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Posts tagged with “self love”

When It’s Time to Stop Helping Others and Help Ourselves

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“Do your best and be okay with that.” ~Ursula Wharton

Late one evening I was doing some work at the last minute when my phone buzzed with a text from Alex, my neighbor’s boyfriend. He said he was rushing over and then I saw, “Chris is trying to kill herself. You gotta get in there and stop her.”

I felt sick to my stomach. I stood up too fast from my chair and dropped my phone onto the ugly grey carpet beneath my bare feet. I rushed to Chris’s apartment, which was right next to mine.

Thankfully, the door was …

How I Broke My Stress Eating Habit When Nothing Else Worked

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“The pain seems so much more difficult than the cookies. But it’s not. The pain covered in cookies becomes pain covered in fat covered in more pain.” ~Brooke Castillo

Do you ever eat when you’re stressed, sad, tired, alone?

Bag of chips after a hard day?

Ordering the take-out when your partner’s away?

I did.

Seven years ago, my newborn baby cried every evening.

I’d feed her, change her, and blow raspberries on her neck. Still, she screamed—like a smoke alarm you couldn’t stop.

I tried singing to her, burping her, begging her…

I felt useless, desperate.

In my journalism …

Why I Felt Broken and Unworthy of Love and What Changed Everything

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“How people treat other people is a direct reflection of how they feel about themselves.” ~Paulo Coelho

He used to tell me no one else would love me because I’m damaged goods.

And I believed him.

Because I received messages for most of my life that there was something wrong with me.

I wasn’t good enough. Too sensitive. Too weak. Too sickly. Too different.

I realize now those messages were passed on to me by concerned parents who saw in me parts of themselves they didn’t fully accept.

And those messages were from parents whose own parents had used criticism …

How I’m Healing from Codependency After Growing Up with an Alcoholic Parent

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“The only person you can now or ever change is yourself. The only person that it is your business to control is yourself.” ~Melody Beattie

In 2019, I decided to leave my marriage and start over. Although my relationship with my ex-husband brought deep pain and many months of suffering, I felt content with my decision.

In a short time, I began to feel great. I developed a healthy routine, exercised regularly, began meditating every day, spent time in nature, maintained healthy and deep connections with people, and tried to focus on the positive.

For a few months, it …

When Life Gets Hard: 4 Lessons That Eased My Suffering

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“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” ~Viktor Frankl

When life goes sideways, it can be hard to take one more breath, let alone find meaning.

Trust me. I know.

In the same year, I had breast cancer, chemo, radiation, and a divorce I didn’t want. There’s more to the story (there always is), but in essence, I lost everything—my health, my love, my home.

During all of this, I lost sight of myself, quit trusting myself. I was sure I was to blame for everything.

At the same time, within twenty-four …

Why I Couldn’t Find Love and What Helped Me (That Might Help You Too)

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“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start from where you are and change the end.” ~C.S. Lewis 

It was a dark January day in 2008 when my auntie called with the news “He did it.”

I felt so confused. “Did he try? Or did he succeed?” I asked as my body moved into shock.

“He succeeded,” she said. And in that moment my whole life changed.

This was a moment I often wished for—my dad was gone.

Dad had taken his life on January 8th, 2008, two days after my twenty-sixth birthday. He …

The Profound Joy That’s Possible on the Other Side of Addiction

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“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” ~Rumi

As I stood on the doorstep of that rehab facility, I felt completely empty except for the overwhelming weight of anxiety and shame. In that moment, I wondered what all the normal people were doing today. How did they cope? And how was it that I couldn’t hack life and that things had spiraled so far down?

It’s hard to admit you have a problem. To be honest with yourself when you’ve numbed everything out for so long seems ridiculous. To …

The Vault in Our Hearts: How I’m Learning to Fill It with My Own Love

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“If you don’t love yourself, you’ll always be looking for someone else to fill the void inside you, but no one will ever be able to do it.” ~Lori Deschene

This year I have fallen in and out of love. Not once, not twice, but three times.

Firstly, I fell deeply into being held, being heard, and being supported. For the first time, in a long time, I understood what it meant to be loved.

Secondly, I flew quickly into a spontaneous soul, who lit up my world and reminded me who I was.

Thirdly, I surrendered earth-shatteringly into …

The Most Important Questions to Ask Yourself If You Want to Be More Authentic

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“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.” ~Brené Brown

Have you ever just wanted to relax, let go, and let yourself be?

Why is this so challenging for so many? Why don’t we just live naturally and allow our authenticity to be felt, expressed, and seen?

