CBD photo courtesy of Charlotte’s Web

The Basics of CBD Oil and the Cannabinoids

In recent years, there is an entirely new supplement section that has taken over shelf space in groceries and health food stories. CBD is the latest and some say the greatest addition to the marketplace. Product lines have sprouted up. These include everything from lines selected and branded by medical professionals, multi-level marketing companies, supplement innovators, and product activists seeking to raise the profile of the plant to benefit both farmers and the general public.

While it seems like CBD exploded onto the scene just yesterday, the medicinal benefits of the various phytochemicals of the hemp plant have a long history. The current popularity of CBD for anything and everything can be attributed to a number of factors converging at this point in time. From the perspective of modern biomedical research, one of the factors at play is the identification of the body’s endocannabinoid system in the early 1990s. Another is the growing activism supporting legislature allowing the American farmer to legally grow hemp, including the passing of the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalizes the growing of non-psychoactive hemp on US soil.

In addition, we’re seeing a rapidly growing body of research studies published in peer-reviewed journals documenting the medicinal benefits of the phytochemicals found in the hemp plant. State-specific legalization of medical and recreational marijuana use has also contributed to an expansion of the conversations surrounding the different aspects of just what exactly is found in these different strains of what’s become a famous plant species. The economic factors, legal issues, scientific and medical research are all at play in the proliferation of CBD.

Okay—so what is CBD?

CBD is a Cannabinoid. What’s important to note is that there are a lot of cannabinoids. In plants. And even in the human body. First let’s start with Cannabis. This plant genus Cannabis has a number of different species. The most famous are Cannabis indica and Cannabis sativa. They’re native to Central Asia and India where they have a long history of use including as food, fiber, medicine, and a psychoactive.

That slang name – ganja – is the Sanskrit word for the plant. Hemp is a member of the Cannabis sativa plant while marijuana can be either Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indica. A trained eye can distinguish the differences between the plants in a line-up, but what really makes them unique is, you guessed it, THC.

How THC Factors into the Discussion

The full name of THC is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol. (It’s why we most often see it abbreviated as THC.) THC is what gives marijuana its psychoactive effects. THC is what gets you high and it is what makes marijuana, well, marijuana.

The body’s receptors that are docking sites for THC were discovered in 1988. This led to the search for the similar chemical compound produced by the human body itself that fits the same receptors.

In 1992, that endocannabinoid was discovered, and fittingly named “anandamide.” We may recognize within that name, the Sanskrit word for bliss, ananda. Anandamide (N-arachidonoylethanolamine) is a fatty acid neurotransmitter.

What are the Endocannabinoids

To put the prefix “endo” in front of the word cannabinoid means that it is made inside the body. The naming of the first endocannabinoid with a bit of bliss was not accidental. After all, these molecules can affect our state of mind, but they also affect multiple physiological pathways and states of body. They’re active regulators for everything from the immune system and our inflammatory responses to sensations of pain, our ability to fall asleep, and a number of other systems. In general, the endocannabinoid system is involved in many of the big-picture, internal communications structures within the body.

Psychiatrist Hyla Cass MD (cassmd.com) says that the endocannabinoid system is involved in establishing and maintaining health, homeostasis, and balance throughout the body/brain. She goes on to explain that this system is important for facilitating communication between different cell types and is involved in the immune, neurological, gastrointestinal, and endocrine systems. THC is merely one type of cannabinoid made by plants. But it’s not the only one.

That brings us to the CBD that we see on the labels of all of those products. And it brings us to one of the mastermind molecules that influences our endocannabinoid sytems. Cannabidiol (CBD) is a phytocannabinoid. That means that it is made by plants. The hemp plant. The cannabinoids is the name of a group of chemicals. It’s important to point out that we have different receptors in the body for these chemicals. And they have slightly different effects. Some promote sleep, some don’t, and so on.

CBD is Not THC

Unlike THC, the classes of other CBD/phytocannabinoids are not psychoactive. You can buy them without a prescription. They’re not subject to the laws surrounding recreational marijuana use. And the different CBDs actually have the opposite effect of THC when it comes to psychoactive effects. This is where that distinction of marijuana vs hemp becomes significant.

And in fact, over the counter CBD products sold on shelves must have less than .3% THC. What’s also significant is that many CBD-rich products are labeled hemp oil, or full spectrum hemp oil. This is because what we call CBD or full spectrum hemp oil actually derives its potent effects from a variety of different active cannabinoids that work together synergistically.

The medicinal effects are also influenced by some of the other phytochemicals, such as pharmacologically active terpenes. Terpenes are another group of organic compounds, which are found in many essential oils and provide the familiar aromas we associate with not only cannabis but other foods, herbs, and plants.

Health Benefits of CBD

Now, literally thousands of research studies investigating the array of health benefits of CBD oils have been published. And while people may be treating themselves with CBD, some medical professionals like Dr Cass are actively using CBD in their practice. Dr Cass even sells her proprietary brand. She says, “They’re master modulators that help make neurotransmitters work better, provide a brain boost, address hard-to-treat issues, can be helpful in working with healing trauma, and are powerful in helping us to relax and protect us from overload.” They’re known to have a wide range of anti-inflammatory, pain-relieving, and anxiety- and stress-reducing effects. And these are only a few of the documented benefits that continue to be collected.

How to Take CBD

While Dr Cass says that at low doses, CBD is generally safe with not many contraindications, it is important to note that each one of us possesses our own individual biochemistry. This means if you choose to use CBD in your life, it is important to start with small doses and titrate up slowly as you pay attention to your personal response. When it comes to the dosage on the body, many tinctures will identify the dosage in the whole bottle. So each dropper-full is a titrated amount of that dosage. These days, you can find CBD in dropper bottles, capsules, sprays, lotions and salves, transdermal patches, vape delivery systems, in pharmaceuticals, infused in foods and drinks, and formulated for pets.

Reading Labels and Selecting A Brand

Joel Stanley, Co-Founder of CBD market innovator Charlotte’s Web (cwhemp.com) offers the following advice when looking to purchase CBD. “I recommend a little research to find the right brand for you. First, find brands that are working for others and have an established track record. Second, ask a few simple questions of the companies: Does the company control the source supply from the farm to the final product? Does the company use third-party testing to ensure their product is free from the possible contaminants that can come from poor manufacturing and agricultural practices? Do they supply customers with batch records?”

“Verifying the answers to these questions is even more important for CBD because hemp is a bioremediator, or soil cleaner,” Stanley continues. “That’s great for some purposes and why it’s been grown at Chernobyl. This is why testing the soil before planting must become a common practice in this industry. Third-party testing of final product for metals, pesticides, solvents, and microbiologicals is an absolute must!”

Massage, Skin Care, and CBD

The active compounds of CBD are oil-soluble. Theypass through the lipid layers of our cell membranes, including our skin. CBD is being used in a number of skin-care lines since it has both nourishing and anti-inflammatory effects. When used for massage, the cannabinoids can enhance muscle and full-body relaxation and restoration. Vanessa Marquez, CEO and Founder of CBD Care Garden (cbdcaregarden.com), has developed a wellness and beauty skincare line designed to deliver a premium massage and self-care experience. Glen Ivy Hot Springs (glenivy.com) is one of the California spas to launch this healing enhancement to their massage services.

CBD: Here to Stay?

CBD has quickly gained a reputation in the wellness industry. It is infused in a variety of food and drinks and it is even being suggested for use by anxious dogs. Statistics reveal that hemp-based CBD industry sales reached $190 million in 2017. These days, millions of people are using CBD regularly. A number of brands are offering CBD products in a variety of forms, including cannabis oil concentrate. But just remember that even though CBD may seem to be everywhere, a person’s reaction to any natural substance is unique. Be conscientious with your choices as you learn to tap into your own inner bliss.

Felicia M. Tomasko

Felicia Tomasko has spent more of her life practicing Yoga and Ayurveda than not. She first became introduced to the teachings through the writings of the Transcendentalists, through meditation, and using asana to cross-train for her practice of cross-country running. Between beginning her commitment to Yoga and Ayurveda and today, she earned degrees in environmental biology and anthropology and nursing, and certifications in the practice and teaching of yoga, yoga therapy, and Ayurveda while working in fields including cognitive neuroscience and plant biochemistry. Her commitment to writing is at least as long as her commitment to yoga. Working on everything related to the written word from newspapers to magazines to websites to books, Felicia has been writing and editing professionally since college. In order to feel like a teenager again, Felicia has pulled out her running shoes for regular interval sessions throughout Southern California. Since the very first issue of LA YOGA, Felicia has been part of the team and the growth and development of the Bliss Network.

www.blissnetwork.com

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In a world where we are so often silenced and disconnected from our true essence, there exists a path back home — a path paved with the alchemy of voice and the medicine of movement. This fusion of sound and dance is not only healing but transformative, inviting you to embody your truth and reconnect with your soul’s deepest longing.

Music as Medicine: The Power of Voice Alchemy
You don’t need to be a professional singer to experience the magic of your own voice. By tuning into the song of the heart, you open a portal to raw, honest self-expression. As internationally acclaimed musician and vocal alchemist Nessi Gomes shares:

“When we sing from a place of vulnerability, it’s like we’re offering a prayer. We reveal parts of ourselves we’ve kept hidden, and in that process, something deeply transformative happens.” — Nessi Gomes

Your voice becomes a tool not just for communication, but for liberation. Each sound carries an intention that can heal old wounds, release stuck emotions, and help you step fully into who you are meant to be.

Movement as Medicine: Somatic Dance & Conscious Expression
Through somatic movement therapy and conscious dance, the body becomes an instrument of awakening. Movement unblocks stagnant energy and helps you chart a path to a life of exuberance, purpose, and soulful connection. Parashakti Skye, founder of Dance of Liberation®, guides participants into a state of deep embodiment where movement transcends steps or choreography — it becomes a spiritual act.

“When we’re really in alignment with what it is that we deeply desire, then we can voice it and dance it.” — Parashakti Skye

No prior experience with singing or dancing is necessary. By creating a ceremonial space that welcomes all, these practices invite fearless expression and help cultivate peace, vitality, joy, and confidence.

Ancient Roots of Sound & Movement as Healing
Cultures around the world have long recognized the power of sound and movement to heal and transform. Indigenous traditions on every continent have used drumming, chanting, and ecstatic dance in rituals designed to realign body, mind, and spirit.

In West African cultures, rhythmic drumming and dance are integral to community healing ceremonies. In Native American traditions, songs, rattles, and dance are used to restore harmony between individuals and the natural world. Ancient Greek physicians, such as Pythagoras, spoke of “musical medicine” as a tool to rebalance the soul. Meanwhile, in Eastern spiritual practices like Qigong or Sufi whirling, movement combined with breath and sound serves as a pathway to transcendence and deep peace.

These timeless practices remind us that sound and movement are not merely art forms but profound medicines that have guided humanity toward wholeness for millennia. Today, by reclaiming these traditions, we open doors to healing that modern life often leaves closed.

Experience the Fusion for Yourself
This September 7–12, 2025, you have the unique opportunity to immerse yourself in this profound fusion of music and movement at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. World-renowned musician Nessi Gomes and transformational healer Parashakti Skye are joining forces to offer a retreat where you can:

* Reclaim your voice and awaken your heart’s song
* Liberate your body through the Dance of Liberation®
* Embody your truth in a safe, sacred, and supportive environment

Whether you are an artist, healer, seeker, or simply curious, this retreat is designed to help you reconnect with your essence and chart your own path toward a more joyful, purposeful, and aligned life.

Join us — your journey begins here.
** Space is limited. ** Click here to reserve your spot today.

Parashakti

Parashakti’s shamanic healing work is born of more than two decades of experience facilitating workshops, trainings, and retreats around the world, in Los Angeles, New York, Mexico, Bali, Guatemala, Indonesia, Israel, and Greece.  As a lifelong dancer, her path as a healer followed a severe injury – a period of what is often called shamanic dismantling, after which her mission shifted towards healing. Over the last 20 years, Parashakti has developed the Seven Foundations and the Dance of Liberation™, as maps for her spiritual practice, living and breathing these foundations in daily ritual. Dance of Liberation™ has been practiced by over 10,000 dancers around the globe. It’s was born of a mission to help people experience ecstasy – without taking it.
Above all, Parashakti is dedicated to serving community and creating a sacred container where people feel safe enough to experience their deepest essences, honor their voices, and shine their brightest light. Join her on the Dance floor: www.parashakti.org

parashakti.org/

The post Music & Movement as Medicine: Awaken Your Voice, Liberate Your Body appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

The Art and Science of Affirmations that Work for You

You may cringe when you hear the words, “think positive.” Especially when things are tough! I know I recoil when I hear snippets of positivity that seem to me a form of spiritual bypassing. However, I’ve learned to embrace the practice of positive affirmations after learning and experiencing their benefits.

We will talk about the how and why of creating personally meaningful positive affirmations that work for you.

In the process, watch yourself evolve and thrive, as you add them to your repertoire of spiritual and personal growth practices.

The practice of reciting affirmations reflects the confluence of yoga philosophy and modern psychology, with backup by neuroscience.

 

My Story of Positive Affirmations

I’ve been including affirmations and intentions in my personal spiritual practice for over a decade now. While some life events have seemed like a “magical” unfoldment of my affirmations, looking back I can see how the positive statements I crafted for myself guided me in making choices and decisions. Perhaps some of these even allowed the magical and serendipitous into my life.

Besides bringing in new and welcome experiences, the practices of affirmations and intentions helped me grow as a person.

The practice of positive affirmations has helped me embody empowering qualities and traits and enabled me to outgrow or transcend limited beliefs.

To me, this personal growth is the most valuable part of the practice, even more than the “magical” things that have unfolded in my life. The practice of positive affirmations in alignment with my core self and values has created lasting change that prompts continued progress in the path of pursuing my dreams and desires.

More important than “manifesting” a desired object, experience, or relationship, the greatest benefit of using affirmations and intentions in daily life has been becoming a person highly aware of and living in integrity with my core self and values.

Affirmations that Work as a Form of Self-Empowerment

Affirmations and intentions are a form of self-empowerment. that cultivates personal growth and change through enlisting the psyche as well as the mind-body connection, using conscious thought to override the often limiting belief system of the subconscious.

Affirmations give us the opportunity to articulate our values and sense of self and “rewrite the script” of core beliefs.

This helps us direct our actions and choices, and sets us up to receive new and positive opportunities.

We can use this for exponential positive change.

Mahatma Gandhi distilled the process with his famous inspirational words. “Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny.”

The Psychology of Affirmations that Work

One of the key psychological theories related to positive affirmations is “self-affirmation theory” proposed by Claude Steele in 1988. This theory elucidates that people, across cultures and historical periods, are motivated to maintain self-integrity, or a perception of themselves as good, virtuous, and able to influence important outcomes.

As two professors from Stanford and UCSB explain, our sense of self-efficacy and self-integrity can be maintained by telling ourselves what we believe or value (aka positive affirmations). “Affirmations have been shown to improve education, health, and relationship outcomes, with benefits that sometimes persist for months and years. Like other interventions and experiences, self-affirmations can have lasting benefits when they touch off a cycle of adaptive potential, a positive feedback loop … that propagates adaptive outcomes over time” (Cohen & Sherman).

Self-affirmations help people “maintain the integrity of the self, a global sense of personal adequacy.” When people write about core personal values in their affirmations, the “intervention” of self-affirmations “bring about a more expansive view of the self and its resources.”

Through self-affirmation, we create and maintain a narrative about ourselves in which we are flexible, moral, and capable. We create our self-identity as an ever-evolving and growing person adopting a range of identities and roles, while remaining true to an inner system of core values.

If our sense of self can evolve and change, our definition of success can also evolve … which serves our growth.

Enicia Fisher Shares Her Love of Affirmations

A Personal Story of Affirmations

When I was 15, my definition of success was winning the election for Junior Class President and making a lot of friends. A few decades later, I define success as the freedom to engage in work that is authentic to my core values while receiving compensation commensurate to the quality of my offerings, my skills and experience.

I may not have all the things that others in my social circles would label “success” at this stage in life. (Such as owning a house, driving a luxury car, et cetera.). But I’m able to reframe my situation with the acknowledgment that I have a lot of freedom in my life, which is one of my core values.

This is the psychology of self-affirmations at work.

I can choose to articulate it in the following way. “I enjoy freedom and success as I engage in meaningful work, and I receive abundant compensation commensurate with my skills and experience.” This positive affirmation helps me override the beliefs of limitation, financial insecurity, and fears of the future.

Affirmations can help override negative self-talk or self-sabotaging beliefs.

• Affirmations can potentially help us “re-write” the subconscious patterning by replacing them with more empowering narratives.
• Self-affirmation theory confirms that my ability to view aspects of myself as positive allows me to adapt to different situations.
• Adaptability is an asset working in today’s culture of constant change and the sometimes dramatic upheavals we are all experiencing.
• Affirmations can help us integrate new ways of thinking, which is the premise of cognitive restructuring in CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Next time you meet with your therapist, ask about co-creating a positive affirmation as a tool in addressing a thought pattern that makes you feel limited!

The Neuroscience of Affirmations

Besides the research of psychologists, neuroscientists acknowledge that positive affirmations can affect the brain itself. According to a study published by Oxford University, MRIs suggest that certain neural pathways are activated when people practice self-affirmations (Cascio et al).

Affirmations engage parts of the human brain that process positive valuation, information about our self, and rewards. People who use affirmations show increased activity in neural networks, especially when reflecting on core values and when related to the future.

The “neuroplasticity” of the brain can further amplify the results of self-affirmation by reinforcing a positive outlook on life.

Yoga Philosophy and Affirmations

People who practice yoga love it when modern psychology and science “backs up” the teachings of the ancient philosophy and teachings of yoga. Setting an intention is a common practice in yoga classes. But the practice of positive affirmations also derives from the focus on development of self-awareness, the foundation of yogic wisdom.

Yoga originally developed as a practice and way of life based on becoming aware of one’s inner self and finding equanimity amidst the ever-changing fluctuation of thoughts and emotions.

The primary purpose of yoga asana practice is to allow a person to “take a seat.” This leads to meditation and stillness. The intention behind asana and meditation within the yoga tradition of India is to cultivate inner equanimity and observation of thought patterns, while discovering the essence of self, or identity.

This inner awareness is a foundation for mental health and well-being. When a person is familiar with who they are at their core, their essential self, they can notice when they are off-track or “out of alignment” with their self and values.

Awareness is the first step for self-regulation.

Affirmations are one of the many practices, along with asana, breathwork, meditation and mindfulness, that help us come back “home” to our essential self, our values and purposes.

Psychotherapist and yoga teacher Gretchen Suarez explains it further: Yoga gives a person “the chance to explore personal and psychological patterns and … the opportunity to establish and cultivate a relationship with their inner awareness…. A yoga practice will certainly improve the look and health of your body, but the true benefit is becoming aware of who you are and know, accept, and love yourself unconditionally.”

What are Affirmations?

The definition of affirmations gives a clue as to why they are so powerful.

Simply put, an affirmation is a positive phrase or statement that is used to challenge negative or unhelpful thoughts.

The Psychology Dictionary describes affirmations, in the context of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, as “a brief phrase which is spoken again and again…to plant seeds of happy and positive notions, conceptions, and attitudes into one’s psyche.”

