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The Joy of Doing Less: 3 Ways to Reclaim Your Time

By in Blog, letting go, mindfulness & peace

“Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly. It’s your masterpiece after all.” ~Nathan W. Morris

I began 2015 by cleaning out my closet. I sold and donated and trashed the pieces that weren’t serving me anymore. Embarrassingly enough, I purged nearly 100 items. It felt great. Getting rid of stuff and seeing beauty behind the clutter was incredible. But this story isn’t really about my closet.

It’s also not about my desk drawers, my linen closet, or my kitchen, which all came next. As it turns out, getting rid of clutter and extra things was just the tip of the iceberg. …

How to Use Self-Care for a Brighter, Less Stressful Life

By in Blog, healthy habits, mindfulness & peace

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” ~Sydney Harris

I was working myself into the ground and I knew it. Balancing a full-time job, my fledgling business, studies, home life, and relationships, I was constantly feeling the pressure and slowly, the cracks were showing.

I was exhausted, I was argumentative, I wasn’t taking care of my health, and my business had transformed from my creative outlet to a source of incredible stress.

I kept thinking, “I just need one day to relax, just one day!” but even when I had the chance, I couldn’t let …

How to Overcome Fear and Live Your Dream by Changing Your Brain

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” ~Les Brown

Fear used to be the driving force in my life.

I didn’t even know that I was living in fear at the time. I hid behind labels like “stress” and “anxiety,” but those are just clinical terms for fear.

Truthfully, my dreams terrified me because they seemed way too big to achieve. At the time, I wanted to excel in my new career, get into the best shape of my life, and create meaningful relationships—and I felt like I had a long way …

What Causes Panic Attacks and How to Stop Them for Good

By in Blog, change & challenges, mindfulness & peace

“You empower what you fight. You withdraw power from what you release.” ~Alan Cohen

Panic attacks can seem to come out of nowhere, without any warning. There is no obvious logical connection between a panic attack and what is happening around us at the time they arise.

Is it really possible to be free of them, without medication? In my personal experience, the answer is yes. I used cognitive, emotional, and physical methods that eradicated my panic attacks.

What Causes Panic Attacks?

The short version of my story is that I experienced a less than peaceful upbringing and had a …

Why We Need to Stop Hiding and Let People See Who We Are

By in Blog, love & relationships

“To help yourself, you must be yourself.” ~Dave Pelzer

I spent a lot of my life being someone else. Playing the part of someone I didn’t fully recognize.

Looking back, there were lots of reasons why I avoided being me, my mum’s suicide being one of them.

Her death shaped me, like a rock in a tumbler, and my life, as I knew it, bore no resemblance to the one I once knew.

I was ashamed of being the girl whose mum left her in such a violent way. What would people think? Maybe that she didn’t love me enough …

What to Do When People Always Underestimate You

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“You can’t base your life on other people’s expectations.” ~Stevie Wonder

Being blatantly underestimated is simply a part of my life.

No matter what I’m doing, the ordinary will seem extraordinary, and the extraordinary will seem insurmountable to those who look at me for the first time. There is no way I am contributing the same amount to society as the rest of the world.

These are not drawn conclusions on my part; I have been told these very things straight to my face. People perceive me this way because of the white cane in my hand, the badge, letting …

5 Ways to Cope with Family Bullies

By in Blog, love & relationships

“When we can no longer change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ~Viktor Frankl

Bullies are everywhere. One of the most insidious and destructive forms of bullying is family bullying, because it’s often done in the name of love.

As someone who was bullied by family members for more years than I care to count, I spent a lot of time learning that most of the bullying going on was not about me or my failings—it was more about what other people needed to unload.

Family bullies often pretend to (or believe they can) help by offering criticism…

Stop Trying to Fix Yourself and Start Enjoying Your Life

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“You think that the goal is to be over there, and we say the goal is the journey over there; the goal is the fun you have along the way on your way to over there.” ~Abraham

I have a clear memory of my mother looking at my bookshelves several years ago and commenting, “You’re always reading all these self-help books, and where has it gotten you?”

I responded with a quip about how I’ll always be working to align my personality with my soul, to which she scoffed and said, “When will you grow up and realize you have …

6 Healthy Ways to Shed Layers of Emotional Pain

By in Blog, letting go, mindfulness & peace

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anais Nin

Do you remember a time when you wanted to crawl under the bed and stay forever?

Perhaps you’d been dealing with chronic pain and anxiety, had recently experienced divorce or the loss of a loved one, maybe even lost a job or two. I had experienced all of these things in just a few short years, and, judging by the loud knocking as I hid, was about to have my car repossessed, too.

I …

Why Stress and Pressure Can Actually Be Good for Us

By in Blog, change & challenges

“A diamond doesn’t start out polished and shining. It once was nothing special, but with enough pressure and time, becomes spectacular.” ~Solange Nicole

It’s one of the last days of summer, and I wake up to my mother screaming.

I’m ten, and I pull off the covers and sneak to my door. Opening it slowly, I peek out and look down the stairs.

