Happy And Healthy Lifestyle

“ I don’t always make the best choices, but today I choose compassion over intolerance, sympathy over hatred, and love over fear.” ~LJ Vanier It’s crazy to me now, to look back and realize how freaking hard I was on myself for decades. Had I ever talked to anyone else the way I talked to myself, it would surely have left me friendless and jobless, and I definitely would have been kicked out of school. Basically, I was a bully. Just to myself. If I said something awkward, I called myself an idiot. When I couldn’t find the motivation to clean my house, I called myself a lazy slob. If I wasn’t invited to a party, I told myself it’s because no one liked me. When work projects were hard, and I had to make it up as I went, I told myself that I was going to get fired as soon as my boss figured out that I had no idea what I was doing. My parents set high expectations of me. A’s were rewarded and B’s were questioned: “Why didn’t you get an A?” They are successful, intelligent people...

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” ~J.K. Rowling I’m no stranger to feeling hopeless and defeated. After many failed relationships, physical, sexual and emotional abuse my entire life, two bankruptcies, and the recent loss of my online business (October 2020), you could say I’ve been through enough to last two lifetimes. I’ll admit, there were many times I wanted it all to end. There were many days I just didn’t know how much more I could handle. My recent loss has devastated me beyond words. Everything I’ve worked so hard for in the last three years has completely been obliterated. I’m numb and feel defeated almost every day. At fifty-eight years old, starting over doesn’t interest me, but I have no choice. I know what to expect. I’ve been here before. It’s ugly, messy, frustrating, stressful, and exhausting. Every day I wake up I don’t really feel like getting to the computer to work. I don’t really feel like doing anything, to be honest, but ...

“A meaningful life is not being rich, being popular, or being perfect. It’s about being real, being humble, being able to share ourselves and touch the lives of others.” ~Unknown Hello, I’m Kortney, and I’m a recovering perfectionist. Like so many of us, I spent the greater part of my life believing that unless something was perfect, it wasn’t good at all. There was really no in-between. If it wasn’t perfect, it was a failure. One of the problems with perfectionism is that it’s common to believe it’s a positive thing. In our society, people tend to value it. If you’re someone that aims for perfection, you must be accomplished. Driven. Smart. Have you ever had a sense of pride over being called a perfectionist? I have. Have you ever thought about why? Speaking for my own experience, when someone called me a perfectionist, I felt like even though I didn’t believe I was perfect, it meant that they were perceiving me as being perfect. They saw me as being one of the best, or as so...

“Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.” ~Kahlil Gibran Anxiety has followed me around like a lost dog looking for a bone for years now. I feel it the most acutely when I’m worried about my health or my daughter’s health. I notice a strange rash or feel an unusual sensation and all of a sudden: panic! My worries are not limited to health concerns though, and my ruminations go in the direction of dread about the future of the world, worries about my finances, and fears that I’m not good enough. Is my anxiety warranted? My mind tells me it is. “Remember how you had that bad reaction to a medication? It could happen again!” “You know how your daughter had that febrile seizure two years ago? You never know what could happen next!” “Think back to that time you and your family had a slow winter and were extremely worried about money. That could be just around the corner!” And on and on my mind goes. I know I shouldn’t believe what i...

“When you bring peace to your past, you can move forward to your future.” ~Unknown It amazes me how things that happen in our childhood can greatly impact our adult lives. I learned the hard way that I was living my life with a deep wound in my heart. My father was a very strict man with a temper when I was little, starting when I was around seven years old. He had a way of making me feel like all my efforts were not enough. If I scored an 8 in a math exam, he would say, “Why 8 and not 10?” and then punish me. It was a time when some parents thought that beating their children was a way to “put them in place” and teach them a lesson. All this taught me, though, was that I was a disappointment. His favorite phrase was “You will never be better than me.” As I got older, his temper cooled down a bit, but one thing didn’t change: his painful remarks. “ At your age, I was already married, had a house, a car, two daughters, and a piece of land… what have YOU accomplished? See? You wil...

