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If You Want a Healthy Relationship, Value Yourself

By in Blog, love & relationships

“It’s all about falling in love with yourself and sharing that love with someone who appreciates you, rather than looking for love to compensate for a self-love deficit.” ~Eartha Kitt

I always found the concept of self-love embarrassing and horrifying. Just thinking about it would make me cringe. It felt completely wrong, and I didn’t understand what it was all about. Quite frankly, I felt disgusted by it and thought it was a new-age invention by self-centerd people who wanted to have more opportunities to be selfish.

Sure, I was young then, but I can now also see how that …

When You’re Unhappy and Want Things to Change

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” ~Seneca

This is the first time I am admitting it: I was bullied in school.

I was thirteen years old at the time, and it went on for the one year that I lived in Dorm 11. I never acknowledged it because I felt bullying was too small a misfortune to complain about.

But now when I think back to it, I can remember exactly how the dormitory looked. I remember the view from the windows, the corridor in front of my dorm. I remember the faces of the other kids …

How To Make Peace With Your Noisy Mind—7 Tips From An Ex-Monk

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Leave your front door and your back door open. Let thoughts come and go. Just don’t serve them tea.” ~Shunryu Suzuki

There are few things more exasperating in life than having a noisy chatterbox in residence between your ears—a busy mind that never stops and won’t leave you in peace for a moment.

You are sitting by the pool on your long-awaited vacation.

The weather is perfect. Your diary is clear. You settle down on your deckchair with an ice-cold drink and your favorite book.

Everything is perfect—well, almost everything.

The message “on vacation” clearly hasn’t got through to the …

How the Past and the Future Can Rob You of the Present

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Remember then: there is only one time that is important and it is now! The present moment is the only time when we have any power.” ~Tolstoy

Stop for a second and tell me: What were you thinking about just now? Chances are very good that you were thinking about something either in the past or in the future.

Of course, some of that thinking is necessary. For instance, we think about what we need to get at the store to make dinner tonight, or what we saw on the news yesterday to consider where we stand and what to …

Why an Internal Focus is The Solution to All of Your Problems

By in Blog, change & challenges

“The moment you take personal responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you can change anything in your life.” ~Hal Elrod

I’m an introspective person, and at this point in my life don’t have any problems with taking personal responsibility. When I share my insights or understanding of situations I have been in, people often say, “Marlena, why are you so hard on yourself? What about the people that have wronged and harmed you? Why do you never mention them?”

For most of my life, I was trapped in a victim mindset, which meant that I focused …

You Are Not “Too Much” to Be Loved

By in Blog, love & relationships

“If you always feel like you’re too much or too little, maybe you’re adding yourself to the wrong recipe.” ⁠~Sophia Joan Short

There is an art to shrinking yourself.

As a young girl, I was painfully earnest. I hadn’t learned the craft of nonchalance that was as much a requirement for being liked as name-brand clothes and Livestrong wristbands. One day, as I chattered excitedly on the school bus home, my seat-mate scolded me: “Hailey. Calm down. You’re so annoying.”

This is how I learned that my enthusiasm made me unlikable.

At home, short tempers led to angry arguments…

Growing Up with a Narcissist: How I’m Healing from the Abuse

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“You could have grown cold, but you grew courageous instead. You could have given up, but you kept on going. You could have seen obstacles, but you called them adventures. You could have called them weeds, but instead you called them wildflower. You could have died a caterpillar, but you fought on to be a butterfly. You could have denied yourself goodness, but instead you chose to show yourself some self-love. You could have defined yourself by the dark days, but instead through them you realized your light.” ~S.C. Lourie

As the memories of my childhood flash within my mind, …

Why I Was Desperate to Be With an Unavailable Man

By in Blog, love & relationships

“If you don’t love yourself, you’ll always be chasing after people who don’t love you either.” ~Mandy Hale

In January, a couple of years ago, I had been declared unfit for work, suffering from anxiety and mental exhaustion. For too long, I had not listened to my body and soul complaining about all the heavy burdens I had been carrying.

Out walking at this time, the bitter cold and relentless rain felt like a blessing to me, grateful to at least feel something. It was on one of these walks that I first bumped into an old school friend, hearing …

Embodied Trauma Conference: a Free Online Event, Feb 3-8

By in Blog, change & challenges

Would you say you’ve experienced trauma in your lifetime?

Perhaps it’s an obvious yes—if you’ve fought in a war, you’ve been abused, or you’ve survived a tragic accident or natural disaster. But odds are, even if you haven’t experienced these things, you’ve lived through something traumatic—the death of a loved one, a serious illness, or even a divorce.

We all go through harrowing events that challenge and change us. If we don’t face the pain head on, our unhealed traumas can leave us stressed, depressed, or unable to cope with daily life. They can affect our mood, sleep, and appetite, …

My “Stress” Was Actually High-Functioning Anxiety

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Anxiety is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far.” ~Jodi Picoult

Many years ago, I worked in the technology sector in Austin, Texas, which is a big “tech town.” I was incredibly focused on building my career and earning a higher and higher salary.

I also have two daughters, who were in elementary school at the time. I’m divorced and am the primary care giver for them. Like so many divorced moms, I was doing a lot.

