​Self-care isn’t always about indulging yourself in manicures and late-night movies (although those are really important). Self-care is about doing what’s needed to have the life you want, no matter how difficult it may seem: Speaking up to your best friend or your boss, recycling the clothes you’ll never fit into no matter how many diets you try, asking for professional help so you can resolve your relationship or insomnia or whatever isn’t working. Now, more than ever, is the time for you to take care of you. The stronger and more centered you are, the easier it will be to weather what crops up.
 
Following are ten ways to step up your positive attitude and overall well-being:

1. Say what you mean. Are you afraid to express yourself because you’ll hurt someone’s feelings or your words might be misconstrued? Speaking up is much more than just saying “no.” When you don’t express yourself or stuff your feelings, people don’t have the opportunity to see and know the real you. Being true to yourself not only empowers you, it empowers those around you. So don’t be afraid to speak your truth. When you say what you mean you honor yourself and you give others the chance to know you, the real you, the one they’re longing to know.
2. Take baby steps. Whatever your goal, you don’t have to get there today. Or even tomorrow. Trying to get there too fast can cause stress and frustration and bring up feelings of “I’m not good enough” or “why can’t I be like him/her?” Remember the wise saying, “All good things come to those who wait.” Picture the Buddha and see yourself smiling and patient. Make one new change in your lifestyle and see how that goes. When that’s working well, then add something else. Take baby steps. There’s no hurry.
3. Let go of the past. Isn’t it amazing how hard it is to let go? Those events that transpired eons ago—the raise you didn’t get, the relationship that failed, a family member saying you’ll never amount to anything—can still create feelings of fear, anger, shame, guilt. And all that’s doing is ruining your current life. It’s time to let those puppies go. You don’t have to be stuck with that baggage. Coaching, energy healing, therapy, meditation, inner child work, tapping, there are hundreds of methods to help you access those memories and transform them. And when you rewrite the past, you create a brand new present.
4. Connect with Spirit. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in God or the Divine or simply an energy that binds us all together. Seeing, understanding, believing, or knowing about that connection serves to calm you. You could be exercising or deep breathing or just looking at a flower, something that transports you out of your typical awareness. When you’re in that “zone,” you feel a deep inner peace that can transcend time and space. Those little moments are like nectar to your body, mind, and soul.
5. Appreciate yourself. To paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “How do you love yourself? Can you count the ways?” Appreciation goes farther than skin deep. It penetrates to the core of your being and radiates beyond. The more you love yourself, the more lovable you become. We all have our flaws and faults, but this is about finding the things you like. Do you love your eyes, the way you support your friends and family, how you find joy in the little things? Start a list of the things you appreciate, at least one per day, and tell yourself how much you love that quality. Before you know it you’ll be in love with YOU.
6. Reward yourself. Are you searching for acknowledgment? Recognition? A little praise? You don’t have to wait for someone else to give it. Give it to yourself! It’s easy to overlook all the little things you do—cleaning the house, exercising, finishing that painting. But all those things matter and create space for the bigger things—an inviting home, a well-toned body, winning first place at the art show. Acknowledge your successes and reward yourself (the reward begins a pattern of self-acknowledgment). Take a bubble bath with lighted candles and soft music. Indulge in that dark chocolate. Buy yourself a new dress. You deserve it!
7. Get up and move. Exercise may be a dreaded word, but the body is designed to move. Exercise improves your mood, increases endorphins, and decreases stress. So get up and move! You don’t have to join a gym. Even little movements can help. Try stretching or ease into yoga or qigong. Walking outdoors is fantastic. Or dust off your stationary bicycle or elliptical machine. If you’re at work and you only have a minute or two, get up from your desk and take a brisk walk around the office. Movement makes the body happy and a happy body means a happier you.
8. Be grateful. Giving thanks is one of the most important aspects of self-care. If you do nothing else, be grateful for who you are and what you have. As in self-appreciation, find something to be thankful for—your job, your friends, your spouse, your health, your house, the food you eat, the ground under your feet. Nothing is too small. Giving thanks creates a beautiful vibration that increases your prosperity and attracts more to be thankful for. [Try the thirty-day experiment in Thank and Grow Rich by Pam Grout.]
9. Laugh and play. When was the last time you felt like a little kid? Remember playtime? Hopscotch, jump rope, hide and seek, jacks? Games that made you laugh and squeal with pleasure? Your inner child is still with you, wanting to come out and play. Fun lights up your soul and makes you radiate with joy. So dip your toes into a nearby lake, pull out the croquet set, play some badminton or horseshoes or miniature golf. Get your joy on! You might be surprised how wonderful you feel.
10. Follow your dreams. Now that you’ve revitalized your inner child, take a moment and recapture your dreams. What did you want to be when you grew up? Dreams are fueled by your imagination, and your imagination is endless. If you wanted to be a painter, what about a painting class? If you thought about writing, try an online course or join a writer’s group. If you wanted to be an astronaut, visit a space camp. It’s never too late. Creativity and exploration are like candy to your soul. So let your imagination loose and explore. You’ll feel recharged and restored.

