Happy And Healthy Lifestyle

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” ~ Brené Brown The embarrassment you feel upon realizing you don’t actually have what it takes to make a success of yourself. The shame of knowing you spent years training to do one thing and then you bailed right at the finish line. The fear of what to tell people when they ask you what you’re up to. Of course, you don’t tell anyone how you feel, as you’re too embarrassed to admit you even have these feelings, so you just bury it all away. I know these feelings all too well, as I’ve been through them all. It took me years to finally face up to what I actually felt and deal with it. As a coach once told me, “Buried emotions never die.” I knew I always wanted to be in the arts. I loved dance and drama, and I wanted to be an actor. I could feel it so strongly that I never even considered a different career. I started dance classes at the young age of six, and at eleven years ol...

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live.” ~Norman Cousins On September 23, 2015, Loukas Angelo was walking to his after-school strength and conditioning class just a few hundred yards from Archbishop Mitty High School. He was approaching the outdoor basketball courts when he ran out into the street and was struck by a car traveling around thirty miles per hour. The impact sent Loukas flying down the street, and he was immediately transported to the closest hospital where he remained in critical condition. I remember sitting on the couch later that afternoon when my phone started blowing up. Feeling curious, I shoved aside my history homework and decided to see what was going on. Multiple people had sent some variation of the same text, “Yo. This is so sad. Did you hear about what happened with Loukas…?” Confused and a little bit scared, I turned to Twitter and started looking through my feed. I was absolutely floored by t...

“Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where i end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership. Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom.” ~Henry Cloud Late last night, I once again found myself unable to sleep, and boy was I angry. So, in order not to disturb my other half, who is always asleep the moment his head touches the pillow, I dragged myself off to the sofa. Once there, sat seething in the dark, I listened to my emotion and asked it to speak to me, and guess what it screamed?! Boundaries! Now please bear in mind that I have been on this journey for a while and had also been discussing boundaries earlier in the day, so my inner knowing came out loud and clear. For you this may not be the case, and that’s okay. Practical Tip 1: When you feel angry, take yourself away and write down all those racing thoughts. No judgment, just get pen to scrap piece of paper and write it all down. Do ...

“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” ~Viktor Frankl When life goes sideways, it can be hard to take one more breath, let alone find meaning. Trust me. I know. In the same year, I had breast cancer, chemo, radiation, and a divorce I didn’t want. There’s more to the story (there always is), but in essence, I lost everything—my health, my love, my home. During all of this, I lost sight of myself, quit trusting myself. I was sure I was to blame for everything. At the same time, within twenty-four hours of leaving the house I loved, six friends had given me the keys to their houses, telling me I always had a place to stay. My family showed up for me in ways that had me weeping. Also during this time, I had two powerful dreams and one still small voice—these three messengers told me the very things I needed to hear to go on. My first dream involved someone cooking something delicious in a kitchen. I couldn’t eat what she was making, becaus...

“There is no place so awake and alive as the edge of becoming.” ~Sue Monk Kidd From a small café overlooking the boat harbor in Seward, Alaska, I looked out the window at the enormous mountain peak of Mount Alice that protruded from the earth behind rows of tour boats, sailboats, and a cruise ship large enough to carry several thousand passengers. The last few days of my summer there were coming to an end, and I reflected with gratitude on my time there. Located directly off the Gulf of Alaska and within Kenai Fjords National Park, Seward is a place people dream about: bald eagles cut through the sky as frequently as clouds, humpback whales breach the calm bay on a quiet morning, and wildlife roam freely within rows of pine trees that crowd the hillside and hug the small town. Seward was my home for the summer of 2019. I lived in a camper van next to Resurrection River with a full view of Mount Alice. At night I could hear the soft, constant mumble of the river. When I wasn’t work...

“The truth is that there is no such thing as a negative emotion. Emotions only become ‘bad’ and have a negative effect on us when they are suppressed, denied, or unexpressed.” ~Colin Tipping Emotions are constantly and powerfully guiding our lives, even when we are not aware of them, even when we do not feel them or are convinced that we can exclude them from our experiences. Emotions give us precious, sometimes indispensable information about what is best for us, about the best choices we can make, about how to behave. They give us information that we often do not listen to because we devalue them or simply because we have not learned to identify or understand them. In many families, however, some emotions are forbidden. Without even realizing it, some parents naturally teach their children not to feel certain emotions. Growing up, were you told “Don’t be angry!”, “Don’t cry!”, or “You are just a child, you shouldn’t feel sad”? Or you were criticized after expressing a certain em...

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” ~ Rumi As I stood on the doorstep of that rehab facility, I felt completely empty except for the overwhelming weight of anxiety and shame. In that moment, I wondered what all the normal people were doing today. How did they cope? And how was it that I couldn’t hack life and that things had spiraled so far down? It’s hard to admit you have a problem. To be honest with yourself when you’ve numbed everything out for so long seems ridiculous. To finally share it with the people around you is also daunting for so many reasons, not the least of which is actually having to give up your most trusted coping mechanism. At that doorstep, I felt at some strange in-between place. On one hand, I knew I had to leave the past behind me, and yet my future was something I couldn’t even begin to imagine. I had no wish for the future. No agenda. I was just desperate. What had led me here was a brutal struggle with alcohol th...