Happy And Healthy Lifestyle

“Ask for help. Not because you are weak. But because you want to remain strong.” ~Les Brown I sat in the doctor’s office, waiting—linen gown hanging off me, half exposed—while going through the checklist in my mind of what I needed help with. I felt my breathing go shallow as I mentally sorted through the aches and pains I couldn’t seem to control. Fierce independence and learning to not rely on others are two of the side effects of my particular trauma wounds, stemming from early childhood neglect and abandonment. During times of heightened stress , my default state is one of significant distrust. Letting people in and asking for help has never been my strong suit. Not only did it prove painful at times, asking for help has also proven to be unsafe. I’ve been given poor and damaging advice from people I assumed knew more than me. I’ve emotionally attached to people who disappeared when I least expected it. I’ve been lied to, betrayed, and left behind when my help was no longer us...

“When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending.” ~Brené Brown There was a time when I felt really sorry for myself. I had good reason to be. My life had been grim. There had been so much tragedy in my life from a young age. I had lost all my grandparents young, lived in a home with alcoholism and domestic abuse, and to top it all off, my dad killed himself. I could write you a long list of how life did me wrong. I threw myself a pity party daily in my thirties, with a load of food and wine. The story I was telling myself was that all this bad stuff had happened and I was unlucky in life and love. I told myself my life was doomed. I believed if there was a God, he must have hated me because everybody around me had a perfect-looking life compared to me. I felt like I was the only person who felt like this and couldn’t see any goodness in my life. I kept telling myself I was destined to be lonely and unfulfilled in my work life...

“Burnout is a sign that something needs to change.” ~Sarah Forgrave Fifteen years ago, my doctor informed me I was in the early stages of adrenal exhaustion. In no uncertain terms, she warned that if I failed to address the stress I was under, my adrenals might not recover. This was hard to hear, but it forced me to face the fact that eating well, exercising religiously, and keeping up with the latest research on wellness was not enough. I had to ask myself a defining question that day: Am I ready to go down with the ship? At the time, I was teaching an average of fourteen classes a week at my wellness studio. I had been exceeding my threshold for so long that I had pain in every joint and muscle in my body. I was completely exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally, but slowing down or cutting back was just not an option. Or so I believed. The problem was that every time I would even begin to consider addressing the reality of my situation, my head would instantly fill w...

“If you’re looking for a sign from the universe, and you don’t see one, consider it a sign that what you really need is to look inside yourself.” ~Lori Deschene I used to have no idea what I should do. About anything. I would go from friend to friend running polls: Should I be a solo singer or in a group? Is this guy the one? Should I do this job or that job? Should I stay in LA or move to Vancouver? Should I get bangs? On and on it went. It wasn’t that I wanted validation. It was that I had no clue what I should do. Or, if I did know, I would quickly override it with endless doubt. I’d loop: “Maybe that isn’t the right decision . What if you’re wrong. Maybe it’s better if you do this.” It didn’t stop, and I couldn’t get it right. If only someone would just help a girl out. Surely, they’d know what’s best for me. There was a period of time (okay, years) when I had a serious psychic addiction. I would go from tarot reader to intuitive to tea reader to whatever else held the ...

“Don’t believe everything you think.” ~Unknown Society is becoming more accepting of mental illness. That’s great, but there’s a downside that we need to talk about. Not everything is mental illness. We need to stop pathologizing every single thing that we feel. What I mean by pathologizing everything is jumping to diagnosing yourself after every tough feeling you have. It’s great to be self-aware, but I think we are taking that a little too far and it’s causing more depression and anxiety . Yes, I said we are taking self-awareness too far. I stand by that, but I’ll explain the reasoning behind my belief. We are supposed to feel a range of emotions. It is normal to experience sadness, anger, irritability, anxiety, grief, or any of the feelings that exist from time to time. Since society is more accepting of mental health issues, we now want to label any uncomfortable feeling as mental illness. We diagnose ourselves with whatever mental illness we believe we have at the first sign ...

