Self-Awareness, Self-Care, Self-Love

You Are Not Your Weight

And I said to my body, softly, ‘I want to be your friend.’ It took a long breath. And replied, ‘I have been waiting my whole life for this.’  -Nayyirah Waheed

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Weight and body image are things I have struggled with for as long as I can remember. I think I am safe to assume that I am not alone in this.

We live in a world that basically grooms us to hate ourselves. Everything we are exposed to and everything we watch, do and read is set up to make us feel like we aren’t good enough and that there is something wrong with us. Advertisers bank on this. It’s how they sell basically everything. An even bigger part of the problem is society’s focus on weight.

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Follow Your Heart, Music, Self-Awareness, Self-Love

I’m Alive

I have always loved singing . I have also always wanted to learn to play the ukulele. In September my dad gave me his ukulele and I immediately fell in love with it. Learning to play has been so calming and therapeutic for me. The first time I heard the song ‘Proof’ by Alex G it took my breath away. The lyrics, the message. It’s perfect. I knew I needed to learn how to play this song.

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Self-Awareness, Yoga

Alternate Nostril Breathing

Your nose is directly linked to your brain and your nervous system. That is one reason why in yoga we focus so much on the breath. We use it as a tool to calm our minds and help create that mind-body-spirit connection. Focusing on the breath not only brings us right in to the present moment, it also directly affects our bodies and minds on a cellular level by triggering the parasympathetic nervous system. It helps calm the mind and relax the body. The parasympathetic nervous system is the opposite of our sympathetic nervous system, which triggers the fight-or-flight response. Even just taking deep belly breaths can start to change your brain chemistry, almost immediately.

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Self-Awareness, Self-Care, Self-Love

Self-Care Promise

“I have come to believe that caring of myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.” – Audre Lorde

“Make a promise to yourself to make her own well-being sacred.” – Unknown

selfcare

As life gets busier and busier, I find myself neglecting to do certain things because I feel like I don’t have the time. There are only so many hours in the day, right? Getting up early to practice yoga or meditate most days seems impossible. Eating out or eating a frozen meal seems easier faster than cooking healthy meals. Clean my apartment? Yeah, I’ll do that later. Getting eight hours of sleep a night?  Um, yeah right. I find myself putting too many things on my plate; saying yes to things I don’t really have time for. I’m sure I’m not the only one who lets this happen. Especially when life gets busy, it’s easy to put ourselves last.

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Self-Awareness, Yoga

Let Go

“Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness.”   – Thich Nhat Hanh

Let go.

This one simple act can fill your life with so much love and joy you won’t know what to do with yourself.

It’s so easy to let the little stuff get to us. To focus on the negative, to hold on to things (the past, thoughts, ideas, beliefs, people, situations, etc) that bring us down. We don’t even realize we do it.

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Self-Awareness, Self-Love

Question or change your beliefs and your life will follow!

“What if it’s only one simple belief between where you are and where you want to be?”

Something I’ve given a lot of thought to lately is what exactly makes it possible for us to create the lives we want. I think a lot of it has to do with our attitude about life and ourselves, as well as the decisions and choices we make. Even more than those things though, our beliefs that we hold about life, love, relationships, work …everything really – those are what really shape our lives.   These could be things we grow up thinking we are “supposed” to do or believe. Get married, have kids, go to a certain church, work at a job you hate, etc. They are also beliefs that are formed because of things that have happened to us in the past. We got hurt, bad things happened, we didn’t succeed at something we hoped to, etc.

Think about it for a minute. Here is one example of what I’m talking about:

Somewhere along the way you stop believing in yourself. If you believe you aren’t good enough, that you’ll never amount to anything – well, you’re right! If you truly believe that about yourself, of course it’s true. You won’t try harder or do better, because why would you? And if you do decide to try and it doesn’t work out, it justifies your belief that you shouldn’t have tried in the first place.

Now, on the other hand, if you believe in yourself and that you are capable of anything – anything is possible. You’ll try to do your best and go after your dreams. Even if you screw up or things don’t go as planned, because you love and believe in yourself, you don’t let it drag you down or stop you from trying again.

Another example; I’ll use myself this time:

Growing up I always thought I would have kids, never really questioned it one way or the other. I just believed it was what you’re supposed to do. Grow up. Get married. Have babies.  I never really stopped to think about what I actually wanted my life to look like. It wasn’t until I was engaged last year that I really realized I had NO idea what I wanted my life to look like. I had never stopped and thought about it before. I had to do the hardest thing that I’ve ever done in my whole life; I left the man I loved because I knew I couldn’t get married feeling that way. The last year of my life was really about figuring out who I am and what I want. It was the best thing I could have ever done for myself and for both of our futures. It was hard to see it that way at the time, but looking back it was something that needed to happen. This story has a happy ending, as my boyfriend and I did end up back together about six months later. The best part of it all is that I have a clearer picture of who I am and what I want. That is SO important. If I had gotten married feeling that way, neither of us would be in a very happy place right now.  We also probably would have gone along with having kids because you’re “supposed” to and as it turns out, neither of us think we really want kids.

