Happy And Healthy Lifestyle

Let me ask you this: Do things usually go to plan in your life? Or do you often find yourself adapting to a tornado of changes you didn’t choose or think to expect? That’s how I’ve felt recently, as I’ve been dealing with placenta previa at the end of my “geriatric” pregnancy, which required my C-section date to be moved up, and waiting to move into a house with my growing family when the move-in date has several times been moved back. I’m now a week from moving and three weeks from giving birth, with a poor-sleeping toddler and various work obligations to meet—all of which, to be clear, I’m incredibly grateful for, along with my health and having my basic needs met. But it’s been stressful, as life often is. I’ve needed to create pockets of peace wherever I can, so I can breathe, center myself, and decrease the odds of snapping from emotional overload and saying and doing things I’ll later regret. This is why I created Tiny Buddha’s Mindfulness Kit —because I know we all need tin

Hi friends! I’m excited to let you know about the MindBody Therapy Summit , a FREE online event, presented by the Embody Lab, that’s coming up next week. In this inspiring 5-day summit, running from June 2 nd through June 6 th , you’ll hear from some of the most impactful healers, teachers, and researchers at the intersection of wellness, spirituality, psychology, embodiment, and somatics. What Is MindBody Therapy? MindBody therapy helps us understand and shift what gets in the way of being free, happy, and fully alive. While traditional therapy focuses on verbal processing and cognitive meaning making, MindBody therapy invites us into the wisdom of our body as the intuitive place of healing and well-being. How Can This Event Help You? Blending traditional wisdom and embodiment practices with contemporary neuroscience and psychology, MindBody therapy supports healing and transformation while working with every aspect of an individual—psychological, psychical, spiritual, energet

“I’d go back to my younger self and, ‘Lighten up. Take it easy. Relax. Don’t be so anxious about everything. Try not to have today stolen from you by anxiety about yesterday or tomorrow.’” ~Bill Nighy I believe there is great power in looking back at our past to learn from our experiences, mistakes, and regrets. The Spanish philosopher George Santayana remarked, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” I might add that the history we need to study the most is our personal history so that we don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again in our lives. If I had the option to go back to my past, this is the advice I would give my younger self. 1. Express yourself freely and work to overcome your shyness. In the past, there were many opportunities that I didn’t take and many friendships that I failed to make because I was shy and often felt uncomfortable and self-conscious. Some people would interpret my shyness as rudeness, so it was crippling to me in many

“Don’t force yourself to fit where you don’t belong.” ~Unknown When I was young, I was a real daddy’s girl. He was so proud of me and took me everywhere with him. When my parents got divorced and my dad moved away to start a new life with a new family, I didn’t understand why he left, as I was still a child. I thought that he didn’t love me anymore. I felt abandoned and rejected. Perhaps if I’d been better behaved, prettier, cleverer then he wouldn’t have left me? Until recently, I didn’t realize the impact that this has had on my adult relationships. Because I fear abandonment and rejection, I’ve struggled to fit in and make friends. I had a relationship with an older man who was very similar to my dad. I hoped that he would provide me with the love and affection that I didn’t get from my father and would heal my wounds. However, while things started off great and I thought I had found the one, since the relationship felt like home and was so familiar, he was actually emotionall

“I decided that the single most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.” ~Anne Lamott I remember one particular clear, cold winter morning as I returned home from a walk. I suddenly realized that I had missed the whole experience. The blue, clear sky. The lake opening up before me. The whisper of the trees that I love so much. I was there in body but not embodied. I was totally, completely wrapped up in the thoughts running rampant in my mind. The worries about others, work, the future; about everything I thought I should be doing better and wanted to change about myself… it was exhausting. Alive, but not present to my life. Breathing, but my life force was suffocated. This was not new. In fact, up until that point I had mostly approached life as something to figure out, tackle, and wrestle to the ground. This included my body, my career, and the people around me.  My tentacles of control, far-reaching in pursuit of a better pl

“I do not fix problems. I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves.” ~ Louise Hay Here’s my secret: In order to fully heal over a decade of debilitating digestive disorders, I had to stop trying to heal. Instead, I had to do nothing. What, do nothing? Yes, that’s exactly right—I had to let go of the search for the perfect cure. Let me explain. I developed chronic gut problems at age fourteen—such a precious age! After being dismissed by doctors (“It’s all in your head; it’s a girl problem”), overprescribed antibiotics for years on end, or just given hopelessly ambiguous, catch-all diagnoses like IBS, gastroparesis, candida, h. pylori, and leaky gut (as any sufferer of gut problems can relate to!), I became my own wellness warrior. For twelve years, I was on a crusade to find the “right” answer: the right elimination diet, the right supplements, the right doctor, the right healer, the right yoga poses, the right amount of water for my body weight, the right breathing technique

