If People Are Sucking the Life Out of You
FREE Online Event for Women: Get Unstuck, Find Passion & Purpose
Do you ever feel like you’re not doing even a fraction of what you could be doing with your life? I’m guessing we’ve all felt like that since the start of the pandemic. But did you feel like that before—like you have gifts to share and passions to explore, but you just don’t know how, or where to start?
Or maybe you want to believe you have gifts, but you question yourself. You dismiss your potential. And as a result, you hold yourself back.
I suspect most people struggle with these feelings at one point or another.
I felt …
Why Highly Sensitive People Make Amazing Life Partners
“Our relationships are a reflection of the relationship we have with ourselves.” ~Iyanla Vanzant
Looking back at my life I see that all of my romantic relationships up until now suffered because I didn’t recognize or value my sensitivity.
For much of my life I thought there was something wrong with me. I was too quiet, too shy, not interesting enough in group settings, too easily hurt, too easily overwhelmed and stressed. I judged myself for being irritable when I didn’t feel rested. I was easily bored with surface conversation and craved deep intimacy, but thought maybe that was …
Why I Hate Getting My Hopes Up and What Happened the One Time I Did
“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.” ~Oprah Winfrey
When I was a little girl, I made many wishes. At first, I believed all of my wishes would come true, just like in the fairy tales my mother read to me before bed. However, slowly but surely, life changed my attitude, stole my optimism, and I stopped wishing.
My parents fought a lot, and their unhappiness made me believe that I was not good enough. Poverty replaced my birthday wishes with socks, the bible, and sheets for my bed.
When my parents …
The Grief We Can’t Run from and Why We Should Embrace It
“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Grief creeps up on you when you least expect it. It reminds you of the person you have lost when you’re out for coffee with friends, watching people hug their loved ones goodbye at the airport, and when you’re at home thinking about people you should call to check-in on.
Even when you think that enough time has passed for you to be over it, grief pulls at your heartstrings. You think about all the ways that life …
Afraid of What People Think? Free Yourself by Realizing How Unimportant You Are
“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt
It’s natural to think that we’re always in the spotlight.
We think that people care about the way we dress, but they don’t.
We think that people notice our nervous habits, when in reality, they’re worried about whether people are noticing their own.
We tend to go through life as if our every move is being watched, judged, and evaluated on a moment-to-moment basis by the people around us. Here’s a reality check—you’re not that important.
I don’t mean that …
Why Feeling Anxiety Was the Key to My Happiness
“Lean into the discomfort of the work.” ~ Brené Brown
Anxiety was the core of my existence for decades.
When I look back at my life over that time, what comes to mind first is the constant tension in my chest, a knotted stomach, and a lump in my throat.
From the outside, my life looked great. I was college-educated, had a good job, was in a relationship; I lived in a nice place, had a decent car, and enough money to buy organic food and a gym membership.
But I was miserable.
Not only was I anxious all the …
Discovering Pleasure in Movement Instead of Exercising from Fear
“The choice that frees or imprisons us is the choice of love or fear. Love liberates. Fear imprisons.” ~Gary Zukav
I come from a family of runners. When I was a young girl, my father would rouse us out of bed on the weekends to run the three-mile par-course at the local park, competing with my siblings for who could do the most sit-ups at the stations along the route. We would end the event with a bunch of chocolate eclairs from the local 7-11 as a reward.
As benign as this story may be, it describes a pattern of …
What It Really Means to Be There and “Hold Space” for Someone Else
“A healer does not heal you. A healer is someone who holds space for you while you awaken your inner healer, so that you may heal yourself.” ~Maryam Hasnaa
I was sobbing quite hysterically, huddled into myself sitting on the kitchen floor.
It literally felt like my life was falling apart. And so was I.
I had been striving so hard to start a meaningful business that would change the world and help others, as well as heal myself from intense ongoing physical symptoms. But it seemed the harder I tried, the less things worked.
My head bobbed slightly …
Why It’s Not Your Fault You’re in a Toxic Relationship
I remember the first time it dawned on me that I was in an unhealthy relationship. Not just one that was difficult and annoying but one that could actually be described as “toxic.”
It was at a training event for a sexual abuse charity I worked for. I immediately felt like a fraud!
How could I be working there, helping other women get out of their unhealthy relationships and process their pain and trauma, but not realize how unhealthy my own relationship was?
How did I not know?
Typically, as I had always done, I beat myself up over …
Movement, Stillness, and Insight: My 3 Daily Non-Negotiables for a Busy World
“Put yourself at the top of your to-do list every single day and the rest will fall into place.” ~Unknown
We live in a busy world. There is always something, or someone, fighting for our attention. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. It’s easy to lose the time we need for ourselves. The white space in our days is often the first thing to get squeezed out as demands on our time escalate.
To combat this pull to overwhelm, I decided to create a list of daily non-negotiables.
Having a list of non-negotiables means I get to control at least a …
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine.