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39 Supportive Things to Say to a Male Survivor of Sexual Assault

By in Blog, change & challenges

“One in six men will be sexually assaulted at some point in their life. It doesn’t make us weak or less masculine—nor should it. Rather, we, as men, should encourage other men to speak up, to be courageous, share this burden with others, and to attend therapy and take medication. There is such a thing as healthy masculinity, and we can find that in our fellow men, in comforting those who are having a rough time. Seeking help in a healthy way, wanting to be better, practicing empathy and compassion and caring for each other are ways of practicing …

The First Thing You Need to Do If You Want to Change Your Life

By in Blog, healthy habits, mindfulness & peace

“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. …

If You’re in a Painful Relationship and Considering Estrangement…

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“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 …

What Happened When I Stopped Drinking Alcohol Every Night

By in change & challenges

“First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

I love Sophia Loren. There’s a picture of her in my home looking eternally youthful and refreshed. From what I’ve been told it’s due to her nine to ten hours of sleep each night.

When I look at this picture, I see someone who relishes in the delights of life. Food, laughter, sex, work, motherhood, and self-care. Not long ago I stared at that picture thinking, “How could I admire someone so much and live my life in such a different …

If You’re Insecure and Afraid of Rejection Like Me…

By in Blog, love & relationships

“How brave the moon shines in her skin; outnumbered by the stars.” ~Angie Welland-Crosby

I have this reoccurring dream where I am about to teach a yoga class. I stand to teach, and no one is paying any attention to me. They are all distracted or in deep conversation with one another and have no interest in engaging in the class.

As I begin, one by one the students get up and leave. I am mortified and discouraged, though I continue to teach anyway.

I wake up from the dream with a sinking feeling in my stomach and heaviness in …

The Joy of Not Getting What We Want

By in change & challenges, letting go

“Remember that not getting what you want Is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama

Let me tell you a story. I first read it in a book on Taoism, but I’ve seen it in at least a dozen other places since then, each with its own variation. Here’s the gist:

There’s this farmer. His favorite horse runs away. Everyone tells him that this is a terrible turn of events and that they are sorry for him. He says, “We’ll see.”

The horse comes back a few days later, and it brings an entire herd of wild horses with …

How to Make Everything Easier by Accepting the Present Moment

By in mindfulness & peace

“The power of now can only be realized now. It requires no time and effort. Effort means you’re trying hard to get somewhere and so you are not present, welcoming this moment as it is.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Eight years ago, I was very depressed. I wanted nothing more than to stop feeling this way and dreamed of escaping my body. I had struggled with depression for many years, and I was terrified that I might feel that way forever.

Someone recommended I do a mindfulness-based course. This turned out to be the one of the most helpful parts of my …

8 Ways to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“You can’t force anyone to value, respect, understand, or support you, but you can choose to spend your time around people who do.” ~Lori Deschene

It can be paralyzing.

The worry about what other people think about you, I mean. That worry can hinder you from pursuing your dreams. It can stop you from expressing your true nature and stand in the way of the life you so badly want to create.

This worry can easily get your mind wandering to dark places and trigger feelings of insecurity, anxiety, and self-doubt. When it has a grip on you, you …

What If There’s Beauty on the Other Side of Your Pain?

By in Blog, change & challenges

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” ~Albert Einstein

“I don’t want to live anymore. I don’t want to be here. I can’t do this. It hurts too much. It’s too hard.”

I’m curious how many times I’ve heard these words over my lifetime. From different people, ages, genders, ethnicities, and walks of life. The words the same, the heaviness no different from one to the next. Hopelessness has a specific tone attached to it. Flat, low, and empty.

Being the child of a parent who committed suicide, there is a …

Why I Ignored Morgan Freeman’s Advice on How to Live My Best Life

By in happiness & fun, meaning & passion

“Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart.” ~Roy T. Bennett

When I was a college senior, God, or the voice of God (aka Morgan Freeman) came to my campus to give a talk. At the end of the talk, I beelined toward the mic set up in the aisle of the auditorium, excited to ask my question and for him to share his wisdom with me.