Psychologists note that the most effective affirmations are created by a person for themselves and reflect their particular values and identity (Sherman). Affirmations give people the opportunity to identify their core self and values–who they are, who they want to become, what is important to them, what really matters in the larger context of life.

Affirmations are not just superficial self-esteem boosters. They give a person a chance to regain perspective and confidence that they can overcome challenges.

How do Affirmations Work?

Positive affirmations put the spotlight on a person’s sense of adequacy and values. Affirmations affect motivation and can set in motion a series of events that reinforce the feeling of self-adequacy. Affirmations assist in big accomplishments and small everyday acts, which can have large effects over time.

When applied to challenging situations, affirmations can ease stress and help a person make positive choices. A person’s confidence in their ability to overcome future challenges grows and contributes to a person’s “self-reinforcing narrative” (Cohen et al).

Affirmations do not take away a challenge or stressor. But they help a person place it in a larger context so they can rise to the occasion and find more creative solutions to problems. This may make events seem less stressful, while also helping a person focus on their priorities, which can create a self-reinforcing cycle of positive change.

Affirmations also help people learn from their mistakes and reassure people that they have integrity and are “okay” despite the adversity they may be facing.

Affirmations give people confidence to approach problems instead of avoiding or giving up. Practicing them can reinforce a person’s self-concept as someone who can overcome difficulties successfully.

Affirmations help a person construct a self-narrative of adequacy.

This in turn strengthens their confidence and resolve for the next adversity, which then reinforces the narrative of adequacy and success.

In this way, affirmations can have significant and long-term effects. When affirmations reinforce psychological processes, their effects can grow over time and can even bring about a turning point that sets off a series of reciprocally reinforcing events, creating a positive feedback loop that can increase a person’s potential (Cohen et al).

As seen with students and athletes, affirmations not only help a person’s performance and self-assessment, but also affect others’ positive expectations of them. This can create an additional positive feedback and reward system, and bringing more opportunities.

Affirmations have proven to have lasting benefits in education, health, and relationships. These are areas where problems typically emerge over time and grow when unaddressed.

Affirmations can trigger a positive cycle or interrupt a negative one. The interactive processes of using positive affirmations (even if done by only one person in a relationship!) can bring about positive and lasting change in academic and career performance, health, and the quality of relationships (Wilson & Linville).

Benefits of Affirmations

Research from psychology and neuroscience suggests that the practice of positive self-affirmations offers many benefits. Positive affirmations are shown to have the following benefits.

• Decrease stress and improved health and well-being.
• Increase rates of physical exercise.
• Ability for us to face challenges with less resistance and more success.
• Make us less likely to dismiss or avoid health concerns.
• Encourage us to make positive behavioral changes. These can include, but are not limited to exercising, quitting smoking, or eating more fruit and vegetables.
• Boost achievement in education and career.
• Help us cope with illness, maintain hopefulness, and improve recovery.
• Lessen rumination and other harmful thinking, including negative self-talk.
• Empower us to make better life choices.
• Help us postpone short-term gratifications for the sake of long-term goals.
• Reduce our tendency to linger on negative experiences and instead encourage an optimistic mindset.

Putting it into Practice: How to Craft Affirmations that Work for You

We know what affirmations are. We have endorsement from psychology professors and ancient yoga philosophy, along with backing by neuroscience, and we know the benefits.

Like yoga, affirmation practice is not an out-of-the-box, one-size-fits-all practice.

The affirmations that work for one person may not work for you. Not everyone shares the same values or has the same priorities and goals.

How do we craft our own affirmations that will work?

While an affirmation might seem like magical thinking, the key factor to its efficacy is that it helps a person identify and align with their core self and values. It affirms who a person is (or strives to be) in terms of their abilities, values, relationships, and life goals.

Affirmations are more successful when they are focused on what a person wants to do, who they want to be or become, or what qualities they will embody.

Some Basic Tips for Crafting Affirmations that Work

1. Keep it Positive

Effective affirmations are stated in a positive way of what one wants to be or experience, rather than fixated on the past, on a negative, or on what one wishes to avoid.

2. Be Specific and Clear

Be clear rather than vague. But avoid fixating on specific things or certain events (or even people). For example, instead of “I am happy to drive my new luxury electric car,” a more effective affirmation might be, “I enjoy a life of luxury and ecological awareness.”

3. Keep it Simple

Write an affirmation that is brief and easy to remember. Choose no more than 1-2 sentences. Use everyday language.

How to Begin a Daily Affirmation Practice

Identify the core values that resonate most with you.

Ask yourself some of the following question to get started on identifying your core values.

• Do you value freedom over security, or vice versa?
• Do you identify most with compassion and generosity, or persistence and power?
• How do you define your true nature?
• Are there particular strengths you wish to draw upon and activate in your daily life?
• What qualities do you equate with success?
• What is most important or worthwhile to you?

Write your affirmation in a positive statement incorporating the core values you wish to access.

• You may wish to include targeted actions you will take and positive emotions to reinforce a positive mindset.

Create a daily practice to recite your affirmations.

• At least once in the morning and once in the evening is a good goal.
• See if you can incorporate your affirmation into something you already do on a daily basis. For example, recite it as you wait for your morning brew, while you walk the dog, or after brushing your teeth.
• Try to feel your affirmations–what emotions or sensations arise? Do you feel a full-body, full-hearted YES? Feel it fully!
• Visualize yourself fully embodying the affirmation. What are you doing? What kind of person are you becoming? As you are in this process, what life events are taking place? Picture the goals you will achieve.
• Express gratitude. Give thanks ahead of time for the good you will receive as this affirmation comes to fruition (more on this topic in my article, Gratitude as a Spiritual Practice).
• Reflect and revise. If the affirmation doesn’t “light you up,” try writing it differently. If it “gets old,” freshen it up with some new wording or write a new affirmation.

Pro Tips for Affirmation Success

• Journal about your affirmation, its process and your progress.
• Incorporate your affirmation into a daily meditation or contemplation practice.
• Make it available and/or make it pretty. Write your affirmation on a sticky note and post it on your desk or mirror. Print it in an attractive font and hang it on your fridge. Write yourself a “love note” inside an eye-catching card with your affirmation. Write your affirmation on a piece of watercolor paper painted with vibrant colors. Place your affirmation on a vision board (see my article, How to Create a Vision Board that Really Works).
• Recite your affirmation in front of the mirror for additional self-reinforcement.
• Incorporate affirmations into your goal-setting and see if you achieve the action steps more effortlessly.
• Practice your affirmations regularly and consistently over a period of time if you want to make lasting changes, especially when confronting an old thought pattern.
• Keep an expectant attitude and watch for opportunities and synchronicities that bring your affirmation to life.
• Have fun and enjoy the process and your affirmations will begin to work for you.

Make your affirmation something you can believe and embody.

You want your affirmation to feel true for you, and not something completely opposite to your belief system. If you are challenging a particular limiting belief, make your affirmation a bridge statement that can help you “step up” to what you want to integrate into your mindset.
A good check for affirmation success.

Make sure that instead of having your inner voice reply, “Yeah, right!” your inner self replies “Oh, yes!” to your affirmation. You can also tune in to your body to see if your energy seems to shrink or expand with your chosen affirmation, and adjust accordingly.

A popular reinforcement to repeat after an affirmation is “And so it is!” Another option can be, “Thank you, Universe!”

Get Started with Writing Affirmations that Work

Back to psychology, Richard Schwartz, Ph.D., developed the Internal Family Systems model to help clients become aware of the core self and its values. He identified key traits such as compassion, connectedness, creativity, patience, and persistence. People who express these qualities are more likely to have a positive mindset, greater well-being, and higher levels of success in life.

Here are some affirmations based on the Internal Family Systems which I wrote as examples. Please feel free to adapt and try them out!

1. Calmness. “I am calm and serene throughout my day.”
2. Creativity. “I am a creative being and infuse my life and work with creativity.”
3. Clarity. “My inner clarity guides me to make empowering decisions.
4. Curiosity. “I can be curious and expand my perspective.”
5. Courage. “I have the courage it takes to follow through.”
6. Compassion. “Compassion brings me greater peace and understanding.”
7. Connectedness. “I enjoy meaningful connection with friends and family.”
8. Presence. “I am fully present to my loved ones when we spend time together.”
9. Patience. “I have an infinite reserve of patience within.”
10. Perspective. “My true nature provides me with greater perspective.”
11. Persistence. “I have the persistence to follow through on what is important to me.”
12. Playfulness. “I can be playful and lighthearted.”

Many people wish to start with affirmations related to self-acceptance. If you think about it, how can you be in touch with your inner self and your core values if you don’t first accept yourself, flaws and all?

Examples using cognitive behavioral therapy to reverse negative core beliefs.

1. By being myself, I bring happiness to myself and others.
2. Through courage and dedication, I meet my goals and set myself up for success.
3. My desires and goals are worth the investment of my energy and resources.
4. I admire and respect myself and I love who I am becoming.
5. I am grateful to have unlimited resources available to me at all times.
6. My body is amazing just the way it is, and I accept and honor myself by taking good care of it.
7. I contribute to positive change in the world by following my unique purpose.
8. I surround myself with loving and supportive people who bring out the best in me.

Inspire Yourself with Affirmations that Work!

I hope you are feeling as inspired and motivated to incorporate affirmations into your life as I am!

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below as you put it into practice. And I look forward to sharing affirmation practices with like-minded people like you on our next retreat in November.

Enicia Fisher

Enicia Fisher loves to hold sacred space for healing and transformative experiences by guiding people to come home to their body, breath, Nature, and Spirit. She has been curating, hosting, and offering healing retreats since 2012 in the US and Mexico. Founder of Sanadora Sanctuary Retreats and Sanadora Yoga International Teacher Training Program, Enicia has taught yoga since 2005 and has been practicing yoga personally since 2000. She loves yoga because of its mind-body approach and because of the healing power of integrating all aspects of being through the wide range of yogic practices: body, emotions, mind, soul, spirit, philosophy and mindset, and lifestyle practices.

Enicia created and leads Heart Alignment Yoga? and “heartfulness” meditation with an emphasis on Divine heart qualities and life-affirming yoga philosophy that inspires people to live with a deeper connection to their own heart, body, and spirit.
Enicia has a Master’s degree in Education, founded a small private school in Southern California, and is registered with Yoga Alliance as a highly trained and experienced teacher, E-RYT 500.

Enicia is a mother to two wonderfully creative and grounded young adults and is also an author currently preparing her first novel for publication. A Southern California native, Enicia now divides her time between her family base in Los Angeles and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Enicia began leading retreats in the Riviera Maya in 2015, and has offered ten retreats in the region since then. She lived in Akumal/Tulum for three years and continues to collaborate with local healers and ceremonialists on all of her retreats, in honor of the indigenous traditions and cultures being incorporated.

Enicia wishes to honor the Mayan guardians of the sacred lands of Tulum (Ekab), and her teachers who have shared their wisdom and practices:  Leon Xochitl Coatl, Adrián Salas Xopan, and Devi Chandra Ma from Quintana Roo, and Ashley Fiala, Doreen Madison, and David Kutruff from Shraddhaa Yoga School.

www.eniciafisher.com/

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In today’s world we seem to be moving faster and faster, while taking on more and more. There are only so many hours in the day, and we’re expected to do a lot in those hours.

• Errands
• Work a job
• Care for kids
• Attend to relationships
• Clean the house
• Socialize
• Self-care

What Can Lead to Feelings of Being Overwhelmed

It’s a list that doesn’t seem to stop, which makes us feel overwhelmed. Even self-care can become a part of the overwhelm, because you know you need it, but where the heck are you going to put it!?

Overwhelm. It’s enough to take the brightest and the best of us down.

But overwhelm doesn’t have to win.

Overwhelm is your brain feeling so overloaded that it can’t figure out where to start.

Perfectionism and Being Overwhelmed

The number one trigger for overwhelm is actually perfectionism. Perfectionism doesn’t just apply to hyper-organized people. We think of perfectionists as being those with perfect homes, and perfect systems to run their perfect lives.

In truth, perfectionism will halt you in your steps so that you can’t attend to your home, you have no systems, and nothing ever seems to ever get done.

Even if you never seem to have a hold on your life, you may be a perfectionist, too.

Do you ever do any of the following when you are feeling overwhelmed?

• Not start something because you don’t know the “right” place to start?
• Feel like you’re failing because you can’t get everything done?
• Take on more than you can handle then criticize yourself for not being good enough?
• Avoid tasks you don’t think you’ll be able to finish in one go?

And finally, do you ever:

Feel totally overwhelmed and refuse to give yourself a little grace?

What can you do when you feel overwhelmed?

First, accept that you’re as human as the rest of us who aren’t doing anything perfectly either.

Second, break it down.

It sounds simple because it is.

The only thing standing in your way is your refusal to slow down and take the time to chunk up your tasks.

How to Chunk

Be willing to break it all into more manageable chunks. Accept the idea that some things have to happen in stages.

1. Identify one thing you want to get done out of all of the things you could do.
2. Write that project down at the top of a piece of paper.
3. Starting from the bottom of the page write in all the sub-tasks that need to happen to get to your goal, starting with the first and working your way up.

For example:

Goal: Do the Dishes

5. Put hand-washed dishes on the dish drying rack.

4. Hand wash remaining dishes.

3. Fill sink with soapy water to wash remaining dishes.

2. Move the dirty dishes from the sink to the dish washer.

1. Empty the dishwasher.

Step by step you’ve completed one task. Now, on to the next one.

Why Be So Detailed?

Clients ask all the time why they have to write this down, and why they have to be so detailed. The task of chunking out your tasks can sound like just another thing to overwhelm you.

It isn’t. You’ll have to trust me on this and give it a go. Run the experiment.

If you’re stuck and aren’t getting anything done because of overwhelm, it’s better to take time to think a single task out and get it done, than continue spinning your wheels. After a while you won’t need to write it down, but you’ll come back to this method when you’re stuck again.

The great thing is, once you get one thing done, the next one often flows more easily behind it, because you have forward momentum. Seeing progress can be a strong motivator to keep going.

Trusting Yourself

If you believe you can’t be trusted to follow through on things or to finish what you started, you’ll keep doing things (or not doing them) to prove your belief correct.

But when you follow through on something, even the smallest of tasks, you get evidence that your limiting belief isn’t true.

When you chunk something out from the crowd to take on first, choose something that’s easily attainable so you get more rapid gratification.

If you choose too large of a task, one that isn’t attainable, or will take days to accomplish, you’ll continue to feel overwhelmed. But if you’re determined that this big task needs to get done, chunk it down to smaller tasks.

When you see what you’re capable of you’ll start to believe in yourself, and feel in control of your life again.

Finding Motivation when Feeling Overwhelmed

If the existence of a task to complete was all it took for us to become motivated to do things, everything would get done!

We are motivated by our desire for an outcome. If you really don’t care about the state of the fridge, you’re not going to clean it.

Here’s the tricky part: even if you want a clean fridge, you still might not clean it because something else is more important. That something else might be cooking dinner, reading a book, going to bed, or getting your daughter to softball. It could even be more important to you to not have to face the task, or how you feel about it.

You will have to decide cleaning that refrigerator is a priority.

You will have to decide it is worth your time. You will have to give yourself the chance to prove to yourself you can do it. You will have to decide you deserve a clean fridge, or that you are looking forward to how good it will feel once it’s cleaned.

You Can Do This! You can Win out over Overwhelm

In the end, overwhelm is a state of mind. Changing your mindset and doing things to show yourself that the thing that’s overwhelming you isn’t actually dangerous, will get you moving.

That’s what the overwhelming fear is that freezes you in your seat: that you are somehow in danger from all of this stuff.

When you take control by using these steps you will see that you’re the one in charge, and that never-ending list of things to do can’t hurt you.

Kate Evans

Kate Evans is the owner of Soulful Space, a virtual life coaching and decluttering company. Kate helps overwhelmed women declutter their lives and homes. She has worked in the field of psychology since 2004, is an RYT-200 certified yoga teacher, and a writer currently working on a book bringing self-help and decluttering together for lasting change. To learn more about Kate, the work she does, and to read her weekly blog for your mind, body, soul, and space, go to www.soulfulspacecoaching.com. Kate can also be found on Instagram and Facebook @soulfulspace.coaching.

www.soulfulspacecoaching.com

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5 Questions to Ask Yourself When Navigating Healthy Transitions

Are you called to made decisions that could change your life in a major way? Are you feeling inspired to take a leap of faith you have only dreamed of? Where would your heart lead you? Are you longing for balance between your mind and your heart? How are you navigating the transitions of endings and finding ways to invite in new beginnings?

Many of us resist endings of any kind. This can be a natural reaction our ego has because it thinks in terms of lack and limitation. Our ego will cling to people, patterns, material and financial objects, and attitudes and opinions. Our ego can lead us to a place of our own downfall and sometimes destruction.

This is not to say our ego is a negative aspect of our lives. It is not.

Our ego is intended to be a beautiful part of us that defines and characterizes our uniqueness.

Our culture, however, has led us to believe in separation and duality over celebrating our innate individual natures.

Our Creator intends our hearts and minds to work together balanced and living harmoniously without our own psyche and in relationship to others. This truth and the Soul-led use of our Free Will is how we are meant to thrive and grow.

Our ego personality can lead us to make choices that can cause painful endings. Our Soul, however, would have us bless and release situations the do not serve us in order to have new and positive beginnings.

What is the answer to generate this humanly-created drama into a new beginning for you and for living the life you desire?

Your growth, abundance, and ascension can be your new beginnings and can support your healthy transitions.

First, understand that our ego is fueled by our Source-given Free Will. This gift of human life is given to us to experience earth school and to learn from the choices we make here. We are born into this world with Free Will to enjoy life’s pleasures and the fruits of our labor. We are given life to further our Soul’s growth and assist others in theirs.

The conflict comes when our Free Will is misused and poor choices are made in spite of our intuitive nudges to take another path. Believing that we know better than our Soul and acting without thought or from fear is a cause and e?ect lesson. When lessons work out to the benefit of our Souls growth, we reach the conclusion that our Soul’s guidance was a better use of our Free Will.

We teach this theory to our students and initiates at our Compass Rose Mystery School of Light. The information is received with welcomed understanding, and also some disappointment that the teaching wasn’t provided years ago. Our world is changing and so will spiritual education as we continue releasing what has not served our growth.

The present is what we have now.

Practice letting go and allowing for a new beginning with a new way of being. A beautiful new personality ego Free Will choice will allow your beautiful Soul to take lead.

Your Soul knows your life purpose.

Your Soul created your life’s plan along with other members of your Soul Group. The aspect of your Soul that is you said “Yes” with clear vision. The people, places and situations you set up for your journey in place took their position and your earth life was set in motion, with Free Will your first tool.

Let’s bring our attention back to the present moment. What will be your first step in creating the life you planned and the joy you are meant to experience? What is to be your new beginning?

Ask yourself the following questions related to making transitions healthier.

1. What Soul-guided choices are you facing at this time in your life?
2. How will your life change for living a Soul Conscious life?
3. Can you imagine a life without obstacles created by old ways of thinking?
4. Are you willing to give yourself freedom to choose a new beginning?
5. Where does your life purpose take you now?

You, too, can contribute to the best world.

