“Do not let the roles you play in life make you forget who you are.” ~Roy T. Bennett
Wherever I go and meet new people, they ask me, “What do you do?”
I love talking about what I do because I love what I do, but It’s not what I’ve always done, and it certainly isn’t all of who I am. It’s part of who I am, but there is so much more.
When we’re young, we’re asked to decide on a career. You know, the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The …
“I’d go back to my younger self and say, ‘Lighten up. Take it easy. Relax. Don’t be so anxious about everything. Try not to have today stolen from you by anxiety about yesterday or tomorrow.’” ~Bill Nighy
I believe there is great power in looking back at our past to learn from our experiences, mistakes, and regrets.
The Spanish philosopher George Santayana remarked, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” I might add that the history we need to study the most is our personal history so that we don’t keep making the same mistakes over …
“Don’t try to understand everything, because sometimes it’s not meant to be understood, but accepted.” ~Unknown
As a child, I never had the opportunity to develop a sense of self. I had a father who was a drug addict. A mother who was abused by my father. And later, we had my mom’s possessive and controlling boyfriend. It was tough finding a consistent role model in the mix.
I was one of four kids and we grew up in a trailer, sharing one bunk bed among us all. As children, we often would brutally fight with each other. We …
“I can’t say when you’ll get love or how you’ll find it or even promise that you will. I can only say you are worthy of it and that it’s never too much to ask for it and that it’s not crazy to fear you’ll never have it again, even though your fears are probably wrong. Love is our essential nutrient. Without it, life has little meaning. It’s the best thing we have to give and the most valuable thing we receive. It’s worthy of all the hullabaloo.” ~Cheryl Strayed
Like many young girls, I spent my childhood daydreaming about
“Tears of despair can be fuel. Thunders of anger can be light.” ~Maxime Lagacé
Let’s talk about rockets.
This is going somewhere, I promise.
If you ever watch a rocket launch, you’ll see a large cylinder fall off once it gets to a certain height. Breaking earth’s gravity is not easy, so the cylinder is filled with a high-powered propellant that helps the rocket gain altitude.
The thing is, once all the propellant is gone, the cylinder becomes dead weight, so it has to be jettisoned. Otherwise, the rocket would fall back to earth, and all of that work would …
“Strength doesn’t come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you thought you couldn’t.” ~Rikki Rogers
A friend recently asked me: Andi, where does your strength come from?
It took me a while before I had a good enough answer for her. I sat contemplating the many roads I’ve traveled, through my own transformational journey and the inspirational journeys of all my clients who demonstrate incredible strength for me.
I moved to a different country, alone, at eighteen years old and have changed careers, battled a complex pain diagnosis with my child, and lost loved ones…
“What, then, is the right way of living? Life must be lived as play…” ~Plato
I am a recovering perfectionist, and learning to play again saved me.
Like many children, I remember playing a lot when I was younger and being filled with a sense of openness, curiosity, and joy toward life.
I was fortunate to grow up in Oregon with a large extended family with a lot of cousins with whom I got to play regularly. We spent hours, playing hide-and-seek, climbing trees, drawing, and building forts.
I also attended a wonderful public school that encouraged play. We …
“Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.” ~Jamais Cascio
The pandemic has forced us to avoid people, self-isolate, and keep to ourselves.
It might seem like you’re in a position where you don’t have many options. You can’t freely hang out with your friends. You can’t have fun like you used to. Your dating and socializing opportunities are limited. These setbacks can bring to the fore feelings of loneliness, deepen the longing for relationships, and highlight your innate desire for connection.
I know how easy …
“Only recently have I realized that being different is not something you want to hide or squelch or suppress.” ~Amy Gerstler
I grew up during the traditional times of the sixties and seventies. Dad went out to work and earned the family income, while Mom worked at home raising their children. We were a family of seven. My brother was the first-born and he was followed by four sisters. I was the middle child.
I did not quite know where I belonged. I oscillated between my older two and younger two siblings, feeling like the third wheel no matter where …
“You are allowed to take up space. Own who you are and what you want for yourself. Stop downplaying the things you care about, the hopes you have.” ~Bianca Sparacino
I deserve to take up more space. Plain and simple. By taking the space I deserve, I further build the confidence I need to live a rich life that resonates with who I truly am.
Over the past several years, I’ve had to navigate a new life after hard breakups, difficult career transitions, and moving back home. I’ve had to face the feeling that I’m not doing enough. …
Last year my uncle died shortly after someone I love went through a pretty traumatic breakup. I love all my family, but I wasn’t really close to my uncle and didn’t know him all that well, so I was more grieving for my mother and aunt than myself.
