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From Conflict to Compassion: Put Love Above Winning

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“Let go of your attachment to being right and suddenly your mind is more open.” ~Ralph Marston

When we face a conflict we face an opportunity to learn from pain. It’s like putting your hand against a hot burner on the stove. The burn warns that you have to do something differently.

You pull your hand back reflexively and you don’t touch the stove again. You’ve learned. As with the hot stove, if we get the lesson that is in front of us, we don’t need to keep repeating that particular pain.

Inconveniently, our natural inclination when we feel the …

Every Imperfect Person Has Something to Teach Us

By in Blog, love & relationships

“My experience is that the teachers we need most are the people we’re living with right now.” ~Byron Katie

I have always been of the opinion that the people around us are our teachers.

Specifically, I have always seen what I perceive to be negative traits in others as opportunities to develop patience or kindness toward them. I see it as a struggle they are going through, and if I can be patient or kind, then that helps them. It also teaches me how to embody those qualities even when I don’t feel like it.

If a colleague, friend, or …

Do You Think You Need to Be Perfect to Be Accepted?

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“What you resist, persists.” ~C.G. Jung

There it is: Perfection, Eureka!—the holy grail of achievement, like an elusive mirage in the middle of a desert or that pesky little pot of gold we are always hunting for at the end of the rainbow, purring with all of its possibilities, protection, and promise.

Yet, despite its charm and the value we tend to assign to the trait, as well as on those who possess it, perfectionism ultimately leads to the same destination. In striving for perfection, we may soon find ourselves disappointed, dissatisfied, and even sometimes, knee-deep in suffering and denial, …

When YOU Disappear Your Masterpiece Appears

By in Blog, meaning & passion, work fulfillment

“Happiness is absorption.” ~T.E. Lawrence

During my years in university, there was a cook that I remember to this day. He worked in the university grill. He was well known amongst the students and staff. For his happiness.

Whether it was 6AM or 6PM, whether it was weekday or weekend, sunshine or hail, he greeted everyone with a boisterous “Good morning. How are you this morning?”

There might have been forty people in the breakfast line and he would greet every single one the same way. Many, including myself, would often wonder how it was that a man could be …

How to Realize Your Dream When You’ve Gotten Off Track

By in Blog, meaning & passion

“Come, even if you have broken your vow one thousand times, come, yet again, come, come.” ~Rumi

I read these words on a plaque in the middle of climbing a small mountain, in the middle of northern Spain, in the middle of a hot summer, at the end of my thirty-third year.

My eyes filled with tears and even as I brushed them away, adjusted my pack, and continued climbing up the mountain, the words echoed in my mind

I was walking the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile pilgrimage route that runs across the north of Spain. I’d started my …

Stop Striving for Happiness and Start Practicing It Now

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun

“Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.” ~Chuang Tzu

It all started when one of my boys asked me if I was happy, and of course I answered yes.

Why wouldn’t I be happy? I have a handsome and kind husband, two boys of which I am very proud, I had a successful business, I had a house I loved, I was surrounded by friends, I was a sought after speaker in my community, and blah blah blah.

Then my son asked why I didn’t have fun anymore. I began defending my happiness to him, explaining all the reasons …

Treat Depression Without Medication: Interview with Jonathan Robinson and Book Giveaway

By in Blog, change & challenges

Update: The winners for this giveaway have been chosen. They are: Marsha Law and Talya Price.

I experienced my first bout of depression at twelve years old, and by seventeen I so frequently felt despondent that my boyfriend questioned if I could go one day without crying. I could not.

My life became a series of self-destructive habits, from binging and purging, to drinking, to cutting myself—the first two to numb my feelings, and the last to feel something, a pain of my own choosing, which somehow felt like relief.

In my senior year of high school, I was …

How to Get Lasting Results: The 4 Laws of Permanent Change

By in Blog, healthy habits

“Sometimes, it’s the smallest decisions that change your life forever.” ~Keri Russell

Seven years ago I was that athletic, hyperactive person you could look at and admire.

I was madly in love with cardio, and I could easily work out twice a day, six days a week, without a single complaint, not to mention jogging at 6:00AM five days each week.

In college I went through lots of rough times, especially in my senior year. I was always stressed, I procrastinated a lot, and I couldn’t care less about working out, until one day I woke up and realized that …

Things Change When You Do (and Small Changes Add Up)

By in Blog, change & challenges

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” ~Victor Hugo

A year-and-a-half ago, I was diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Every day, I felt like I was travelling through an endless tunnel. The only way I could fall asleep was by pretending that I was dying.

My life felt pointless. I felt like I was on the wrong path. The combination of my two mental illnesses made me feel like I was a prisoner in my own body, like I could not control my brain.

Since this point in time, a lot …

4 Things to Keep You Going When You’re Stressed at Work

By in Blog, work fulfillment

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” ~Charles Swindoll

I remember working at a job where I absolutely could not do anything right.

This was one of those jobs where it was extremely fast paced and you received 100 tons of work that must be completed by an unrealistic deadline. And here’s the kicker: your time at work was spent in meetings, all day. I’m talking about four to seven hours of your day. You get the picture.