The world needs your Light. And your task is to unveil the beautiful being you are. Share this journey and share your dream for the greatest chance of cultivating healthy transitions in life. Find another like-minded person to share the path or work with a mentor. For difficult challenges, consider working with a skilled healer who is fully present and in alignment with Source. We invite you to reach out to us at Compass Rose for guidance and insight. We applaud you for taking the risk, raising your bar, and for the courage to engage with others for a new world.

Stacia Zadra and Daniel Naccarato

Stacia Zadra and Daniel Naccarato are Master Healers of Source Healing, Teachers, Coaches and Mentors of awakening, healing and ascension. They share their gifts and skills at Compass Rose Healing Arts in Spokane Valley, Washington. They can be reached via their website at changeyourcompass.com or by phone at 509-926-9803

www.changeyourcompass.com

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Nature Supports Wellness through Living in Rhythm: A Conversation with Desi Bartlett

Time in nature supports wellness in so many ways. As a Naturopathic Doctor, I talk with my patients often about the importance of being in nature for healing, and I love the following quote by Hippocrates, “Nature Itself is the best physician.” Nature can be a great support for you for your practice.  I had the opportunity to sit down with my body mind guide and healing arts muse, Desi Bartlett, to learn more about how the rhythm of our bodies mirrors the rhythm of the ocean.

In your practice, how does nature, and specifically the ocean, support health outcomes?

The beach and the majestic Pacific Ocean are my daily teachers. During the shutdowns of 2020, I would to go to the beach at dawn and sit and meditate. During that time, the beach was restricted because of COVID shutdowns, and I would wake up really early to connect to nature, before law enforcement arrived. I felt a little bit rebellious, claiming my right to connect with nature each day, and I remembered that humankind has been doing this since the beginning of time.

The ocean reminded me, and continues to remind me that life is cyclical.

War, disease, famine, and then the renaissance that arrives after these tumultuous events. I deeply feel the strife that our world is in, and carry deep hope for the renaissance that our children’s generation will usher in.

Desi Bartlett photo by Natiya Guin

Your social media often posts astrological guides that include the energetic changes that flow with the moon; affecting the ebb and flow of the tide.  How does the moon’s behavior affect the rhythm of our bodies?

My mother’s guru was Goswami Kriyananda at the Temple of Kriya Yoga in Chicago. I feel lucky to have grown up in this lineage and to have learned about yoga, meditation, and astrology as a child.

Astrology is a mathematical science based on the 360 degrees of a circle. The circle is a metaphor for the wheel of life.

Depending on what sign and degree the moon lands in, as well as the phase of the moon, we have a glimpse of the emotions of the day.

For example, if there is a Full Moon, it is the peak of the cycle, and a time to reap the harvest. If there is a New Moon, it is time to plant seeds. This applies to our emotional lives as well.

We can live in energetic harmony with the cycles of the moon like the farmers do.

In fact, I look at the Farmer’s Almanac daily to see what cycle of the moon that we are in. Just like the world has major cycles (the Yugas), we have monthly cycles of feelings and emotions.

Women feel this in the physical body with the menstrual cycle, which often aligns with the rhythm of the moon. What can you share about how the rhythm of the ocean can balance hormonal fluxes?

The endocrine system, which controls the hormones in our body, changes throughout our lifetime.

For example, a woman has a spike of relaxin 14 days before her menstrual cycle. Later in life, a woman’s estrogen levels decline and a man’s testosterone levels decline as well. When our hormones change, it is important to look at what we need to restore balance to our physical bodies.

If my body is signaling a decline in energy, I know that it is time to call you as my Naturopath (Dr. Natiya), and ask for bloodwork to test my thyroid.

The ocean helps me to remember that life is about balance. When the delicate ecosystem is out of balance, I can synchronize my breath to the waves, allowing me to go within and ask for guidance.

Photo of Desi Bartlett by Natiya Guin

At our most recent photoshoot on the beach in Malibu I noticed that your yoga asanas and the flow between each matched the sound of the ocean behind and underneath us.  Were you aware that you were moving with the waves?

Ah! I love this! I did not know that I was moving with the waves. As someone who studied dance for many years, I have a tendency to move to the music in my mind. The music that day was the melody of the Pacific Ocean. In fact, that music is available to all of us, everyday!

I especially love the beaches in Malibu…drummers, yogis, Instagram models, photographers and brides can be found everywhere. It is a good reminder of the different ways that we all express our creativity, as well as a reminder not to judge or compare.

You have a way of staying calm and centered even with balancing motherhood, designing yoga products, writing books, and offering a flourishing private yoga practice. This flow reminds me of the power and beauty of the ever changing ocean. How do you keep a flow within your busy life?

The Pacific Ocean is my teacher.

I connect with her every morning. Some days she sends me a message to wake up in the form of a cold wave or a jellyfish. Other days she rocks me gently and soothes my nervous system.

Remembering that every day is a little bit different, and that showing up every day is the work allows me to stay receptive to how I can be of service and to find joy in that expression.

Try this short healing meditation on your next beach walk.

Delighting the senses with the rhythm of the ocean.

• Touch:  With bare feet walk into the ocean ankle deep and notice how the change in temperature makes your feet and ankles feel. How does the gentle hydrotherapy awaken your breath and your energy level?
• Sound: Listen to ocean (fluttering your eyes closed if the waves are small) and notice how powerful, full, or calming it is. Do you hear the sound only between your ears or does it radiate to any other parts of your body?
• Sight: Looking out at the ocean, try to expand your peripheral vision. How far can you see in front of and next to you when you consciously take in the whole scene?
• Smell: Take a deep breath and observe if you can smell the ocean, if it brings not only the salt but also hydration. Do you notice a change in how you breathe or how deep your breaths become?

Natiya Guin

Dr. Natiya Guin is a family medicine doctor and safe skin leader who enjoys healing skin from within, increasing client self-confidence, and magnifying whole person health outcomes. Deep Living Skincare by Dr. Natiya

Her vegan, organic line by Deep Living is founded on the belief that skincare should not only be healing, it should be safe. Her products are designed for all ages and are designed to be shared with the whole family.

Photos in article and meditation by Dr. Natiya Guin

Testimony about the author:
Dr Natiya is an amazing naturopathic doctor, who will guide and nurture you in discovering health, expressing your creativity and support you in seeing your magnificence. -Dr. Moira Fitzpatrick

www.natiya.com

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It IS Possible to Stay Present During the Holidays and Beyond

The holidays start in November and go full force until New Year’s Day. They are almost always a whirlwind, crazy time. You often find yourself exhausted and even sick wondering how it all flew by so quickly.

Seriously, how does it go by so fast?

Your holiday season is full of commitments, things you have to do, family stuff, and maybe a thing or two you actually would like to do. Work parties, friend parties, and family parties fill up every free block of time you have during December. There is rarely any downtime. It’s a lot of go-go-go and moving from one thing quickly onto the next.

While the holidays are often magical and filled with so many amazing memories, there is a lot of effort, time and energy that goes into making this time of the year so special for everyone around you.

What if this year instead of letting the holidays fly by you, you were more present, engaged and happy? Not only is it possible, it’s a game changer.

6 Tips to Stay Present During the Holidays

1. Pace Yourself.

Give yourself extra time to do tasks, errands, visits, travel, etc. There are more people out and about this time of year so it takes longer to do anything that you are leaving your house to do.

By the way, there is no such thing as a really fast trip to the store close to the holidays, so plan ahead as much as you can so you don’t have to make that extra trip out. Traffic is more congested, people are more irritable and things run out on the shelves. Plan ahead so you have less trips where you are running around to do errands.

2. Don’t Over Commit.

It’s so easy to say, “yes”. But there are only so many hours in the day. Don’t add on more activities than you have to or want to. The more things you say yes to, the less time you are going to have to bake those special cookies you said you wanted to make this year.

Your time is your most precious commodity.

The more you over commit, the more you will feel like this holiday season flies by because you will feel like you don’t have time to do the things you really want to do. By the way, we all know when you are somewhere you do not want to be.

Stop saying yes to things you don’t like and don’t have to do.

3. Do Things You Actually Want to Do.

Don’t forget, this is your holiday season too. You make it special for everyone else but make it special for yourself also. What are the things you always want to do but don’t have time for at the holidays? Put those on your calendar right now and don’t bump them for something else.

Say yes to things that you want to do and no to things you don’t. By saying no, you give yourself more time to do things that you will actually enjoy.

4. Have Fun!

Seriously, have fun. After all, you put so much time and energy into making this time of the year magical. What would be fun for you to do this year? Don’t just talk about it, actually make it happen and the best way to do that is to write it on your calendar.

5. Take Time for You.

Schedule in that self-care. A nap, meditation, yoga, a massage, a facial, a walk, a jog or whatever will support you best each day.

Self-care is key to helping you keep those holiday pounds off and irritability at bay. Listen to your body and prioritize taking care of it. No one wants to be sick around the holidays, even more so now. The better you feel, the happier you will be.

6. Be Energy Conscious.

You only have so much energy and feeling exhausted, overwhelmed or at your breaking point will not be helpful or fun for anyone around you.

Think of your energy like you do the energy on your cell phone. The more drama you around, the more you drain your battery. The more uplifting and fun things you do, the more you charge your battery.

Charge Your Energy and Stay Present During the Holidays

By implementing the steps above, you will charge your energy more this holiday season than normal. The holidays truly can be a magical time full of good memories. The more present you are, the slower time will go. What tip is the most important one for you to implement now before the holidays get started?

Lisa Gornall

Lisa Gornall is a Spiritual Medium, Author, Healer and Coach. She was born with her abilities to become one with your energy which allows her to intuitively clear and balance your energy. Lisa gets to the ROOT of your patterns, beliefs and fears that are no longer working. Since 2002, she has combined her intuitive abilities with healing and coaching. Lisa has coached thousands of individuals to heal their relationships, love their life again and get back to the lifestyle they originally envisioned for themselves – a freedom lifestyle. You can find Lisa at www.lisagornall.com

www.lisagornall.com

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Prioritize Growth throughout the Year

As the holiday season approaches, I know that some of us are so excited and some of us are dreading the holiday cheer due to sadness, feeling like we don’t have people to spend it with, work, a challenging year for us all, experiencing loss, or just about everything. As I write in my third book An Uncompromised Life, I chose to let my child go within six days of my first missed period in December 2019. So, trust me, I get it that the holidays can bring up a lot for you! So, what can we do during these last few weeks of the year to prioritize growth and mental wellness during the holiday season?

First, don’t get lost in trying to buy the perfect gift to impress the perfect person.

The holiday season has been so warped that now we need to get each other gifts as this act of appreciation to show we care or are thinking of someone. Instead, think about what experience or memory you can create, offer or plan that will be something you and the people you care about will remember forever.

Maybe add playing “Apples to Apples” as a holiday after dinner game, Christmas caroling together or volunteering time at a charity your family is passionate about. Think of doing something outside of just giving gifts by providing an experience that your family will have as a memory to cherish.

This will take the stress off buying the perfect gift and instead begin to allow you to tap into your creative nature while reflecting what is important to the people you love the most, and offering that as an experience together instead of a gift that usually doesn’t last a lifetime.

Second, make sure during this holiday time you have at least one friend or a community that you are able to join up with during the weeks, whether that be online or in person.

However, make sure if it’s church, video games, healing community, blogger community, coffee group, or any group–that there is some community you find near your or online that you show up to! Because there is nothing worse than feeling like we have all this time off and there is nowhere you can go or nothing you can do to keep consistent with your passions or begin to emerge yourself in environments around people with whom you share passions. Things like online yoga classes, book clubs and travel groups on Facebook have left me feeling really supported during this time of year.

Finally, this time of year, take time to define your passions more clearly and find ways you can be doing them more consistently. I highly recommend this as when we begin to see what our passions are, we allow our mind to focus on how we can begin to create space to do them more consistently. We will become happier–especially during this time of the year.

Third, prioritize your growth by looking back on your year.

It’s important to take time to reflect and see what you loved about your year, what you didn’t love, what could have been better, and where you want to be in the next 12 months through 2022. During the holidays also make sure to have some solitude time instead of running around for everything and everybody to be perfect.

For me, I usually prioritize either November or December as the month I will be providing the experience for the holidays with my friends, and the other one, I do more solo as someone who shows up as a participant. And instead, I take this time to reflect on my year. I go month by month reviewing my calendar and photos in my phone to remind me what I did and to reflect on how I felt when doing each of those things.

And if I did anything that didn’t feel great, I see how I can remove it in 2022 and begin to replace it with something that makes me happy! This is really the process of how I began my business, Colleen Gallagher International, in 2017.

Fourth, be in a state of acceptance that feeling not happy all the time during the holidays is okay.

It is okay to be sad, to not want to buy all the gifts but instead stay home alone watching television. It’s okay to say no to parties you just don’t want to be at with no explanation. If you’re sad and want to visit the graveyard of someone who passes it’s okay! The most important practice in prioritizing our growth and mental wellness during this time is to be in an acceptance of ALL that we are feeling instead of fighting what we are feeling, trying to numb our feelings or needing to understand why these feelings are arising now.

Instead, when you feel like you’re experiencing challenging emotions during the holidays repeat simple mantras like the following.

• I accept myself.
• I accept all my feeling.
• I no longer need to understand my feelings- I simply accept them and feel them.
• I love myself.
• I allow myself to feel what needs to be felt so I can return to a state of harmony and peace.

These simple mantras will support you in realigning your mind, body and soul to feel well and experience growth instead of looping within negative thought formations.

Lastly, I recommend listening to podcasts.

Of course, I recommend my own podcast, The Colleen Gallagher Podcast, or others that are focused on growth and healing during this time of the year. This will support you in feeling not alone as there are other people out there who have struggled with what you’re going through and found healthy ways to cope.

When we listen to podcasts that focus on growth instead of just holiday cheer or paradise, it allows us to refocus on where we want to go, instead of dwelling on what we don’t have today or how our holidays aren’t how we want to remember it this year. When we listen to the news, radio, podcasts or even music, it is either always supporting us for future growth or keeping us stuck in the current moment of why we don’t have what we want. These are the two states of being- expansion and contraction.

This holiday season, fill your life with being in an expansive state instead of contractive so you can focus your life on where you want to go, with people who are already living the life you want.

Colleen Gallagher

Colleen Gallagher is an intuitive business and personal development consultant. She has survived childhood cancer, is a global citizen, an advocate for everyone to have an opportunity to live their dreams and an academic who is currently pursuing her Ph.D is Psychology with a focus on Global Leadership and Change. She is an author of multiple books, including her latest release An Uncompromised Life, and the host of The Colleen Gallagher podcast. Her greatest success is seeing her clients fall in love with life by overcoming trauma and life challenges and create a lifestyle career that impacts the world. Colleen empowers leaders and businesses to come to a newfound clarity of their mission, so that they can better understand their gifts while taking calculated action to grow their businesses. Colleen offers these experiences through online courses, in-person retreats, her podcast, books and products. Currently, Colleen resides in Los Angeles, California.

colleengallagher.co

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What Does Burnout Really Mean? And How Do We Avoid Burnout?

As we head towards the close of the year, you may notice that you’re feeling more frazzled than usual. Perhaps your energy isn’t exactly where you want it to be, or that you’re feeling more impatient, worn out, stressed out, frustrated…or maybe all of the above!

These are all signs of burnout. With a big B. Burnout is really about energy in your life building up, and not being adequately processed and released. So it builds and builds until you feel like you are about to explode–or about to break down.

Energetic buildup can come from many forms, including from toxins, low-sleep nights, stress, excessively working with little down time and so on…

4 Cornerstones of True Wellness

My philosophy is built around The 4 Cornerstones of True Wellness. These are:

• Food
• Body
• Emotional Well-being
• Spiritual Growth

When we nurture ourselves as whole beings and in all of these cornerstones, we feel our best, most connected versions of ourselves. If we continue to deplete ourselves in any or one of these areas, we will feel the very real (and unpleasant) effects of burnout, which unfortunately adversely affect all areas of our lives. Our energy levels start to tank, our skin looks “bad” (we know the difference), our patience runs thin and we feel less creative and more stuck.

The solution to avoiding burnout lies in adding in practical practices to move energy and create more flow in all of these 4 key areas, or Cornerstones.

Tips to Get Started with Avoiding Burnout

Nourishing and Easy Food

Try making bowls for yourself, where you choose each food component based on your intuition to be the most nourishing for you right now. Food is an important want to nourish yourself, and we need to check in always to see what is right for us in that moment.

Bowls are also great because they’re about simplicity. The last thing we need to add to our to-do list is complicated recipes! Try just simply dressing, stir-frying or baking each component with spices and seasonings.

Some great bowl examples include: brown rice, quinoa, carrots, Brussels sprouts, lentils, beans, spinach, sprouts and so on…

Take Care of Your Body

Go for at least a 15 minute walk every day. It’s physical exercise, yes, yet beyond that, it’s a great way to get outside and syncopate to Mother Nature’s powerful balance. It also helps us feel in flow, move energy like stress, improve circulation, and avoid feeling stagnant.

It’s my personal main form of exercise, and a daily practice, and it definitely helps me avoid burnout on a daily basis. I like to walk in silence or while listening to uplifting chanting music, like from Krishna Das.

Cultivate Emotional Well-Being

Emotions are meant to be energy in motion. Check in to see if you need to sit more with something that has not yet been processed, so it doesn’t stagnate emotionally! A great way to do this is to journal in the evenings.

3 Questions for Journaling

1. Is there anything I need to process right now? If so, what is it? What does it feel like in my body?
2. Is there anything else I can let go of?
3. What am I grateful for?

It’s always good to take some time to sit and reflect. And then to end with focusing on the gratitude and seeing the light that is always there if we look for it!

Take Time for Spiritual Growth

Mini meditations are amazing for resetting! Try closing your eyes, taking some deep breaths into your belly, relax your shoulders. Be there for one minute or a bit more, and close in gratitude. Notice the difference just from that!

Of course, longer meditations are wonderful for our daily progress forward in connecting with our True Self. The more we anchor in to that, the less we over-identify with the ups and downs of daily life and take things so seriously, which definitely leads to burnout.

Check out some of the free Practical Enlightenment Meditations that I offer, which are under 10 minutes (you can certainly extend them by sitting for as long as you would like beyond the guidance!).

Try any of all of these tips today!

I do recommend going wider and more holistic in your self-care across all 4 of the Cornerstones to successfully avoid burnout, versus getting too overly focused on just one or two of them.

Namaste and love!

Kimberly Snyder

Kimberly Snyder is a multi-time New York Times bestselling author, spiritual and meditation teacher, nutritionist and holistic wellness expert. She has authored 6 books, including Radical Beauty, which she co-authored with Deepak Chopra. Her highly anticipated 6th book, You Are More Than You Think You Are: Practical Enlightenment for Everyday Life, (Hay House) published on January 25th, 2022.

She is also the founder of Solluna®, a holistic lifestyle brand, Practical Enlightenment Meditation,™ Solluna Circle and the host of her top-rated Feel Good Podcast.  She has worked with dozens of top celebrities to feel their best, including Drew Barrymore, Reese Witherspoon and Channing Tatum, and has been featured by numerous national media outlets, including Good Morning America, The Today Show, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Kimberly resides in Los Angeles and Hawaii with her husband and her sons.

