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How a Simple Action Word Can Guide You Through Even the Hardest Days

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

 “Our intention creates our reality.” ~Wayne Dyer

What if you only had one thing you needed to accomplish today? One over-arching objective that encapsulates the multiple items on your to-do list or the meetings on your calendar? One word that you set in the morning and carry throughout the day to stay in focus and on purpose?

Actors know that in order to convey a story well, they have to play an action versus an emotion. There has to be a verb involved in order to act. This might include something like provoke, seduce, destroy, or flatter, versus trying to …

How I Overcame My Debilitating Gut Issues by Digesting My Emotions

By in Blog, change & challenges, healthy habits

“I do not fix problems. I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves.” ~Louise Hay

Here’s my secret: In order to fully heal over a decade of debilitating digestive disorders, I had to stop trying to heal. Instead, I had to do nothing. What, do nothing? Yes, that’s exactly right—I had to let go of the search for the perfect cure. Let me explain.

I developed chronic gut problems at age fourteen—such a precious age! After being dismissed by doctors (“It’s all in your head; it’s a girl problem”), overprescribed antibiotics for years on end, or just given hopelessly …

The Simple Path to Change When You’re Not Satisfied with Your Life

By in Blog, change & challenges

“Making a big life change is scary, but you know what’s even scarier? Regret.” ~Zig Ziglar

Fifteen years ago, I made one of the biggest changes in my life. It was something I had wanted to do for so long but had never found the right time, right plan, or courage to do.

You see, ever since I was in my teens, I had always felt I was meant to be somewhere else.

The town where I grew up was pretty perfect for raising young kids, but it just wasn’t for me as I entered adulthood. I always envisioned …

How I’m Healing from the Pain of Growing up in a Dysfunctional Family

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“Don’t try to understand everything, because sometimes it’s not meant to be understood, but accepted.” ~Unknown

As a child, I never had the opportunity to develop a sense of self. I had a father who was a drug addict. A mother who was abused by my father. And later, we had my mom’s possessive and controlling boyfriend. It was tough finding a consistent role model in the mix.

I was one of four kids and we grew up in a trailer, sharing one bunk bed among us all. As children, we often would brutally fight with each other. We …

How I Saved Myself by Surrendering When Everything Fell Apart

By in Blog, change & challenges, letting go, mindfulness & peace

“And here you are, living despite it all.” ~Rupi Kaur

“I surrender!” I said this mantra out loud as my life was spiraling out of control.

I had spent a summer in college as a camp counselor separated from my fiancé. He sent me no letters and did not keep in touch. Still, I held on. By the time I came back home, we were broken. I had also realized he was emotionally abusing me. It took that separation to make me see it.

I realized I had been truly alone in the relationship. I was never lonelier than …

Avoid Feeling Bad: How to Stop Taking Things Personally

By in Blog, love & relationships

“There is a huge amount of freedom that comes when you take nothing personally.” ~Don Miguel Ruiz

Oh man, if I had a dollar for every time I took something personally…

I’d be rich by now.

When I quit my corporate job in Paris and took a year off traveling people would often ask me, “So, what’s your plan now?” A normal question to ask, I know. But back then, I usually got offended by that question and other follow-up ones. It made me think that others were judging my decision and questioning my ability to change career …

My Insatiable Quest for Love and How I Found It When I Stopped Looking

By in Blog, love & relationships

“I can’t say when you’ll get love or how you’ll find it or even promise that you will. I can only say you are worthy of it and that it’s never too much to ask for it and that it’s not crazy to fear you’ll never have it again, even though your fears are probably wrong. Love is our essential nutrient. Without it, life has little meaning. It’s the best thing we have to give and the most valuable thing we receive. It’s worthy of all the hullabaloo.” ~Cheryl Strayed

Like many young girls, I spent my childhood daydreaming about

…

A FREE eBook for Women Who Feel Stuck, Dissatisfied, and Restless

By in Blog, change & challenges

Hi friends! As you may know, I’m a big fan of Evolving Wisdom, a site that offers virtual courses and workshops, along with countless free resources and audio seminars, to help people create real, lasting change.

With this in mind, I was excited when the team recently reached out to me to share a free resource from Evolving Wisdom cofounder Claire Zammit, PhD, whose mission is to empower women to fully express their gifts and talents.

As someone who once felt painfully stuck—confused about what to do with my life and not good enough to try even if I …

Everyone Has Struggles, and We All Have Our Own Lessons to Learn

By in Blog, change & challenges

“The more we love the more we lose. The more we lose the more we learn. The more we learn the more we love. It comes full circle. Life is the school; love is the lesson. We cannot lose.” ~Kate McGahan

I remember reading somewhere that we are all here on this earth to learn a lesson.

It’s one that is made for us, and only us. Like a special recipe concocted in the stars and implanted in our tiny developing foetus.

While it may sound a bit “woo-woo,” it was extremely comforting to read that.

For much of my …

How I Stopped Feeling Angry with Everything and Everyone (Including Myself)

By in Blog, letting go

“Tears of despair can be fuel. Thunders of anger can be light.” ~Maxime Lagacé

Let’s talk about rockets.

This is going somewhere, I promise.

If you ever watch a rocket launch, you’ll see a large cylinder fall off once it gets to a certain height. Breaking earth’s gravity is not easy, so the cylinder is filled with a high-powered propellant that helps the rocket gain altitude.