 
There’s no guarantee that life won’t throw you more curve-balls. As we all know, it’s a crazy obstacle course. But if you use some or all of the steps here, you will be a happier, healthier, and more prosperous YOU.

[Originally published in the Conscious Life Journal, ​July 2018]

Do you love yourself only when you feel good? What about when you fail a test, don’t get a raise, or can’t fit into your new clothes? What if you could really love yourself all the time?
 
The term “self-love” means the love of oneself, the instinct or desire to promote one’s own well-being. True self-love is not narcissistic or self-indulgent but an awareness of your inner power.  Self-love acknowledges who you are and what you like. Those stirrings inside you (a love of nature, playing with color, writing songs, rescuing animals) are meant to point your way. By cultivating your gifts, you show your true passions to the world. Your light illuminates the way for others and allows them to shine as well.
 
How do you start loving yourself? Here are five ways to begin the journey.
 
1) Address self-sabotage. Does your inner voice say you’re not good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough? Those negative thoughts stem from past experience and are lodged in your unconscious. Before you can practice self-love you need to let them go. You can heal these thoughts through techniques like hypnotherapy, coaching, tapping (EFT), and the Sedona Method. By changing your beliefs, you allow the real you to emerge.
 
2) Use affirmations. Affirmations are positive statements that train your subconscious mind to develop new ways of thinking. Here are some self-love affirmations to get you started.
 
I love myself just the way I am.
I appreciate who I am right now.
I let go of my fears and go forward with confidence.
 
3) Appreciate yourself. Really look in the mirror. When was the last time you told yourself how beautiful or handsome you are? Loving what you see is an act of courage, a demand for unconditional acceptance. Last year when I was suffering with horrible hip pain and screaming my anguish, I confronted myself. The lies I’ve perpetrated. The ones that said I’m not beautiful. I’m not worthy. I am less than. I stood there with tears streaming down my face and said, “I love you.” At first I could barely whisper those words. But with each repetition my voice strengthened. As I confirmed the truth about me, the pain lessened until it finally disappeared and I acknowledged who I really am.
 
Start with what you DO like and really love that part of you. The more you do this, the more you’ll incorporate parts of you that you didn’t like before. And when you truly love yourself, others will too.
 
4) Be creative. Do you love to play with color, write, sing, make something with your hands? Give yourself permission to follow that voice that’s saying “can I, can I?” Play. Explore. Discover. Embracing your passions is a sure way to love yourself.
 
5) Practice forgiveness. Criticizing yourself or comparing yourself to others only hurts you. Sometimes it’s hard to remember you’re not perfect. But holding on to that resentment can cripple your body, literally. Forgiveness is a way to heal and move forward with peace and love. Say a forgiveness prayer faithfully—for at least 30 days— and watch those hurts begin to release and dissolve.
 
These are just a few ways to practice self-love and engage in loving thoughts. The more you love yourself, the more you step into your power. Experience the love that is rightfully yours. Let your light shine. Be the amazing person you can be.

[Originally published in the Conscious Life Journal​, March 2017]

The more you are grateful for what you have, the more you can live fully in the present.  - Dana Arcuri

