Tag: Mental Health

Mental Health, Mindfulness, Relationships

Mastering the Skill of Emotional Regulation

Corie Muldoon

Here’s something nobody tells you:

Emotional regulation is a skill. And most people were never taught how to do it.

That’s why the same arguments happen over and over. That’s why some people can’t have hard conversations without exploding or shutting down.

It’s not that they don’t care. It’s that they literally don’t have the tools.

What Emotional Dysregulation Looks Like

  • Reacting before thinking
  • Saying things you can’t take back
  • Avoiding conflict entirely (because it feels too big to handle)
  • Misinterpreting everything as an attack

Here’s the Problem

When two dysregulated people try to resolve conflict, proximity makes everything worse.

Every interaction becomes another chance to trigger each other. Every conversation or comment adds fuel to the fire.

You can’t solve problems when you’re both emotionally flooded.

What Actually Works

Time. Space. Distance.

Not as punishment. Not as avoidance.

But as the bridge that allows healing to happen.

When you’re not constantly reacting to each other, you finally get room to:

  • Process your own feelings
  • Recognize your patterns
  • Come back with more capacity

The Truth

You can’t have a healthy relationship with someone who can’t regulate their emotions while you’re in constant proximity.

Sometimes love looks like stepping back or creating physical distance so you both have room to grow.

Try this today!

If you’re stuck in a cycle with someone, ask yourself: Are we both calm enough to actually solve this? Or do we need space first?

Lifestyle, Technology

5 Ways to Use Your Fitness Tracker Data (Without Getting Obsessed)

Corie Muldoon

Your Oura Ring is lighting up. Your Apple Watch is buzzing. Your sleep score is “okay” but not great. Now what?

Wearable tech is everywhere in 2026, but here’s the truth: more data doesn’t always mean better health. Here’s how to use your tracker wisely:

1. Pick One Metric That Matters

Don’t try to optimize everything at once. Choose sleep quality, steps, or heart rate variability. Master one before adding another.

2. Look for Patterns, Not Perfection

One bad sleep score doesn’t mean failure. Track trends over weeks, not days. Your body doesn’t operate on a 24-hour pass/fail system.

3. Use Data as a Conversation Starter

Notice your HRV drops every Wednesday? Ask yourself what’s different. Data should spark curiosity, not anxiety.

4. Take Weekly Tech Breaks

Go one day a week without checking your stats. Trust how your body feels. This keeps you connected to internal signals, not just external numbers.

5. Your Tracker Doesn’t Know Everything

It can’t measure joy, connection, or purpose. Sometimes the best workout is the one that makes you smile, even if your heart rate never peaked.

A Personal Note:

Joey recently got a Coros fitness watch and is loving it – especially to track his heart rate, but what surprised us was the sleep data. He noticed some nights were fair, good, or great. So we naturally asked why?

We figured out alcohol and stress were the main contributors. So we dialed in on some lifestyle improvements like drinking only for special occasions (birthdays, holidays). And making sure we’re doing some deep breathing, meditation, or quiet time before bed – especially after a stressful shift.

Although I didn’t get a watch myself (yet), the ah-has so far have really made a positive impact on our lives.

Closing Out the Year, Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferriss’s Past Year Review: Insights and Reflections

Corie Muldoon

I just finished Tim Ferriss’s Past Year Review:

The Exercise (1 Minute)

1. Grab a notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.

2. Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.

3. For each week, jot down on the pad any people, activities or commitments that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month. Put them in their respective columns.

4. Once you’ve gone through the past year, look at your notepad list and ask, “What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?”

5. Based on the answers, take your “positive” leaders and schedule more of them in the new year. Get them on the calendar now! Book things with friends and prepay for activities/events/commitments that you know work. It’s not real until it’s in the calendar. That’s step one. Step two is to take your “negative” leaders, put “NOT-TO-DO LIST” at the top, and put them somewhere you can see them each morning for the first few weeks of 2026. These are the people and things you *know* make you miserable, so don’t put them on your calendar out of obligation, guilt, FOMO, or other nonsense.

What I Discovered

Top positives weren’t achievements, they were rituals.

Leaving notes for Joey. Washing the car together. Partner yoga in the living room. Family walks. Slow mornings. Coffee talk time. Little moments like these are what made 2025 really good.

Top negatives came from focusing on things I can’t control.

Judging right or wrong always makes me feel shitty. Also worrying about other people’s opinions or the stories they’re telling. Suppressing instead of expressing healthy boundaries. Nit picking instead of appreciating.

Changes in 2026

Focus On: Quad 2 activities (important, not urgent stuff):

Movement, cooking, cleaning. Date nights with zero agenda. Family walks. Reading, writing, decluttering, playing music, creating art. Being 100% in the moment with who is in front of me. Checking in on loved ones.

Remember: Focus on what I can control (first thought second thought). It’s okay to say no. Communicate (touch base, learn to articulate feelings into words, express boundaries in a healthy way)

Try This Today

Pull up your calendar from last year. Write down 10 moments that made you genuinely happy. And any that drained you.

Get real with yourself. Raw honesty. Plan to do more of the things that make you happy. Get rid of the things that bring you down.

Books, Healthy Habits, Let Them Theory, Mental Health

When Comments Catch You Off Guard: Let Them and Let Me

Corie Muldoon

“Let Them & Let Me” is a mindset strategy from Mel Robbins:

“Let them” means accepting you can’t control others’ actions, thoughts, or moods (e.g. “Let them be wrong” or “Let them act that way”)

“Let me” is the powerful follow-up, reclaiming your agency by focusing on your own control: your responses, boundaries, and choices (“Let me focus on my own well-being” or “Let me choose my reaction”)

It shifts energy from trying to change others to managing your inner world, creating peace and protecting your time.