Men have stormed into our house. Ignoring my mom, they head into the living room, pick up the sofa, and throw it out on the lawn. They do the same with the dinner table and the rest …

What’s Really Going on When Someone Seems “Too Sensitive”

By in Blog, change & challenges

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” ~Cynthia Occelli

The whole time I was growing up, I was told, incessantly, that I was “too sensitive.” These words, when I first heard them, came from the mouth of the person I vowed I would never become.

And yet, as I grew up, these words didn’t stay within the darkness of my childhood home. They began to roll out of the mouths of kids …

How to Develop Self-Love and Why This Will Strengthen Your Relationship

By in Blog, love & relationships

“An outstanding love doesn’t come from two half-fulfilled people coming together to make one whole, complete life. Outstanding love comes from two whole people coming together to share and enhance their already full and beautiful lives.” ~Pia Scade

My partner and I were having a conversation about our relationship recently.

We both told each other just how much we loved the relationship. We weren’t talking about how much we love each other, but about how much we enjoy this shared space between us, this thing we call our relationship.

We enjoy giving to it and nurturing it. We enjoy receiving …

Create an Extraordinary Life: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Daily

By in Blog, happiness & fun, love & relationships, meaning & passion

“We have one precious life: do something extraordinary today, even if it’s tiny. A pebble starts the avalanche.” ~K.A. Laity

Do you have a vision of a life you want to lead?

Doing work that you enjoy, being happy, healthy, and having great relationships?

You probably have your own idea of what an extraordinary life means. But how often do you feel that you are living that life?

Life is bound within the confines of our schedules, our money, and our limited resources.

There are many things that you want to do, or want to be, but most of the …

5 Lessons on Living a Long, Healthy Life, from a 90-Year-Old

By in Blog, healthy habits

“In the end, long life is the reward, strength, and beauty.” ~Grace Paley

In September 2014, my grandmother turned ninety years old. She lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is where she has lived her entire life, and while my parents could have brought her to live with them in the US a long time ago, she has always preferred to live independently in her hometown.

I went to Rio to celebrate my grandmother’s ninetieth birthday. Although I was born there, I had not been back for over twenty-five years. I learned a lot about my country of birth, …

Healing Through Service: 20 Ways to Help Others (and Yourself)

By in Blog, happiness & fun, love & relationships

“To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own.” ~Abraham Lincoln

A feral cat tempered my most recent bout with depression. I wasn’t seriously depressed, nothing like the debilitating times in my past, but I had a fairly strong case of the blues.

It was just before Thanksgiving, that time of year when people across America break bread with family and friends, and I was feeling sorry for myself.

I missed the gatherings we used to have when I was married. My ex-husband and I both loved to cook and every year we put together a gourmet feast for a …

How to Stay Calm in a Chaotic, Stressed Out World

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“You can’t calm the storm so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself and the storm will pass.” ~Timber Hawkeye

After another driver pulled out in front of me and narrowly missed a collision, I put on my brakes and waited for the car to stop. As the other driver sailed off ahead of me, my hysterical passenger screamed, “What an idiot! Didn’t you see him? Why didn’t you blast the horn? These people shouldn’t be on the road!”

I realized my reaction, or lack of reaction, was out of the ordinary, and I also noticed that despite …

The Truth About Social Anxiety and 5 Ways to Relieve It

By in Blog, love & relationships, mindfulness & peace

“Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us, when in fact, it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from being seen and taking flight.” ~Brené Brown

About fifteen million adults suffer from social anxiety according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Fifteen million. And we’re not just talking about what you’d call shyness. We’re talking about big fears of judgment and scrutinization from others.

When we hear statistics it can be difficult to remember the humanness of those numbers. These are people who want to find love, who want to make …

No Matter What You Tell Yourself, There Is Nothing Wrong with You

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” ~Bronnie Ware from Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

I wish I could remember the exact moment I mis-learned that being myself wasn’t going to cut it.

It happened early. Maybe kindergarten. I didn’t do it consciously, but at some undetectable moment, I put my real self in a box and created someone else. This new me was so much better—always happy, very accommodating, super quick and witty, and an expert at everything.

This new me was almost impossible to …

7 Steps to Overcome Daily Despair and Start Living Again

By in Blog, change & challenges

“If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.” ~Maya Angelou

Have you ever felt really stuck? Like every day was a struggle to get through and you knew in your heart the next day would feel the same?

For the last seven years—since the crash of 2008—I’ve been redefining myself, and it’s been painful.

In 2009 I opened an Internet retail store, knowing nothing about retail, let alone the intricacies of the Internet.

After years of hard work and little to show for it, every day began to …

How to Help a Friend Through Grief

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.” ~Vicki Harrison

I’m no stranger to grief. When I was twenty-three I lost my mum, and then eight years later I lost my second daughter, Grace, when she was only one day old.

Soon after Grace died, my husband and I saw a grief counselor. He said something about other people’s reactions to grief that turned out to be one of the truest statements anyone has ever made to me.…