“If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.” ~ Brené Brown There is a special type of shame that activates within me when I am around some family members. It’s the kind of shame where I am back in my childhood body, feeling utterly wicked for being such a disaster of a human. A terrible child that is worthless, stupid, and perhaps, if I am honest, more than a touch disgusting. The feeling of shame in my body feels a bit like I am drowning and being pulverised from the inside at the same time. I have a deep, awful nausea too, like a literal sickness about who I am. In an effort to save myself from drowning in shame I might try to ingratiate myself to the person I am talking to. Make myself sound more palatable, more decent, less dreadful. Or maybe become argumentative to try to kill the feeling in my body by dro...

“If you are not living your truth, you are living a lie.” ~Joseph Curiale Her sobs break my heart. We have all been there. When the relationship starts feeling like a war-torn city as opposed to home. I close in for a hug. “You can’t go on like this,” I whisper. “Well, I don’t know what to do. Please don’t tell me to break up,” she looks up pleadingly. “I can’t do it. I won’t be able to bear it. I am not as strong as you.” A familiar musical refrain from Tina Turner comes to mind albeit with a slight word twist… “What’s strength got to do, got to do with it? The Oxford Dictionary defines strength as “the emotional and mental qualities necessary in dealing with difficult or distressing situations.” It almost seems as if these set of qualities are innate—something you are born with, like blue eyes or curly hair. Those in possession of strength flit about larger than life, surmounting all obstacles without a strand of bother, achieving Herculean glory. They can do just about anyth...

“Wisdom is merely the movement from fighting life to embracing it.” ~Rasheed Ogunlaru Three years ago, I fell into the blind spot of medicine: America’s unknown epidemic. After numerous tests, scans, scopes, and too many doctors to count, modern medicine could not find anything seriously wrong with me. I also consented to have my gallbladder removed. My first and only surgery at age forty, an “experiment” of sorts. Six months into the worst nightmare of my life, my spiraling health started to take a huge toll on me physically, mentally, and emotionally. I didn’t want to live anymore, but I was too chicken to take my own life. They Cannot See the Forest for the Trees If just one doctor had paid closer attention to my backstory and probed it further, the diagnosis would have been obvious and the treatment plan effective. Here’s the problem: My doctors were only focused on my presenting symptoms and not on my whole being. Instead, thoughts of the following conditions (in this exact...

Hi friends. I know that many within the community are grappling with uncertainty right now—as really, we always are—and I also know how terrifying it can feel to embrace not knowing. Whether you’re dealing with health issues, unemployment, or relationship struggles, the question of what’s going to happen can keep you up at night. And then there’s the uncertainty in the world at large. When we’re overwhelmed by groundlessness and fear, it can feel like we’re free-falling with nothing to hold onto. In those moments of panic, we search for something, anything, to help us calm the voice within and cope with the suffering that surrounds us. If there’s one person who we can count on for support in turbulent times, it’s Pema Chödrön. Pema Chödrön has been a guiding light for millions of people around the world. She has shown us how to appreciate life, embrace uncertainty, and find courage and compassion when things fall apart. As someone who’s benefitted immensely from Pema’s teachings, I...

“Have a little faith in your ability to handle whatever’s coming down the road. Believe that you have the strength and resourcefulness required to tackle whatever challenges come your way. And know that you always have the capacity to make the best of anything. Even if you didn’t want it or ask for it, even if it seems scary or hard or unfair, you can make something good of any loss or hardship. You can learn from it, grow from it, help others through it, and maybe even thrive because of it. The future is unknown, but you can know this for sure: Whatever’s coming, you got this.” ~Lori Deschene Isn’t it amazing how some days are etched in your mind forever and other days are just lost in the wind? One day that is etched in my mind forever is December 27, 2006. This is the day I was told I had breast cancer. While breast cancer is common, being twenty-six years old with breast cancer isn’t that common. So here I was, twenty-six years old with breast cancer saying to myself, “Well f*ck...