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Everyone Has Struggles, So Don’t Stigmatize Yourself

By in Blog, change & challenges

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.” ~Brené Brown

From a psychological point of view, my childhood sucked.

I didn’t have many friends, I rarely left the house, I was terribly shy, and I used to get bullied a lot, both physically and mentally.

My teenage years weren’t any different. The psychological issues I had as a child amplified further and created more profound problems.

When I started college, I didn’t magically become more confident or develop high self-esteem. I was almost the same person.

Now, I proudly (and humbly) can say …

5 Signs You Don’t Know What Your Body Needs

By in Blog, healthy habits

“The body is a multilingual being. It speaks through its color and its temperature, the flush of recognition, the glow of love, the ash of pain, the heat of arousal, the coldness of nonconviction. It speaks through its constant tiny dance, sometimes swaying, sometimes a-jitter, sometimes trembling. It speaks through the leaping of the heart, the falling of the spirit, the pit at the center, and rising hope.” ~Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

We read about all these things we “should” be doing for self-care, so we add them to our to-do list and rarely, if …

How I Uncovered the Root Cause of My Social Anxiety (and Finally Healed)

By in Blog, love & relationships

“I want to dare to exist, and more than that, to live audaciously, in all my imperfect, lumpy, scarred glory, because the alternative is letting shame win.” ~Shauna Niequist

I kept my head down. Staring at my plate of food.

I could hear the laughter of the other people around the table—work colleagues, my bosses, a couple of high-profile clients. They were having a great time, enjoying the company and their expensive meals.

I felt light-headed and clammy as I battled to fake a calm and relaxed appearance. My fingernails left painful, crimson marks where I dug them into my …

How I’ve Learned to Free Myself from Depression When It Hits

By in Blog, change & challenges, mindfulness & peace

“No feeling is final.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

I’ve battled depression for most of my life. In my younger years, it gripped me pretty frequently. I was first hit with suicidal thoughts at the age of fifteen, and it scared the bejesus out of me. I was young and dumb and had no idea what was happening.

When I was twenty-five it hit again. This time, however, I understood the cause. I was getting divorced, and my entire life was in turmoil.

It was at this time that I decided that I was going to do something about it. So, I …

5 Journal Prompts to Help You Let Go of Anxiety and Find Peace

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you.” ~Dan Millman

There was a time when my mind was completely consumed by worries, and I lived in a perpetual state of panic.

I worried about things I’d said and whether people were judging me, things I should be doing and whether I was using my time well, the state of my life, the state of the world, and just about anything else one could worry about.

Life always felt scary and uncertain, so I always felt unsafe, and worrying gave me the …

How I Healed My Strained Relationship with My Mother

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Give without remembering. Receive without forgetting.” ~Unknown

It was Sunday, April 12, 2015. I had just finished my grocery shopping and was about to leave the parking lot when I noticed a call from my dad.

I called him back so we could talk for a few minutes. He said, “Troy died.” I thought of his friend Troy, who I’d met a couple years prior, and said I was sorry to hear his friend had passed. My dad realized I had not heard him correctly. He said “Troy, your stepdad, he died this morning.”

I felt like someone had punched …

I’ve Learned That I Deserve…

By in Blog, happiness & fun

When I was growing up, my parents never spoke to me about what I “deserved.” They spoke to me a lot about what was “expected.” They were very clear about that.

They expected me to be tough, hard-working, well-read, and smart. They expected me to help others, especially those struggling on the margins. They sent me to work in impoverished parts of the world, so I would realize I was very lucky and really had nothing to complain about. They expected me to go to church every week, to be honest, to help my brothers, my cousins, my community. …

6 Powerful Steps to Stop Binge Eating for Good

By in Blog, change & challenges, healthy habits

“As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong with you, no matter how ill or how despairing you may be feeling in a given moment.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

Binge eating is hard. For me, winter time has always been hardest.

The winter of 2011 was particularly bad. It was then that I sat, hands clasped around my knees, thinking about how best to kill myself.

Hopeless only scratches the surface of what I was feeling—that same feeling I’d had on-and-off for fifteen years. I was twenty-three. I’d spent half my life in darkness.

I …

Walking Through Fire: Change Can Be Scary, But It’s Worth It

By in Blog, change & challenges

“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.” ~Charles Bukowski

I used to be scared to walk through the fire.

I was scared to do deeply unsettling, terrifying, hard things.

I was scared to face my biggest fears and struggles head on.

And for the greater part of my twenties, I did everything I could to avoid the heat.

In particular, there was one fire that scared me to my core.

As I graduated college, I was the happiest I’d ever been: I’d met my very best friends, traveled to small, colonial Mexican towns, studied meaningful subjects, …

Don’t Forget to Appreciate How Far You’ve Come

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Remember how far you’ve come, not how far you have to go. You are not where you want to be, but neither are you where you used to be.” ~Rick Warren

We’re always talking about how we should live in the now and “be present.” We shame ourselves for looking back at the past or into the future, thinking that we shouldn’t look too far ahead or worry about what’s to come, and we shouldn’t get too caught up in events that have already happened. We want to be focused on being the best person we can be …

The Little Things in Life Are the Ones That Matter Most

By in Blog, love & relationships

“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” ~Muhammad Ali

I followed a little boy in Walmart today. He didn’t look like my son and yet I trailed him and his mother all over the store. I curled my fingers around the shopping cart so I wouldn’t be tempted to reach out and touch him.