“Hi, thanks so much for being with us today! As a college senior trying to figure out what to do next, I was …

44 Things to Never Say to a Rape Survivor

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“It was not your fault, even if you were drunk, even if you were wearing a low-cut mini-dress, even if you were out walking alone at night, even if you were on a date with the rapist and kind of liked him but didn’t want to have sex with him.” ~Joanna Connors

Child sexual abuse victims who speak up are incredibly brave and vulnerable. If a child comes to you for support, be mindful of your energy and reactions. If you need to ask them questions to get a better understanding, be mindful of your tone, body language, and intonation.…

Healing from the Conflicting Loss of a Difficult Parent

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.” ~Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

I had a tumultuous and interesting relationship with my father. He was a strong, proud man in his spirit as well as in his physical appearance. In my younger years, I …

If You Expect a Lot and You’re Tired of Being Disappointed

By in letting go, love & relationships

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Almost universally, many of the problems we face in life are tied to our own expectations.  Expectations of ourselves. Expectations of others. Expectations of situations. Expectations of the world at large.

We may expect ourselves to be perfect and successful in all our pursuits. We may expect to feel constantly happy with our lives. We may expect others to think and react like we do. We may expect …

20 Powerful Self-Care Quotes to Help You Feel and Be Your Best

By in Blog, change & challenges, healthy habits

Hi friends! I decided over this long holiday weekend to give myself a break for some much-needed self-care, which I imagine we could all use right now.

We’ve all been pushed, stretched, and challenged this year. We’ve all given our all, done our best, and perhaps wondered at times if it was good enough.

That’s the thing about difficult times—we often make them so much harder by expecting a lot from ourselves, pushing ourselves, and beating ourselves up when we fall short.

We expect ourselves to always be happy. Or productive. Or confident. Or present. Or there for other …

4 Reasons to Let Go of the Need to Plan Your Future

By in letting go

“No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living in the now.” ~Alan Watts

I went to college a little bit later in life. Because of that, people often mistakenly believed I was operating on a specific (and somewhat urgent) timetable—as though I was running to catch up with the rest of the people my age.

However, I was already in a career I loved (teaching yoga) that supported me financially. For me, going back to school was mainly about enjoying the process of getting an education without any pressure to get …

What If Your “Overthinking” Is Actually Good for You?

By in Blog, change & challenges, mindfulness & peace

“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 …

Tips from a Former Addict: How I Made a Change for Good

By in Blog, change & challenges, letting go

I was a drug addict. Yes, I did it all. No, my childhood was not full of abuse, I was actually a pretty lucky kid, and I had it no worse and no better than anyone else, except for maybe some “daddy issues.”

I am not much for blame. I know who was smoking, sniffing, and popping, and it wasn’t the bad angel on my shoulder who made me do it, it was just me.

I can give you the exact reason why I started doing drugs. I was afraid to just be myself, simple enough. Everyone else’s thoughts …

How to Make Someone Smile: 10 Mindful Acts of Kindness

By in Blog, love & relationships

“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 …

The Key to Helping a Person Who Is Depressed

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“Don’t look for someone who will solve all your problems. Look for someone who won’t let you face them alone.” ~Unknown

Depression for me is like constantly walking up a hill.

Most of the time the hill has only a one percent gradient. You can hardly even tell it’s a hill. I walk, run, jump, skip along, doing cartwheels and stopping to smell pretty flowers and listen to bird-calls; it’s sunny and warm, with clear blue skies.

Even though I have to put in a little bit of effort to walk up, times are good.

And then something happens in …

How to Access Your Intuition by Listening to Your Favorite Music

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Sometimes music is the only thing that takes your mind off everything else.” ~Unknown

All major art forms can be a way to experience a deeper part of ourselves, but there is something unique about music. Perhaps it’s because music is a frequency with no physical form, so it can easily become a pathway to the formless realms of intuition and our higher selves or soul. We may never know for sure, but it is clear that music has a powerful effect.

I have had experiences of feeling whole, connected, and complete when listening to music. However, I was not …