Learning about what Gary Chapman has termed "The 5 Love Languages" has revolutionized my life. When I started to understand, truly understand, that there are various ways to speak love, outside of saying "I love you," my relationships felt injected with pure hope. I began to adopt this much broader view of love and all of it's expressions.
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If you are constantly feeling jealous, it means you’re not taking time to cultivate and appreciate your own gifts & strengths.
And especially important—their compliment is not your insult.
Read MoreEveryone gets their own calls. The question remains: will you pick up the phone or pretend it's not ringing?
Read MoreSocially anxious sober folk: The brain chatter that usually disappears with a drink is going to actually be there, but you have the power to quiet it down yourself. Arrive to the event as centered as possible by having some time to yourself beforehand (i.e. quick meditation/quiet time, listening to happy music on the drive/walk/ride over or listening to a motivational tape, etc.)
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We have an internal drugstore that is stocked with dopamine, adrenaline, norepinephrine, oxytocin, serotonin, and others. Now we all have varying levels of these hormones, which operate like drugs in our body. But when we are accustomed to feeling shitty and our brain chemicals are out of whack from the manufactured highs and lows produced by drugs and alcohol, we have no way to know how spectacular our bodies (and brains) are designed to feel.
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My sordid past includes relationships with men that were quite unhealthy. Ones that were highly codependent and lacked simple boundaries. I essentially attracted what I was: sick and lost.
I spotted the guy who would "co-sign" my bullshit cause I would co-sign his. I found guys that needed someone to worship them. Worship I did.
Read MoreA single woman in her prime stands out as an outlier and it feels a little alienating. And I think there’s a tendency to wonder why we’ve been single for what seems like centuries, what must be wrong with us?
I’ve learned that I am enough for me. Period. No man decides and determines my worth as a woman. I don't need a man to tell me I'm beautiful because I tell myself that. And I have never felt more empowered or attractive than I do right now, utterly manless and unspoken for.
Read MoreOne of the ways I honor my recovery is by understanding that I cannot underestimate the value of a positive ripple effect. Everything I do and say matters, and is, in effect, a pebble in a pond. I can contribute to society or I can partake in the decline of it.
Being in recovery from addiction does not have to mean your life is over. Actually, it could very well mean your life has just begun.
Read MoreThere's that saying, "what we allow is what will continue." It is 100% accurate, in my experience. If I don't want other people to give me their shit, I don't take it. I don't accept shit gifts. I kindly say, no thanks. And walk away. I also try not to give shit gifts to anyone else. I take ownership of my own stuff and let others take ownership of theirs.
Noone has the ability to MAKE YOU FEEL any which way, unless you hand over your rights and let them. This reminds me of another good one-liner, "if you don't want people to drive you crazy, don't give them they keys."
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As trendy as yoga has become—with Lululemon symbols peppering any yoga studio room, I really hope I never lose sight of the true gift that this practice has given me. Yoga comes from a Sanskrit word that means “to yoke, unite, or bind” and that it has—yoked my mind, body, and spirit into one.
This is why it is medicine to me. It’s not just a place to sport expensive luon and symbolic body ink, fly into crows and hop into headstands, chant “oms,” and utter “namastes”—it’s my church and my temple. It's a place to come home to me.
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I consider my experience with addiction to be one of the best things to ever happen to me. Truly. Because had I not seen how messy and unmanageable my way of living had become, I never would have transformed it. And the transformation process is everything. I think I was only shown my weaknesses so I could overcome and transcend them.
So what I am proposing is a simple alchemical reframe to turn our most negative qualities into our most positive ones. Alchemizing our character liabilities into our greatest assets.
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