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The Simple Tools That Have Saved My Mental Health

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Think of the world…you carry within yourself and set it above everything that you notice about you. Your inmost happening is worth your whole love, that is what you must somehow work at, and not lose too much time and too much courage in explaining your attitude to people.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

My twenties taught me many things about navigating the outside world as an adult. Ironically, the biggest lesson was learning to pay close attention to my inner world.

I turned thirty years young this year. Being on the cusp of a new decade feels momentous.

Over these last …

Compassion Is the Key to Overcoming Hardship (and Insomnia)

By in Blog, change & challenges

“You can never know how many lives you’ve touched, so just know it’s far more than you think. Even the tiniest acts of love, kindness, and compassion can have a massive ripple effect. You have made the world a better place, even if it doesn’t seem like it.” ~Lori Deschene

I never had trouble sleeping until I got divorced. I never had a nervous breakdown either. Bankruptcy, fighting for custody of my children, and losing my business and my home definitely pushed things over the edge.

What made matters worse is that unabated, stress-related sleep deprivation can lead to …

When You’re Tired of Trying: Lessons in Mindfulness from a Woodpecker

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“The antidote to exhaustion isn’t rest. It’s wholeheartedness.” ~David Whyte

Crouched down in a cold clump of leaves in the woods, I watch a woodpecker. Persistent, unbothered, moving up and down a tree next to me. It is methodically tapping its beak bit-by-bit looking for something to eat. I watch and wonder… Aren’t you tired of this relentless pursuit? Tired of smashing your face again and again with the odds stacked against you? How fleeting disappointment must be for you.

Not me. I take one bump and the disappointment reels through me. I desperately seek ease, my eyes always halfway …

How to Avoid Emotional Burnout This Holiday Season

By in Blog, healthy habits

Whether you celebrate or not, the holiday season can be stressful for many reasons. From experiencing difficult emotions like grief, anger, or resentment that seem to resurface out or nowhere, to the pressures of making everything perfect for everyone, there’s a lot of opportunity for emotional burnout.

I’m no stranger to painful emotions re-emerging around this time of the year. Christmas used to trigger in me the feelings of loneliness and guilt for years, following my move across the country and away from my family and friends.

Moving was a conscious choice my husband and I made soon after …

The Boundaries That Helped Me Stop Being a Doormat

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“Boundaries are a part of self-care. They are healthy, normal, and necessary.” ~Doreen Virtue

I’m really nice. Too nice actually. I’ve even been something of a doormat in my life.

But what can I say? I was trained that way.

There weren’t a lot of boundaries in our home when I was growing up. Instead, my addict mom was either checked out, partying, or raising hell, so I became the adult in the room. I was at her service most of the time.

By age six, I was regularly talking my parents through their fights. I’d moved on to career …

When Your Partner Isn’t Sure They Want a Future with You

By in Blog, love & relationships

“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much and forgetting that you are special too.” ~Ernest Hemingway

At Eagle Point Elementary, where I went for third grade, there was one very cute boy. Jason was the object of affection for seemingly every third-grade girl. He would make a list each day of the five girls he thought were the cutest. The list changed every day. Whoever took the top spot for the day was the girl Jason decided he was “going with.” (Was “going with” a thing in everyone’s elementary school or …

If You Feel Stuck, Stressed, or Burnt Out, Nature Is the Solution

By in Blog

“I go to nature to be soothed and healed and to have my senses put in order.” ~John Burroughs

Nature is a big part of my life, as I spend a lot of time outdoors.

When I first started hiking and backpacking, I liked being able to explore new places and get some exercise outside.

In my twenties, I traveled throughout the Western United States hiking in the mountains and discovering the incredible desert. I moved a lot, I tried new things, and I kept craving more time in nature.

Over the years, I started to realize that the benefits …

How to Ease Your Suffering and Confusion by Deciphering Your Emotions

By in Blog, change & challenges

“The symphony of bodily feeling, mental thoughts, and images is emotion. It is the symphony on which people must learn to focus, to understand their inner stirrings and to harness its message.” ~Dr. Leslie Greenberg

Like most people in our Western culture, I didn’t learn to read the language of emotions growing up. I had no clue that our emotions are purposeful information about ourselves, our relationships, and our experience in the world around us. They actually carry messages about what to do—what actions to take to meet our needs for safety, balance, and contentment.

Like all people, my parents …

How I Found Healing and Happiness in a Developing Country

By in Blog, change & challenges

“Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.” ~Jim Rohn

For years I dreamed of leaving the winters of Northern Ontario, Canada and basking in the warm golden sun somewhere in Central America from October to May. I would joke with my co-workers every winter “This is my last winter here, I swear!”

I did that for years until finally, one year, it was my last winter there. But it wasn’t because it was the most brutal winter we had experienced so far. Oh no. It was much more than that.

Rewind Back to 2012

…

Honoring The Death of a Loved One

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Death is indeed a fearful piece of brutality; there is no sense pretending otherwise. It is brutal not only as a physical event, but far more so psychically: a human being is torn away from us, and what remains is the icy stillness of death. There no longer exists any hope of a relationship, for all the bridges have been smashed at one blow.” ~Carl Jung

I’m at a dinner party with friends when I begin an engaging conversation with a woman I haven’t met before.

