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Why I Can’t Always Be the “Strong One” and What I Do Now Instead

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“She was strong and weak and brave and broken… all at the same time.” ~Unknown

My mom was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder when I was seven years old. It’s a chronic condition that doctors say can be managed but not cured. The symptoms included manic high energy, depression, delusions, hearing voices, reduced need for sleep, and loss of touch with reality.

There were many times of stability for her, when she was on the right medication, taking it routinely, and attending regular psychotherapy. But if any of these elements were missing, those moments were often short-lived.

She was the …

How to Face Uncertainty: Why We Don’t Need to Press the Panic Button

By in Blog, change & challenges, letting go

“This time, we are holding onto the tension of not knowing, not willing to press the panic button. We are unlearning thousands of years of conditioning.” ~Sukhvinder Sircar

This morning I awoke feeling uncertain about the direction my life was taking. Was it what I wanted in all areas? Was I right to be living where I wanted to, in London, away from family? Was I doing the “right thing” restructuring my business, and was I doing the “right thing” going away for two months next year?

I’ve had a few days like this recently, and while I’d like to …

How Social Media Is Helping Me Cope with Grief

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“Grief, no matter where it comes from, can only be resolved by connecting to other people.” ~Thomas Horn

We had just landed in Chicago. I had spent the last three hours on a flight from New Jersey sitting next to grown-ups who didn’t ask me fifty questions every two minutes, while my kids watched a movie with their dad, two rows behind.

I was looking forward to spending one whole week in Chicago, despite the freezing temps. This was my first real break in eight months, and boy, I had plans! Sleeping in, long baths, reading, and no laptop!

I …

What To Do When the Voices in Your Head Disagree

By in Blog, change & challenges

“Ego says, ‘Once everything falls into place, I’ll feel peace. Spirit says, ‘Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place.” ~Marianne Williamson

Muse: I’d love to get another job one day. One where I can feel inspired and give my best gifts to the world! One where they have a casual dress code and summer Fridays. Ah, I can just feel it now!

Critic: What are you, crazy? You’re always talking about quitting and starting over. Do you remember how hard we worked to get the job we have? (That you’ve only been at for one year, may …

Anxiety Is Not My Enemy: How I’ve Learned to Accept It And Cope

By in Blog, change & challenges, mindfulness & peace

“You are strong for getting out of bed in the morning when it feels like hell. You are brave for doing things even though they scare you or make you anxious. And you are amazing for trying and holding on no matter how hard life gets.” ~Unknown

I couldn’t take it anymore. I no longer wanted to answer to the heart beating on my ribcage, my sweat on my palms, or the breath that got caught in the upper part of my lungs. I wanted the swirling thoughts in my brain to settle. I imagined them falling like leaves finding …

The Difference Between Love, Lust, and Attachment: Why We Have It All Wrong

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Try not to confuse attachment with love. Attachment is about fear and dependency and has more to do with love of self than love of another.” ~Yasmin Mogahed

The feelings we get when meeting someone new are hard to understand at times. We have biopsychosocial and even spiritual responses and interactions with people we come into contact with.

We’ve all met someone and felt like we just want to be around them. They make us nervous (butterflies), we can’t think straight, we’re self-conscious, we just feel an overwhelming… pull toward them.

I have (like many before me) spent my life …

How Practicing Patience Can Relieve Stress and Anxiety

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.” ~Joyce Meyer

I used to say, “Patience is a virtue I don’t have.” So, of course, that is how I lived my life. Hurried, exasperated, impatient, and stressed out.

Not only was I a creating a world where I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off—because everything had to be done now, and anything that got in the way of that had to be removed immediately—but I was creating this world for those around me.

My children often …

5 Psychological Strategies to Ease the Stress of Perfectionism

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

“Striving for excellence motivates you, striving for perfection is demoralizing.” ~Harriet Braiker

The last three months I’ve been trying an experiment. It’s something that I’ve never done before, and in a certain way, it’s been a huge challenge. However, in other ways, it’s been an enormous stress relief, and I would say a largely successful effort.

What I’ve done seems to go against conventional wisdom, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a wise choice.

So what exactly is this challenge? Well, I have actively gone out of my way to be average.

Yep, sounds a little weird, doesn’t it? …

How I Found Happiness by Facing the Past I Worked So Hard to Escape

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Ten years from now, make sure you can say you chose your life, you didn’t settle for it.” ~Mandy Hale

I spent most of my youth trying to escape. From the mother who drank too much and the violent men she dated and from the kids at school who made fun of me for wearing the same clothes every week.

I felt shame and guilt because I believed that my circumstances defined who I was, which meant that I was unimportant, unworthy even.

So, I created elaborate imaginary worlds where I was smart, successful, and often saved the day. Where …

When I Stopped Competing, I Set Myself Free

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“With nothing to compare yourself to, aren’t you perfect?” ~Byron Katie

I have never liked competition. Every time I compete, I feel pressured and disconnected from others. I love harmony, peace, collaboration, and win-win situations, kind of like “me happy, you happy.” I don’t need to watch another person lose the game to feel good about myself. I don’t need to dominate or put someone else down in order to feel superior and worthy.