“Making a big life change is scary, but you know what’s even scarier? Regret.” ~Zig Ziglar Fifteen years ago, I made one of the biggest changes in my life. It was something I had wanted to do for so long but had never found the right time, right plan, or courage to do. You see, ever since I was in my teens, I had always felt I was meant to be somewhere else. The town where I grew up was pretty perfect for raising young kids, but it just wasn’t for me as I entered adulthood. I always envisioned myself somewhere else doing something different than those that stayed and replaced the generations before them. When I came back from school in my twenties, I was eager to get my career going and was not in a rush to settle down and have kids like most of my circle. I wasn’t even sure I really wanted to raise a family. I was more interested in exploring this world and not being tied to one way of life. At twenty-five I thought, WOW, I finally feel like I’ve got it all figured out . I had

“Don’t try to understand everything, because sometimes it’s not meant to be understood, but accepted.” ~Unknown As a child, I never had the opportunity to develop a sense of self. I had a father who was a drug addict . A mother who was abused by my father. And later, we had my mom’s possessive and controlling boyfriend. It was tough finding a consistent role model in the mix. I was one of four kids and we grew up in a trailer, sharing one bunk bed among us all. As children, we often would brutally fight with each other. We all wanted our own space and sense of self, but there wasn’t enough to go around. With our mom working so much, her boyfriend would watch us. He seemed to enjoy punishing us. I remember feeling so afraid. I didn’t want to do anything wrong. I wanted to have his love because it felt like the only way to be safe. I never felt good enough, not to my mom, dad, or the boyfriend. Starting in my teen years, codependency started really kicking in, and I wanted my mom f

“And here you are, living despite it all.” ~Rupi Kaur “I surrender!” I said this mantra out loud as my life was spiraling out of control . I had spent a summer in college as a camp counselor separated from my fiancé. He sent me no letters and did not keep in touch. Still, I held on. By the time I came back home, we were broken. I had also realized he was emotionally abusing me. It took that separation to make me see it. I realized I had been truly alone in the relationship. I was never lonelier than being with someone who refused to listen to me. A summer of independence brought me a new love of solitude, but it also made me realize I didn’t have a soulmate in him after all. I was forced to face that this life wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t perfect. But… I was enough. I needed to believe that to keep moving. When I said my mantra of surrendering, I was on a rollercoaster of emotions. I didn’t know where my life was going. The wedding planning ended. He called it off through text. I was

Hi friends! As you may know, I’m a big fan of Evolving Wisdom, a site that offers virtual courses and workshops, along with countless free resources and audio seminars, to help people create real, lasting change. With this in mind, I was excited when the team recently reached out to me to share a free resource from Evolving Wisdom cofounder Claire Zammit, PhD, whose mission is to empower women to fully express their gifts and talents . As someone who once felt painfully stuck—confused about what to do with my life and not good enough to try even if I knew—I understand what it’s like to feel dissatisfied, and powerless to change it. I know what it feels like to languish in discontent day after day, wanting a sense of passion, purpose, and connection, but not knowing where to start, or how to get out of my own way. And I get the soul-sucking sense of despondency that comes from feeling unseen, unheard, and unvalued. I also know there are millions of other women out there who feel a

“The more we love the more we lose. The more we lose the more we learn. The more we learn the more we love. It comes full circle. Life is the school; love is the lesson. We cannot lose.” ~Kate McGahan I remember reading somewhere that we are all here on this earth to learn a lesson. It’s one that is made for us, and only us. Like a special recipe concocted in the stars and implanted in our tiny developing foetus. While it may sound a bit “woo-woo,” it was extremely comforting to read that. For much of my life I would compare my life to others. I’d look at those who seemed to have it all together and wonder if they ever struggled. I felt envious as they seemingly sailed through life. “ Why do I have to deal with this and not them? What did I do wrong?” But maybe they are not here to learn  my  lesson. They are here to learn theirs, whatever that might be. While my life has been filled with typical ups and downs, it came to a crushing low when my sister died in 2013. The pain of