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Why I’m Trying Harder to Be Kind to Strangers

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” ~Leo Buscaglia

From uttering unkind words to sleeping with unkind men, I’ve had many moments of shame in my life. Still, there is one particular moment of shame that stands out from the crowd. It happened at least ten years ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday.

I was strolling around downtown Toronto with a visiting friend when a rough-looking …

When Someone You Love Is Grieving: How to Really Help

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” ~Henri Nouwen

It’s hard to stand at the edge of someone else’s grief.

There’s the awkwardness. You always feel a little like an uninvited guest who arrived late and missed the first half of the conversation—a conversation that turns out to be a wrestle between another person …

7 Ways Running Helps Me Live My Best Life

By in Blog, happiness & fun, healthy habits

“I don’t run to add days to my life, I run to add life to my days.” ~Ronald Rook

Growing up, I was always a bit on the tubby side, or, as my mum would say, “stocky.”

Old and grainy camcorder footage from the early nineties shows me at four years old, waddling sassily around the garden naked on a summer’s day. Watching the nostalgic home footage recently, I thought to myself, “Wow, I had a beer belly long before I began drinking beer.”

Apart from a couple of years playing football in my teens, competitive sports and exercise were …

Why My Abuse Is No Longer a Secret

By in Blog, change & challenges, letting go, love & relationships

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” ~Anne Lamott

To say I had a tough life would be a gross understatement. Growing up in a strict Catholic Italian family I endured my fair share of emotional and physical abuse. I was unloved and suffered great violence at the hands of both my parents, mostly my father.

No one ever talked about this. On the outside, we were the ‘perfect’ family. Both my parents had decent full time jobs; Mom was heavily involved …

Don’t Waste Your Limited Time and Energy Regretting Your Past

By in Blog, change & challenges

“It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.” ~Jackie Joyner-Kersee

We as humans have an incredible ability to help each other in times of need. When things get rough and life gets hard, we tend to come together, step up to the challenge, and provide assistance. Our selflessness shows, and it’s amazing to see everyone work in harmony.

Need proof? Just look at any natural or man-made disaster in this world, and you’ll see it. We are a species that shows calculated compassion, unlike any other living creature on Earth.

But as much …

How I Stopped Living a Sad, Frustrating, Disappointing Life

By in Blog, change & challenges

“The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I’m not going to let myself pull me down anymore.” ~C. JoyBell C.

There I was lying on my sister’s couch, which had doubled as my bed. I had hit my rock bottom. I felt depressed, anxious, and disappointed about my situation.

I couldn’t understand where it all went so wrong. How did I end up here?

I was thirty, single, and pretty much homeless. My life wasn’t supposed to end up here. By this age, I was supposed to be married with kids and have a …

How My Gratitude Journal Has Made Life More Fulfilling and Fun

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Be kind. Be thoughtful. Be genuine. But most of all, be thankful.” ~Unknown

Have you ever tried to keep a daily journal?

How long did you last?

I’ve tried to keep one many times in my life, and I have failed every time. The longest I’ve ever kept a journal was for a measly two weeks, in a Google Doc, with my college roommates as a way to keep in touch, before I got bored and stopped.

For the last four months, though, I’ve managed to write in my journal every day. The trick, for me, has been to keep …

The Best Thing to Say to Someone Who Won’t Understand You

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“True love is born from understanding.” ~Buddha

I believe one of our strongest desires in life is to feel understood.

We want to know that people see our good intentions and not only get where we’re coming from but get us.

We want to know they see us. They recognize the thoughts, feelings, and struggles that underlie our choices, and they not only empathize but maybe even relate. And maybe they’d do the same thing if they were in our shoes.

Maybe, if they’d been where we’ve been, if they’d seen what we’ve seen, they’d stand right where we …

How to Trust That You’ll Be Okay No Matter What

By in Blog, change & challenges, letting go

“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.” ~Ursula K. Le Guin

Did you play with cootie catchers as a kid?

You picked a number and watched anxiously as your friend counted it out. Open. Close. Open. Close.

You chose a color or picture or word and waited in anticipation as your friend unfolded the flap and read your destiny.

Or how about that MASH game? Mansion, apartment, shack, house?

I played these games with an insatiable desire for all the details.

How is all of this going to play out?

Where …

From the Spouse of a Narcissist: Here’s What You Need to Know

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“You can recognize survivors of abuse by their courage. When silence is so very inviting, they step forward and share their truth so others know they aren’t alone.” ~Jeanne McElvaney, Healing Insights: Effects of Abuse for Adults Abused as Children 

When I first met my husband, when he had just started medical school at a large university, I thought he was just insecure. I believed that he would grow out of his need to be the center of attention, receive constant validation, and appear correct and knowledgeable about everything.

I believed he would become surer of himself and would …

How Unhealed Childhood Wounds Wreak Havoc in Our Adult Lives

By in Blog, change & challenges

“The emotional wounds and negative patterns of childhood often manifest as mental conflicts, emotional drama, and unexplained pains in adulthood.” ~Unknown

I am a firm believer in making the unconscious conscious. We cannot influence what we don’t know about. We cannot fix when we don’t know what’s wrong.

