Happy And Healthy Lifestyle

“Don’t let others tell you what you can’t do. Don’t let the limitations of others limit your vision. If you can remove your self-doubt and believe in yourself, you can achieve what you never thought possible.” ~Roy T. Bennett Ahh yes, self-doubt. Something that affects every single one of us at different times and at different magnitudes—even those that seem supremely confident . Why do so many of us experience self-doubt, and how can we overcome it? On a personal note, I can tell you my self-doubt comes any time I am trying something new. I’ve learned over the years where this stems from, and it may be similar for you. It comes from my parents. Although my parents were always encouraging, they’d also say things like, “Are you sure this is the right move?”, “Are you sure you want to do this?”, and “Be careful.” In fact, every time I left the house, that’s what my dad would say: “Be careful.” “Drive safe.” Not, “Have fun,” “Have a fantastic time,” or something along these lines. I...

The FREE Collective Trauma Summit 2022: Creating a Global Healing Movement is starting soon, and I’m excited to extend an invitation to you! This is a nine-day online event to explore emerging solutions for healing individual, ancestral, and collective trauma. When you register, you’ll be able to see the powerful lineup of speakers including therapists, scientists, researchers, activists, poets, artists, visionaries, and more. You will also get access to special live events, musical performances, as well as movement practices to support your integration and healing. Some of the topics that will be addressed during the Summit include: Bringing aid and relief into active trauma situations Poetry, music, art, and movement practices for healing Creating trauma-informed climate activism Exploring trauma-informed meditation and spiritual practices Integrating collective trauma in individual therapy sessions Working with inherited family and ancestral trauma The link between in...

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~ Rumi The hardest battle I’ve fought is an ongoing one. It’s an all-consuming shadow of dread that never leaves, only resting long enough for me to catch my breath. I know what it feels like to be depressed. I know the feeling of pain and hopelessness so well it almost feels like home. I remember being around eleven years old and thinking, wow, this all seems so meaningless. I had become awakened by my consciousness and overwhelmed by emptiness. I knew then that there was more to life than what I was perceiving. These moments were brief but continuous. I grew up in an unstable family and took turns living with each and every family member. Everything was temporary and nothing made sense. As I grew older, my depression grew stronger . I did not experience love or security, and I felt like a burden to everyone around me. Each day I was disgusted with myself for still existing. How It All Began I was drawn to the sex industry be...

“When you can’t look on the bright side, I will sit with you in the dark.” ~Unknown It’s hard and uncomfortable to sit with pain, our own or someone else’s. We don’t like to see people hurting, especially people we love, because we instinctively want to make them feel better, and we feel powerless if we think we can’t. We feel like we have to do something. We have to say something. We have to somehow pull them out of the darkness—and we often try to do this by dousing them with light. We do this to ourselves as well, and it’s painfully invalidating. “Look on the bright side!” we might say, forgetting it’s possible to feel gratitude and sorrow at the same time. To have perspective and pain simultaneously. “Don’t be so negative!” we might say. As if it’s bad to express or even feel heavier emotions—like anger, sadness, fear, disappointment, frustration, and annoyance. And the worst trap of all: We convince ourselves that all this toxic positivity is shaping us a better future. A...

“Staying sober really was the most important thing in my life now and had given me direction when I thought I had none.” ~Bradley Cooper I remember that exact feeling of shame that washed over me when I was filling Yeti water bottles with 100 proof vodka instead of water. Then I chugged it, all while knowing it was the worst idea. Yet, I couldn’t stop. Addiction is messy. My social outings were with the wealthiest in the town, always with plenty of other alcoholics in my midst. I surrounded myself with people who drank like me because why on earth would I want to associate with someone who doesn’t drink? It looked like I was living the life when, in reality, I was dead inside. The truth is, sometimes your soul has to die before you decide to actually be alive. My soul died, but my body continued living, and I wore a shield, defending myself from people. I wanted them to see the person I was projecting; the person I wanted to be.   I wanted to be all of the things that I was showi...