The thing is, once all the propellant is gone, the cylinder becomes dead weight, so it has to be jettisoned. Otherwise, the rocket would fall back to earth, and all of that work would …

20 Journaling Prompts to Help You Love Yourself

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Time spent in self-reflection is never wasted—it is an intimate date with yourself.” ~Paul TP Wong

I’ve found journaling is a polarizing activity. People love it or hate it. (If you are in the latter group, don’t worry, you’ll still get a lot out of this!) Personally, I’ve hit both ends of the spectrum at different points in my life.

I spent many years in a place of self-loathing. I truly believed I was just not blessed with being born a likable person. And this belief fueled decades of social anxiety, avoiding parties, coming up with lame excuses to …

Why Forgiving Is the Last Step in The Process and What Comes First

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“True forgiveness comes when you realize there is something totally radiant inside you, that nobody could ever touch” ~Eckhart Tolle

I grew up in an emotionally abusive household.

My father was a man who diligently provided for us, but he left me with scars and shattered self-esteem.

My mother cooked me my favorite foods and let me sleep in her bed when I was scared, but she attacked my insecurities when I frustrated her. My friends played nasty pranks, but she wiped my tears as we both tried to survive my religious, cult-like school together.

As a kid, I didn’t …

How We Can Let People Go When a Relationship Runs Its Course

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“Sometimes it takes relationships that don’t last forever to teach us lessons that will.” ~Unknown

I recently had to let go of a friendship I had been in for almost eight years.

In the first few years of knowing each other, we had magnetic pulls. Each time we would arrange to hang out, it was as if time stood still. We talked and shared so much of each other that sometimes five whole hours would pass by as if it had been only minutes.

We texted each other, sent long emails, and would arrange coffee dates when our lives weren’t …

Choosing Now to Be Happy: Why the Conditions Are Never Perfect

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles, and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?” ~Lao Tzu

I don’t know why, and I don’t know when it exactly begins, but somehow, we are socialized to believe that happiness depends on the stars aligning, and we subscribe to the notion of a happily-ever-after, whereupon life is supposed to be smooth sailing.

It sounds ridiculous just saying it out loud, but yes, we do this. I’m guilty.

If we could only get into this school, have that job, find a …

How I Moved from Depression to a Deep and Meaningful Life

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.” ~Pema Chödrön

Standing at the bathroom sink, I brought my gaze up to the mirror. I couldn’t avoid eye contact with the one person I had no desire to talk to. I had questions, and I knew the reflection looking back at me wasn’t capable of giving the answers I needed.

My solution was a handful of prescription pills to numb my anxiety and Type II Bipolar.

Every morning I popped a Wellbutrin, Cipralex, Valproic Acid, Lithium, and …

The Freedom of Being Ourselves (Whether Others Like Us or Not)

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” ~Oscar Wilde

“Cringey” is what my kids called it. Me? I was just being Sam.

After hitting “post” on my highly emotive Instagram video—one of those more-than-one-minute jobbies that winds up on Instagram TV—I closed the app and had a brief moment of panic. Maybe I said too much? Maybe I screwed myself by being too honest? Too open? Too… vulnerable?

A few hours after sharing that five-minute, tear-filled video on not giving up on our dreams, I still didn’t have the courage to log back in to see how many followers I’d …

To All the Abused Kids Who Are Dealing with the Consequences as Adults…

By in Blog, change & challenges

“The feeling of being rejected, disapproved of, or conditionally loved by one’s primary caregivers is a monumental, long-lasting burden for a child to carry. It produces chronic shame, guilt, and anxiety. The child is blamed for doing something wrong and in doing so learns to perceive themselves as being bad.” ~Darius Cikanavicius, Human Development and Trauma: How Childhood Shapes Us into Who We Are as Adults

You’re safe now, but you weren’t before.

Before you were abused.

If your experiences were anything like mine, you were told that you were worthless on a daily basis, that your feelings and needs …

When You Keep Failing: How to Recover and Boost Your Confidence

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

“Success is a series of small wins.” ~Unknown

You tried everything. Nothing worked. What now?

I was the Marketing Director of a tech startup, and my work wasn’t bringing in the money or traction that it should. I did everything to improve my results: I read more books, consulted mentors, changed my mindset and tactics, did more field research and experiments, consulted even more books and mentors.

I won’t go into specifics, as that’s not what this article is about. But suffice to say that I did my best to learn from every book, mentor, experiment, and mistake. And I …

How to Embrace Your Physical ‘Flaws’ and Feel Comfortable in Your Skin

By in Blog, change & challenges

“When you’re comfortable in your skin, you look beautiful, regardless of any flaws.” ~Emily Deschanel

I started doubting the way I looked at the age of eight following comments from other children, about my twin sister being cuter/prettier than me. During adolescence I suffered from bullying because of my appearance and thought I was ugly. Like many others, I believed for many years that everything would’ve been easier if I was better-looking.

At eighteen, when I left home for military service (mandatory in Israel), I started to get positive feedback from men and to feel much better about the way …

How a Cancer Misdiagnosis Helped Me Face and Heal from Health Anxiety

By in Blog, change & challenges

“Trust yourself. You’ve survived a lot, and you’ll survive whatever is coming.” ~Robert Tew

“I have bad news. I am sorry. You have cancer.”

Sitting in the cold, clinical doctor’s office on a snowy, cloudy January day in Chicago, I was six months postpartum with my daughter, and I felt like I had woken up in a nightmare.

My husband had gone to work that day when I was supposed to have my stitches removed after the laparoscopic surgery to remove a large cyst, so I was alone with my daughter.

When Dr. Foley entered the room, I took one …