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.)
Read MoreAfter breakfast comes a moment of pause as I am faced with the two diverged roads. I can head right into my workday with a frenzied mentality and get suffocated by my email inbox and my lengthy to-do list. Or—I can take a few minutes to do some deep-breathing & sit quietly, a.k.a. meditation. I refer to meditation as my “adult time-out.”
Because just like a child’s time-out, if I don’t take a breather and carve out some space to be still & breathe, then I am susceptible to being cranky, unruly, and acting on my every emotion under stress.
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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 MorePerfectionism, attachment to outcome & results, wanting to get it RIGHT, thinking we are defined by our jobs--this is our ego. Our spirit, our soul, doesn't care about results or what we look like on paper. The ego wants to be "good at it," but the spirit could care less and just loves the process. Our spirit craves adventure and new learning experiences. This is why "failure" is good for the soul. These experiences grow us.
If we can reframe all our "failures" as opportunities to learn, well, I deem that a success. Welcome failure as your teacher. It means opportunity is at the door. It means something is about to be learned or about to change. Failure is character-building at it's very finest.
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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But growing up as sensitive or empathetic, we learn that we are oversensitive, too much, too emotional, cry babies, wimps, too fragile, over-reactors. So what is given to us as a gift—our sensitive nature—is often squashed, repressed, and stifled.
And when we don’t know how to use our superpower sensitivities for good, the weight of the world’s suffering will most definitely crush us. My sensitivity felt like a wicked curse for a long time, before I learned how to treasure it like the blessing it is.
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