Do your part: Coronavirus + Social Conscience. Learn how YOUR decisions can SAVE LIVES. About seven weeks ago, I was considering skipping my friend’s birthday party. It won’t be more than 10-12 people, I thought, shouldn’t be too bad. This was before everything was “shut down” and every other word in most conversations was “virus.” I’ve been following international news about coronavirus almost obsessively, since the beginning of the year. My anxiety levels were through the roof. The minute we pulled up to the restaurant, I wanted to turn around and go back home. We eventually walk inside, and the place is packed. Throughout the entire hour and a half that we stayed, I felt almost as if I was going to drop dead right there on the floor, at any given minute. I’ve always been a germaphobe, always found large crowds to trigger feelings of both anxiety and claustrophobia. I mean… add a possibility of an infectious disease to the equation, and things can get bad, quickly. So, we’re sitting at the table waiting for the birthday girl to arrive. All I see are people dancing, bumping into each other, touching. You really don’t realize how much you touch […]

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What is your biggest challenge when it comes to practicing self-care? For me, it’s always been embracing self-care practices for the mind. Caring for your body is much easier than caring for your mind and spirit. We often avoid facing our feelings, fears, and emotions. Why? Well, because facing them can feel very uncomfortable, even intimidating. Other times, we simply don’t want to deal with some of the things we feel. I know that I don’t always love being alone with my thoughts and feelings and in the past, I’d get lost in distractions and noise, just to avoid facing them. And, to be honest, it’s not all that difficult to do. Our days are filled with noise, deadlines, chores, always being in a hurry. We also often overcommit, sometimes we refuse to let things go. Keeping all those thoughts and emotions bottled up is a defense mechanism, but sooner or later, they always end up pouring out. As I mentioned in this post, this is something that I want to let go of this year. One of my goals is to come back to the place of peace and mental clarity. To do that, I’m revisiting some of the self-care […]

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10 Things to let go of in 2020 How do you feel about this past year? Has 2019 been good to you? I hope that it’s been a great year, filled with beautiful memories. Personally, I have mixed feelings about this past year. There have been many wonderful moments, amazing people I’ve met, friends I’ve made, things I’ve learned. But I’ve also experienced loss, once again, and feel like it’s been a bit of a dumpster fire of a year. Actually, I cannot wait to watch it burn and just go away. I mean that quite literally, too. I’ll be burning a few things, from the safety of my fireplace, of course; like a bunch of those hospital ID wristlets you get when you’re being admitted, and other things I’m letting go of. I wrote each of them down on a piece of paper and will let go of them one at a time. I’ve always believed that any time is a good time for a change. There’s no need to wait for the new year, next month, next week. How many times have you told yourself “starting Monday I will ____” and didn’t live up to that promise? If you […]

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Winter Self-Care Ideas Officially, it might have just begun, but I’m already so over Winter. You know, juuuust a little bit. I was driving home from work the other day and couldn’t help but think to myself “holy shit this looks so beautiful!” The freezing rain from the night before transformed all the trees into these enormous, fairytale-like crystals that sparkled in the Sun. Then I got home, got out my car and thought “holy shit it’s freezing I can’t take this!!” It’s not that I don’t like Winter. I’m probably not alone in saying that I don’t always love cold weather though. Most days are all good, but there are times when being buried underneath all kinds of layers of clothing drives me a little crazy. It’s freezing cold outside, then you walk into a supermarket or a drugstore and it’s like 100 degrees. You walk around and start getting hot, only to walk out in the cold again a few minutes later. If you have dry skin, that’s another thing you need to pay extra attention to. Otherwise, the dry, cold air makes you feel like your skin is yet another layer of clothing. One that kind of […]

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“I feel like I’m an emotional sponge.” My friend just finished telling me about how her daily lunch break at work has turned into her being forced to listen to hour-long rants from one of her co-workers who is going through a bitter divorce. Yup. I can relate. To being an emotional sponge, that is. If I talk to someone close and listen to their problems, struggles, or issues, it’s almost a guarantee that I will have trouble falling asleep that day. Or that at least, my energy levels will suddenly drop. Certain people or places just have that effect on me. Over the last couple of years, after going through quite a few changes during the journey of my personal growth, I’ve discovered that I very easily soak up other people’s emotions. Then I let them take over and I worry, I stress, and then I worry some more. It was around that time that I realized that sometimes, you have no choice but to protect your energy in order to stay sane. HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ENERGY FIND YOUR HAPPY SPACE A little secret to my sanity? I turn my phone off, all.the.time. I just have to. There […]

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