Kimberly Snyder Author Photo by Kevin Estrada

www.mysolluna.com

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How Do We Free Ourselves from the Hustle?

The hustle is encouraged. You are told to do more. And more. And more. This was a problem before everything shut down for the pandemic and it’s even more so now.

During the pandemic you had to take on even more roles at home and at work. The struggle was very real. You didn’t know how long you could keep on going at that pace. Something had to give. While most things have some semblance of how they were pre-pandemic, you still have more on your plate now than before the crisis began. Doing even more than you thought you could became your new normal.

Stop Trying to Do it All

Except there is nothing normal about doing more than you can handle. It is stressful and impacts everything in your life in a not so good way.

Is Bringing Work Home the New Normal?

One of the biggest problems from the pandemic is that your work and personal life lines blurred. While it seems great to be at home and not have to commute or dress to leave the house, you found yourself working more. It was easier to check emails more often, to work longer to get something done since you didn’t have to spend time driving, and you’re just more available since you didn’t have your work environment to signal you are at work. If you had kids at home, you found yourself adjusting your work schedule to support their school at home and that led you to some crazy work hours that are not sustainable.

Working from home is still looking like it is a new normal and it’s important to create some separation from your work in a way you haven’t had to do before.

The Hustle is Not Sustainable

The hustle is not sustainable, it is something that you can do in the short term. No one can do it all and not burn out or drop the ball often. It’s time to stop trying to do it all.

How to STOP Trying to Do it All: 5 Practices

1. Evaluate your Roles

The first thing to do is look at your life and see what roles you are still doing from the lockdowns that you no longer have to do. Sometimes we keep doing something out of habit, even if we no longer have to do it. Check and see what you can take off your plate. Who else can support you? What are the things you do not want to do anymore that someone else can do? Act like a CEO and only do the roles you have to do and want to do.

2. Create Boundaries

Create boundaries around your work time. Strong boundaries. If you need to get a separate cell phone from your work phone so you stop taking calls at all hours, do it. If you need a separate computer so you stop checking out chats and emails in your personal time, do it. Or if you have to put your work into a room with a door you can close and only open during business hours, do it. You are not a machine. You cannot work all the time. When it’s your personal time, do things that bring you joy, peace and balance – no work – at all. Have a strong boundary and stick with it, you will be happy you did.

3. Say, “No”

By taking on more tasks and activities than you can really do in a day, the person you hurt the most is yourself. Instead of just saying yes and doing what others ask of you, stop and ask yourself what you won’t have time to do because you took this on. Usually you lose sleep or fun things you really want to do.

Stop saying yes all the time without thinking and instead start saying, “No.” You don’t have to make up an excuse. You can simply say no and if necessary be honest about why you can’t take this on. People are understanding and if they aren’t, that’s more about them than it is about you. “No” allows you to stand in your power and do what is best for you. If you aren’t doing it for yourself, no one else can do it for you.

4. Have a Solid Daily Routine

The best way to keep yourself in balance is to create a solid routine that supports you. You can start your day with a quick and powerful meditation before you even get out of bed. Don’t check your phone, emails, or news until after you have gotten dressed (to leave the house), had breakfast and feel good about your day’s plan.

Work your normal work hours and take breaks and eat lunch without working through it. Stop over scheduling your work day. Plan in breaks and gaps for those last minute emergencies.

Get in a walk, yoga, exercise at a time that works for your body each day. Get enough sleep and eat foods that support you at scheduled times throughout the day. By creating a solid routine, you won’t have to think about what you have to do that day. You will have a plan in place that supports you.

5. Make Self-Care a Priority

When you are overwhelmed and exhausted the idea of self-care is not a possibility. You don’t have the time. You don’t have the energy. Yet this is exactly what you need more of – activities that breathe more life into you. On the airplane, they tell you to put your oxygen mask on before you help others. It’s the same here. The better place you are in mentally, physically, emotionally and energetically, the happier you will be.

Self-care can be simple like standing outside for a minute, taking a deep breath or getting enough sleep. It can be more complex like having a spa day, going on a hike, scheduling a vacation. The more self-care you can schedule in, the better you will feel. You are worthy. You are enough. Make yourself a priority and not an afterthought.

Create A Life You Love

You are actively creating your life in every moment. Just make sure you are creating a life you don’t have to escape from because when you do that, there aren’t enough vacations or days off. You are here to live a life you love. While you may have gotten stuck in the hustle and you were doing it all, that is not sustainable. Stop trying to do it all. Instead, what is it time for you to do differently today? Do it.

Lisa Gornall

Lisa Gornall is a Spiritual Medium, Author, Healer and Coach. She was born with her abilities to become one with your energy which allows her to intuitively clear and balance your energy. Lisa gets to the ROOT of your patterns, beliefs and fears that are no longer working. Since 2002, she has combined her intuitive abilities with healing and coaching. Lisa has coached thousands of individuals to heal their relationships, love their life again and get back to the lifestyle they originally envisioned for themselves – a freedom lifestyle. You can find Lisa at www.lisagornall.com

www.lisagornall.com

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Keith Mitchell Photo by Amir Magal

Where A Journey to Self-Discovery Begins: Finding the Breath

My journey to self-discovery started in my 7th year playing in the National Football League as a Linebacker for the Jacksonville Jaguars. It was the second game of the season when I found myself laying in the middle of the field on my back, completely numb and unable to move. I had attempted to make a routine tackle I had made thousands of times, but this time, something had gone terribly wrong with the way the opponent and I collided. This pivotal moment resulted in a spinal contusion and the end of my football career.

I was paralyzed, hospitalized, and traumatized with nowhere left to go but inward.  In my quest to relearn basic functionality, my journey to healing was initiated.  As I laid in the hospital bed, a nurse suggested conscious breathing. This sparked an interest in me to learn alternative wellness practices to aid in my recovery. When you realize that you can participate in your own healing process, you are no longer the victim. Breath work led to meditation which led to yoga, nutrition and mindfulness. I became hungry for knowledge and studied under the most renowned and well-sought after master teachers for each practice I discovered.

The practices of mindfulness, yoga, meditation and breath work are practices of isolation. These practices supplied me with tools that gave me the opportunity to learn who I am beyond the facade of a professional athlete. For the first time in my life, I began relating to myself. Once I successfully established a relationship with myself, I began to get curious. I began to ask myself, how can I take what I learned through isolation and use it for integration?  How can I bridge it to someone else? What I discovered is that the same steps I took to foster a relationship with self, are the same steps required to realize it with another.

Energy Woven Together: Healing through Human Connection

This epiphany was unveiled through my relationship with the late Psalm Isadora. My curiosity for integration led me to the world of Tantra, which in Sanskrit means woven together. Psalm was a Tantrika, a very dear friend and the inspiration to start teaching these concepts myself.  Psalm was vastly knowledgeable, having been initiated into a Tantric lineage in India. She introduced me to Yab-Yum, which remains to be the most profound meditation practice I’ve ever experienced.

Yab-Yum is a Tantric practice, which Tibetan translation means Father-Mother.  Yab-Yum is an intimate pose where the female sits facing the male on top of his lap with her legs wrapped around him. This posture aligns the partners’ chakras (energy centers) and promotes alert awareness due to its upright sitting position.  The couple can either touch their foreheads together or gaze into each other’s eyes.  The only verbiage is the synching of each other’s breath.

The pose is meant to dismantle the illusion of duality by merging the masculine and feminine together, ultimately serving to represent the truth of our experience – which is that of singularity.  It is the mystical unification of the active force (masculine) paired with the wisdom of the feminine.

For the first time in my life I learned the concept of presence with another person. I held her without any agenda or expectation, but for the sole purpose of breathing her in and experiencing her energy.  Ultimately, this is sacred geometry. This is the ankh. This is the cross. This is our opportunity to experience heaven on earth and create magick with one another.  From my career as a professional athlete,  I lived a life of abundance and opportunity, but yet it wasn’t until this particular experience with Psalm did I understand the depth and healing that can be discovered in human connection.

Keith Mitchell photo by Amy Goalin

The Nutrition of Connection

As I continued on my journey, I had the opportunity to study nutrition. To learn the power of cleansing and the healing that occurs by bringing the body back to its natural, electric state. I learned that when a cell is fed, it doesn’t need to compensate for something or search for nutrition. Likewise, when a human is fully nourished, it doesn’t need to search for alternatives. The nature of addictions and undesirable behavior are created as compensation patterns. They are an attempt to search for nourishment to fill a void. The simple, yet profound experience of Yab-Yum led me to understand that our species is malnourished of human connection.

Human connectivity is nourishment for our cells. With the absence of human connection, we become that entity searching. These compensation tactics can express themselves as addictions, substance abuse and other forms of toxic behavior.

The learning curve is that we don’t know how to truly connect or what it even looks like. We have never been given the tools and have an immature language of expressing ourselves when it comes to connectivity.

I believe in developing a practice so that when adversity happens, I am equipped with the tools to stay the course.  When COVID hit, I observed how society was retreating into an even more extreme isolated state. I feared the consequences of this, and from this realization, saw an opportunity to help.

A Journey to Self-Discovery is both Personal and Collective

The same transformational tools we can apply individually, we can learn to apply collectively.  The same healing we can learn to apply individually, we can learn to apply with one another. The tools and practices I discovered to recover from paralysis, to realize a relationship with myself, to develop meaningful relationships with others, and to nourish myself through intimacy are now being offered in a tangible and integrative way, so that you too might be able to benefit from the knowledge in the same way I did.

This desire to help is where the concept of iKula Devi was born. Our mission is to provide solutions to the modern day pandemic of anxiety, depression, disconnection, and mental health disorders by offering individuals proven tools to heal, to learn, to connect and to express their authentic selves. The word “Kula” comes from the Sanskrit word meaning “community.” “Devi” is the Sanskrit word for “deity”, and is translated to all things that are divine, sacred, or anything of excellence. iKula Devi is the unshaken belief that in creating conscious community, we can bring heaven to earth and tap into our true divinity.  iKula Devi is a forward-thinking movement that offers progressive and tactical solutions to improve health and wellbeing by offering exclusive retreats, events and workshops.

iKula Devi as a Self-Sustainable Community

iKula Devi was created by myself, and co-founders Hailey Taylor (Head of Marketing, Reiki Master, Sound Healer and Mindfulness Coach) and Julie Menconi (Director of Operations, Plant-Based Nutritionist and Reconnective Healer). Together we have over 30 years of experience through yoga, meditation, mindfulness practices, fitness, movement therapy, sonic therapy, energy healing and nutrition.

Our vision is to develop a self-sustainable community to offer individuals an alternative way of living. We are in the process of creating a school system that will teach yoga, meditation, nutrition, and mindfulness to adults and children alike. It will include a wellness center and village for individuals interested in coming to learn our practices.

We believe in permaculture, self-sustainability, and group economics. Our incentive is to start working with nature, rather than against it. iKula Devi is the reminder to us all that abundance is our birthright. This is our opportunity to create humans that operate from a whole-brain perspective, and to introduce a more fulfilling, connected, and intentional way of living to humanity.

Just take a moment to imagine what it would be like to be apart of community of authentic and trustworthy people that’s only agenda is to help you unlock your human potential. A community that encourages, supports, inspires, teaches, and empowers one another so that together we can remember how incredible the human experience can be.

Are you ready to fulfill your greatness potential?

For information on our upcoming experiences, to see how you can get involved or to book a retreat or event, visit us at www.ikuladevi.com. You can email us at:  info@ikuladevi.com

In loving memory of Psalm Isadora

Keith Mitchell

Keith Mitchell is a former All-Pro NFL football player turned internationally renowned Celebrity Yogi. As a Motivational Mindfulness Coach, Holistic Health and Wellness Advocate, Community Activist and Humanitarian, he is committed to providing holistic tools that help others achieve optimal health, harmony and aliveness to the fullest degree.

A life changing football injury left Keith partially paralyzed, he utilized Yoga and Meditation to fully recover, he now shares his inspirational transformation with others as a highly sought after spiritual lifestyle/ wellness coach, teacher and motivational speaker.

Although Keith’s football accident forced him into an early retirement, it led him to his true life’s calling — inspiring others to move beyond survivor and victim consciousness to full empowerment.  Keith is a leader and exemplary teacher for people dealing with emotional and physical suffering. His personal shift from a professional sports athlete to spiritual luminary allows him to mentor from experience with full transparency and authenticity;  utilizing his many years of Yoga and meditation training combined with his stellar PRO athlete expertise.

“When you realize that you can participate in your own healing process, you are no longer the victim.” ~KM59

As the founder of the The Light it Up Foundation  and co-founder of iKula Devi, Keith considers altruism and service as his life’s purpose— the most rewarding position he has ever played— sharing his mindfulness skills Yoga and meditation certification whether for peak performance and self-awareness to help others heal from the inside and out.

Keith’s mission is to guide others to find the power within themselves to make a positive shift— so they may live a life full of joy, gratitude and purpose.

Keith has been featured in: NFL Films, People Magazine, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, Essence, Origin, Yoga Journal, The Huffington Post, Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen ( Bravo ) and in many more national media outlets.

www.keithmitchell59.com

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Learning How to Say No Will Lead to a Life of True Emotional Freedom and Liberation

Why do we want to learn how to say no? The art of saying NO is something we are never taught. Think about it. From a young age at school, we are told what to do. We start learning at a certain time, take recess at this time and eat lunch at this time without ever stopping to ask ourselves what we truly want to do.

Shifting Out of Autopilot

For as long as we can remember, we have been on autopilot saying “yes” to a system or other people telling us how to live our lives in order to succeed. But the paradox is that no outside person can tell you how to set up and design your life in a way that allows you to flourish. When we listen to the external voices around us instead of turning within to discover our internal system, we are disempowered. These autopilot routines of saying “yes” when we mean “no”, have caused a buildup within our bodies, which leads to pain or chronic disease.

For example, we automatically step with our right foot instead of our left foot. We reach for our phone when we know no one has texted or called us. We grab our favorite pair of yoga pants more consistently without even thinking about the other pairs. Our body carries an automatic routine to do things out of habit without us even having to think about whether it is something we want or not. To live a life of emotional freedom and liberation, we must begin to slow down our minds, emotions and bodies to be able to listen to what we want instead of automatically repeating a habit. These repeated practices may seem small, but they lead you toward living a life that isn’t your own as you continue to participate in things you don’t want to do, simply because you’ve never known another way.

The Practice of Living An Uncompromised Life

In my third book, An Uncompromised Life, the sixth principle is to ‘Own Your No’ so that you can live a ‘Heck Yes Life’. When I was 14 and doctors told me I’d be on medication every day for the rest of my life, I remember thinking it was the only life narrative that was possible.

But we must remember, much like yoga, being a doctor is a practice; we are always in a state of practice, not certainty. This is how the body has created miraculous healing stories you see in movies and books. In our individual daily lives, each person has the willpower to practice faith and beat the odds of what is possible to achieve in this lifetime.

As my life practice went on, I became more deeply devoted and committed to meditation and yoga practice. And it wasn’t too long after I moved across the world to New Zealand, that I made a commitment. I said no to doing things just to do them and chose to only participate in activities that would bring me closer to the future I wanted.

In this commitment of saying no to partying, saying no to random friends, saying no to random events, I said yes to four hours of daily yoga and meditation for six months. Suddenly, I no longer needed my thyroid medication, as half my thyroid produced the hormones that usually two thyroid lobes produce. Now, I did use other supplements and change my diet, but I also said “no” to a lifetime sentence of a daily pill, and a ‘heck yes life’ became my journey.

I committed to daily practices that would empower me to realize who I truly was, not who the world wanted me to be. I became emotionally free to no longer worry about doctor appointments, reminding myself if I took my medication that day, picking up my prescription from the pharmacy, etc. So, you may be asking how you begin to do this. How do you start saying “no” to automatic habits that you no longer want to exist in your life, so that you can start saying “yes” to living your heck yes life?

Three Steps to Learning How to Say No to Automatic Habits and Say Heck Yes to Your Life?

Step One: Consciously Create Space for You-Time

I mean, you chose to create a time in your calendar solely for you. You write down “ME TIME” just as you plan for work meetings, but this is a time for you. If you think about it, we quickly say “yes” to giving our time away to everyone else which at times means saying “no” to what we truly desire. This conscious time carved out in our calendars is the time to say “yes” to giving ourselves OUR time to provide ourselves with the space to craft the life we want to live instead of giving everyone else the life they want from us.

Step Two: Look at Your Calendar and Reflect

Look at your calendar from the past one to six months. While reflecting on your calendar activities,  ask yourself, “How did I feel when I was doing these certain activities?” Simply notice how many things you’re doing in your life that feel contractive, tedious, frustrating and soulsucking vs. expansive, fun, exciting or that were helping you to build a future you were proud of. As time goes on, make this time with your calendar more intimate, even from making the bed, cleaning, cooking, going grocery shopping, sitting in rush hour, etc. The more specific you become, the stronger this exercise becomes.

Step Three: Take Action

Begin noticing how many things you are doing in your calendar that are disempowering you instead of empowering you to be in a state of feeling good. Then start to shift those calendar activities with tasks that will empower you to feel good. This may mean taking steps to leave a relationship, including starting therapy, becoming more intimate with your finances to get out of debt, or becoming accountable to create time to leave your job and start your passion project.

Yet you must begin to own your “No” by saying no to things that are hindering you from saying “Yes” to your soul and what is truly inside of you, so that you can experience a life you are in love with. I want you to create a life where you are emotionally free to express yourself in all moments and become liberated in your state of being, to be the truth of you all the time, in every moment. But it begins with you creating the space to say “No” to everyone else and “Yes” to you, which, as I’ve shared, we haven’t been taught from childhood.

Live Your Uncompromised Life

In conclusion, to become emotionally free and sustainably live in a state of liberation, it begins by no longer betraying yourself for love, denying what you know can be possible for your life, or settling for anything because you think you need more money to make it happen. This is the art and dance of beginning to live an uncompromised life; one that is true to your soul, one where you are owning your honest “no”, so that you can be set free to live your HECK YES liberated life. I hope this serves. I love you, Colleen

Colleen Gallagher

Colleen Gallagher is an intuitive business and personal development consultant. She has survived childhood cancer, is a global citizen, an advocate for everyone to have an opportunity to live their dreams and an academic who is currently pursuing her Ph.D is Psychology with a focus on Global Leadership and Change. She is an author of multiple books, including her latest release An Uncompromised Life, and the host of The Colleen Gallagher podcast. Her greatest success is seeing her clients fall in love with life by overcoming trauma and life challenges and create a lifestyle career that impacts the world. Colleen empowers leaders and businesses to come to a newfound clarity of their mission, so that they can better understand their gifts while taking calculated action to grow their businesses. Colleen offers these experiences through online courses, in-person retreats, her podcast, books and products. Currently, Colleen resides in Los Angeles, California.

colleengallagher.co

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Bringing Your Dreams to Life though Manifestation is a Process

When an event has the power to uproot and disrupt everything we know, from the social norms of interaction to the rhythms and routines of life itself, it can be easy to feel that nothing is within our control. The months of anxiety we all experienced during the pandemic made many feel powerless, and as the CEO at the helm of a healthy snack food company, I felt this tendency as much as anybody.