I would run through a mental list of daily to-dos from the …

When You Want to Make Progress Fast and Feel Impatient

By in Blog, meaning & passion, work fulfillment

“Tortoise was over the line. After that, Hare always reminded himself, ‘Don’t brag about your lightning pace, for Slow and Steady won the race!‘“ ~The Tortoise and the Hare (Aesop’s Fables)

I was sitting in an introduction to calligraphy workshop when a fellow student asked the instructor, “What do I need to become a professional Calligrapher, what would it take?”

We were all on the edge of our seats with that one. It was as if we were about to learn the secret ingredient to Grandma’s cookies.

The answer, to our surprise, was pen and paper.

“The materials are no …

How I Found the Gift in My Pain and Let Go of Resentment

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“Change is inevitable, growth is intentional.” ~Glenda Cloud

How much time slips by when you’re living in the pain of resentment? Do you ever question if your bitterness has held you back from living your true destiny? Is blaming everyone else sabotaging your life and future?

It’s only now that I can admit to the years I wasted pointing the finger at everyone else. It was easier for me to say it was their fault than accept responsibility for my own decisions. For me, attaining perfection was validation to my success. If it wasn’t achievable, then it was obviously …

How Yoga Gave Me the Courage to Stop People-Pleasing

By in Blog, love & relationships, mindfulness & peace

“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.”  ~The Bhagavad Gita

Growing up, I couldn’t have been further from my ‘self.’ Early childhood experiences taught me to focus all of my energy externally. To put everyone around me first and to be insatiably attentive to their needs. This kind of thinking instills you with an incredibly low sense of self-worth, disconnects you from your own feelings and desires, and ultimately leaves your happiness pinned to other people.

When you have low self-worth, you mostly want to contract away from the world like a turtle. …

What You Need to Know If You Obsess About Weight Loss

By in Blog, healthy habits

“By choosing healthy over skinny you are choosing self-love over self-judgment.” ~Steve Maraboli

If we actually care about health, in 2020, we have to stop trying to lose weight.

I know, that’s the opposite of what we’ve been taught to believe, but stay with me while I explain why I say that.

Dieting and weight loss obsessions are actually causing weight gain and poorer overall health outcomes in our population.

Our culture has been obsessed with weight loss for generations. We’ve been constantly bombarded with ridiculous “lose fat fast” claims by more and more supposedly miraculous diets. It’s been going …

Growth Isn’t Always Linear: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

By in Blog, change & challenges

“If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a time of great personal growth ahead.” ~Oswald Chambers

If I were to look back at my life thus far, as I often do, I’d notice a pattern of events and feelings resembling the activity on an EKG monitor.

For every peak, there’s been a valley. For every leap forward, there’s been a stumble backward—sometimes just an inch, and other times, what seemed like miles.

Recognizing and embracing this has brought me a tremendous amount of peace, because I once believed that progress required a steady, consistent ascent …

If You Think Reaching Your Goal Will Make You Happy…

By in Blog, happiness & fun, meaning & passion, work fulfillment

The path IS the goal.

The process is more important than the result.

Life is a journey, not a destination.

There are three very common, some might say cheesy and clichéd sayings you may hear when it comes to taking action to reach your goals.

Some of you are probably rolling your eyes already, and I did when I first heard quotes like these.

But I’ve recently realized something that has made me U-turn on a lot of my own old, outdated beliefs around goal-setting and achievement and acquisition of material things, or just generally “making it” in life.…

How Holding On to Unrequited Love Keeps You Alone and Stuck

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Let no one who loves be unhappy, even love unreturned has its rainbow.” ~James M. Barrie

My first experience with unrequited love took place when I was a little kid at swimming lessons.

I developed a huge crush on one of the instructors. I don’t remember his name, but I remember the excruciating feeling of absolutely adoring someone who didn’t even know I existed. I wish I could say that this was a one-time experience, but it wasn’t.

Sadly, this pattern continued for many years. I seemed to have a radar device installed in my heart that would automatically fixate …

Why This Will Be the Year I Stop Running from Pain

By in Blog, change & challenges

“One has to accept pain as a condition of existence.” ~Morris West

This may seem sounds counter-intuitive, but this year I want to let go of trying to avoid suffering.

It doesn’t mean that I am a masochist and plan to spend the next year being miserable. It’s more a question of learning to accept life as it is—uncertain, full of surprises, and with its full quota of difficult circumstances.

Our Wish for Happiness

The thing is that we all want to be happy. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if we fear not being happy, then we …

12 Habits to Adopt to Make This Your Best Year Yet

By in Blog, happiness & fun, healthy habits, meaning & passion, mindfulness & peace

Many of us head into the New Year with big goals and ambitions. We think about everything that seems to be lacking in our lives and imagine ourselves far happier and more fulfilled on the other side of massive change.

There’s no denying that certain accomplishments can amp up our life satisfaction, but I’ve found that our daily habits are the biggest contributor to our happiness.

You can have a job that excites you, the best body of your life, and the perfect partner for you, but none of it will fully satisfy you if you don’t also prioritize the …

Why You Have to Share What You Really Feel and Want in Relationships

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Any relationship that could be ‘ruined’ by having a conversation about feelings, standards, or expectations wasn’t really firm enough anyway, so there isn’t much to ruin.” ~Unknown

So many of us believe that not expressing ourselves is a noble thing to do. We get to feel stoic and in control. Others get emotional and overwhelmed while we can keep it together. The idea that we are strong because we don’t express our feelings is also socially reinforced, so we keep doing it because it’s the right thing to do, right?

Not quite.

In my previous blog post “The Negative …