As I bore witness to the deep pain around me, I started thinking about the expectations we often hold of people when grieving a breakup, as opposed to grieving a death. We often expect them to feel sad for a while and then just get over it. Because the person didn’t die, …
“I don’t always make the best choices, but today I choose compassion over intolerance, sympathy over hatred, and love over fear.” ~LJ Vanier
It’s crazy to me now, to look back and realize how freaking hard I was on myself for decades.
Had I ever talked to anyone else the way I talked to myself, it would surely have left me friendless and jobless, and I definitely would have been kicked out of school.
Basically, I was a bully. Just to myself.
If I said something awkward, I called myself an idiot.
When I couldn’t find the motivation to …
“A meaningful life is not being rich, being popular, or being perfect. It’s about being real, being humble, being able to share ourselves and touch the lives of others.” ~Unknown
Hello, I’m Kortney, and I’m a recovering perfectionist.
Like so many of us, I spent the greater part of my life believing that unless something was perfect, it wasn’t good at all. There was really no in-between. If it wasn’t perfect, it was a failure.
One of the problems with perfectionism is that it’s common to believe it’s a positive thing. In our society, people tend to value it. If …
“When you bring peace to your past, you can move forward to your future.” ~Unknown
It amazes me how things that happen in our childhood can greatly impact our adult lives. I learned the hard way that I was living my life with a deep wound in my heart.
My father was a very strict man with a temper when I was little, starting when I was around seven years old.
He had a way of making me feel like all my efforts were not enough. If I scored an 8 in a math exam, he would say, “Why 8 …
“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” ~Eckhart Tolle
There are two ways to live life.
One is a more reactive approach, where you fight back when you encounter challenges in your personal or professional life. The other is a more proactive one where you are mindful of the trends within you and around you and ready with your surfboard whenever a big wave hits!
The only difference between the two is awareness.
Awareness empowers you to make conscious choices based on an understanding of yourself and the situation, to notice what your choice created, and to then choose again. …
“I understand the life around me better, not from love, which everyone acknowledges to be a great teacher, but from estrangement, to which nobody has attributed the power of reinforcing insight.” ~Nirad C. Chaudhuri
I was brought up to understand that family is family. So I have naturally given great weight to the importance of family bonds. However, what happens when a familial bond breaks? Do you commit yourself to holding on despite the cost, or do you acknowledge the damage and take the necessary steps to sever the tie?
Personally, I sit somewhere in the middle. Any …
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” ~Marcus Aurelius
Overthinking is common. And everyone is asking us to stop it. Articles like these are abundant:
“7 Signs You Are an Overthinker”
“13 Strategies to Stop Overthinking”
“9 Tips to Overcome Overthinking”
The overthinker in me is starting to question the effectiveness of all this well-meaning advice. If it were that easy to stop, there can’t be so much of it still.
I can’t help but wonder if we are looking at overthinking too negatively. Could overthinking be a part of human nature that actually has …
“The greatest gifts you can give someone are your time, your love, and your attention.” ~Unknown
The other day I saw this phrase on social media: “Spread kindness, not COVID-19.” And I started thinking about how kindness is contagious, which reminded me of a viral video I’ve always loved:
A skateboarding kid falls, and a construction worker helps him up. The kid then sees an elderly woman struggling with grocery bags and helps her carry them across the street. That woman then gives coins to a woman at a parking meter who’s rifling through her purse. And on and on …
NOTE: This post contains a giveaway – details at the bottom of the post!
“If today gets difficult, remember the smell of coffee, the way sunlight bounces off a window, the sound of your favorite person’s laugh, the feeling when a song you love comes on, the color of the sky at dusk, and that we are here to take care of each other.” ~Nanea Hoffman
I am currently exhausted. Absolutely beat. I’ve taken on more work than I can comfortably accomplish in my available time, I’ve been feeling under the weather for a while, and my eighteen-month-old son …
I’m willing to bet that most of us spend far more time focusing on what we aren’t than appreciating who we are. We home in everything we think we lack and then feel bad about ourselves, when there’s actually a lot to celebrate if we take the time recognize it.
It’s partly a byproduct of our time: We’re constantly inundated with pics and stories narrating everyone else’s lives, when really, they’re just highlight reels. They’re the filtered, photoshopped version of lives as messy and imperfect as ours.
And regardless of where they pose, what they wear, or what they’re …
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