When the fate of the business seemed uncertain, I began to focus on my own self-improvement, prioritize positivity, and hold in my mind a vision of the company’s success. Today, I can confidently say that we’ve come out of this year better than we were before. I attribute a lot of this growth, personal and business, to my mindfulness practices, and I’ve come to realize that they were rooted in the power of manifestation. In the past several months, I’ve made manifestation an intentional and vital part of my day, and I want people to know that anyone is capable of manifestation…all it takes is a few minutes before bed!

What is manifestation?

At its core, manifestation is shaping your reality with your thoughts and intentions. It’s hard to think that this is possible when we think about life the way most people do, thinking that we are merely tiny bodies sitting in space. In fact, the opposite is true: you are a container for the universe whose existence doesn’t end at the edge of your body. You’re not as small as you think you are! The real you is beyond the body, beyond time and space, beyond limitation. And when you realize that there is no reality beyond your own consciousness, you realize that you can manifest your own destiny.

Your inner world reflects your outer world. I believe that each of us has an inner guru, an infinite being connected to the universe who guides our thoughts and imagination. If you can imagine something and feel it, then you can create it. But before you can create it externally, you have to create it internally. That’s where the active practice of manifestation comes in.

Manifestation as a Stepping Stone from Meditation

It was only during the pandemic that I began to make manifestation an intentional, everyday practice. But I’ve come to see how it’s truly a natural extension of meditation, which I’ve been practicing since my former days as a bond trader. Back then, I was living a lifestyle that was not conducive to tranquility of any kind, and struggling with stress and anxiety. When I finally decided to try meditation, it was a completely eye-opening experience. The more I meditated, the calmer I became. I started to be able to watch my own thoughts while they were occurring, almost as if there were two separate parts of me. I started to detect patterns, and if a certain unpleasant thought crept in I could catch it– “I’m doing it again!”– and pull myself out of that loop.

The realization that I was in control and had the power to change these patterns became the link from meditation to manifestation. When you realize the power you have over your own mind, manifestation is the next logical step. You have a lot of power; more than you think.

Consciousness and the Natural State of Dreaming

Much of what I know about manifestation and my techniques for practicing it comes from the works of Neville Goddard, one of the great American spiritual teachers and authors of the 20th century. He wrote, “The universe which we study with such care is a dream, and we the dreamers of the dream, eternal dreamers dreaming non-eternal dreams.” It’s a beautiful statement, but also quite a literal one. Your consciousness doesn’t know the difference between imagination and reality. That’s why dreams can often feel so real that you wake up confused, as if you’ve actually experienced the events of a different realm. Sleep is the subconscious’s natural state, the state that sees who we really are. It’s in sleep that we are our most real, and that’s why sleep is the best gateway to manifesting the future we want.

How to Manifest while you Sleep

Getting to a place of free-flowing consciousness may sound heady in theory, but my process is actually quite simple. My manifestation practice is the last thing I do before falling asleep, and the process is essentially just visualizing my desired future as I lie in bed. I run my mind down a checklist of the goals, feelings, and overall way of life I want to achieve. I see these things in my mind’s eye. I feel what it would feel like, and see myself as the person I want to be. I don’t imagine these desires as aspirational things that haven’t happened yet; rather, I envision that they are happening in the moment or that they have already happened.

Some things are more concrete. I see, for example, my family being happy and healthy. I see myself in great shape, speaking another language, living in Hawaii, writing a book. I see my business flourishing and sending things out into the world that bring people joy. Other things I visualize are less tangible. I try to feel total oneness with everything, total abundance, and unconditional love for the universe. When I’m manifesting, my favorite word is “limitless.” For me, feeling limitless means that my heart is wide open for energy to flow through without getting stuck. Similar to the way I practice meditation, I start with the end in mind and then let my thoughts flow freely around these images. The process of manifestation can really be this simple. It only takes me a few minutes of mindful thought from the time I lie down to the time I fall asleep.

The trickiest thing, but the most crucial, is to actually believe that what you are envisioning is possible. Manifestation is not just closing your eyes and thinking, “I want to be sitting on the beach right now.” Like meditation, it takes practice to figure out how to convincingly put yourself in this mindset. But by visualizing and believing in the truth of these images and feelings, you’re sending out a signal to the universe that this is what you want, and the universe will conspire to make it actually happen.

How Manifestation is Helping Me Live my Best Life

Since I started my simple practice of manifesting before bed, I have experienced so much more synchronicity in my daily life. By putting myself in a world of positivity and abundance right before sleep, I’m staying in that reality for all the hours that I’m unconscious. Having this momentum puts me in the best position to stay in that zone when I wake up. Then I start the day with some stretching, a 15-minute meditation where I focus on emptying and opening, and some positive statements of affirmation.

Manifestation is helpful in visualizing our long-term aspirations for the future, but I have found that it’s made a great difference in my day-to-day life as well. Solutions to problems appear clearer than ever. Obstacles aren’t barriers, but opportunities to look for a different way. Sometimes it even seems that little things I want appear magically. But it’s really not magic. It’s just that my mindset allows me to be open to possibilities that I otherwise wouldn’t have seen.

Manifestation is all about believing in the truth of our ability to attract good things. When you realize that you have the power to create the world around you, anything is possible.

Charles Coristine

Charles Coristine is changing the way we think about snacking. As the President and CEO of LesserEvil Snacks, Charles channels his passions for mindfulness and healthy living into creating snacks that inspire those same virtues in others.

www.lesserevil.com

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When it comes to how to heal from trauma, we must start with understanding. Many people do not know that trauma lives within the body – not just the memory within the mind. Trauma is caused by a stressful occurrence “that is outside the range of usual human experience,” which is markedly distressing to almost anyone. Anything that causes us to get into an emotionally disrupted state is an activation of trauma. By stress activating the nervous system to respond to whatever event just occurred, this indicates that unresolved trauma is still present in the body.

The stressful reaction in the present moment does not necessarily mean the response is from the traumatic event itself. This can become quite confusing when practicing yoga, teaching yoga, or living a yogic lifestyle. The slightest shift in tone, correcting someone during their practice, the language we use, the movement we sequence together all matter in allowing the nervous system to slow down or become self-regulated to release trapped trauma through stored emotions in the body. As yoga practitioners or yoga facilitators, how do we begin to create spaces and learn how to heal from trauma through love, personal development and become more aware of our bodies?

We Are Always in a State of Practice

We know we are always in a state of practice. When we show up to our mat, it is a time for us to practice moving through what lies within us to create a more expansive and stronger muscle memory as our natural state. Think of your body as your vehicle that houses your mind. Your body stores memories. It carries within it the Soul that connects you to the presence of something greater. It holds your beating heart.

And the practice of yoga, we are awakening, activating and releasing various muscles and organs in our body so that they can move in greater harmony together. We must begin to accept and acknowledge that we have gone through trauma or will go through trauma within our lives. It’s a non-negotiable to have a practice where we know how to get in tune with our bodies to create a life filled with love and happiness.

Steps to Self-Healing

One of the first steps in beginning to heal ourselves is to own our power. This is a topic I dig into in my third book, An Uncompromised Life. Many of us have no idea what it’s like to feel powerful or in control of our own lives. We have given up our power to societal structures and systems for so long, thinking there is no other way than what the mainstream within our respective county has presented to us as the average life.

Naturally, we have created muscle memory within our bodies to do things like recess, when we may want to stay inside and read a book or paint. We naturally turn away from the creative side of our mind because the curricula in America’s public education systems focus on subjects like math, science, English, and history. The majority of Americans go through public school, so we forget to even think about whether we are learning what we want to learn as an individual or if we are being forced into a system to learn something.

Learning How to Ask Ourselves Questions to Promote Healing

Second, we are not taught about how our emotional state influences our behavior. We are not taught that what happens within our homes, from seeing our parents fight to experiencing physical abuse to feeling unseen or unheard will massively impact us later in life as this trauma is stored within the body. From a young age this memory is stored within us to accept this as normal behavior from the world.

We must begin to constantly ask ourselves this question, “Is whatever I am doing or whoever I am choosing to be right now truly what I want to do or be?”

So often we have the muscle memory within our bodies to be around friends who we don’t even like because we are avoiding being alone, as we’ve become afraid of the beauty to be who we are. It is through owning our power by beginning to know who we truly are and love ourselves for us that we will start to heal from trauma.

The best way to start doing this is by becoming in tune with your body through a practice like yoga to see where certain parts of your body are tenser and tighter, as this represents where you are storing trapped emotions or trauma in the body. Then, through a practice like yoga, releasing the tightness and tension in the body allows you to release the trauma.

Consciously Create Your Life

The second part of healing yourself from trauma through love that I talk about in my book, An Uncompromised Life, is that you must start consciously creating your life instead of doing your life. As mentioned already, most people show up and do yoga, do their work out, do their life, do the date, do the dinner, do the grocery store or do the bed. But is that what you want to create in your life?

Every time you do something where your body is sending you a signal of “No I, don’t’ want to do this,” but you do it anyway, you are recreating and reliving past trauma instead of focusing on how to heal trauma.

You have the opportunity to pause, to love yourself for who you truly are, to stop whatever action your about to take and ask yourself, “What do I desire?” This frees you up to create your life from a place of pure desire. Often, people I speak with run on autopilot, meaning they do things without thinking, believing that they cannot slow down to become in tune with how the body communicates.

I walk through this in Episode 31 of The Colleen Gallagher Podcast. A great question to ask yourself to help you to slow down your life would be, “Is whatever I am about to do going to allow me to create a life I am proud to live and feel better in the way I live my life?” If the answer is yes, do it. If the answer is no, don’t do it. Then observe how to come up with a creative solution where you begin to create your life instead of doing it thinking there is no other option.

Creation is a form of love; it’s how children are brought into this world. Doing your life on autopilot is a form of self-hatred and only causes more trauma to be stored within the body.

Journaling Exercises Focused on Creating Your Life

Lastly, as I suggest in my book, buy yourself a journal and write out your answers to the following questions. We transform our lives when we heal ourselves, and then the world heals through us. This begins, though, by the questions we ask ourselves. So we can start to change our paradigm and the way we experience our life.

In truth, the neurons in our brain and the muscle memory in our bodies guide us to act on doing our life only by the habits we are used to instead of intentionally creating it. To heal from trauma and live a life we love, we must begin to develop ourselves by owning our power. This starts with bringing into awareness what we are “doing” in our life that is not working, so that we can begin to create a life by design. This is the key to empowering ourselves to live the most magical life filled with love beyond our wildest dreams.

These hand-drawn affirmation cards by Colleen Gallagher are intended to unify spirituality and business, creativity and monetization, and the mind and heart.

Questions for Journaling

• What things do you repeatedly do in your life that do not bring you joy, and how can you change these?
• Where in your body do you experience the most pain, stiffness, or tightness? Ask your body what it needs to feel free and liberated. The answers will come.
• If you could create the most amazing life filled with infinite abundance and love, what would that look like?
• Write down the last 10 times you became emotionally activated through stress, anger, frustration, annoyance, et cetera.
• Then ask yourself, “What consistent pattern actives my emotional disruption?” Begin to see how the story of your core trauma will begin to unravel.
• Ask: If I experienced emotional or physical trauma in my life, what emotions do I use to avoid facing that trauma? You will then begin to see what experiences you use give energy to low vibration emotions to cause physical reactions in your body of anger, pain, avoidance, et cetera. The moment we begin to bring awareness to this, we allow the pattern to release and reform.
• What are practices I can begin to do to make self-love and personal development a daily part of my life?

Meditate on Discovering Self-Love

Finally, I suggest listening to a free meditation I offer on my podcast in Episode 55. This will help guide you on your journey of learning how to heal from trauma and turning within to discover your inner self-love, release trapped trauma and develop yourself and life to become something beyond your wildest dreams.

Colleen Gallagher

Colleen Gallagher is an intuitive business and personal development consultant. She has survived childhood cancer, is a global citizen, an advocate for everyone to have an opportunity to live their dreams and an academic who is currently pursuing her Ph.D is Psychology with a focus on Global Leadership and Change. She is an author of multiple books, including her latest release An Uncompromised Life, and the host of The Colleen Gallagher podcast. Her greatest success is seeing her clients fall in love with life by overcoming trauma and life challenges and create a lifestyle career that impacts the world. Colleen empowers leaders and businesses to come to a newfound clarity of their mission, so that they can better understand their gifts while taking calculated action to grow their businesses. Colleen offers these experiences through online courses, in-person retreats, her podcast, books and products. Currently, Colleen resides in Los Angeles, California.

colleengallagher.co

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Sometimes our Root Chakra is the The Forgotten Chakra

Remember this Chakra: Balance your root chakra first to achieve better health and personal transformation.

Imagine this: you are working towards your dream of living your best life at work. You have visions of becoming the CEO of your own beauty brand or being promoted to Director at your firm, yet you have underlying feelings of insecurity and of fear. You might think that nobody will notice these deep down feelings because you work to exude confidence in all other areas. My guess is that these subconscious vibrations are holding you back. Energy doesn’t lie. So no matter how much you consciously promote your strengths, the vibration of insecurity will emanate from you and people my pick up on these vibrations. In order to experience real personal transformation, you must balance and heal all of your energy centers, starting with the foundation. Begin at the base to take care of your root chakra.

The Importance of Meeting your Basic Needs

The concept of energy healing from the base up is very similar to Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs. If basic human needs, such as food and shelter are not met, it can be impossible to achieve greater feats than survival. It is the same with energy healing. It is imperative to balance your energy starting from the foundation, the root chakra, and work towards higher elevations of being. If your basic energetic needs of safety and security are not being met, it will be impossible to step into the fullest expression of your life.

Energy in the body moves from the base of your spine up through the crown of your head and beyond. Clearing the root chakra will clear the way for a powerful flow of energy throughout all of your energy centers. If you balance the other chakras before your root chakra, the flow of energy may not be as strong or may even be hindered. This is why, no matter what kinds of problems you are experiencing, it is imperative to begin with your root chakra.

Accessing Energy Healing

When first exploring energy healing, I do advise that people work with an energy healer who is trained to identify subtle imbalances. Experienced energy healers know how to find a blockage and restore a healthy flow of energy throughout your body. This type of work is a wonderful integration into your preventative care routine. Stagnant energy in any chakra can lead to physical symptoms. For instance, an imbalance in your root chakra might lead to lower back or leg pain, constipation or sexual dysfunction. Many of my clients come to me for a monthly energy “tune up” to help them stay well.

That being said, it may not always be accessible for you to access a professional energy healer. If this is the case, don’t worry, there are many practices that you can do at home that will help you balance your root chakra and set the foundation for health and personal transformation.

The Subtleties of Energy Healing

First, it is key to learn to tune into your personal energy vibrations. Energetic healing is subtle. and takes a level of quiet mindfulness that you might not be used to when you are thinking about addressing your health. To begin to do this sit or lie comfortably, and close or soften your eyes. Simply start noticing how you feel. Begin to identify feeling tones that correlate with your emotions. For instance, if you are feeling stressed you might notice a quick, tense energetic tone vibrating through your body. If your energy is balanced you might notice that you feel calm, serene and neither happy nor sad. Understanding how to interpret and shift these vibrations can empower you to truly transform your health and life.

Once you understand how to feel your energetic vibrations, you can start healing all of your chakras, with a focus on balancing your root chakra first.

4 Practices to Balance Your Root Chakra at Home

Eat Grounding Foods

The root chakra is the energy center that guides safety, survival, and security. Your basic human needs. If you are feeling unsafe or full of fear and insecurity, your energy might feel detached. Eating grounding foods can help bring this energy back down to Earth, allowing you to feel more calm and secure. Roasted root vegetables or those prepared in stews can help ground your energy. Just think of how comforting it is to enjoy a bowl of hearty stew.

Vegetables that grow below the soil carry this type of energy. Some examples of wonderful grounding foods include beets, sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, ginger, and parsnips, and mushrooms. Additionally, the energy of the root chakra is a vibrant red color. You can also activate this chakra by eating red foods such as strawberries, cherries, and pomegranates.

Grounding Exercises

There are many practices that can help you calm your nervous system and vibrate with cool and collected energy. Simple exercises such as walking barefoot through the grass, going on a nature hike, practicing restorative or yin yoga, or taking a warm bath can all help balance any frenetic energy that you might be experiencing. At any moment, these grounding practices can shift your energy into a place where you are exuding a vibration of calm confidence.

Sound Vibrations

Energy moves in vibrations, as do sound waves. These sound vibrations can shift the energy in your body through the process of entrainment, a phenomenon in which one vibrating organism will match the vibrations of another nearby organism. Listening to certain frequencies of sound can shift your energetic vibration quite quickly. Sounds with the 396 hz frequencies or deep tones like bass or drum beats can help balance the root chakra. There are many healing playlists to explore on Spotify or YouTube as well as many practices for sound healing.

Crystals to Balance Your Root Chakra

Similarly to sound vibrations, crystals carry energy that can shift the energy in your body and surrounding fields. Crystals can pick up vibrations from their environment and also from the energy generated by your special intentions. Some of my favorite crystals for root chakra balancing include mookaite, which is also known as Australian jasper. Mookaite helps to ground your spirit with the earth. Another of my favorites is smoky quartz, a grounding stone that can transmute negative energies and transform dreams into reality.

Balancing all of the Chakras

Once you have balanced your root chakra, remember to take time to balance your other chakras. For optimal physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health, the ideal is to have balanced energy centers and uninhibited energy coursing through your physical and energetic bodies. Start by tuning into and balancing your root chakra. Move up through each chakra until you feel serene balance and calm throughout.

Serena Poon

Serena Poon, CN, CHC, CHN is the founder of Serena Loves LLC, a lifestyle brand that encompasses all the pillars that support optimal health, well-being, and longevity. Serena is certified as a Reiki Master for Usui Shiki Ryoho and with Quantum Touch Healing, and is a member of the International Association of Reiki Professionals. She has certified advanced knowledge of the symbols in the Usui System of Natural Healing, a BS from UC Berkeley, and is a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu’s most intense and comprehensive programming, Grand Diplome.

serenaloves.com

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Know Yourself Fully to Celebrate Freedom in Your Life

Celebrate freedom and truth in being you this July 4th. I speak to the idea of truly knowing yourself to bring about unimaginable freedom of being you. Many of us will see times of clarity, truth, and freedom in our lives, yet other times we deny our reality, pretending we don’t need to change or become what our ever-knowing inner Being is leading us to be. This weekend, take the time to examine the truth of you, celebrate you, and be grateful for who you really are. All eight billion of us, individual souls not two alike, are on a journey of becoming what Divine Intelligence intended us to be. It all begins with accepting yourself and knowing your truth.

A Fish With Arms, What?

A brilliant metaphor to describe the awakening of who we really are, getting to the truth and accepting ourselves, is about a fish with arms. When the fish finally realizes it will never have arms, it grows fins, which keeps the fish thriving and surviving.

How many of us desire, pray for, fight for arms, metaphorically speaking? In reality, we need to accept the idea of who we really are, our truth. This acceptance of self allows us to survive and thrive beyond our wildest dreams. Many of us cling to who we think we need to be, or we fantasize about a life that’s beyond our innate capabilities.

