The waters of self-care have ebbed and flowed throughout my life, and during a particularly long ebb (a drought, if you will), I spoke these words to myself every day: I am hopeful. I am healing. I am happy. When my heart felt broken, I found wholeness in opening it up again. I found hope …
“This is the worst decision I have ever made,” I scrawled in my journal with all the steadiness my jet-lagged, hungover self could muster. I had just boarded a train in Madrid with only minutes to spare before departure, breathless and wet with rain and sweat. “Being alone, for so long, in a country I …
Building the life we want also means re-wiring what we think we can do, a career coach explained to me once during a time of professional difficulty. I had long believed that finding a fulfilling job that paid well without being exhaustive was largely out of the question and that I was resigned to a …
When we’re in pain, heat therapy can provide some much-needed relief. How does it work? According to Healthline, heat increases blood flow to a specific area, which in turn helps relax and comfort muscles and joints. “Dry” heat therapy with heating pads, as opposed to moist heat therapy with steamed towels or baths, can be …
Happy new year! As 2023 dawns in a bright light of possibility, I feel something tugging at my shirt sleeve. Oh, right, it’s those resolutions I’m supposed to make. If you don’t feel like doing the whole “make a list of resolutions and stick with them for five weeks” song and dance this January, I’m …
These days, we often experience a sense of ambient stress that appears disconnected from any single event. Picture this: I’m working an in-office corporate job. Every evening, I carry the stress of work home with me, dragging it into my conversations, relationships, and then back into work the next morning. This surrender to stress is …
Today, we often experience a sense of ambient stress that appears disconnected from any single event. Picture this: I’m working an in-office corporate job. Every evening, I carry the stress of work home with me, dragging it into my conversations, relationships, and then back into work the next morning. This surrender to stress is a …
There’s something so thrilling about a new, blank planner. So many possibilities! Such organization! A new me! However, my track record with keeping one is abysmal (RIP to all the planners I’ve only filled out ⅓ of the way). Instead, I jump from one organizational “tool” to the next—Google calendars, whiteboards, even the backs of junk mail …
The pressure to be flawless, beautiful, and thin has been omnipresent my entire life — sort of like an IV drip of societal and media messages that continually fed me headlines, articles, and images about being thinner, staying young, looking better. Since my teen years, I have always thought I needed to lose 10 pounds, …
Everyone will answer this question differently. For me, I attended church two to three times a week as a child and memorized the ABCs and primary colors alongside prayers and Bible scriptures. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I began pondering my learned religious framework and constructing my own spiritual identity. It …