Happy And Healthy Lifestyle

“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” ~Stephen Covey In August 2019, I was sitting in my therapist’s office with my head in my hands. I was heartbroken over a recently ended relationship, stuck working a job I wasn’t excited about, and I was living across the country from my closest friends and family. I felt like I couldn’t do much to change my situation because I was about to enter my final year of university, and I needed to stay put. “Sometimes, life is a logjam,” my therapist said. I visualized giant, sliced-up oak trees floating on a river, stacked up on top of each other. “You’ll be done university by April next year, then you’ll be free to do what you like,” she said. I don’t think my therapist intended for me to interpret her message this way, but at that moment, I dubbed my life the “logjam.” I accepted that life would be hard for me until graduation in April 2020. It was easy for me to feel sorry for myself. First thing in the morning...

“The more in harmony you are with the flow of your own existence, the more magical life becomes.” ~Adyashanti Have you turned on the news lately only to want to shut it off after a few minutes? It seems that chaos has enveloped this planet. Every corner of every street has been impacted by the current situation; I have never seen anything quite like it in my time. It may be incredibly difficult to find some breathing room between all of this. On one hand, you want to be up to date with the world, and on the other hand, it can seem like it’s all too much for one person to take in. What can we do amidst all of this chaos? When will it end? We constantly ask ourselves these questions while it seems the chaos is building, not a break in between. And we find ourselves feeling stressed, tense, and anxious, which impacts our work, our relationships, and every other aspect of our lives. This is where going with the flow of life becomes imperative. In your life, in your darkest moment,...

“It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.” ~John Steinbeck When you lose someone close to you, there are a plethora of duties you must first complete. When my boyfriend passed away from cancer at the age of twenty-nine, I was just twenty-three. We lived together in a claustrophobic, studio apartment in lower Manhattan. I recall many people telling me to physically move from the apartment, as that’s where he passed away, but moving in Manhattan is never an ideal situation to be in, especially when you are traumatized. Many of the duties that need to be completed after a death are material. The other person’s belongings need to be sorted through, their finances need to be evaluated, services need to be arranged, and then family and friends of the deceased must be contacted. To make matters worse for me, we were never married—so my right to taking care of some of these things was non-existent. It took me three years to open my boyfrien...

“I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.’” ~   Maya Angelou Any minute now they would find out. I scanned the large conference room. The twenty-six project team members around the table discussed data analysis. Their voices were muffled by the thick fog of my anxiety. My own throat tried to choke me, and my chest refused to expand. Sweat trickled down my side. Breathe, just breathe. It’s going to be okay. My eyes met my boss’s and he smiled at me across the room. I quickly looked down at my notes. My cheeks were burning. I knew what was coming. It would be my turn next to showcase my part of the project. I had been working on it for months. Starting early, staying late, slaving away every waking hour, perfecting every detail. But I couldn’t hide any longer. Couldn’t pretend any more. I would be exposed. In a few minutes they would discover that my efforts weren’t ...

“Quiet the voice telling you to do more and be more, and trust that in this moment, who you are, where you are at, and what you are doing is enough. You will get to where you need to be in your own time. Until then, breathe. Breathe and be patient with yourself and your process. You are doing the best you can to cope and survive amid your struggles, and that’s all you can ask of yourself. It’s enough. You are enough.” ~Daniell Koepke I feel a bit like Frodo Baggins. I’m on this tireless, seemingly never-ending journey just like he was. Only I don’t have a ring that needs destroying. I’ve been searching for the elusive answer to slay my inner demons and become the best version of myself. And I’m tired. The best way to describe this insatiable desire for improvement is an itch I can’t quite scratch. I can’t recall how many times I’ve gone down the Google rabbit hole, spending hours reading blogs and articles, Instagram posts, you name it. Just one more and I’ll stop. Okay, just one mo...

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” ~Buddha Just the other day, I had one of those moments with my husband, and not the kind of moment they write about in romance novels. The world has been so different these last several months, and so many are feeling the effects of months of struggle, uncertainty, frustration, and limitations. I consider myself to be someone who works to see the positive, finds the silver living in situations, and believes in the best of people, and that things can and will always get better. But lately, that has been more of a struggle. My husband is amazing, and incredible in so many ways, but he is always the more likely to see the bottom falling out, expect bad things, and struggle with restrictions and limitations being placed on him. So, after trying really hard, and I mean really, really hard to stay positive, my better half kept dipping into the dumps, and I finally hit my wall. After sitting at lunch and realizing, I rea...

“Cut yourself some slack. You’re doing better than you think.” ~Unknown Your stomach is tied up in knots. Another crisis has arrived, and everyone is looking to you to have the answers, to be the leader. You can’t blame them either because you think you should have all the answers. But you just don’t. Though you look calm on the outside, inside you’re a tangle of nerves and anxiety , terrified someone will expose you as the fraud you feel you are. In the past, you’ve been able to pull a rabbit out of a hat to save the day, but those were just flukes. It wasn’t because of anything special you did, things just happened to fall in place at the right time. Truth be told, you doubt you could pull off such a trick again. Your shoulders are so tired from carrying the weight of everyone’s expectations that you’re sure everything will come crashing down at any moment. The thought of an impending doomsday gives you so much anxiety that it keeps you up at night. Feeling like an imposter is...

“People grow when they are loved well. If you want to help others heal, love them without an agenda.” ~Mike McHargue I learned some of my biggest life lessons in grade 5. I was an average student leaning to below average in my early elementary years. I came home with a steady flow of B’s, C’s and the occasional E’s in second language subjects. I was told that I wasn’t applying myself and, as every report card I ever brought home clearly stated, I talked too much. At least that was the narrative as I came to understand it. I didn’t write when I was supposed to write. I talked to peers while the teacher was giving instructions. That I could recite what she had said to the class while I was talking was not helpful because I was disruptive to my classmates’ learning. So I regularly brought home disappointing report cards. My parents and my teachers didn’t know what to do with me. Punishments didn’t seem to work. Rewards didn’t seem to either. And, frankly, I don’t think I knew what ...

“The pressure to be grateful kept me away from the more painful and real feelings of grief, anger, and abandonment. Growing up, gratitude was one more brick on the pile that kept all of the secrets of abuse in place. It was just one more thing that made me feel like being who I am, as I am, isn’t enough.” ~Vicki Peterson The pathway to gratitude for a person with developmental trauma is not always straightforward. You try your best and even purchased a journal specifically to try the ritual for yourself, but all you can  think  of to be thankful for is the usual stock stuff, like a roof over your head and your warm bed. Sometimes you think, “I should be grateful for this or that,” but your heart remains silent. If so, you’re not alone. Gratitude practice has become a part of self-development and therapy, but doling out “be grateful for what you have” advice to a traumatized person can make her feel worse. It happened to me, too. I tried, but the feeling wasn’t there, and the eve...