As we get older, we tend to get clearer on what matters most to us in life. For me, it’s self-care and relationships. If you share my top values, you’re in luck, because today’s special offer honors both of those things! In my experience, self-care and relationships have been deeply intertwined—because I’ve found that deep-level self-care reinforces my worth, which enables me to attract and hold onto healthy relationships. Which then inspires me to continue taking good care of myself so I can give the best of myself to the people I love (without losing myself in the process). This isn’t easy ..read more

“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” ~Lao Tzu Once believed to be conflict-free, our relationship disintegrated on a fateful evening in May 2007, revealing the facade of our supposed happiness. We always said, “We’ll be all right because we never fight.” Well, that belief shattered on my dad’s fifty-fourth birthday. What was supposed to be a dinner with my parents turned into a nightmare and marked the beginning of a harrowing ordeal. My then-husband, bleeding from a head wound after a visit with a friend, turned our evening into chaos. As I attempted to bandage him, uneas ..read more

“Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.” ~Buddha “I’m sorry for your loss” is a perfectly acceptable response…if I’ve told you I’ve lost my phone. In that instance, I can appreciate the sentiment, empathy, and authenticity of the phrase. It’s my loss and my loss alone. I know you can put yourself in my shoes and internalize what it would feel like to be without this critical device and, as such, the words carry weight. When I tell you my parents are dead, though? Maybe not so much. That’s because they’re monumental deaths t ..read more

I used to loathe the word “forgiveness.” What it meant to me was that someone could hurt me, lie to me, or even abuse me, say “sorry,” and I was supposed to pretend like nothing happened. If I didn’t, they would say to me, “I thought you were a forgiving person,” or “What? I already said I was sorry.” It felt awful, outside and inside. I had one relationship that I knew very well wasn’t good for me and I wanted out of, but my misunderstanding of what the word “forgiveness” meant kept me stuck there for a very long time. The person would lie repeatedly and never come clean. When things ca ..read more

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” ~Joseph Campbell My husband Jake and I sit in anguish on our beautiful new linen couch, inches away from each other, yet worlds apart. Hours of arguing have left us at another impasse, the stalemate now a decade long. I look around in despair at the beautiful life we built together, petrified by the decision I know I have to make. My partner, my friends, the country I live in, the ground beneath my feet—all on the brink of collapse. I stare at the ceiling in heartache. What will be left of my life? So begins my descent into the white-h ..read more

“If you feel that you are missing out on fulfillment and happiness, but cannot put your finger on why, perhaps there is something deeper going on. Believe it or not, anyone can develop an unconscious habit of self-deprivation. Usually, this habit begins in childhood.” ~Mike Bundrant For all my adolescence and over a decade of my adult life, I was what men (and I’m guessing some female friends as well) would refer to as “emotionally needy.” And some did. To my face. With a sense of condescension and judgment. They were right. I was clingy, insecure, and fragile. I needed regular reassurance. A ..read more

“Your body holds deep wisdom. Trust in it. Learn from it. Nourish it. Watch your life transform and be healthy.” ~Bella Bleue It didn’t fit. I zipped, tugged, and shimmied, but the zipper wouldn’t budge. I was twenty-three, it was my college graduation, and the dress I had bought a month ago would not zip. As I stood there crying in the mirror, riddled with exhaustion, anxiety, vulnerability, and sheer overwhelm, I wondered what was happening to my body. In just one month I had gained thirty pounds. I was having one to three panic attacks a day. Everything I ate made me sick, and no matter ho ..read more

“’I got saved by the beauty of the world,’ she said to me. And the beauty of the world was honored in the devotion of her attention. Nothing less than the beauty of the world has become more present, more redemptive, for more of us in the encounter with her poetry.” ~Krista Tippett, on interviewing poet Mary Oliver The act of paying attention seems rather simple. Simply being aware of life happening all around us. And yet most of us are what we might call asleep at the wheel. We perform daily tasks and engage ourselves in human interactions without a moment given to the here and now taking pl ..read more

“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.” ~Eckhart Tolle Growing up in a patriarchal and hierarchical society, I learned to see certain people as superior to me and therefore placed them on pedestals: teachers, authority figures, managers… This behavior transformed me into a quite ..read more

“Your voice is the most potent magic in existence.” ~Michael Bassey Johnson In a noisy, crowded world, in a culture that promotes service to others and putting others’ needs before our own, how do we find the courage to share our own voice? I’ll admit, I’m still navigating this journey. There are times when a writer can write from a place of knowing. A place where they feel like they have something figured out and want to share it with the world. This is not one of those times. This is a sharing of information from a place where I am still figuring it out. What I do know is that this is an im ..read more