual employees is positively shaping the wellness of our company.  The energy at Actualize has been uplifted, and we typically start our conversations with a memory or laugh from the recent event.
As Helen Keller said, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” We spend at least eight hours a day with our company, so why not make it a daring adventure? The company that plays together stays together.