“These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.” ~Najwa Zebian During a personal development course, one of my first assignments was to reach out to three friends and ask them to list my top three qualities. It was to help me see myself the way others saw me. At the time, my confidence was low and I couldn’t truly see myself. I didn’t remember who I was or what I wanted. The assignment was a way to rebuild my self-esteem and see myself from a broader perspective. As I vulnerably asked and then received the responses, I immediately felt disappointed. All three lists shared commonalties, specifically around responsibility. The problem was, I didn’t see responsibility as a positive trait. In fact, I didn’t want to be responsible; I wanted to be light, fun, and joyful. Though I understood that my loved ones shared this trait in a positive light—as in I was trustworthy and caring—intuitively, I knew responsibility was my armor. I used it to protect and control...

“The purpose of fear is to raise your awareness, not to stop your progress.” ~Steve Maraboli I used to hate my fear because it scared me. It terrified me that when fear arose, it often felt like it was driving me at full speed toward the edge of a cliff. And if I were driven off a cliff, I would lose all control, all function, perhaps I would collapse, perhaps I would shatter into a million pieces. I was never totally clear on the details of what would happen if I let the fear get out of control . That’s because I spent most of my life trying to control it. It’s why, when things don’t go according to plan, when I am running late or things change at the last minute, I can get snappy and sound angry. I feel rage when people come along and do things that seem to amplify my fear—like my husband using the bathroom three minutes before the train is leaving, or not locking the front door at night with all its three locks. Oh, I had so much judgment around this fear. I hated it, but I hat...

“Some people are going to reject you simply because you shine too bright for them. That’s okay. Keep shining.” ~Mandy Hale We are in such a hard season of the economy, and the implications of people getting laid off are so real and unfortunately painful. No matter how competent or qualified you are, the job search process is hard. And even when you know your layoff was due to reasons completely outside your control, it still hurts. The fear, instability, and uncertainty about what your next job will be or when it will come to fruition are emotionally unsettling, and our collective toxic positivity conditioning isn’t always helpful. Yes, it’s true that most of us have more to be grateful for than we can feel in the moment, but our hard feelings are valid and need space to be felt. I was recently let go from a role that felt like a dream job when I signed my offer letter, and yes, I have healed from that pain, but I had to feel my way through all of it versus simply “thinking posit...

“Mrs. Miniver suddenly understood why she was enjoying the forties so much better than she had enjoyed the thirties: it was the difference between August and October, between the heaviness of late summer and the sparkle of early autumn, between the ending of an old phase and the beginning of a fresh one.” ~Jan Struther, Mrs. Miniver As an adolescent, I was always keen on looking and acting older than my age. As the youngest amongst three, I always felt that my siblings held more power and their grown up lives seemed more glamorous to me. They would prance off to college or to high school, carrying their own bags and packing their own lunches, while I had to wait for my mother to drop me off, holding her hand as we crossed the street! Naturally, I looked forward to my birthday each year, waiting for a sense of “grownup”ness to take me over even as I got giddy at the thought of opening gifts. Yet, over the past few years, my birthday gifts have come wrapped in a vague fear, that of b...

Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a pattern of waiting? Waiting on things to change or people to change. Waiting for closure or clarity or certainty. Waiting for life to get easier. Waiting for your heart to feel better. Waiting for an opportunity or a relationship or something you think you need to finally feel happy and at peace. I suspect most of us spend years and even decades waiting, feeling powerless over some, if not all, aspects of our lives. I know I’ve been there before. This is when I was the most depressed. When I felt completely helpless, like I couldn’t change my life if I wanted, so why even bother trying? It made sense that I felt this way as a kid, when I literally wasn’t in control. Maybe you felt this way too. But as adults we have far more power than we may realize. We don’t have to accept things that hurt us or hurt ourselves through our actions and reactions. We just have to recognize where we’ve given our power away and start taking it back, one sma...