People Know Your Name, Not Your Story
How I Calm My Anxiety Octopus at Home with My Aquaponics Zen Zone
“Stay in the moment. The practice of staying present will heal you. Obsessing about how the future will turn out creates anxiety. Replaying broken scenarios from the past causes anger and sadness. Stay here, in this moment.” ~Sylvester McNutt
Like many people, I have an anxiety disorder that twists my thoughts and feelings. I call it my “anxiety octopus,” as it feels like there are tentacles in my brain triggering fear-based reactions for no reason. In everything, even things that I am confident in, I suddenly feel insecure and unsure.
It takes time to realize that the “anxiety octopus” has …
How I Stopped Feeling Like There Was Something Wrong with Me
“A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.” – Zen Shin
In the past, I often felt like I didn’t belong in groups of women.
Sometimes I felt like something was wrong with me, like I was othered in one way or another: too sporty, too quiet, too serious, too emotional, too dumb, too smart, too wild, too normal, too sexual, too prude.
Other times, I felt like something was wrong with all of them. Girls’ nights and bachelorette parties? The screeching voices, the loud laughs, the mundane conversations about makeup, …
[Free Event] Collective Trauma Summit: Creating a Global Healing Movement
Hi friends! As someone who’s passionate about growth and healing, I’m pleased to share that the FREE Collective Trauma Summit: Creating a Global Healing Movement is starting soon. Each year, over 100,000 people worldwide gather online to explore innovative ways to address current global traumas and unhealed cultural wounds.
From September 26 to October 4, the summit will feature 60+ expert sessions, panel discussions, live events, poetry readings, music, movement sessions, guided meditations, and more.
The summit features a powerful lineup of leading experts, practitioners, and thought leaders from diverse backgrounds, including psychologists, neuroscientists, human rights and social justice activists, …
Meditation Simplified: How to Find Calm in Our Chaotic World
“Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.” ~Eckhart Tolle
I completed my meditation teacher training in 2022 and continue to practice two to three times each day.
I was initially skeptical of what this practice could possibly offer me. But, as someone who had been riddled with daily anxiety, periodic bouts of depression, and an exhausting inability to maintain focus that left me depleted energetically, I was keen to learn more and discover for myself …
How to Clear the Emotional Clutter That Weighs You Down
“Declutter your mind, your heart, your home. Let go of the heaviness that is weighing you down.” ~Maria Defillo
I remember perusing through a used bookstore in a small New England town as a teenager. A book caught my eye—maybe because its spine was a MacIntosh apple red—and I slid it off the shelf. It was titled Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston.
Back at home in my apartment in Boston, I devoured it. That book shifted the trajectory of my life. Fast-forward seventeen years later and living clutter-free is not only my lifestyle, it’s my calling …
Navigating Social Anxiety: 10 Powerful NLP Tools for Personal Growth
“We need each other, deeper than anyone ever dares to admit even to themselves. I think it is a genetic imperative that we huddle together and hold on to each other.” ~Patch Adams
A few years ago, I was invited to a work event. When I received the invitation a few months before, the idea seemed fun—a friendly gathering with colleagues, filled with vibrant conversations and laughter, enabling me to create human connections in the workplace.
As the day approached, a familiar knot tightened in my stomach, I couldn’t breathe deeply, and an overwhelming sense of unease took hold. I …
When the People We Love Shut Us Out: What I Now Understand
“Have patience that is all unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like closed rooms, like books written like a foreign language.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke
I started thinking about a distant relative on a walk in the woods. I had thought about her more often when she suddenly stopped speaking to our family, well over a decade ago. I would reach out to her through email, but after not hearing back over the years, I thought about her less and less and eventually stopped trying to connect with her.
On this particular walk, I began to
How I Found a Beautiful Purpose by Giving Up the Search
“You and your purpose in life are the same thing. Your purpose is to be you.” ~George Alexiou
We all play a pivotal role in society. But I’ve toyed with the New Age spiritual notion that we all have a unique purpose on Earth to fulfill—a purpose for which we have chosen to be here.
I used to wonder if I could only be happy if I found this one resounding and elusive purpose.
If I knew my soul’s purpose, I believed my life would suddenly have endless meaning and vitality. Once I found my purpose, I would leap out …
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.