Well, when many of us were little, being authentic was not okay, so we focused on trying to do things the “right way” according to what others had to say, because our survival was at stake. The more we did …

Why Rest is the Ultimate Protective Gear in a Busy, Chaotic World

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“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” ~Sydney J. Harris

No matter what airline you fly, there are safety instructions at the start of every flight that the flight crew goes over with everyone on the plane.

The important ones are also listed out on a card or brochure located in the seat back pocket in front of you. Besides letting you know where the exits are, there is always some version of the following statement: “In the event of a change in cabin pressure, oxygen masks will automatically drop from the ceiling. Put your …

How Accepting That We’re Ordinary Opens Us Up to Love

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“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” ~C.S. Lewis

I was talking to a mentor of mine several months ago, and they cut me off midsentence and said, “Zach, it sounds like you’re trying to be extraordinary. How about you just work at being ordinary?”

I paused then promptly broke into tears. Yep. Tears. Not ashamed to admit that.

Tears because the meat of the conversation was about self-worth and being enough. In that moment my deepest childhood wound was tapped into, and ordinary sounded horrible to me.

Who wants to be ordinary? Not this guy.

My mentor …

How I Healed My Body and My Life by Embracing My Sensitivity

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“I used to dislike being sensitive. I thought it made me weak. But take away that single trait, and you take away the very essence of who I am.” ~Caitlin Japa

“You’re making people uncomfortable,” my mother would say. “Stop being so sensitive,” she would then quip.

I have always been sensitive for as long as I can remember. Now I understand there’s a name for it: highly sensitive person (HSP).

The scientific term is sensory processing sensitivity (SPS). As it turns out, 15-20% of the population has this trait.

As a highly sensitive person, my nervous system filters less …

Afraid of What People Think? Free Yourself by Realizing How Unimportant You Are

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“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 …

Discovering Pleasure in Movement Instead of Exercising from Fear

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“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 …

Why It’s Not Your Fault You’re in a Toxic Relationship

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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 …

How to Trust Yourself After the Trauma of Being Dismissed and Invalidated

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“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” ~Steve Jobs

I was a sensitive child growing up, and I felt everything deeply. Unfortunately, my childhood home was dominated by chronic tension, fear, and anger—not an ideal environment for anyone, let alone a perceptive and empathic child.

My father was rather authoritative and controlling, and he disciplined us harshly. I was raised to obey without questioning and punished for mistakes or not falling in line.

Love was only assumed but never shared, and so I grew up feeling alone, unsupported, …

What Creates Anxiety and How We Can Heal and Ease Our Pain

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“Beneath every behavior there is a feeling. And beneath each feeling is a need. And when we meet that need, rather than focus on the behavior, we begin to deal with the cause, not the symptom.” ~Ashleigh Warner

Do you ever wonder what creates anxiety and why so many people are anxious?

Anxiety doesn’t just come from a thought we’re thinking, it comes from inside our body—from our internal patterning, where unresolved trauma, deep shame, and painful experiences are still “running.”

It often comes from false underlying beliefs that say, “Something’s wrong with me, I’m flawed, I’m bad, …

If You’ve Been Abused and You’ve Lost Your Joy and Sense of Self

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“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can choose not to be reduced by them.” ~Maya Angelou

I know what you’re feeling because I’ve been there. You’re sitting quietly with your pain asking yourself if the abuse really happened or if you just fabricated it in your mind like they said you did.

You’re wondering if you’re too sensitive. If you really did hurt them as much as they claim you did. There’s a small part of you that wonders if you actually deserved to be treated poorly because of what you said or …

4 Things I Learned from Being Possessive and Controlling in a Relationship

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As she stood there watching the puppet show, our eyes locked. I was instantly attracted.

After what felt like the longest fifteen minutes torn between the desire to talk to her and the fear of rejection, I mustered the courage to introduce myself.

She gave me a smile, then without saying a word, walked away.

“What just happened? How can such a beautiful lady be so rude?” I stood there in disbelief, overtaken by embarrassment, pretending nothing had happened.

Two weeks later, as if by pure serendipity, a mutual friend reconnected us. That was the beginning of a relationship I …

Why I Don’t Define Myself as a Victim and What I Do Instead

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“The struggle of my life created empathy—I could relate to pain, being abandoned, having people not love me.” ~Oprah Winfrey

See yourself as a victim and you become one. Identify as a victim and you give your tormentor power over you, the very power to define who you are.

Statements like this have become commonly accepted wisdom today because they are undoubtedly true. If you see yourself as a victim, you will be one. You will be someone who has been defeated, someone who is at the mercy of another, and that is no way to live.

And yet, the …