“You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” ~Louise L. Hay I dreamed of starting my own business for years. Ten years, exactly. While there are a few reasons it took so long to take the plunge, procrastination is at the top of the list. It’s hard work to change careers, uncomfortable to leave a steady paycheck, and nerve-wracking to think of failure. Even after spending months and years learning, studying, and getting certified, when it was no longer a matter of having the skills, the uncertainty of success was enough for me to keep kicking the can down the road to start marketing myself. I was afraid of failing. I was afraid of not being perfect. I was afraid that people would think I was a joke. And I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be capable of all the work it entailed. So I dragged my feet and kept passing my work off to “Future Me.” I did this for everything, though. “Tomorrow Sandy” can do the dish...

“Not all of the depression that people experience is an illness… Unlike clinical depression, congruent depression is actually appropriate to your situation.” ~Dr. K ​Every day is the same. Every day I’m stiff. Every day I’m tired. These are the two main things that people with fibromyalgia deal with. It’s been like that for a couple of years now. Six to be exact. I’ve faced so much hardship all at one time: no job, no income, no friends, dealing with an emotionally immature/narcissistic mother, and not living where I want to live. All of this is making me sleep poorly. It’s all been chaotic and stressful and hasn’t helped my fibro or been helpful since discovering my highly sensitive personality trait a year and a half ago. I read that when you have fibro, you’re often depressed . However, anyone would feel mentally down in the dumps if they experienced these painful sensations all the time. Then for a little while, I started to believe that maybe I ​ was ​ truly depressed. I met ...

Have you ever received well-intentioned advice while facing intense anxiety , only to feel judged, misunderstood, or condescended? Like, “Calm down!” Or “Just be positive!” Or “Don’t worry so much!” The people who try to help generally want to do just that, but it’s always easier to advise someone when you’re not feeling what they’re feeling, because you have the benefit of rational thought—which goes out the window when fight-or-flight mode takes over. And if you’ve never felt the depth of anxiety some of us experience—perhaps because you weren’t conditioned that way through trauma, or you’ve learned to block or resist your emotions—it’s hard to truly understand what it’s like or what it takes to get through it. This is why I have appreciated reading stories and advice from people who’ve been there and truly get what it’s like. People who are intimately familiar with anxiety’s blood-pumping, heart-racing, mind-spiraling madness, and have both empathy and insight to offer. Readin...

“Always concentrate on how far you’ve come, rather than how far you have left to go.” ~Unknown I recently read Glennon Doyle’s Untamed , and like many who have read it, I felt as if it had changed my life—but not because it made me think of all the things I was capable of (as was the case with many of friends who read it), but because it made me realize how capable I had already been. The book on the whole is beautiful and inspiring, but the part that stuck with me the most was the story about Tabitha, a beautiful cheetah that Glennon and her kids saw at a safari park and a lab named Minnie that had been raised alongside Tabitha, as her best friend, to help tame Tabitha. Glennon watched as Minnie sprinted out of her cage and chased a dirt pink bunny that was tied to a jeep.  Shortly after, Tabitha, who had been watching Minnie, ran out of her cage and chased the “dirty pink bunny” just like her best friend had just done. Born as a magnificent, wild beast, Tabitha had lost her wild...

“You just never know what someone is dealing with behind closed doors. No matter how happy someone looks, how loud their laugh is, how big their smile is, there can still be a level of hurt that is indescribable. So be kind. Even when others are not, choose to be kind.” ~Andrea Russett  Everyone is doing the best they can. When they can do better, they will. “I disagree,” you say. “I see people who are not doing their best all the time!” Before the year 2006, I had a ton of complaints about the world and the people around me, including my parents, friends, and coworkers. I felt no one cared. Or at least didn’t care enough to try to do better. People seemed to do the bare minimum to get by or only what benefitted them directly. They didn’t care about how they affected others. They certainly didn’t care about me. I had issues with my family I couldn’t make sense of, such as how my parents treated me, the way they communicated or lack thereof, and how they were never there for me. Ev...