There are SO many beliefs we have about ourselves and our lives that are only holding us back for living the life we truly want. These are usually things we don’t even realize. The amazing thing is it’s up to you to figure this out and make the changes we need or want.

If you really believe that you aren’t good enough and you’ll never amount to anything – you have to STOP that belief right now. NO good can come from that belief and it’s certainly not true.

If you are making decisions or changes in your life because they are things you’re “supposed” to do, I encourage you to take a step back and explore that a little more.

Really be honest with yourself about what you believe, deep down in your core. Be honest with yourself about everything. Ask yourself what you really believe about life, love, relationships, work, and spirituality, all of it. What you believe, what you want, what you need. These aren’t always the easiest questions to ask, but they are the most necessary if you want to be happy. The answers aren’t the easiest things to find either, but they are there. They are there in your heart and soul just waiting to be discovered.

Are you living your life a certain way because you believe that is how you’re supposed to do it?

Are you holding yourself back from a life of abundance because you believe you don’t deserve otherwise?

Once we ask ourselves these questions and find the answers deep in our soul, we can start creating the life we want. If we realize certain beliefs we have that no longer make sense, are no longer true, or they are self sabotaging…we can CHANGE them.

How awesome is that?

Self-Awareness, Yoga

Face your fears & believe in yourself!

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop and look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”  Eleanor Roosevelt

I have always been very shy and reserved person. I’ve never like being the center or attention or having to talk in front of a group of people…even people that I know! There are certain things in my life that I just never thought that I would (or could) actually do.  If you asked me a year ago if I thought I’d be certified to teach yoga in a years time, I don’t think I would have believed you.

On sunday I graduated from the Yoga Teacher Training program at Green Lotus Yoga and Healing Center.

When I first started the training in september I was terrified. It was something I knew I always wanted to do, but never actually thought it would happen. (Me? Teach yoga? There’s no way! I’m way too shy…I’d be way too nervous!) The minute the opportunity presented itself for me to join the program , it definitely conjured up a ton of fear and self-doubt. My nerves were going CRAZY! In my heart I knew I wanted to do this more than anything, yet my head was telling that I  wouldn’t be able to.

Even though I was feeling what felt like debilitating fear, I didn’t let it stop me. Sometimes I wanted to give up, to walk away, but I didn’t let myself. I pushed through my fears and self-doubt. There were times I almost convinced myself that this was something I couldn’t do, but I knew in my heart that the voice telling me those things was wrong.

I made a decision to feel the fear and do it anyway.

I knew that this was something that would be amazing and life-changing if I let it. This experience was exactly that; amazing and life changing! It was scary at first, but each month it felt more and more like I was supposed to be there; like I belonged there. Even when I had to teach, my nerves would be there, but they’d lessen every single time. Every thing I learned (about yoga, about life, about myself), every fear I had to face and each and every person in my group; it really was meant to be. Through this training I actually started to believe in myself.  My life will never be the same and I couldn’t be more grateful.

If there is something you fear – move TOWARDS it; not away from it. I heard it said like this once: use fear as a compass to help lead you towards what you should do in your life. If something scares you (unless it’s something obviously bad!) that is the universe telling you to DO it. Don’t walk away from it. Don’t give up. Feel the fear and do it anyway! When you face your fear and find your way to the other side…it’s truly AMAZING.

Facing your fears can be scary and sometimes feel really, really awkward. No one likes being uncomfortable, but it’s actually a GOOD thing. I’m learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. It means I’m stepping outside of my comfort zone. It means I’m growing and evolving. I want to live a life full of purpose and passion and learning to getting out of your comfort zone is a huge part of that.

I’m discovering for myself, for the first time ever, that we can really create the lives that we want. We can follow our dreams and they can come true. We are capable of anything we set our minds to. It’s an amazing revelation to me and sometimes hard to believe, but life keeps confirming it for me; over and over. Life keeps giving me more and more reasons to believe in myself and to go after my dreams. Doors keep opening that I didn’t even know were there. I believe it is a direct result of me facing my fears and believing in myself.  This is possible for each and every one of us. We just have to believe in ourselves and go after the life we want.

 Trust yourself. Believe in yourself. Follow your heart. Face your fears.

It is possible and it all starts with YOU. 🙂

Self-Awareness, Self-Love

Learn to love yourself!

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
– Buddha

I believe that one of the most important things that we can do is learn to love ourselves, be compassion to ourselves and to accept ourselves…just as we are!  It’s also one of the hardest things to do.

When I first started thinking about the concept of self-love and self-compassion, I thought that I already did that. Of course I love myself! Of course I believe in myself! How could I not? I thought that I thought I was a pretty awesome person. I thought I had it together. But when I really started to watch myself and my thoughts it became quickly apparent that I wasn’t loving or compassionate to myself at all. I didn’t really believe in myself. I didn’t really love myself. I was never good enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, talented enough, right enough, etc. Everyone else was always better, everyone else was always right. No matter what; I wasn’t enough. I reminded myself of that way too often. I didn’t even realize that I was doing it.

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