He didn’t walk with Brendan’s bounce or jerk his head back, trying to slide his glasses back onto his nose. He didn’t have his sarcastic smile or those tiny freckles scattered across his cheeks.

But he …

You Aren’t Stuck in Life: Commit to Change and Get Started

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” ~Mark Twain

We all have big dreams, big goals, and big ideas on what we think our life should look like, or how we think life will end up.

Some of us meticulously plan out our lives, envisioning and letting ourselves daydream as we think about all the stuff we’d love to accomplish. I’d wager that our plans include some pretty big things in life that would make us feel pretty proud.

The problem is, a lot of us have trouble reaching the potential we’ve set for ourselves. Time kind of …

Where My Social Awkwardness Came From and How I’m Getting Past It

By in Blog, love & relationships

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known…” – Brene Brown

I’ve recently become increasingly aware of my social awkwardness. In fact, my awareness of it sharpened quite suddenly one day as I was innocently talking to a colleague about work-related matters. When I managed to provide a possible solution to her dilemma, she was full of praise for me.

To make matters worse, she looked me in the eye and told me, “You’re simply wonderful!” Then she remembered a previous comment I’d made about feeling that I did not …

How I’ve Learned to Fully Appreciate the Little Time I Have on Earth

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” ~Norman Cousins

Recently, my grandfather passed away. His departure was difficult for me but it has also left me with something I’ll keep for the rest of my life—an unlikely lesson about life and gratitude.

I hadn’t seen my grandfather often before he died because I’ve been living abroad for the last couple of years. But I was still fond of him and I warmly remembered the days we had spent together when I was young. So his passing was a …

Forget What Other People Expect and Do What’s Right for You

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.“ – Steve Jobs

When we come to this world, we know nothing. We are all products of the societies that raised us and shaped our belief system with things labeled good or bad, right or wrong, normal or abnormal.

I was raised in an Eastern European culture that led me to believe every single woman on Earth must tick off certain boxes.

During the time I was single, especially once I turned thirty, many people started to wonder “what was wrong with me” and why I couldn’t …

3 Ways to Stop Worrying and Feel Less Anxious

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

“There isn’t enough room in your mind for both worry and faith. You must decide which one will live there.” ~Sir Robertson

Do you consider yourself a worrier?

Maybe even a perfectionist or Type A personality?

When I’m not at my best, I can be all of those things combined. (Not cute, I know.)

Because of this, I know exactly what it feels like to be stuck in my head, with tightness in my chest and emotional wrenches in my gut.

If you also struggle with worry and anxiety, then I feel you. I rode the worry struggle …

Whatever Is Taken for Granted Will Eventually Be Taken Away

By in Blog, love & relationships

“They say ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.’ The truth is, you knew exactly what you had. You just didn’t think that you were going to lose it.” ~Unknown

She was a mother of eight children. She lived with her family in a small village in the countryside.

Living in a poor family, with eight mouths to feed, she worked every possible job from dawn till dusk, from working in her family’s own rice field to accepting gigs from anyone who’d hire her.

Many people told her not to put her children in school so she could …

How Forgiving Yourself and Others Changes Your Brain

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“Be quick to forgive, because we’re all walking wounded.” ~Anonymous

People often behave in ways that we find irritating, annoying, or worse. This can happen especially with people close to us.

They can speak with little consideration for the impact of their words. They can criticize us and pounce on our mistakes. Sometimes they do unfair things that seriously disadvantage or damage us. Or they let us down when we’re counting on them.

All these behaviors can lead to us feeling wounded. The scars can persist for years or even decades. The closer the offenders are to us, the greater …

How I Stopped Emotional Eating and Started Feeling Better About Life

By in Blog, change & challenges, healthy habits

“Don’t forget you’re human. It’s okay to have a meltdown, just don’t unpack and live there.” ~Unknown

For the longest time, I wanted to lose weight. I wasn’t terribly overweight but it seemed to me that if I could just have the perfect body, life would be amazing.

So, I threw everything but the kitchen sink at my food and exercise habits.

Never one to settle for small wins, I pushed myself to have the perfect diet—I prepped meals at home, didn’t eat out very much, and worked out as often as I could. Yes, the kind where I …

Yes, I Do Matter

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Love yourself like your life depends on it. Because it does.” ~Danielle LaPorte

Thank you website impersonator. I appreciate you. In fact, you may be one of my best teachers.

Whoa. What?

Most people wouldn’t normally think of extending gratitude for someone who steals your words, impersonates your personal story, and uses your images online. Neither did I when I realized that an anonymous source had lifted not just my blog posts, but images of my daughter and specific characteristics of my life on their website.

Truth be told, I was outraged. This took intent. This took more than just …