Religious

“I really want to, but I can’t because [add semi-valid reason here].” That’s a template sentence to let yourself off the hook. It’s not copyrighted, so feel free to use it any time you want to let go of your dreams and not feel bad about it. Honestly, it hurts me every time I hear […]

“We only live once, Snoopy.” ~Charlie Brown “Wrong. We only die once. We live every day.” ~Snoopy I am an anxious person. I haven’t always been though. When I had my first child, fourteen years ago, it was the week after my father died. My son was born and went right to the NICU where

“You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” ~James Clear If you pull up any popular motivational video today, you’ll probably hear things like “Set big goals!” and “Aim high and don’t stop until you get there!” After watching a video like this, you may

“Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.” ~Unknown In my early twenties, I was a food and beverage manager at a nice hotel in Portland, Maine. About a month after I started working there, they hired our department director, a man twice my age whom I would report to. At

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” ~Pablo Picasso I was fifty-two when I found my purpose. I wasn’t even looking. It literally just smacked me upside the head. That’s a funny thing about life. It throws things your way, and you either grab

“Your inner critic is simply a part of you that needs more self-love.” ~Amy Leigh Mercee We all have that critical and judgmental inner voice that tells us we’re not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, etc. It tells us we don’t do anything right. It calls us stupid. It compares us to other people

“Stop shoulding on yourself.” ~Albert Ellis I was buried under a pile of shoulds for the first thirty-two years of my life. Some of those shoulds were put on me by the adults in my life, some were heaped on because I am a middle child, but most were self-imposed thanks to cultural and peer influence.

“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” ~Maya Angelou Growing up in Africa, I was told that the virtue and worth of a woman lies in her ability to take care of everyone around her; that a woman was considered good

“You don’t have to rebuild a relationship with everyone you’ve forgiven.” ~Unknown It’s natural, when you’re hurting and lonely, to want to reach out to people you’ve been close to in the past. Especially if there’s unfinished business with someone. And especially given the added isolation that comes with a global pandemic. Whether or not

“Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.” ~ Brené Brown I felt like a hypocrite. I would tell my nutrition clients to eat a salad with vegetables, then I’d go home and scarf down an entire pizza. After guilt and shame set in, I would purge and throw it up. I think I became a