Relaxation

“Do something today that your future self will thank you for.” ~Unknown My whole life has been filled with toxic and abusive relationships, starting with extreme physical and emotional abuse from my parents, right up to the last relationship that I left in 2013. Abuse—physical, sexual, emotional, and verbal—is all I’ve ever known. My entire

Dear estranged adult, What I want you to remember is that it was never really about you, although it might have felt like it at the time and it might feel that way now. When your parents told you over and over you weren’t good enough, that you would never amount to anything, they were

TRIGGER WARNING: This post mentions sexual abuse and may be triggering to some people. “Along the way I stopped into a coffee shop. All around me normal, everyday city types were going about their normal, everyday affairs…In spite of which—or, rather, all the more because— here I was, sitting in this coffee shop, drinking my

“Progress is impossible without change.” ~Walt Disney I want you to look in the mirror and tell me what you see. Do you look older? Does your skin have more wrinkles? Do you notice dark circles around your eyes or white hair on your head? You are looking at massive changes from a decade ago.

“And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth, ‘You owe me.’ Look what happens with a love like that. It lights up the sky.” ~Rumi I grew up believing love was conditional. My grandmother, as much as I adored her, was extremely controlling, and unless I met her high standards

“The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.” ~William James I’ll never forget the call. It was 1989 and, like most college students, I spent winter break in Florida looking for some sun. Stepping off the airplane and being greeted by a burst of warm air was the

“Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder.” ~Henry David Thoreau Most of us are always on the lookout for a big breakthrough—a point in our life where the

“I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.” ~ Hafiz of Shiraz When we think of illness, we don’t usually equate it with loneliness; however, there seems to be a huge connection between the two conditions. The fact is, when dealing with health

“What I’m looking for is not out there, it is in me.” ~Helen Keller I used to think that life should be easy, and if it wasn’t easy, then I was doing it wrong. I’m older and wiser now, and I’ve learned that if it is hard, that means I am probably doing something right.

“It’s not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.” ~Tony Robbins BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! The sound of my fiancé’s alarm went off at 5:00 in the morning. I had fallen asleep around 2am after scrolling for hours on Instagram and Pinterest. Frustrated, I rolled into