Using “let them let me” in real life

Someone says something weird about your relationship, your choices, your body – and suddenly you’re spiraling. Here’s your next move: pause and ask yourself two questions before you react or think too deeply.

Why this works: Most uncomfortable comments aren’t actually attacks – they’re projections. But our brains treat social weirdness like threats, triggering overthinking and defensiveness. These questions help you sort what’s actually happening from what you’re making it mean.

The two-question check:

  • “Did this cross a line, or did it just catch me off guard?” (Boundary violation vs. surprise)
  • “Is this about me, or about them?” (Usually it’s their worldview, insecurity, or social conditioning talking)

If it caught you off guard but didn’t cross a line, a simple response like “that’s not really our style” or “we’re good, thanks” works. No explanation needed.

If it did cross a line, you get to set a boundary – calmly but clearly. Try: “I’m not comfortable discussing that” or “That’s not something I’m open to feedback on.”

Either way, you don’t owe anyone your internal processing or justification for your choices.

Try this today:

Next time a comment feels weird, hit pause. Ask the two questions. Respond (or don’t) from clarity, not reactivity.

I just went through this yesterday. A customer at work made a weird comment and I spiraled. I didn’t have these two questions to bounce back on, but I did have my husband. We peeled back the onion together and realized that I didn’t actually want to punch them in the face, that they just made me feel weird and caught me off guard. Sigh of relief.

It’s really never that deep. I’m glad I spoke up because my hubby and I had a great convo and we’re stronger because of it. It’s not surrendering, it’s let them and let me (Joey’s reading Let Them by Mel Robbins!)

Share your thoughts below!

Mental Health, Mindfulness, Seasonal - Holidays

Daily Candle Rituals for Stress Relief This Holiday Season

Corie Muldoon

Skip the expensive self-care products. This holiday season, strengthen your spirit with the oldest ritual in the book: lighting a candle.

Here’s why it works: the simple act of lighting a candle signals your brain that it’s time to pause. That flame becomes focal point, a micro-meditation.

The simple act of lighting a candle can ground us when holiday chaos peaks. And it’s my favorite way to bring some warmth and comfort into my home!

Your new daily candle rituals:

  • Morning reset: Light a candle while you drink coffee. Watch the flame for 60 seconds before checking your phone
  • Evening wind-down: Light a candle during dinner prep or while journaling. Let it mark the transition from “doing” to “being”
  • Stress relief: Feeling overwhelmed? Light a candle, take three deep breaths, and watch the flame dance

Lighting a candle is all about the intentional pause you’re creating.

Try this today: Buy a pack of tealight candles and light one during a transition in your day. Notice how it shifts your energy!

I bought cute little candle holders from the dollar store and 6-hour burning time tea lights from amazon. They bring me so much joy and help me slow down :p

Share your thoughts below!

Snippets

Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?

Corie Muldoon

This time last year, I was serving part time planning to explore other career options – maybe go all in on real estate or do something completely new like social media marketing for small businesses. I was considering it all, even going back to school.

For the past few years, my biggest hurdle was finding a job I could actually tolerate, consistent, and flexible (knowing my personality). I’m 29, real estate license, no college, serving experience, fitness training experience, marketing experience.

I looked into every possible option. Wrote them all out. I tried something new with some warehouse work – even pitched my marketing ideas. Things we’re cool, but the work hurt (packaging all day) and the pay wasn’t enough all said and done.

As time went on, I just felt a pull back to serving and I started to consider what life would be like if I went all in (open up 7 days a week availability – avg 5 nights a week). Something I didn’t consider as an option before.

Through research, I found most jobs are day jobs. Serving offers 2nd shift – 3-11pm. Perfect for me. I get my workout and lunch in, walks with my dog, and quality time with my hubby (who also serves full time, same schedule). Check.

Most jobs don’t have much flexibility. I’m the type to want to take off for 2 months and go roadtrip (did this in 2024 southeast usa) – and serving let’s me do that. We go during the slower months for a nice reset. This upcoming year we already have 6 camping trips booked, something we couldn’t do say if we had “real jobs” like union or corporate. Check.

So I eventually realized I needed to choose my job based on the lifestyle I wanted. Making great money, maxing out retirement accounts, saving up for that next rental, health insurance locked in, minimal taxes. Plus my days feel like two in one, since I get my whole day with my hubby and pup, then head into work WITH my hubby and we rock serving together (sometimes in the same section). Check, check, check, check, check, AND CHECK.

Life’s been super fun since going all in on serving. I have one focus. I’m not trying to build a business. I’m not looking for or even entertaining side work (sorry to those ignored along the way lol). I work, I leave, and I leave the work at work. Nothing to figure out. I learn from my mistakes and keep growing and improving. It’s a beautiful cycle.

As I’m writing this, it’s 12:00pm on a Tuesday in December. I’m in the back bedroom at our writing desk, with the window next to me slightly open, a nice winter chill. We just had a snowfall, the trees are lookin gorgeous. The sun is shining in. I feel safe and warm. I feel free. Our pup champ is laying on his side next to me snoring. My hubs is in the kitchen eating lunch. I’m about to take Champ out for a walk, then get ready for our shift tonight. Life is good.

If you like my story, Joe was going through a similar career journey the same time I was – read more about his story here

With all that being said, let’s just say, no this isn’t where I thought we’d be a year ago – this is so much better.