Happy And Healthy Lifestyle

“ A proper grown-up communicates clearly and assertively.” This is something I have heard many people say. By that definition, I wouldn’t have classed as a proper grown-up for most of my life. There was a time when I couldn’t even ask someone for a glass of water. I know that might seem crazy to some people, and for a long time I did feel crazy for it. Why couldn’t I do the things others did without even thinking about it? Why couldn’t I just say what I needed to say? Why couldn’t I just be normal? Those questions would just feed into the shame spiral I was trapped in at that time in my life. But the question I should have been asking myself was not how I could overcome being so damaged and flawed, but how my struggles made sense based on how I was brought up. Because based on that I was perfect and my behaviors made perfect sense. I was the child that was taught to be seen and not heard. I was the child whose feelings made others angry and violent. I was the child whose ang...

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” ~Soren Kierkegaard Let’s be clear: This isn’t an article about positive thinking. This isn’t an article about how silver linings make everything okay. This isn’t an article about how your perspective on anxiety is all wrong. The kids call those things “toxic positivity.” No toxic positivity here. This  is  an article about my lifelong relationship with anxiety and what I’ve learned from something that won’t go away. At times the anxiety spikes and feels almost crippling. I have a hard time appreciating the learning at those times, but it’s still there. That is what this article is all about. Please do not confuse me learning things from something that won’t go away with me endorsing that thing or saying it’s a good thing. I would trade everything I’ve learned from anxiety for less anxiety. I don’t even like writing about it because focusing on it this much gives me anxiety. But I want to write things that help people. How a Bare Butt S...

“Detachment is not about refusing to feel or not caring or turning away from those you love. Detachment is profoundly honest, grounded firmly in the truth of what is.” ~Sharon Salzberg A few months ago, my father informed me that he’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Although he seemed optimistic about the treatment, I knew that hearing such news was not easy. After a few weeks, I followed up with him. He ignored my message and went silent for a couple of months. Although his slight ghosting was common, it made me feel ignored and dismissed. In the meantime, I went to India for a couple of months. A few weeks before I returned, he reached out, saying he needed to talk. Although he wasn’t specific, I knew something was happening and immediately agreed to speak to him. It was Sunday afternoon when he called. After I picked up, I immediately asked about his health. He went on to explain the situation and the next steps of the treatment. The call took one hour and twenty-six min...

“Highly sensitive beings suffer more but they also love harder, dream wider and experience deeper horizons and bliss. When you’re sensitive, you’re alive in every sense of this word in this wildly beautiful world. Sensitivity is your strength. Keep soaking in the light and spreading it to others.” ~Victoria Erickson I am lying next to my son in his bed before turning the light off one night, in that relaxed space between awake and asleep where he allows himself to feel and share. He tells me that he feels very lonely at school. He shares his loneliness in the middle of kids that are not seeing him for who he is, and that are not being nice to him. He shares his feelings of being invisible, always a bit different and unable to create deep friendships. He discloses that the mockery of others calling him names causes him a great deal of pain. I immediately relate to the sadness he feels and feel this deep tightness in my heart. A profound sadness and grief as I listen to him. A need t...

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.” ~Viktor Frankl A couple of years ago, I was sitting in my little mountain cottage, writing away on a new novel. It was a cold and dark February afternoon. So, first, I felt pleasantly surprised when I saw something bright lighting up behind me: I thought it was the sun coming out. But when I turned around, I noticed that my porch was on fire! Before I knew what was happening, I was standing out in the snow in my slippers, looking back at the entrance and facade completely engulfed by flames. It was like a near-death experience. My mind quickly took an inventory of all the things that were inside the cottage now burning down—pretty much all of my personal belongings. However, in that moment, I realized that nothing else mattered but the manuscript I’d been working on. Hours later, after the fire-brigade had left and I took one last look at the cha...

“Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Even though you want to run. Even when it’s heavy and difficult. Even though you’re not quite sure of the way through. Healing happens by feeling.” ~Dr. Rebecca Ray It’s July 2022 and I’m in the middle of a red tent at Shambala Music Festival in British Columbia. I sit elbow to elbow, knee to knee, heart to heart with a group of women who I am meeting for the first time. It’s hot and we’re sweaty. A teacher is leading a healing womb meditation, and she prompts us to identify a person that has caused us pain, so that we can release that person and the power they wield over us. I am coming up short, thinking… “No one has caused me any real pain.” “I don’t have any real trauma .” “The pain I have experienced isn’t bad enough .” So I directed my healing energy to two friends who I believed were in need of more healing than me. I instantly realized what I was doing. I was defining my friends by their perceived abundance of p...

“The Phoenix must burn to emerge.” ~Janet Fitch Many people were shocked when I relapsed after twenty-three years of recovery. After all, I was the model of doing it right. I did everything I was told: went to treatment, followed instructions, prayed for help, and completed the assignments. After returning home from treatment, I joined a recovery program and went to therapy. Once again, I followed all the suggestions, which worked when it came to staying sober . I had no desire to drink or do drugs—well, at least for a long while. When I went to treatment, I was an emotional wreck. I would have done anything to get rid of the pain. But substances only intensified the pain and prevented healing. The worse I felt, the more I needed to medicate those emotions, but it was only causing the ache in my heart to be prolonged, driving me to suicidal thoughts. The moment I stopped using substances, the pain immediately subsided. I’d gone from struggling to get out of bed to engaging in my l...

TRIGGER WARNING: This post briefly references sexual abuse. “Never hold yourself back from trying something new just because you’re afraid you won’t be good enough. You’ll never get the opportunity to do your best work if you’re not willing to first do your worst and then let yourself learn and grow.” ~Lori Deschene The year 2022 was the hardest of my life. And I survived a brain tumor before that. My thirtieth year started off innocently enough. I was living with my then-boyfriend in Long Beach and had a nice ring on my finger. The relationship had developed quickly, but it seemed like kismet. Unfortunately, we broke up around June. And that’s when the madness began. I believe it to be the extreme heat of the summer that somehow wrought this buried pain from underneath my pores to come up. Except the pain didn’t evaporate. It stayed stagnant, and I felt suffocated. There were excruciating memories of being sexually abused as a child. Feelings of intense helplessness came along....