Often, we look out into the world, ignoring our inner truth. And instead, our attention is immediately drawn to what is culturally relevant, thinking I want to be a celebrity, CEO, basketball player, fashion designer, chef, or the next tech megastar… None of this is wrong, but it must align with our innate self.

When A Personality Type is Healthy, it Eagerly Supports Our Inner Beingness

It’s only when we tap into our true nature, who we really are, that we become what we are meant to be. What Divine Intelligence intended us to be. We begin to see that what works for others doesn’t have a place in our lives. We begin to accept who we are, which starts with intimately knowing our personality type. As we unfold our personality type, aspects of our unconscious self become conscious, allowing us to discern what is truly in our best interest. Even more important, when our personality type is healthy, it eagerly supports our inner Being, spirit, soul, higher self, and we begin to live an enlightened life.

An Awakening Through Acceptance of Who We Are

As soon as we accept our innate selves versus thinking I could be or should be, then our inner beingness works with Divine Intelligence, sending us an abundance of resources to transform ourselves into the self we’ve been aching to be.

What’s Your Truth?

As you find your truth, acceptance and personal freedom come about naturally. You’ll begin to see the truth is a tool by which you can work out your life and define your specific virtues and values.

It enables you to endure challenges, struggles, and misfortunes. The truth also shows you what you think about the world around you and how you relate to others. In a nutshell, your personal reality will unfold, revealing the truth of YOU.

Did you know each personality type has a primary truth, a life path, which is discoverable within personality type indicators? I’ve compiled a list of the 16 personality types (see below) and revealed truths inspired by a dominant trait.

Please know this is the first step to start your truth journey — the path you’ll need to take to find real meaning and fulfillment in life. It puts you on your life path to become what the Universal Creator, Divine Intelligence, GOD, Allah… intended for you in this life. Note: these truth theories are mine and mine only. Take what resonates and leave the rest behind—truths for each type.

Types of Extroverts

Spirited Types, ENFP – Their truth is motivated to pursue and understand the big picture of life, with a particular affinity of serving the individual over the collective.

Curious Types, ENTP – To understanding the world they live in and create from this truth to bring about change, new thinking, and new possibilities.

Altruistic Types, ENFJ – They live in a world of people and possibilities, and their truth is to aspire to bring about the best in others.

Assured Types, ENTJ – Their truth lies in their ability to lead, defeat and overcome challenges for the best possible solutions.

Playful Types, ESFP – To live fully in the world of people and possibilities, their truth lies in expressing their joys, talents and rejoice in it all, embracing the world around them.

Affluential Types, ESTP – Their truth is in doing something using their innate abilities to see the details and knowledge in the world around them.

Harmonious Types, ESFJ – They truly are a people person, and their supportive judgments nourish those around them, as what they see for themselves is what they value and see in others.

Grounded Types, ESTJ – Their truth lies in social order and creating dynamic and lasting principles to withstand the tests of time.

Types of Introverts

Laidback Types, INTPs – These types are thinkers, and they are probably the most passionate about seeking truth, respecting both the metaphysical and logical aspects of the world.

Resolved Types, INTJs – Their truth lives in science and math, always seeking a greater comprehension of the essential elements to improve beyond what they now know.

Seeker Types, INFPs – Their truth is finding meaning in life and then applying this deep bed of knowledge to humanity.

Insightful Types, INFJs – The truth for these types is sharing a deep knowingness in service to others with an innate ability to create a plan of action to put their knowledge into action.

Reliable Types, ISTJ – Their truth is in the value and structures of society; family, church, and community while the hard-working characteristics uphold these institutions.

Abstract Types, ISFP – They believe in the uncompromising truth of unconditional love and a person’s rights to be themself without judgment for who they are.

Practical Types, ISFJ – Their truth is often reflected from their inner world, of beauty, security, and growth, which brings ease to others.

Active Types, ISTP – They find their truth in the environment, becoming one with it and fully experiencing it through the five senses and in nonphysical ways, too.

Rise From Post-Pandemic Times

As we start to awaken from these post-pandemic times, many of us have come to a startling realization that we’ve been asleep. We’ve awoken to began the examination of our lives. The long stretches of isolation slowly lured us from our slumber into a new normal.

Two billion people have asked, “When will things get back to normal?” I believe the better question is, how can we apply what we’ve awoken to during our time in isolation to our lives today?

Back to the beginning. What lessons have we learned from the fish who accepts that it will never have arms and is now swimming happily because of its new fins? What have our new truths revealed during the past two years? Do we believe going back to normal really is the path option for yourself or society at large?

We’ve all been given the gifts of slowing down, evaluating our lives, and asking complex philosophical questions; How can I know if something is true? Does God exist? What are my values and virtues? Why am I here? What is the purpose of life?

What steps are you taking to answer these questions and begin life anew? Or will you choose to remain asleep? Either way is not an easy decision, but it is a decision that will change your life forever.

Take the First Step

Finding your truth, which I will boldly say, is your purpose in life. Once you’ve found your truth, everything in life unfolds; your power, passion, and purpose. Choices regarding relationships become clear—your health, where you live, and what you choose to value and uphold become crystal clear.

Now is the time to take the first step: knowing who you really are and accepting this truth. You see, clarity, confidence, and courage revolve around knowing your authentic self, your truth. One of the most important and most accessible places to start is understanding your personality type? Do you know your personality type beyond the four-letter archetype? Take the first step to establish a deep understanding of each type’s functions and learn how they weave together to create your personal reality.

If you don’t know your type, the official Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is an excellent place to start. There are plenty of free tests, but be wary, as I’ve learned quite a few are inconclusive.

Three Journal Prompts to Celebrate Freedom and Truth In Being You

1. Sit quietly and ask yourself this question; what is the most authentic aspect of myself. Say it out loud, looking into a mirror. What are you feeling? Journal on it. Come back to this question until a calm, knowingness comes over you.
2. Notice through the upcoming days when this knowingness comes over you and your reaction to it; again, journal your responses.
3. Again, notice how this knowingness is reflected and revealed when interacting with others.

I hope you found “Celebrate Freedom and Truth In being you this July 4th?” eye-opening. You see, I’m passionate about introducing the idea of spiritual understanding as a component of personality typing. The 1950s model is fantastic, but as we awaken to our spiritual needs, we must incorporate the gifts of a healthy personality type to align with our signature, SoulSelf. When we do this, we express our soul’s intentions through our personality. As a result, we show up in the world in our truth with great clarity, full of joy, passion, and purpose. It is the way of enlightened living.

Nina Zapala

Nina Zapala is a personality type shaman and a certified Myers-Briggs® instructor with decades of travel experience. Hundreds of travelers worldwide shared their unhappiness stories, claiming a lack of self-awareness about their true self. Zapala is on a mission to reshape personality typing, layered with spiritual insights to enable beautiful souls from around the globe to unveil the who of who they really are. Please visit Nina Zapala  to learn more.

www.ninazapala.com

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What I’ve found in over a decade of working in wellness is that if we focus just on one area of our life, we’re not really well. For most of us, our wellness journeys start with food and improving our diet, but then once we do that and lose the weight or get more fit or whatever our goal is, we still feel that something is off.

Maybe we still don’t feel peaceful, we’re still anxious and have insomnia. Maybe we just don’t feel happy. Maybe we don’t feel confident or are still feeling over-affected by what anyone around us says or does. This is why it’s key to take a holistic approach to wellness, one that honors and nurtures all aspects of us, because our power lies in our wholeness.

The way I talk about this wholeness is through the Four Cornerstones of True Beauty and Wellness that is central in my philosophy. When I’m talking about beauty, it’s not just the way your hair or skin looks (though that’s part of it). I’m talking about beauty in a deep, mystical, holistic way as well, the way the ancient mystics like Rumi and the great yoga guru Yogananda described the beauty of the soul.

When you follow this holistic approach, you will feel centered, empowered and clear. You gain more confidence, you have more energy, and you have this “what is that?!” magnetism that is hard to pin down. And you look radiant and de-bloated to boot! Everything starts to feel like it’s flowing across your life.

Our Four Cornerstones are 1) food, 2) body, 3) emotional well-being and 4) spiritual growth.

When you work on nourishing all of them in your life, you regain balance and start to thrive. If you ignore one or two, you tend to get obsessed with one of the other areas.

For instance, when I had eating disorders and beat myself up mentally every day over my body (which I was obsessed with making skinnier), it was because I was ignoring my emotions and feelings, and I was not connecting with my real self/soul/spirit. I didn’t like myself and wasn’t comfortable with myself. And how could I be? I didn’t take the time to get to know myself yet, because I didn’t have any kind of stillness or meditation practice. And it wasn’t until I started working on my emotional, mental and spiritual well-being was I able to feel beer in my body- and across my whole life- once and for all.

Let’s focus on applying this Four Cornerstone philosophy to summer, to look and feel our best.

1. Food Choices for Feeling Your Best

We need to nourish our bodies. Because we eat every day, and food is tangible as we can see it and pick it up, it’s where we begin. What you put in your body; the foods you choose to eat have powerful healing qualities. Food integrates into your body and profoundly affects the way you feel and look.

Summer is a wonderful time to eat more raw plant foods: especially greens, other vegetables, and fruit. We take in the optimal amount of vitamins that way, as well as antioxidants, fiber, minerals, and more. Salads and smoothies are great daily staples. For summer I opt for simplicity. Often, I make a big plate with cut up a bunch of cucumbers with a little sea salt and snap peas and leave it out for my older son, who is five, and he chomps away. Kids can teach us the simple, basic nature of great eating!

It’s important to maintain balance with lots of room temperature water (as tempting as icy beverages always are!) for optimal hydration, as well as coconut water. (One of my personal favorites is the Harmless Harvest brand.)

2. Body Practices for Feeling Your Best

Our bodies can offer us so much wisdom. When we care for our bodily temple properly, we feel revitalized, flexible and centered. Summer is a great time to move your body outside in nature, to take advantage of the benefits of grounding and getting some Vitamin D from (safe) sunlight practices. If you practice asana, it’s so beneficial to practice outside when possible. In the summer, the sun sets later, of course. And it’s great to try to eat dinner outside when possible, and still strive for eating 3-4 hours before bedtime, so you don’t end up with sluggish digestion from eating too late.

3. Emotional Well-Being

Emotional well-being is often a missing piece of one’s wellness journey. Imbalanced, it can manifest in emotional swings, ongoing relationship drama, guilt, shame, chronic anger and resentment, constant cravings and desires are all indicative of unresolved emotions. Unresolved emotions can increase inflammation, bloating, gut imbalance, even weight gain, lined skin and of course, unhappiness.

This summer, create an intention to create some stillness and space to really feel your feelings. I find that feelings can build up, similarly to undigested food. There’s a lot of research now about the power of intention. Use the slower weekends or times in the evening to meditate, journal, and then lie back and feel. I do this periodically, and it’s amazing how much can come up to be felt, before it can fully be let go. I lay very still, and feel, feel, feel for as long as the feelings cycle through—which could be anywhere from 30 minutes to far longer. It’s a wonderful practice for fostering more lightness this summer.

4. Spiritual Growth

Spiritual growth isn’t about organized religion or dogma, it’s about spirit. Spirit, energy, life force, pure intelligence, the Tao—whatever term you prefer—flows through you and me and everything else. I define spirituality as being in touch with your true self, your true essence. You are a completely unique soul and expression. Therefore you are completely worthy of love just as you are- but the problem is that we so easily forget that! And when we do, life starts to feel a lot harder and more complicated.

This summer, commit to dialing in, or really doubling down on your meditation practice. Better still if you can get up a bit earlier. The Yogis used to teach about the magic hours of the early morning as holding great spiritual potential. Even if it’s only 5-10 minutes every morning, it’s a great start. And you can continue to build from there on the path to feeling your best.

Kimberly Snyder

Kimberly Snyder is a multi-time New York Times bestselling author, spiritual and meditation teacher, nutritionist and holistic wellness expert. She has authored 6 books, including Radical Beauty, which she co-authored with Deepak Chopra. Her highly anticipated 6th book, You Are More Than You Think You Are: Practical Enlightenment for Everyday Life, (Hay House) published on January 25th, 2022.

She is also the founder of Solluna®, a holistic lifestyle brand, Practical Enlightenment Meditation,™ Solluna Circle and the host of her top-rated Feel Good Podcast.  She has worked with dozens of top celebrities to feel their best, including Drew Barrymore, Reese Witherspoon and Channing Tatum, and has been featured by numerous national media outlets, including Good Morning America, The Today Show, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Kimberly resides in Los Angeles and Hawaii with her husband and her sons.

Kimberly Snyder Author Photo by Kevin Estrada

www.mysolluna.com

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Our Inheritance and Our Imbalances

As a yoga practitioner, you know how important it is to discover and correct areas of imbalance and restriction in the body and then develop movement patterns that are fluid, balanced and supportive of both your practice and your movement through life. The same is true about discovering inefficient, unbalanced patterns of thought and emotion that you have inherited from your ancestors and family through your Emotional DNA.

Just like we inherit physical attributes from our forebears—brown or blue eyes, that mesomorph or ectomorph body type—science is now demonstrating that we inherit patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions. Epigenetics reveals that significant events can affect entire family systems far beyond the originally impacted family members. Intergenerational effects show up as patterns of success and failure in every area of our lives. This includes relationships, leadership roles, business, money, purpose, and emotional well-being. I call this multi-generational inheritance our Emotional DNA.

Understanding our Emotional DNA

While we can’t necessarily change our physical DNA, we can change our Emotional DNA. And the way we do this is by being willing to become aware of the patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions that no longer serve us—patterns which are often tied to frustrations and places where we are stuck. When we become aware of our limiting patterns and examine our family of origin to understand what those patterns are and how they got there, we can then choose what to keep and what to leave. Then we can mindfully design the life we want.

Take Leslie, for example. She has an extroverted, exuberant personality, but was born into a family of introverts who were constantly telling her to “calm down” and not be so “loud and excitable.” She was frustrated and wanted to shine and express her genuine self, but she also wanted to belong to the family and not be a constant irritant.

When we explored her family’s history, it turns out her Jewish grandmother had been a little girl in Poland during World War II. Her family had hidden for six months in the basement of a house belonging to a non-Jewish family before they could be smuggled out of the country to safety. The life of the entire family had depended on being quiet, and the trauma that had accompanied that experience was stamped onto future generations. Once Leslie understood what had happened, she could be sympathetic to the family pattern. But she also realized that her exuberance was a gift. Our frustrations and anxieties are often prompts by the family system for some pattern to change. If expressed with sensitivity, Leslie realized she had the opportunity to shift the family pattern and lift the pattern of silence for future generations.

Understanding our Inheritance

Or perhaps you’re plagued with money issues? I remember working with Jerry who was at his wit’s end about his finances. He wanted to be financially secure but was too afraid to even look at his money situation, let alone manage it. What he didn’t know was that the financial disasters that had occurred on both sides of his family tree had set patterns into motion that he was expressing. His mother’s parents had lost a lot of money through bad investments and his grandfather on his father’s side had been CEO of a large company who entrusted the financial dealings to an accountant who took all the money and ran. Jerry was born into a family whose money language contained sayings like the following.

• We are not good with money.
• People always lie, cheat and steal your money.
• Spend your dollars before someone else does.
• Even if you work hard and make money, you’ll lose it all.
• Life is not about the money.

Do any of those thoughts sound familiar? No wonder Jerry was struggling with his finances! Once he was able to see how the inability of his predecessors to look at and interact with money as a friend had shut down the family finances and possibilities, affecting his relationship with money, he realized it wasn’t him. He could see how his appetite for wanting more was valuable and needed. It was telling him what the patterns of limitation were and how to move through them. He would be the one to desire money, welcome it, look at it and be a good steward of it in his family.

Armed with these insights, the old pattern was no longer his inevitable future. He couldn’t wait to go home and start relating to money differently. Within a year, his financial status had improved considerably and his wish list was only growing. How did he do that? By being willing to discover the old pattern and then embrace a new pattern with commitment. One new thought, one new feeling, one new action at a time.

Getting Started

The first step in consciously igniting your patterns of potential and activating the expression of new Emotional DNA is identifying where you feel stuck.

• It is in the area of money?
• Career? Relationship?
• Do you experience an inability to connect?
• A sense of not belonging?
• Are you always taking care of others?
• Do you take on too much responsibility?
• Do you get to play and be light-hearted in life?
• Or do you always feel burdened?

Determine what the biggest pain point in your life is and then bless it. It’s a messenger telling you it’s time to see the old pattern and move on. Then take the time to sit down and think about your family system in light of this issue. Ask yourself questions, such as the following.

• Who else in my family deals with this same issue?
• How far back does this pattern go?
• What sentences and words do members of my family use that support this limited pattern?

Acknowledge the Patterns

If you’re adopted or have no family history that you’re aware of, don’t worry. The pattern is there in you. It came from someone, sometime, somewhere. Putting a name and a face on it isn’t necessary. How does the pattern show up in you? What negative/positive feelings/emotions do you experience around this issue? What limiting things are you constantly telling yourself about this? Write those words and phrases down. Acknowledge the pattern. Acknowledge the limiting thoughts and sentences that accompany it.

How to Replace Patterns

Now, what new pattern do you want to set in motion to replace the old? A very simple and empowering way to rewire the pattern in your mind is to take those old sentences in your head, write them down so you can see them and reframe them. For example, let’s use a couple of Jerry’s sentences above.

• “We are not good with money” becomes “I handle money competently.”
• “Life is not about the money” becomes “Money is a valuable asset for me to nurture.”

The next step is to feel that new thought. If your old thought is, “I’m worthless,” then get in touch with the energy of its replacement, which might be something like, “I have lots to offer myself and others.” What does that new thought feel like?

One highly effective process you can use to get in touch with feelings and issues around an old pattern versus new, is write down the old thought on a piece of paper and place it on the floor at one end of a room. Write the new thought on another piece of paper and put it on the floor at the other end of the room. Stand in between the two thoughts. Walk toward the old and see how you feel. Walk toward the new thought and check in with your emotions and body sensations. How does the new thought feel? What ideas pop in your head? What does your body feel like?

Revel in that new energy as often as you can.

Finally, decide upon one action you can take to set that new pattern into motion through shifting the expression of your Emotional DNA. It doesn’t have to be big. Even the tiniest movement in the direction of the new pattern increases its potency and potential. Play with it. Play with the sense of freedom that comes from knowing that most limiting patterns are simply old family dynamics that have outworn their usefulness and welcome. They’re not you and they do not dictate your future.

Judy Wilkins-Smith

Judy Wilkins-Smith is a highly-regarded, international organizational, individual and family patterns expert, systemic coach, trainer, facilitator, leadership conference and motivational speaker and founder of System Dynamics for Individuals & Organizations. Her next Money DNA event is being held at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida October 28-31. How BIG are you willing to be? Let’s find out! For more information: https://judywilkins-smith.com/

judywilkins-smith.com

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Do you ever feel like your emotional reactions take control of you and you have no choice but to follow in their destructive path?

Don’t worry you’re not alone. Most of us experience difficulty with control when we’re vulnerable due to hunger, sleep deprivation, and a host of other lapses in self-care.

You can be in control during difficult times, but you’ll have to be willing to make some changes. We live in a fast-food culture and look for quick fixes that don’t always exist. It’s really the commitment to ourselves that makes the difference, and commitment is a long-term change.