I made many choices in my life that I wouldn’t have made had I recognized the unconscious motivation behind them, based on my childhood conditioning.

In the past, I beat myself up over my decisions countless times. Now I feel that I needed to make these choices and have these experiences so …

Why Speaking My Truth Is the Cornerstone of My Recovery

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits—anything that kept me small. My judgment called it disloyal. Now I see it as self-loving.” ~Kim McMillen

I like to think of my inner self as a curly-haired stick figure who lives inside my chest cavity. Like most inner selves, mine has a simple, childlike quality. She smiles when she’s happy and cries when she’s sad. She has an intuitive sense of what is right and wrong. She speaks her needs simply, the way a young girl might.

My inner …

How to Listen to Your Body and Give It What It Needs

By in Blog, healthy habits

“And I said to my body softly, ‘I want to be your friend.’ It took a long breath and replied, ‘I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.’” ~Nayyirah Waheed

For more than half my life, I took care of my body “by the numbers.” Every day, I walked a certain number of steps, no matter how sore, sick, or tired I was. I worked a certain number of hours, often going without sleep in order to finish my work and check off all the numbered items on my to-do list, no matter how my body begged for rest.

For …

Why My Grandfather Was Happy Even When He Was Dying

By in Blog, happiness & fun, love & relationships

“It’s not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.” ~Tony Robbins

Is there anyone in your past that inspired you to become the person you are today? For me, that was my grandfather, Charlie.

Charlie grew up a poor farm boy in a small South Carolina town and ended up an executive in a Fortune 250 company. He was a poster child for the American dream, and I respected him for it.

But what I admired most was his character. Charlie was always content with life, regardless of his circumstances. …

5 Things to Remember When You Feel Ashamed of Your Flaws

By in Blog, change & challenges

If you asked me when I was younger what I wanted to be when I grew up, I may have answered perfect, or famous, which is incredibly ironic. I simultaneously craved a spotlight while fearing what it might reveal—my inadequacies, my weaknesses, my flaws.

I thought being perfect meant being beyond reproach—undeniably lovable and worthy of respect, something I didn’t always receive growing up.

And I assumed that if I were perfect in all ways, I could finally relax and enjoy my life because I could trust that no one would judge or hurt me. I could navigate the world …

How I Stopped Being Busy and Why I’m Now More Fulfilled

By in Blog, happiness & fun, letting go, mindfulness & peace

“Sometimes doing less is more than enough.” ~Kris Carr

Two years ago I made a radical lifestyle shift.

Prior to this change, I was constantly striving to do more, to achieve more, to be more. I was squeezing as much as I could into any given day. I was in conflict between building a business, working, studying, and having time for pleasure and fun. I was taking on way too much and losing myself in the process.

Building a business is a lot of work, far more than I had imagined, and it takes time to generate consistent revenue that …

How I’m Mothering the Wounded Kid Inside Who Just Wanted Love

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“Bless the daughters who sat carrying the trauma of mothers. Who sat asking for more love and not getting any, carried themselves to light. Bless the daughters who raised themselves.” ~Questions for Ada by Ijeoma Umebinyuo

“I failed you…”

My mother said this to me after I confronted her about my childhood.

That day, I had a clear image of the young girl I was, the girl I had tried to ignore in the hopes of moving forward. But pain shouts when it demands attention, and the suffering was palpable.

A memory flashed within my mind. I had tried telling …

When You’ve Lost Your Passion for That Thing You Once Loved

By in Blog, meaning & passion

“Do it with passion or not at all.” ~Rosa Couchette Carey

If you’ve ever had a passion for something, you are probably well aware of the peaks and valleys that are natural side effects of pursuing the thing you love most.

Whether it’s music, writing, sports, fitness, or anything else, sometimes you lose sleep because the thing you love keeps you up all night, and some days you just feel tired and uninspired. There are ebbs and flows in following your passion, which is completely natural and healthy.

But what happens when the “valleys” stay valleys? Maybe you have a …

How to Recognize Painful Emotional Triggers and Stop Reacting in Anger

By in Blog, change & challenges, letting go, love & relationships

“Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

There I was again, regretting the spiteful words that had cascaded out of my mouth during a heated argument with my partner.

I felt that old familiar feeling, the burning in my solar plexus that bubbled up and erupted like a volcano, spilling out expressions of anger, blame, and criticism.

It had been a rocky few months, my partner was struggling to find consistent work, and our credit card debt was on the rise. Suddenly anger kicked in and I lashed out, accusing him of slacking off …

How to Replace Body-Hate with Self-Compassion

By in Blog, change & challenges, healthy habits, love & relationships

“Loving yourself is the greatest revolution.” ~Unknown

I’ve spent most of my life struggling with my weight and trying desperately to fit the idealistic image of beauty that our culture celebrates.

As a young teen, I was obsessed with magazines and all their secrets to be prettier and have a better butt and get your crush to notice you. I see now how desperate I was at such a young age to feel beautiful. Nothing seemed to work, though, as years passed and my need to fit the ideal beauty image only increased.

In high school I learned to skip …