In some cultures, competing is perceived as a sign of ambition, power, and strength. Most of us grew up hearing constant comparisons, which turned into …

How to Release Emotions Stuck in Your Body and Let Go of the Pain

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

“The human mind is a relational and embodied process that regulates the flow of energy and information.” ~Daniel J. Siegel

We are emotional creatures, and we were born to express emotions freely and openly. Somewhere along the way, however, many of us learned to repress emotions, especially those deemed “negative,” in order to fit in, earn love, and be accepted. This was my experience.

I grew up in a home where the motto was “Children are to be seen, not heard.” There was little emotional expression allowed, let alone accepted. No one was there to validate or help us …

Why I’ve Stopped Hiding My Struggles

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself… that is the moment you might be starting to get it right.” ~Neil Gaiman

The road seemed to go on forever.

Although it was only about 8:30 a.m., the summer sun was already blazing in the sky, shining down with such intensity I felt like an ant under a merciless magnifying glass.

Seven miles into an eight-mile run and growing more and more tired with …

What Heartbreak Taught Me About Creating My Own Happiness

By in Blog, happiness & fun, love & relationships

“We accept the love we think we deserve.” ~Stephen Chbosky

A few years ago I was completely heartbroken, and I thought I would never find love. I’d gone through a string of painful breakups over a number of years, but I thought I’d finally met someone I could be with for the long haul. I’d been dating this guy for a few months, and everything seemed to be going smoothly, until one day he stopped calling. Just like that, he disappeared from my life. It was as if we had never met.

What was worse, he didn’t tell me why …

Sensitivity Means Passion, Not Weakness

By in Blog, change & challenges

“The fact that you’re struggling doesn’t make you a burden. It doesn’t make unlovable, undesirable, or undeserving of care. It doesn’t make you too much or too sensitive or too needy. It makes you human. “ ~Daniell Koepke

A while back, during one of my therapy sessions, I became acquainted with the word “dysthymia.”

I was puzzled at first, but as my therapist dug deeper into the subject, I realized that complex-sounding term was, in fact, a birth name to the grizzly monster that has been shadowing me for years. It’s more commonly known as persistent depressive disorder.

I can’t …

What to Do If You’re Tired of Feeling Half-Alive

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

“Who you are is what you settle for, you know?” ~Janis Joplin

I spent several years in a state of light depression without noticing.

Why was it only “light”? Because I was functional: I went to work every morning, I managed to feed myself (mostly with convenience food, but still). My house was reasonably livable, though far from sparkling clean. And I wasn’t particularly sad, nor was I ever even remotely suicidal. It was simply like my life had been wrapped in a thick layer of cotton wool, with nothing much ever getting through to me.

Why didn’t I …

What to Ask Yourself When You Feel Overwhelmed, Stressed, or Anxious

By in Blog, change & challenges

“Clear your mind. Your heart is trying to tell you something.” ~Unknown

Words have incredible power. I’d like to share three little words that can unlock your inner magic. They can help you cut through the layers that stand in the way of your inner truth and help you get in touch with your highest self. The peaceful, compassionate, loving self that knows what you need in any given moment and wants to bring goodness to the world.

But I better tell you now that they are simple words that may not seem earth shattering at first.

These words have …

When You Feel Like You’re Going Nowhere and Life Has No Point

By in Blog, change & challenges

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” ~Wayne Dyer

How many days do you wake up feeling like you’re a hamster on a wheel? You brush your teeth, take a shower, drink your coffee, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch television, go to bed, and rinse and repeat.

Do you wonder how you can keep going and keep everything together when it feels like you’re doing nothing, going nowhere, and living some life you weren’t meant for?

Do you ever wonder what to do on those days where you feel …

Yes, I Am Afraid to Fly, But I Won’t Let My Fear Control Me

By in Blog, change & challenges

“Feel the fear and do it anyway.” ~Susan Jeffers

Let’s do a thought exercise together.

I have flown, I don’t know two or four times a year since I was eighteen and a few times before that, and I am now almost thirty-seven. On the low end that puts me around forty times. On the high ends that is, what seventy-five times in my life? Let’s split the difference and say I have flown fifty-five times because I have never kept track of things like that.

Also, I have jumped out of planes before. Yep, it was beautiful, and seriously …

Trust Your Intuition: If It Feels Like a No, It’s a No

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“You will never follow your own inner voice until you clear up the doubts in your mind.” ~Roy T. Bennett

One evening my husband and I decided that we, along with our daughter, would go together to a neighboring town about thirty minutes away the following morning. He had an errand to run, and I was going to take our daughter to a nearby playground.

The morning arrived, and as I thought about it, I had a wave of feeling/thought that said, “I don’t really want to go,” or maybe it was more like, “I’d rather just stay around here …

Freeing Your Truest Self When You’re Anxious to Please

By in Blog, change & challenges

“Stress, depression, and anxiety are caused when we are living to please others.” ~Paulo Coehlo

I came from a broken and very poor family. My father left the house during my teenage years, and it was just my mother, little brother, and I remaining.

Like most single parents going through the hardships of singlehandedly caring for two children, my mother was often anxious about my well-being. And she overcompensated for her anxiety by being overbearing.

I unfortunately inherited this anxiety.

For the longest time, it was a daily battle for me.

You know the feeling.

Your muscles tense up, you …