Bringing Your Life Into Balance

Off the emotional rollercoaster: Becoming a new you

Do you ever feel like you’re at the mercy of your emotions? Do you wish you had more control over your mental and emotional state? We all know what it’s like to feel emotionally off-balance—to be buffeted by stress and anxiety and knocked down by depression.

It may seem like a never-ending ride, but you can get off the emotional rollercoaster. You can bring your life into balance by learning more about your emotions: why they matter, how to recognize them, and what you can do to manage them and harness their power.

The key word here is “learn.” Like anything worthwhile, achieving emotional balance will take some practice and patience, but you’ll also start feeling the benefits very quickly. Our brains have the ability to change and evolve, even as we age. So no matter how long you’ve felt out of control of your emotions—no matter how long you’ve felt overwhelmed or out-of-sync in your life—today you can take the first step to getting off the emotional rollercoaster and becoming a new you.

Could you benefit from this toolkit?

Some of us instantly know when we have an emotional problem, while others only suspect that something in our lives isn’t quite working as it should.

Do you feel overwhelmed by responsibilities and stressed out much of the time?
Do you feel misunderstood in your relationships? Do you have a hard time connecting with others?
Do you struggle with chronic depression, anxiety, worry, or negativity?
Are you having trouble getting ahead in your career, despite your job talents? Have you received complaints about the way you interact with customers or co-workers?
Do your loved ones complain about your mood swings, temper, irrational fears, or your emotional distance?
Do you find yourself getting annoyed or upset at little things that don’t seem to bother other people? Do you have a hard time rolling with the punches?
Do you often say or do things you know you shouldn’t, only to regret it later? Do you feel trapped in a negative cycle, repeating the same mistakes over and over again?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, this toolkit may help you break free and bring your life back into balance.

Beyond traditional self-help

While traditional self-help may provide good advice and give you a better understanding of yourself, it typically doesn’t lead to long-term change. That’s because changing mental and emotional habits takes more than just intellectual understanding and the will to change—it takes a process that engages you physically and emotionally as well as intellectually.

This toolkit goes beyond traditional self-help. It's designed to teach you skills that, when practiced regularly, can actually change your brain in ways that will make you feel more confident, resilient, and in control.

The key to lasting change is practice

The toolkit includes articles, videos, worksheets, and audio exercises that complement and reinforce each other. The combination of reading, watching, listening, and doing is much more powerful than simply reading alone. As you work through the toolkit, you will begin to replace your old emotional habits with healthier ways of thinking, feeling, behaving, and relating to others. The more you practice, the better you’ll get at managing your emotions and facing life’s challenges, but any time you put in will make a positive difference.

How to use this toolkit

This toolkit is a program to help you gain the abilities needed to overcome challenges, experience greater emotional health, build emotional intelligence, and bring your life into balance. The toolkit comes with a step-by-step guide for progressively acquiring the skills you need—quick stress relief and emotional awareness—to be emotionally healthy and socially competent. Print out the step-by-step guide and follow it as you progress with the toolkit.

Step-By-Step Guide to the Toolkit

This step-by-step guide makes the toolkit easier to use and helps you get the most out of it.

Go to the guide >>

Don’t think that you have to tackle everything all at once. The toolkit is designed to be used over a period of time and is broken up into short, simple steps to help you explore your moods and gradually take control of your emotional health.

The goal. As you work through the toolkit, you’ll first learn how to regulate stress. Then you’ll learn how to recognize, monitor, and deal with your emotions. It’s important to know how to quickly relieve stress before you begin to explore your most challenging emotions.
The strategy. The toolkit is designed to engage your senses in a variety of ways that support learning and lasting change. As you watch, read, and listen, different parts of your brain will be stimulated. And hopefully you’ll also have some fun along the way.

Getting started

Set a goal of something you’d like to change or improve about yourself or your relationships through emotional self-healing. Write it down and return to it often.
Think of building emotional muscle like building physical muscle—20 to 30 minutes of exercise a day will suffice—whether it’s repeating the audio exercises or re-reading an article.
Remember: Rome wasn't built in a day! Give yourself a realistic time period for completing all three steps. Your brain is changing during this process and changes for the better may continue for years. The good news is that each time you train you’ll feel better and experience positive changes.

There is a limit to what you can do by yourself

Human beings are highly social creatures, with strong needs for relationships and positive connections to others. We’re not meant to survive, let alone thrive, in isolation. Solitary self-help can only go so far.

In order to change the way you think, feel, and behave, you will need to get out from behind the computer screen and share what you’re learning and experiencing with someone who is a good listener. A good listener is someone who listens with interest, encourages you to talk about your feelings, and doesn't interrupt. This person may be your therapist, but it can also be a family member, friend, or interested and caring acquaintance.

The experience behind the toolkit

This toolkit draws on three decades of experience, beginning with my work with cancer patients from UCLA in the early 1980's. Living Beyond Fear: a Tool for Transformation was first published in 1984. It was accompanied by an audio cassette with the Ride the Wild Horse meditation. I continued to use this meditative process with my private clients and in lectures and trainings in a wide variety of settings in many parts of the world.

My more recent books have incorporated the evidence-based brain research that confirmed the underpinnings of the Ride the Wild Horse meditative process. The books have focused on how individuals can manage stress, empower themselves, and bring about life-altering change. They have been published in thirteen languages.

A prior version of the toolkit has been sold as a DVD with an accompanying CD. This Bring Your Life in to Balance toolkit was created to use the power of the Internet to deliver an effective virtual training—a training that is both powerful and free.

Our team of gifted and caring individuals has combined video, audio, and articles into a package that we believe is virtually equivalent to face-to-face communication and allows us to reach and help empower people all over the world. We hope this toolkit helps you bring your life into balance.

-- Jeanne Segal, PhD