If you’re ready to make some lifestyle changes to reduce stress, I will do something I rarely do, give you a guarantee. I’ll guarantee you’ll feel mood improvement if you follow the five steps I outline below.

That doesn’t mean for one day, that means slowly making changes in your life to create new habits. It’s a journey, but it’s a journey worth taking.

I know you’re going to love the life you are building!

1. Balanced, Regular Meals as one of the Lifestyle Changes to Reduce Stress

This is a tall order for many people in this time of boxed dinners, long work hours and multiple time-consuming obligations.
Your body is a machine. Would you expect your car to operate at its best with bad fuel or no fuel? No. Think of your body the same way.

Maybe you aren’t going to change all of your eating habits this week, but could you start with one change?
Do you need to start with one day or one meal and work your way up to more? Do you need to add a healthy food like a vegetable or a fruit before you can think about taking away your daily donut? Find a solution that makes sense to you.

Prioritize yourself by setting aside time for good food.

2. Exercise and Movement as a Lifestyle Change

Increasing movement in your life does not have to mean going to the gym every day. Just because your best friend or your sister works out every day does not mean that’s the plan that works best for you.

Set yourself up for success with lifestyle changes to reduce stress by knowing yourself. Are you most likely to take a walk or do some yoga in the morning, afternoon or evening? How long can you stay focused? Do you need to rotate your exercise so as not to get bored? Do you hate running and therefore will never follow through on a plan to train for a 5K?

Do not set yourself up for failure before you even begin. Be realistic and set small goals. You can always increase once your meet a goal or you become comfortable with your current plan.

Think outside the box for creative ways to get movement into your day.

3. Healthy Sleep Habits

When we sleep, we heal. Without proper sleep we slowly breakdown physically and mentally.

If you know you are someone who operates best with seven and a half hours of sleep, make that happen. It may mean you have to sacrifice something else like staying up late to finish watching that movie or reading the end of that chapter. Being rested and alert is worth it.

If getting the right amount of sleep makes it so that you can function better in your life, it needs to be prioritized. Keep in mind that different people’s bodies work differently, so the amount of sleep you need may be different from someone else.
Listen to your body and try not to make it fit into someone else’s mold.

4. Prescribed Medications

If you have prescriptions the assumption is that there is something in your body or mind that needs a little help so those prescriptions are important to continue. Be sure to communicate clearly with your physician about those medications so you know why you’re taking them.

It’s up to you to be informed about what goes into your body. If you are prescribed a medication but don’t really think it’s what you want or are frustrated with a doctor giving you yet another pill to take, you’ll be at risk of stopping that medication without a plan or intention. This is potentially dangerous depending on the medication.

You may also be prone to forgetting a medication you aren’t really fond of. If you are having a hard time coping with today, check to see if you took your medication, if you didn’t it may help to explain why you are having such difficulty.

Our minds and bodies are more connected than you might believe. Be kind to them both.

5. Reevaluating our Relationship with Alcohol and Illicit Drugs

You either looked at the heading of this section and said, “Yeah, duh,” or “Sure, but…”. Substances are a large part of our culture and are not bad unto themselves. It’s how we use them.

You may really enjoy a glass of wine or two at night. Can you go a week or two without it? Run the experiment and find out what your relationship with that nightcap really is.

It takes a lot more work to use healthier coping strategies and they are not as immediate often as a substance, but they will last a lot longer and help get rid of the core issue instead of avoiding it.

If you aren’t in control of your substance use, it’s in control of you.

Excess can create vulnerabilities to mental and physical disturbances. If you aren’t willing to set your substance of choice aside, consider what moderation would look like.

Give yourself a chance to be in control.

6. Take Down Time and Mental Health Breaks

If you see strength in powering through being tired or stressed, remember that it will eventually catch up with you. Our minds are like muscles. If you tense a muscle for too long without reprieve, it will eventually fail. Try holding your arm out in front of you all day with no option to put it down and see what happens.

If your mind is constantly on the go it never gets a chance to recover, which then makes it less capable of doing the work you need it to do.

Taking a day off and slowing down are signs of strength because they show you are willing to care for yourself, which is often much harder than focusing your attention on everything else.

When you care for your body, your mind will feel cared for, too. You will have greater control, greater strength, faster thinking, increased insight, more patience and so much more. All of this will increase your resiliency and reduce your stress. Isn’t that what we are all looking for?

It’s not easy to change or to make better choices for yourself if you are used to making less beneficial ones. Start out small and let yourself acknowledge each little victory until you notice that you really did manage to make those changes and are feeling stronger than ever.

Kate Evans

Kate Evans is the owner of Soulful Space, a virtual life coaching and decluttering company. Kate helps overwhelmed women declutter their lives and homes. She has worked in the field of psychology since 2004, is an RYT-200 certified yoga teacher, and a writer currently working on a book bringing self-help and decluttering together for lasting change. To learn more about Kate, the work she does, and to read her weekly blog for your mind, body, soul, and space, go to www.soulfulspacecoaching.com. Kate can also be found on Instagram and Facebook @soulfulspace.coaching.

www.soulfulspacecoaching.com

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Why We Need Stress Reduction Tools

“Gosh, I am just so stressed!” How many times have you said that? Weekly? Daily? Hourly? Levels of stress are at an all-time high. We need tools for stress reduction these days. According to the American Psychological Association:

“Nearly half of parents (46%) [say] their stress level is high (between 8 and 10 on a 10-point scale where 1 means ‘little or no stress’ and 10 means “a great deal of stress”)”.

Just this statistic alone reveals that we need stress reduction tools.

These days, rates of mental health disorders are equally at record highs, with more than 45% of Americans reporting symptoms of anxiety or depression. In the first half of 2019, that number was at just 11%.

It’s more important than ever to reduce the effects of constant high levels of cortisol throughout your body. High levels of cortisol can lead to increased inflammation, which is shown in many people to be one of the root causes of many chronic diseases. This includes cancer, type II diabetes, and heart disease. High levels of chronic stress is even shown to increase risk of obesity, which is another factor in chronic diseases.

This is one of many reasons why we need to be our own best healthcare advocate and focus on techniques for stress reduction.

Receiving a breast cancer diagnosis at the age of 40 compelled me to become exactly that.

Forced me to need to learn to meditate. Find calm in my chaotic day. To breathe. Hopefully, you don’t need the same wake-up call to take action.

Easy, Actionable No-Cost, Tools for Stress Reduction.

Use these to get on with a happier, easier daily life!

Some of my key Your Healthiest Healthy strategies include:

• Control what you can control
• Worry when you need to worry.
• Focus on small moments daily
• Breathwork
• Move your body!

Ready to delve deeper into this and arm yourself with the tools necessary to take small, manageable steps to breathe a little easier?

First, Control what you can Control.

There are truly only a few things within our control. Specifically, our effort (or actions) and our attitude. We can’t always control what’s happening to us or around us, but we can control how we react to and process the situation.

Worry When you have to Worry.

Second, and this is a big one – the one tool that truly saved me during Covid, earthquakes, cancer and other health scares.

Worry only when you have to worry. Tackle your concerns when you need to address them but don’t spend your whole day or week worrying about something looming in the future – and often worrying about something that may never even come to fruition!

One tactic here that helps is to remind yourself of the good things you have going. It also really helps to question the reasoning behind your worries and learn from them.

Focus on Small Moments Daily

Another helpful tool is to focus on small moments daily. It helps to write down three small but good moments that happened during the day. Each day. Numerous studies have proved that gratitude journals have a powerful positive impact on mental health.

Breathe

Now for my other staple go-to method for dealing with stress: Breathe right, breathe slowly, and breathe deeply…often. The stress melts away within moments. Diaphragmatic breaths initiate a brain-gut axis response as well, so both digestion can ease and mood can lift with this exercise!

Micro-Meditations

As for breathwork, it doesn’t take a 30-minute meditation session to get results. I am a huge fan of micro-meditations. It’s something I discuss with the members of my wellness community. Even a 30-second to two-minute stop-down, where you put down your devices and focus on deep belly breaths, will change your mood and calm your anxiety.

Get into Nature and Move Your Body!

When all else fails… get out in nature and move your body! The power of our universe and all the beauty it offers can be more transformative than anything. Listen to the birds, feel the sun (Vitamin D!) on your face and breathe in the fresh air while kicking up your cardio. Endorphins never fail us as a mood-lifter, either.

Stress Reduction at Work

When it comes to feeling overwhelmed or stressed at work (whether a home-office or at your place of work), here are a few bonus tips for how to de-stress:

• Organize your work and living space to clear the clutter and create a peaceful environment.
• Prioritize tasks to focus on one thing at a time.
• Delegate tasks whenever possible when feeling overwhelmed.

Nutrition and Stress Reduction

Beyond the mental and breath tools, nutrition also packs a punch.

Some foods to AVOID that increase the severity of anxiety include:

• Caffeine
• Refined sugar and even some fruits
• Hydrogenated oils (think fried)
• Fast Food
• High-sodium foods
• Trans fat
• Processed foods
• Soy
• Alcohol

Foods to help calm anxiety include:

Root vegetables. These delish foods contain vital grounding and soothing properties that help ease the effects of cortisol and other stress-related hormones. Root vegetables are also foods rich in B vitamins, antioxidants, and Omega-3 fatty acids.

Omega-3 fatty acids are vital for our brain health and hormonal regulation. ?Some foods that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids include wild salmon, walnuts, flaxseed, and chia seeds.

Other foods which are known to benefit the symptoms of anxiety are:

• Blueberries
• Almonds
• Spinach
• Broccoli
• Spirulina
• Raspberries
• Dark Chocolate
• Quinoa
• Red lentils

So get shopping and load up on these nutrient-dense delights to soothe your mind and nourish your body.

Dance Party!!!!

Last tip: To lift your mood and add in some laughter, turn up the music and dance your stress away! Dance party, anyone?!

Samantha Harris

Samantha Harris hosted dozens of TV shows including Dancing with the Stars for eight seasons, garnering two Emmy nominations, and served as correspondent and weekend anchor on Entertainment Tonight, where she earned two more Emmy nominations and a win. A Certified Holistic Health Coach and trainer, she has appeared on the covers of numerous health and fitness magazines. Her bestselling book, Your Healthiest Healthy: 8 Easy Ways to Take Control, Prevent and Avoid Cancer, and Live a Longer, Cleaner, Happier Life ignited such a following that she now offers wellness retreats and her subscription-based online wellness community, Your Healthiest Healthy: Community . As a breast cancer survivor and advocate, she also serves as a National Ambassador for Susan G. Komen and American Cancer Society Visit her @SamanthaHarrisTV on Instagram/Facebook and at Samantha-Harris.com.

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Are you the “cup is half full” or the “cup is half empty” type person?

Gratitude is definitely an attitude I find that it is important to cultivate. It does take some attention to this attitude. To begin, I am positive by nature, but there are times when I find it challenging to live a genuinely happy life. For me, a genuinely happy life includes feeling comfortable in my own skin and not comparing myself to everybody else or feeling that I would rather be someplace else than where I am.

There will always be someone who is younger, prettier, luckier, or more successful than me. When I spend too much time on social media, flip through magazines, or watch TV, it becomes easy to lose my gratitude and slip into doubting myself and not feeling comfortable in my own skin.

Being a scuba instructor, I have spent several years traveling around the world and living out of a backpack. I recall that when I lived on islands without newspapers or internet access, when I walked barefoot everywhere, and ate freshly prepared meals, I felt happy and grateful every day. I thought I was so lucky. I was filled with gratitude for living this life.

Life‘s simple things felt like enough. A beautiful day on the beach, calm seas while underwater, perhaps even a shark encounter and a freshly prepared fruit platter after diving was all I needed to be happy.

Now, years later, I have settled in California. I have a loving husband and son. I am healthy. My home is five minutes away from the Pacific Ocean. My passions allow me to make a living: scuba diving, stunt work on Hollywood movies, and creating empowering jewelry from healing gemstones I find along the way during my world travels.

Perspectives on Gratitude

Even though I have everything I need (and perhaps more!), there are definitely times when I have to remind myself to be grateful for what I have and the life I live.

I look around and see that I am not alone. Some of my friends and family members, who seemingly have everything, are not completely happy.

When I reflect on these people, I notice some of the following observations. They have a home to live in; they are healthy. They don’t have debt. And they may have well-paying jobs with flexible schedules. These people have spouses and families. With opportunities to travel a couple times a year. They may even belong to clubs with benefits. Yet–very often–I see their lack of content with their good fortune. I’ve heard people say that they would be happier when they have more money, live in a bigger house, take one more trip, or have one more kid…

On the other hand, through my travels, I have seen true happiness that doesn’t come from having more of anything.

I’ve thought about the relationship between happiness and having.

There also seems to be a relationship between generosity and having more. Sometimes the most generous people willing to share their food and homes are not always the people who live in the largest houses. Generosity isn’t always related to what we have. What if it is related to our gratitude?

What do we need to feel grateful, content, and as though we have enough?

Sometimes we need to take a step back and look at our lives from a different perspective to really see how lucky we are and to remind ourselves to be grateful.

A Story of Perspective

I have a young son who was born and raised in California. To him, life in Southern California by the beach is the benchmark of normal.

Through my work as a professional scuba diver, I am able to travel and take my family with me. I host family weeks every year on a beautiful island in Fiji. The first time we went, my son was excited to meet the local kids, see their school, and play with their toys.

One day we walked outside of the fancy resort and through the modest village to reach the island school. Once we arrived, my son looked at me confused and asked, “Where are the toys?”

The kids were so excited to see a kid visit their school from another country. Their playground was a field with trees. The kids were barefoot wearing hand-me-down clothes, playing with items they found in nature such as sticks and rocks as well as a very used football. They were content and so was my son. He played with the kids every day while we were there.

Spending time with the local kids gave my son the perspective of gratitude when it comes to his own room filled with toys, books, and a calendar filled with activities. Not to mention the trampoline in our backyard and the three parks nearby equipped with swings and playgrounds.

Realizing Gratitude from Experience

It feels fruitless to me to have to explain to someone how lucky they are and for them to be happy with what they have. This realization comes from experience.

Gratitude is a choice to recognize and be grateful for what we have.

Gratitude practices including gratitude meditations mean slowing down and being fully present in the moment. When I can do this, I feel that I have all I need.

Gratitude is an Attitude: How to Practice

There are so many ways to practice gratitude and train your mind to be thankful and grateful for everything that you have.

Gratitude Journals

You can use gratitude journals. Start with a blank notebook and find and write down things each day that you are grateful for. You can pick any number as your goal. Some people just write about one thing a day that went well, while others commit to finding 10 things every day to be grateful for. I even know a girl who paints each day in her journal.

Prompts for Gratitude Practice

Another gratitude practice involves prompts. Start with a journal. On each page, for each day, write down what you are grateful for in your life. To make it easier on you, these prompts help you get started. A sentence for example will start like:

• Today something that went well…
• Today I learned something new…
• Today I helped someone…
• Today I overcame an obstacle…

Meditate: Gratitude is an Attitude

Some people meditate on gratitude while others use daily gratefulness reminders in the form of pictures on their walls.

Jewelry for Gratitude

I create and wear jewelry for gratitude. I find it helpful as part of my regular day-to-day practice towards living a happy life. I combine crystals for cultivating Gratitude with hand stamped reminders to be Grateful.

Gratitude Altar

I created a gratitude altar where I have gathered crystals and other ceremonial tools. What gemstones bring gratitude? Rose Quartz and Tiger Eye are some of the most popular crystals for gratitude.

The Choice: Gratitude is an Attitude

I believe that we all have a choice to train our mind to try and look for the silver lining in everything that happens to us. I’m not saying it is easy. When my parents died or when I was diagnosed with cancer, gratitude was not the first thing that came to my mind.

Training the Brain for Gratitude

With practice, I have trained my brain to find and focus on the little things that bring me joy and happiness. It can be a cup of tasty coffee in the morning, my cat walking by and rubbing herself on my feet, a beautiful flower blooming in my garden, a good smelling candle, a relaxing bubble bath, an interesting book, a chance meeting with someone, the smell of freshly cut grass, the waves of the ocean, a rainbow after a summer storm, a sunflower field, birds chirping, and more.

By focusing on these little things helps me get through difficulties that I am facing in my life. Gratitude is an attitude. We all have a choice between focusing on what went wrong or the small miracles we are surrounded with each day.

The Attitude Adjustment of Gratitude

I truly believe that we can adjust our attitude and practice gratefulness.

Compassionate Living Membership

For the month of June, I have prepared tools to practice Gratitude as part of the Compassionate Living Membership.

Enter to Win

ENTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN an Energy Healing Crystal Jewelry Set! ($300 value)

These individually crafted empowering crystal bracelets are simple, yet elegant with uplifting messages and healing gemstones, meant to be worn every day and made to last a lifetime.

Enter at dojomojo.com

Szilvia Gogh

Szilvia Gogh is a Professional Scuba Diver, Stuntwoman, Yogi and Jewelry Designer: SzilviaGogh.com.
Learn about female scuba enthusiasts: Miss-Scuba.com
View Szilvia’s inspirational jewelry: GoghJewelryDesign.com

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The Crystal Power of Now

Crystals are like magic wands, sacred tuning forks that bring us back to our true vibration of harmony and divinity. God couldn’t be here so he/she put holy energy into stones of the earth to let us know that no matter how bad everything looks and feels, all is sacred and everything can be healed. One of the tools we can use is the healing power of crystals.

In this prophetic time period entering the golden age, we have all been forced to stay home, stay still and re-evaluate who we are, where we are going and what is important. (Ask yourself now, what has changed in you from these Covid days?) The good news is that in the alchemy of transformation- everything must come out into the light of day so you can see it, so you can fix it. This is what is happening to us individually and as a nation. Thankfully we are waking up out of slumber and thankfully we are marrying science and spirituality so we can enter a new frontier —soul and energy healing—in which crystals can be serious helpers!

Short History of Crystal Healing

Crystals have been spiritual gems since the beginning of time. They are used in healings, ceremonies, burials, divination and found in ancient texts around the world. Crystals have been mentioned in the Bible 20o times, in the Koran, in the Vedas, and in Atlantis, a quantum world using crystal energy and advanced technology.

Tesla said, “If you want to know the secrets of the universe, think in terms of frequency, energy, and vibration.” The time has come to heal beyond the rational mind and the traditional boundaries of therapy into the deeper level of spirit. In the language of energy wisdom, we can know that we are more than this life; we are multidimensional light beings with power to heal ourselves and the world. Throughout the ages, this truth has been stolen from us and we have been tricked and brainwashed to seek answers outside of ourselves.

Now we can remedy this.

We can begin by knowing that we are the creators of our reality, the body is divine and we have the power to tune our instrument, to reboot the computer, to take control of how we think and feel and to clear, protect and align our energy everyday, Just like we shower and have our morning routine. We can upgrade our consciousness, activate our inner lights, and repair the damage energetically of what fear in Covid did to our nervous system.

The Healing Power of Crystals

Crystals are magical objects with so many gifts from the higher dimensions. Crystals transmit, absorb, amplify, focus and heal. They hold a key to connect us to source and our divine selves. Crystals harness the sacred DNA and electromagnetic energy of Mother Earth. They are absorbers, which means they take on illness and clear negativity. They are transmitters of positive vibrations and can raise the energy of people and the environment. Crystals are “energy radiators” that can focus the intention of the user. They are a miraculous storehouse of earths evolution to hold the memory of 300 million years.