Music plays softly in the background as our conversation touches on many different topics. …

What to Do If You Want More Purpose, Passion, and Meaning

By in Blog, meaning & passion

“I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” ~Joseph Campbell

Do you ever feel like there’s got to be more to life? More purpose, passion, meaning—whatever your word of choice is?

It’s happened to me twice. The first time was during the early years of my legal career, and the second time was just a few years ago (after battling an aggressive breast cancer).

Each time I craved more meaning, yet these two experiences couldn’t have been more different.

When it happened to me …

How My Fear of the Unknown Sabotages Relationships

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Let go of the need to control the outcome. Trust the process. Trust your intuition. Trust yourself.” ~Unknown

I was talking with a friend one day at work, and we were discussing dating and the rejection that comes with that and the sense of failure and disappointment.

We were talking about how we struggle to even get close to dating someone because we get in our own way, and our thoughts stop us from moving forward because we’re scared. We’re scared, so we blow the situation up with our inability to sit with the uneasiness of not knowing what the …

How Mother Nature and I Manage My Depression

By in Blog, change & challenges, healthy habits

“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.” ~John Burroughs

I sat on the front stoop sobbing, unable to move. Hunched over like a heaving dog hugging my knees and clutching a wad of decomposing tissues. About fifteen minutes before, I’d managed to get myself off the couch where I’d been parked, withered and absent, for the fourth consecutive day, and had made it through the front door.

Once there, I tried to stay upright, but like cool syrup I slid down the side of the wrought iron railing and down …

The Simple Changes That Reduced My Phone-Induced Anxiety

By in Blog, healthy habits, mindfulness & peace

“Simple living doesn’t solve all my problems, it just removes distractions.” ~Melissa Camara Wilkins

At times it’s felt like my phone was my only access to the outside world. A place to connect in the middle of the night. The means to stay in touch with friends and family on the other side of the globe. It was a lifeline.

Until it wasn’t.

Improved sleep, reduced stress, and a mindful relationship with technology—they were high on my wellness “should have achieved by now” list.

I’m not sure which was bothering me more, the actual stress of not …

How to Reap the Benefits of Post-Traumatic Growth

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places.” ~Hemingway

We all know of post-traumatic stress (PTS) but how many of us know of post-traumatic growth (PTG), a very hopeful and attainable way of life beyond the loss, adversity, and trauma we’ve experienced? It’s a term that was coined in the 1990s and is becoming more popular now as positive psychology and the specific area of resiliency-building have gained momentum in our society.

What is post-traumatic growth? It’s positive change and growth that comes about as a result of an adversity or loss. It is channeling …

What I Now Know After Feeling Miserable and Worthless at Work

By in Blog, work fulfillment

“You don’t need anyone’s affection or approval in order to be good enough. When someone rejects or abandons or judges you, it isn’t actually about you. It’s about them and their own insecurities, limitations, and needs, and you don’t have to internalize that. Your worth isn’t contingent upon other people’s acceptance of you—it’s something inherent.” ~Danielle Koepke

Imagine you’re in your early thirties, in a job you enjoy at a company you love, and you just got promoted (without lobbying for it), so you’re living a great life.

All of a sudden, you’re bombarded with negative feedback from your manager. …

How to Love an Addict (Who Doesn’t Love Themselves)

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

I grew up in a family of high-functioning addicts. We looked like the perfect family, but as we all know, looks can be deceiving. No one was addicted to drugs, so that obviously meant that we had no problems. Cigarettes, alcohol, food, and work don’t count, right?

I have come to realize that what we are addicted to is nowhere near as important as the admission that we’re addicted to something. When we try to make ourselves feel better by telling ourselves that gambling or porn or beer is nowhere near as bad as crack or heroin, we are …

Healing from the Trauma of Narcissistic Abuse

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“Don’t blame a clown for acting like a clown. Ask yourself why you keep going to the circus.” ~Unknown

When I first experienced narcissistic abuse as an adult, it was a at a time when the term “narcissistic abuse” was not so heard of or understood.

I had met a handsome, intelligent, charismatic, and charming man, and as is typical in abusive relationships, had been completely overwhelmed by the intensity and ‘love’-overload of the early stages.

Before I could catch my breath, though, the nitpicking started, and so did the heated arguments, the jealousy, the cutting contact, and disappearing for …

6 Things to Remember When You Think You Don’t Matter

By in Blog, change & challenges

In a world with billions of people, in a culture that promotes being special and making a big mark, it’s easy to feel like you don’t matter.

Maybe you’ve felt it all your life—like you have no purpose, no value, and nothing to contribute to anyone around you.

Maybe you feel it off and on, when you’re struggling to find love or direction and think you need to somehow prove your worth.

Or maybe you know that your life has value, but every now and then, when your head hits your pillow, you wonder if in the end, it …

How to Reduce Holiday Stress by Setting Strong Boundaries

By in Blog, love & relationships

I love the holidays. I eagerly anticipate the first snowfall, adore the scent of pine, and watch It’s A Wonderful Life every year without fail.

That said, even the merriest among us know that the holidays can be emotionally, physically, and psychologically taxing. In addition to buying gifts, negotiating travel plans, and shuttling from gathering to gathering, many of us spend extended time with our families—and every family, no matter how loving, has its fair share of challenges.

When these difficult family dynamics combine with holiday-season stress, we may find ourselves at a crossroads. Do we burn out, freak …