So you may ask when I had time to do the work. Unfortunately, after …

Fear Is Inevitable but It Doesn’t Have to Paralyze Us

By in Blog, change & challenges

“Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.” ~Isabel Allende

I woke up with a knot at the pit of my stomach, yet again. For as long as I could remember, I carried this intangible lump inside me. It went with me everywhere.

I am fairly certain it woke up with me, and there was a small span of time when I was in the deepest of sleep when it took a break.

Terrified—that’s how I felt all the time. Muscles taut and butterflies in my stomach. I was a wreck, ready …

A Reason to Forgive Your Parents (And How to Soften Your Anger)

By in Blog

“If you cannot forgive and forget, pick one.” ~Robert Brault

I used to hate my parents.

I despised them. I blamed them for most of my issues.

I couldn’t do what I wanted to do in life because they would disapprove of it. I couldn’t be a cop or firefighter because those professions didn’t make enough money. I could only study a major that would be beneficial in getting me a job and not one that they thought was pointless, such as psychology or sociology.

I hated my dad for never being there when I was a child. I hated …

6 Mindful Ways to Calm Your Mind and Heal Your Heart

By in Blog, love & relationships, mindfulness & peace

“We do not heal the past by dwelling there; we heal the past by living fully in the present.” –Marianne Williamson

As the last moments of my thirties are fading away, I’m preparing for the dawn of a new age, the age at which life is said to begin.

I’m like a butterfly preparing to break free from her chrysalis into the light, ready to spread her wings and feel what it is to be free—a freedom that has been born from six long months of deep introspection.

The catalyst for this journey of introspection was the breaking of my …

Life is a Gift: How to Enjoy It and Find Happiness After a Tragic Loss

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun

“If we could see that everything, even tragedy, is a gift in disguise, we would then find the best way to nourish the soul.” ~Elizabeth Kubler Ross

Sometimes a tragedy can give new energy to life and bring awareness we have been living on autopilot.

I still remember the night like it was yesterday. It was late and my husband and I had just turned off the light when my phone rang. It was my aunt saying my dad pushed his life alert and was transported to the hospital.

I fumbled to find my clothes and hurried to the …

Keep Hope Alive: How To Help Someone Who’s Struggling

By in Blog, love & relationships

“He who has health has hope and he who has hope has everything.” ~Proverb

I write this today seemingly healthy.

My doctors say I’m healthy. I feel healthy. I look healthy. But over the last six months this was not the case.

In April of this year I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Melanoma. I am thirty-five years old. I am a wife and a mother to a four-year-old and six-year-old. I have my own business. I am busy. I did not have time for cancer.

But cancer had time for me.

I’ll never forget the day that I got …

We Don’t Need to Change to Please Other People

By in Blog, love & relationships

“One of the most freeing things we learn in life is that we don’t have to like everyone, everyone doesn’t have to like us, and it’s perfectly OK.” ~Unknown

I am thankful from the bottom of my heart to that relative who dislikes me.

As Mother Teresa famously said, “Some people come in our life as blessings. Some come in your life as lessons.”

She came in my life as a lesson. The more she dislikes me, the more I love myself and appreciate those who love me.

This carefree attitude didn’t come overnight. I had to go through a …

4 Ways to Have More Affectionate, Loving Relationships

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” ~Simone Weil

This morning I was busy French pressing coffee for my husband and me. Everything was going great; I was happily humming along, looking forward to starting my day. My lovely husband came up behind me and bear hugged me gently.

Now, I’ll admit that I don’t usually take this well when I’m in the middle of something. If I’m cooking (which I’m particularly serious about), I’ve been known to push him away and say something along the lines of “I’m cooking! Back!”

This is not sensitive or caring. It’s …

Don’t Let the Outside World Control Your Happiness

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.” ~Eckhart Tolle

We have this strange need or conditioning to not take responsibility for our own happiness. We expect it to come from an outside source.

It can happen, but it’s fleeting. True happiness has to come from within.

True happiness comes from a connection to our true being.

Years ago my family and I took our dog to obedience school, and the trainer told us, if we have more than one dog, to never let them share …

Why Joy Trumps Happiness (And 3 Ways to Coax It Into Your Life)

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.” ~Henri Nouwen

Once upon a time I was on a relentless hunt for happiness. I’d root around for it in romantic relationships, search for it in visits to exotic locales, and scour self-help sections of bookstores, hoping to run across a volume that, once and for all, would reveal its thorny secrets.

The books I read said happiness couldn’t be found outside of me, but I was always skeptical of that advice. I longed to believe that if I got what I …

Taking the Shame and Fear Out of Mistakes

By in Blog, change & challenges

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you’ll make one.” ~Elbert Hubbard

There have been times in my life when I knew I was stuck, but instead of dealing with it I chose to backpedal to the “safest bet” for me at the time, whether it was the steady paycheck from a soul-crushing job or an abusive relationship.

Then, one day, I suddenly realized that I had spent precious years just going through the motions.

One reason I had gotten so stuck was because I had been trained from early childhood to avoid making …