Happy And Healthy Lifestyle

“Sometimes the worst things that happen to us put us in alignment with the best things that have happened to us.” ~Unknown Child sexual abuse victims who speak up are incredibly brave and vulnerable. If a child comes to you for support, be mindful of your energy and reactions. If you need to ask them questions to get a better understanding, be mindful of your tone, body language, and intonation. When I experienced sexual assault at the age of thirteen, I didn’t tell anyone because I was afraid that I would be punished. I grew up in a home where I was trained to not show too much skin and to always avoid the male gaze. The day I was raped, I was wearing a skirt. I knew that, somehow, I would be blamed and punished, so I stayed quiet. As an adult, I learned through spirituality that I needed to change how I viewed rape survivors and myself. None of us “asked for it.” When addressing a rape survivor, it’s important to use consent-oriented etiquette and language. There are a variety ...

Hi friends! I decided over this long holiday weekend to give myself a break for some much-needed self-care, which I imagine we could all use right now. We’ve all been pushed, stretched, and challenged this year. We’ve all given our all, done our best, and perhaps wondered at times if it was good enough. That’s the thing about difficult times—we often make them so much harder by expecting a lot from ourselves, pushing ourselves, and beating ourselves up when we fall short. We expect ourselves to always be happy. Or productive. Or confident. Or present. Or there for other people. We expect ourselves to always be at the top of the game even if we sometimes put ourselves at the bottom of our priority list. But we can’t possibly be all of these things all the time, because we’re not perfect, we’re human. And to be human is to be messy, inconsistent, and full of contradictions. To have days when we knock it out of the park and days when we stare at the park from our window. In pajamas. ...

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” ~Marcus Aurelius Overthinking is common. And everyone is asking us to stop it. Articles like these are abundant: “7 Signs You Are an Overthinker” “13 Strategies to Stop Overthinking” “9 Tips to Overcome Overthinking” The overthinker in me is starting to question the effectiveness of all this well-meaning advice. If it were that easy to stop, there can’t be so much of it still. I can’t help but wonder if we are looking at overthinking too negatively. Could overthinking be a part of human nature that actually has benefits? Otherwise, wouldn’t evolution have weeded out this useless trait by now? Surely, the Universe has not made a mistake by giving human beings a brain so prone to overthinking. Surely, the overthinkers amongst us are not mistakes? Yes, many a times I feel like a mistake when being told “you think too much” and “don’t overthink it.” Is there something wrong with me? Years of Thinking Before a...

I was a drug addict. Yes, I did it all. No, my childhood was not full of abuse, I was actually a pretty lucky kid, and I had it no worse and no better than anyone else, except for maybe some “daddy issues.” I am not much for blame. I know who was smoking, sniffing, and popping, and it wasn’t the bad angel on my shoulder who made me do it, it was just me. I can give you the exact reason why I started doing drugs. I was afraid to just be myself, simple enough. Everyone else’s thoughts of who I needed to be or what made me cool was more important than embracing my authentic self. Drugs were a huge part of my life, and they influenced the places, people, and pain I endured, but again, this was still all a choice. I had wonderful opportunities at my fingertips but let them go for a long-term abusive relationship. I lost jobs, burned bridges, and hurt my family. I stole, lied, and fought. Had random sex, lost respect, and wanted to die. On a good note, I still maintained a relations...

“Don’t look for someone who will solve all your problems. Look for someone who won’t let you face them alone.” ~Unknown Depression for me is like constantly walking up a hill. Most of the time the hill has only a one percent gradient. You can hardly even tell it’s a hill. I walk, run, jump, skip along, doing cartwheels and stopping to smell pretty flowers and listen to bird-calls; it’s sunny and warm, with clear blue skies. Even though I have to put in a little bit of effort to walk up, times are good. And then something happens in my life, like I lose my job, I have to move, or I’m having ongoing arguments with my partner, and my hill starts to get a bit steeper. It’s still reasonably easy climbing, but it takes a little more effort. It gets a bit darker around me, like the sun has just gone behind the clouds. But it’s fine. I can do it. And then some other things happen, like I’m feeling stressed out because it’s exam time, and I call my friend to hang out but she doesn’t hav...

“Surreal” is the word that keeps coming to mind. Life has felt like an alternative universe for quite a while now, and it feels even stranger during the holiday season. After a year of much sacrifice, reality is requiring us to forgo traditions we hold dear and distance ourselves from people we may feel we’ve already gone too long without seeing. And many are navigating the season with a sense of grief—for lost loved ones, lost purpose, maybe even lost hope. Maybe that’s not you. Maybe you are full of gratitude for everything you have, and now appreciate even more because of the pandemic. That’s also me, on some days. Some days I look around and feel undeniably blessed to have my health, my family, and all my needs met. On other days, I feel the weight of these long, isolating months and mourn for lost time with people I love and the family celebrations I will miss with my parents and siblings, who all live together, across the country from me. You may be in a similar position,...

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” ~Desmond Tutu I hate my life. Does this statement ring true to you at all? Do you feel like you’re at rock bottom? The good news is, it might not be as bad as you fear. I spent a lot of time feeling afraid of everything. I had an emotional collapse, and it made life suddenly seem terrifying. What had happened? Had the town I was living in changed? Had my country suddenly become different? No, I had changed the filter through which I saw the world, from one of hope and joy to one of fear and hopelessness. My biggest problem wasn’t that I was feeling terrible, but that I had unconsciously bought into the idea that the problem was ‘out there,’ or that perhaps I had lost my mind. It frightened me to experience that level of darkness, where everything looked gloomy and hopeless. When We Believe Our Self-Talk and Perceptions of Our Terrible Life What had really happened was that, after a series of bad exper...

NOTE: This post contains a giveaway – details at the bottom of the post! “If today gets difficult, remember the smell of coffee, the way sunlight bounces off a window, the sound of your favorite person’s laugh, the feeling when a song you love comes on, the color of the sky at dusk, and that we are here to take care of each other.” ~Nanea Hoffman I am currently exhausted. Absolutely beat. I’ve taken on more work than I can comfortably accomplish in my available time, I’ve been feeling under the weather for a while, and my eighteen-month-old son is in yet another sleep regression. Whether I’m caring for him or working, I am almost always doing something, seven days a week. And like many of us, I feel I have very few outlets for fun and relaxation, even if I do find the time, given the limitations of the pandemic. I know I have little to complain about. I am relatively healthy, and so are the people I love. I have all my basic needs met. And I have a lot to appreciate. But still, my...