We can use science to dispel the myth that crystals are just beautiful fluff. Crystals at a molecular level are the most orderly structure that exist in nature and the most cohesive expression of physical matter with the lowest amount of disorder. They give us accurate frequency, direct energy and light precisely.

Crystals emit a frequency that generates into an electrical charge called the piezoelectrical effect. This means that crystals act like a tuning fork to provide accuracy of time. This is why crystals are found everywhere. They are in our electronics, machines, computers, cellphones, laser technology, credit cards, clocks, medicinal devices, memory chips, watches, tv screens, radio signals, telephones, and more.

Many scientists like Teal Scott have proven that crystals stimulate biochemical shifts within us when we bring the crystal into our electromagnetic field and telepathically communicate with it. Part of the healing power of crystals takes place through the law of resonance. This is the law that states that frequency matches to co-exist with each other. We can share space with a crystal and lean with the energy of it to improve our nervous system and brain function.

How to Choose Healing Crystals

To begin your own healing with a crystal, know that crystals have their own jobs and purpose and the right one will find you. Walk into a crystal store and watch for the ones that call to you. Test them to see if they are right for you by closing your eyes and seeing if your body goes forward or back. If it leans forward, that is a yes, it is right for you.

How to Program Your Crystals

You can program them and tell them what to do. Simply hold a crystal in your hand, command negative energy to leave you and put new positive intention into it.

Find the Crystal that Speaks to You

Find your crystals and begin the healing journey:

Quartz

Amplifies the stones that surround it. Cleans and energies other crystals. Good for prayer, and stating your desires for manifestation.

Citrine

Comes from the French word for lemon, Citrine represents power and light. It is a great stone for abundance.

Selenite

Brightens everything around it. Cleans and purifies and never need to be recharged or cleared.
Selenite raises your vibration. Place a selenite log in every corner of the room. Place under your feet each day to clear the energy of the day

Rose Quartz

Stone of love compassion: Will help with deep heart stuff, and emotional release.

Hematite

Grounding stone: For protection and helps to alleviate stress.

Lapid Lazuli

Stone of truth, good for wisdom.

Amethyst

Manifestation stone: Good for the spiritual path to waken the higher self.

Shungtze

A Miracle stone has healing powers within the stone.

Connect to the Healing Power of Crystals Now

In this prophetic time period entering the golden age, we have all been forced to stay home, stay still and re-evaluate who we are, where we are going and what is important. (ask yourself now, what has really changed in you from these Covid days?) The good news is that in the alchemy of transformation- everything must come out into the light of day so you can see it, so you can fix it. This is what is happening to us individually and as a nation. Thankfully we are waking up out of slumber and thankfully we are marrying science and spirituality so we can enter a the new frontier of soul and energy healing, where the healing power of crystals can be serious helpers!

Felicia M. Tomasko

Felicia Tomasko has spent more of her life practicing Yoga and Ayurveda than not. She first became introduced to the teachings through the writings of the Transcendentalists, through meditation, and using asana to cross-train for her practice of cross-country running. Between beginning her commitment to Yoga and Ayurveda and today, she earned degrees in environmental biology and anthropology and nursing, and certifications in the practice and teaching of yoga, yoga therapy, and Ayurveda while working in fields including cognitive neuroscience and plant biochemistry. Her commitment to writing is at least as long as her commitment to yoga. Working on everything related to the written word from newspapers to magazines to websites to books, Felicia has been writing and editing professionally since college. In order to feel like a teenager again, Felicia has pulled out her running shoes for regular interval sessions throughout Southern California. Since the very first issue of LA YOGA, Felicia has been part of the team and the growth and development of the Bliss Network.

www.blissnetwork.com

The post The Healing Power of Crystals appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Remedies for Zoom Fatigue

Zoom fatigue is real. Whether we’re dealing with low energy after a day on devices, forgetting to fill our water bottle, or experiencing dry itchy eyes at the end of the day, our self-care is essential for maintaining our motivation and our energy on a daily basis.

1. Take frequent breaks.

One of the things that can happen to us when we are on frequent conference calls, video chats, or in Zoom rooms is that we may forget to take breaks. While being able to work from home has its benefits (saving on gas money, no commute), the natural breaks that we have during the day are reduced or eliminated. So taking a break and walking away from the computer, devices and screens helps us to revitalize, rejuvenate, and restore so we can show up with fresh ideas and fresh perspectives.

2. Look Away

Turn your gaze away from the screen on the regular. Research shows that even just looking at pictures of nature can induce the body’s relaxation response. Give yourself some eye candy in your office space….such as photos from past vacations, frame of view of your happy place, set up a bouquet of flowers or a potted plant within your gaze in order to give yourself a visual break and something too look at.

3. Go outside.

Spending time outdoors can help us counteract some of the affects of staring at a computer screen. The science of forest bathing, or spending time in nature, is both calming and relaxing for body, mind, heart, and spirit. Take some time outdoors to renew and recover before heading back to the virtual day of meetings or school.

4. Hydrate.

We know that hydration is important for maintaining our health and well-being from a variety of perspectives. But hydration is also a necessary part of reducing Zoom fatigue. Headaches, eye strain, and joint pain are only a few things that are impacted by how well we are hydrated. Our water and electrolytes are crucial for keeping us bright and alert. The radiance, plumpness, and integrity of our skin is impacted by our water (and electrolyte intake) so hydration also affects how we look on screen as well as how we feel when we are online.

5. Turn it Off.

At the end of the day, turn off your devices. Give yourself a break from the blue light that emanates from screens. It can even create an energetic boundary to flip the off switch and allow yourself the time and space to take a deep breath—device free.

Even as the world continues to open up, it looks like we’ll still be spending part of our days on Zoom or other electronic devices. Take the time to give yourself breaks and pay attention to your self-care for your ongoing well-being and for reducing Zoom fatigue.

Felicia M. Tomasko

Felicia Tomasko has spent more of her life practicing Yoga and Ayurveda than not. She first became introduced to the teachings through the writings of the Transcendentalists, through meditation, and using asana to cross-train for her practice of cross-country running. Between beginning her commitment to Yoga and Ayurveda and today, she earned degrees in environmental biology and anthropology and nursing, and certifications in the practice and teaching of yoga, yoga therapy, and Ayurveda while working in fields including cognitive neuroscience and plant biochemistry. Her commitment to writing is at least as long as her commitment to yoga. Working on everything related to the written word from newspapers to magazines to websites to books, Felicia has been writing and editing professionally since college. In order to feel like a teenager again, Felicia has pulled out her running shoes for regular interval sessions throughout Southern California. Since the very first issue of LA YOGA, Felicia has been part of the team and the growth and development of the Bliss Network.

www.blissnetwork.com

The post 5 Tips for Combating Zoom Fatigue appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

An interview with He Came In With It author Miriam Feldman about the immense fallout of her son’s schizophrenia.

The schizophrenia diagnosis of Miriam Feldman’s teenage son, Nick, was the catalyst for an avalanche of turbulence, pitching her family wildly and permanently off course for over a decade, and unraveling any concept of a ‘normal’ family life.

Miriam and I have shared many a yoga room at YogaWorks (Center for Yoga) on Larchmont Blvd for at least a decade. In my capacity as a yoga teacher, I observed her fierce, dedicated, unshakable practice. She was always determined, always focused, fully present, and always wonderfully friendly. In those frequent, but brief, path-crossings before and after class, we’d often share pleasantries and greetings. It was only recently, in the past couple years, when we found we had a mutual friend in author Jennifer Pastiloff, whose writing workshop Miriam had attended, did I learn she was writing a book. And then I learned about the book’s contents…

He Came In With It is Feldman’s captivating and complicated memoir of motherhood inextricably interwoven with unimaginable tragedy: violence, evictions, arrests, drugs, a suicide attempt, a near-drowning, cancer, and a brain tumor. It unapologetically chronicles her struggles with the complexities of her son Nick’s mental illness; and it unflinchingly recounts stories of breakdowns and failures countered with admirably persistent resilience. She illustrates the reverberating familial impact, depicts her discovery of yoga, and ultimately, portrays her journey to acceptance.

Miriam, from the moment I read the book description on the back jacket until I put it down, I was engrossed. At times, I had to remind myself it was someone’s real story. What inspired the writing of this book?

I was leading the typical, busy, working-mother lifestyle in Los Angeles when things started to go terribly wrong. What first seemed like normal teenage behavior ended in a schizophrenia diagnosis for my son, Nick. If you know anything about serious mental illness (which I didn’t) a diagnosis brings no closure. There is no clear path to treatment or recovery. It just delivers chaos and fear and helplessness. Feelings that a Type A control freak like myself did not know how to handle. I had yet to come up against a problem I couldn’t solve, and I was sure I could somehow “fix” this as well. But schizophrenia is like a tornado that rips through your life, leaving everything in shambles, broken or upside down. There was no fixing it. After three years of trying to help my son, take care of his sisters, maintain my marriage, and run my business, I was exhausted, angry, and filled with grief.

In He Came In With It you describe the stress Nick’s schizophrenia was heaping on you and your family. For example:

“I was terrified all the time. I was no longer able to be a good mother, to make good decisions, because I was always in fight-or-flight mode, just trying to keep things from blowing up. Strategies evaporated; promises to my husband to be tougher just melted away.”

It feels hopeless. How did you come back from such a fragile place?

It was a result of a couple things. There came a point where I had to look up at the night sky and make friends with the possibility that Nick might not survive. That there was a chance he’d end up dead. I guess I didn’t exactly “make friends” with the idea, but I made space for it. I came to terms with it. That was a hard reckoning, but it released me from the terror. And while I was looking at that night sky, I also decided to start trusting the universe. This dovetailed with my yoga education. All the ideas brought to me by the teachers started to play an actual part in my life. I changed my relationship with the world. I changed the way I moved through my life. It was a revelation.

Was writing this book cathartic? I wonder about the feelings that the process of writing the book might have brought up?

When I wrote the first iteration it was a pouring out. I just let it all come, all the memories, all the details I thought I’d forgotten. Once I got them out on the paper, I began to organize them. It was all very practical, like building a house, this goes here, this will hold this up. Every so often, it would hit me that this was real, this was my true story. I relived the whole thing, I came to terms with a lot of things in my marriage, I had to face mistakes and bad judgments. One of the most difficult things was realizing how awful it had been for my daughters, the damage done. The feelings this process has brought up are enormous, crushing sometimes. But it’s good, it’s good to be crushed, to really, really feel these things. It hasn’t been cathartic in the sense that it resolved the feeling, they are living things, they continue. But writing the book has made my life known to me in a way it wasn’t before. I had to take this giant pile of experiences and emotions and sort it out. I can see it from outer space now. It has a pattern. It is knowable.

Your strength and resilience were so impactful. I can’t even begin to imagine the experiences you shouldered. I was also touched by your vulnerability in speaking candidly of the challenges this brought on you and your family. Can you talk about your choices around that vulnerability?

When I started this book, I decided that the only way it was going to work was for me to be honest. I made a specific decision to put it all out there because I really wanted others to know they weren’t alone. The isolation of the first few years, when I was trying to keep up a front, almost destroyed me. One of the things I always say about having a son with schizophrenia is that you become officially “embarrassment-proof.” There just isn’t time for it. That being said, I did have concerns about the other members of the family and their privacy. I gave the book to each of them to read and said if there was anything they didn’t want in there, I would remove it. Surprisingly, everyone was fine with it. My youngest daughter said that there were some things she remembered differently, but that it was my telling of the story and she respected that. Nick knows about the book but hasn’t read it. He is quite proud that they used his painting for the cover.

The book cover is Nick’s painting?

It is a self-portrait Nick did when he was sixteen. I’ve always found it beautiful, and prescient, and I was thrilled when the publisher wanted to use it for the cover.

You and your family have been through so much. Can you speak about trauma? And do you have a sense of how yoga helped with that trauma?

You know, for the better part of my life I’ve been of the “buck-up and deal with it” school. I didn’t give too much thought to trauma. I used to tell my kids to “rub some dirt on it and walk it off.” But now that I am in my sixties, and I have seen some things, I’m much more respectful of the implications and long-lasting effects of trauma. I see my daughters, all adults now, still processing and contending with the damage all this heaped on the family. I see myself blindsided at the most inopportune moments by what a smell or a glimpse of something brings up. The yoga has taught me to stand in the fire without fear, to allow the grief and the memories because they are part of the whole. Without them the love and the joy would not be as deep. It’s kind of an obvious metaphor, but I have always loved mountain pose, it speaks to me. Standing with your feet firmly planted and you heart open, palms facing the future, that is where I feel most at home. Ready and open.

In the book you talk about your inclination to “fix” everything. How did that shift? What did that look like?

This has always been a theme for me. I like to say I’m “pathologically functional” which actually is not a good thing. In even the worst situations, I usually get up, get dressed, and go to work. The problem with that is you are so busy trying to control everything that you make it worse. Coming up against an adversary like schizophrenia made me stop and re-imagine my problem solving and reactivity. I realized that I was wasting a lot of energy trying to fix things that were unfixable, or maybe even didn’t need fixing. It became clear that I needed to adjust myself to the reality, not try and change the reality.

Did yoga inform that shift?

Yes, absolutely. I’d always thought of surrender as a weakness, giving in, giving up. Through the yoga teaching I learned the concept of surrender as acceptance, not “losing”. I realized it took great strength and intelligence to allow for things that aren’t particularly your choice, or pleasant, but that are inevitable. The folly of throwing myself up against brick walls was clear. I had to start operating from a place of understanding, and yoga was the path to that.

What was your introduction to yoga?

I was a shell of my former self. Everything I had previously held as true was in question, nothing made sense anymore. But I had a lot of empty space inside, now that my hardline ideas and opinions had been decimated. I started practicing yoga a couple years into all of it because I decided I needed to get exercise and the yoga center was very close to home. I had never been particularly interested in yoga, it seemed a little slow and woo-woo for me. And then it saved me. One day, I found myself doing a balance pose that had previously been impossible. I swelled with contentment and thought, “I can’t save Nick, but I can do this. Right now, I am balancing on one leg, and that’s not nothing.”

I stopped thinking about it and just stood there. A profound lesson.

This wasn’t about exercise. When schizophrenia turned my life upside down, yoga taught me how to hold my balance.

You describe yourself as a Type A person. What rituals or structures make you feel grounded?

The people who know me would scoff at this, but I don’t describe myself as a Type A anymore. I suppose I still look like what a Type A is, but inside my head I am different. I can let go of things; I am at peace with things. My head isn’t an anthill anymore, so even though I move around a lot, I am different in relation to the world. I have a strong daily meditation practice; I also practice yoga daily. These two things ground me in a life that is manageable, with beauty and joy.

Would you say your yoga practice changed from when you started to now?

I was almost fifty when I started, surrounded my young, practiced yogis in every class. And in retrospect I spent too much energy proving to myself that I could “keep up.” I just loved the exhilaration of a fast-paced asana practice and being able to do new things every day pleased me. A few years in, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor and I had to have serious spinal surgery, and that brought it all to a halt. After two surgeries and recovery, I returned to yoga class to find all my strength gone. I lowered myself into chaturanga and fell to the ground. I couldn’t even hold my own weight. I wept to my teacher who told me the classic, “Come to your mat every day without expectation.” I had to let go of all my pride and accomplishment and start over. And that was the day I really began to practice yoga.

In the book, you outline some of the challenges of the mental health system. If you had the ability to make some immediate changes, what would they be?

I fully realize this answer could likely be its own book. The mental health system needs a complete overhaul. There was a well-intentioned but disastrous movement in the sixties to eliminate the institutions and replace them with more community-based treatment centers. They achieved the de-institutionalization, but it was never replaced with anything. The prisons and the streets have become our de facto mental health system, and it has to change. We need good treatment, good facilities, and family-involved care. With serious mental illness, there is no other way.

I also believe that we, as a society, need to change our attitude about people with mental illness. One percent of the population is diagnosed with schizophrenia; that is a substantial portion of the population. One in four people will deal with some sort of mental illness in their lifetime. That means it touches pretty much everyone. These people are of us, they are part of our society. What right do we have to marginalize them and look away? They have a right to a place in our world, how dare we look away? Creating a viable place in society for those with mental illness is the obligation of a civilized culture. This is their world too.

Would you consider it accurate in describing this book as your third act? That of artist, mother, and now you embark on the journey of writer. After reading all you’ve been through, it feels like you’ve lived lifetimes!

Yes, I do. Since I could hold something in my hand, it was a brush. I have been painting since the beginning of my awareness of myself. To have switched mediums, from paint to the written word, is enormous. I have never been so on fire creatively in my life. I have so many ideas, for painting and writing; at this point I’m going to have to live a long life to get them all done. I’d better take care of myself!

Tell me more about your art.

It’s interesting, until the book, art making was something I really never talked about. It was just what I did, and I felt talking about it was pretentious, or silly. I think that came from my art school days when the people doing the most talk did the least art making. When I was doing my final workshopping of the book with Lidia Yuknavitch in Portland, she called me on that. She said, “Mimi, I know you’ve spent your entire life painting, and that everyone in your family is an artist, but there is no attention to that in the book. You never talk about it.” Somehow, this observation gave me license to really explore the place art making has in my life and the dynamic of my family. It was a revelation, and a relief to actually give it words. My painting is changing right now, it is more simple. I am not worrying about what things mean, or what statement I’m making, I’m simply exploring images that interest me. Nick has started painting again this last year, after many years of coloring in children’s coloring books. It’s very exciting. I do know this, every time I sit back down at the easel after being away for a while it is the same. I take a deep breath and I think: Oh right, this is who I am.

How has your definition of family changed throughout this trajectory with Nick?

Really not at all. The experience of Nick and his schizophrenia has reinforced what I’ve always felt…family is the most important thing. At the beginning I decided that this wasn’t going to destroy my family. I wouldn’t let it. But now I know it wasn’t about my controlling it, it was the fierce love of the members of this family that saved us.

Has your concept of relationship evolved?

I’m fiercely devoted to those I love; it is a lifelong commitment. I have learned to have acceptance in my relationships the same way I do in life, now. I don’t spend a lot of time trying to change people.

What do you want people to take away from the book?

I would like them to remember Nick O’Rourke. It’s a simple intention for I book, I suppose, but when you watch your child basically disappear in front of you, priorities emerge. I had a fundamental fear that no one would know who he was, is, I wanted to document this. In addition to that, I wanted to document this extraordinary experience. And I choose my words carefully here, I don’t say “tragic’ or “horrible” on purpose. Of course, I never would have signed up for this, and I would do anything to relieve Nick of his schizophrenia, but it has been extraordinary. It has revealed depths of emotion and understanding of the human condition that I never imagined. I want this story out there in the world to illustrate the condition of the margins, a place where so many people feel isolated and alone. I believe that the margins are well populated, and we need to share our experiences.

Joe Kara

Joe Kara enjoys a double life working in music and teaching Yoga in Hollywood and the Valley. He plays a little bass, too. @JoeKaraYoga

www.joekarayoga.com

The post Acceptance: A Journey of Mental Illness, Motherhood and Yoga appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.