Five years ago on this day, November 11, I started to learn the real power and presence of gratitude. It began when I found myself in a storm of personal drama, all of which I wanted no part of and was definitely NOT grateful for. My husband was several states away dealing with his ailing parents. My 15-year-old son was recovering from a painful procedure that involved reshaping (or breaking) his ribcage. When he asked me what normal ribs were supposed to feel like, I discovered a large mass at the top of my left breast. Cancer was confirmed the next day. My father in law died 4 days later. My mother in law was diagnosed with advanced dementia, requiring my husband’s care and attention as he dealt with his grief and relocated her to assisted living, managed his father’s funeral, and took over managing their estate. He was not there for me. How could he be? My widowed mother was one state away and barely able to manage her own health and affairs. I turned to a few close friends for support and to my new doctors and nurses for advice. I did what they said, stepping onto what felt like a treadmill for the treatment of breast cancer.  Scared. Overwhelmed. Alone. I scheduled a radical double mastectomy and reconstruction with the first plastic surgeon I consulted for the Monday after Thanksgiving. On Black Friday, I received a call that my mother had broken her hip and would probably lose her other leg to a circulatory disease. She would no longer be able to walk and live on her own. She needed my help. Numb and feeling completely out of control, I could not take anymore. I so desperately wanted someone to rescue me. Someone who had my and my family's best interest in mind, who could see the whole picture and just tell me what to do. I did not want to delay my treatment another day but realized that I had to. I had to be that person I was looking for, not only for me but for the rest of my family, especially my 3 children. I asked myself “What is the worst that could happen?” I could die. No doubt. Was I ready to die? What would that mean? 

I realized that if my time was really up, I wanted no or few regrets. The only way that seemed possible was to live from my heart, with grace, acceptance, and gratitude for Everything because everything was significant. Everything had something to teach us, even or especially the unwanted. I shifted and saw Life unveiled. Beautiful and precious. Richly textured and delicately interconnected. The moments I had left in the experience of my life were finite and mattered so I chose to take each moment as it came, with appreciation and confidence to make the best choices I could in that moment, one moment, one breath, one conscious step at a time.
​
Like many people, I did not fully appreciate all that was right with my life until I was forced to face the real and inevitable truth of losing it and the ones I love. Funny how the threat of losing something that is by definition transient was what it took for me to see all that is really right and wonderful and precious. I am so grateful to have learned this while there is still time to live it. My prayer is that we all come to know the power and presence of gratitude in a personal way so that we can all live it while we still have time.

​Corinna Murray, DVM, CPC is a veterinarian, iPEC Certified Professional Coach, and founder of EnHABiT and Veterinary Care Navigation. She is a guest blogger and coauthor of F.A.I.T.H. – Finding Answers in the Heart, Volume II. To order your copy of this inspirational book, click here.

by Terry Crump

Always say yes to the present moment . . . Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to life—and see how life starts suddenly to start working for you rather than against you. –Eckhart Tolle

When I reflect on this concept of surrender, a number of images and phrases come to mind. What emerges is a visualization of people standing in a place of worship, singing with fervor, “I surrender all,” or hearing the hook to a neosoul artist, “Surrender to love, ’cause love is the only way.” I even have flashes of some individual being arrested by the police, with their hands up in the “universal” signal of surrender.  These depictions, however, never connote peace or anything remotely appealing to me. Perhaps it’s because surrender is a place that’s all too familiar.  Digging deeper, I must acknowledge that the need for surrender has frequently disrupted my world, creating loss, precipitating the onslaught of tears, inciting the rise of anger, and an overwhelming desire to scream because once again a goal or dream has been shattered. Things suddenly went left.  

Here are the aspects of surrendering that personally create the most dissonance:
•   The expectation is that I must relinquish control rather than fighting against some typically undesirable outcome.  
•   I’ve constructed a picture of how things are “supposed to be” which is now a mismatch with how they are. This is not what my visualization looked like.
•   There’s a tension between assuming a defeatist stance (i.e., surrendering) versus accepting that things are unfolding in a manner that differs from my expectations.
•   I am not a quitter!
•   I’m really being driven by the fear that my needs will not be met.  Therefore, I must fight harder!
•   I’m being asked to trust and believe that there is some greater good that will come of this, and I just don’t know if I can do that.

There is a nuanced dance wherein we are effective agents of change who persist in actions to chart our own life course, but we also have wisdom in recognizing when surrender is what’s indicated.  To facilitate such recognition, we must reign in the ego, especially those notions that we are always in control.
Surrender requires great strength, though it may appear that we have succumbed to failure. 

I’ve wondered why and how the term “sweet surrender” came to exist when we more often associate this concept with a bitter taste. The term “sweet surrender” is typically used to refer to sudden, unexpected, but pleasant changes, often in the specific context of love. But can it be generalized to other areas of our lives? 

We can’t experience “sweetness” until we identify the need to relinquish control. Bitterness and resentment appear only when we insist on holding on to old ideas that no longer serve us or our reality.

​Terry Crump, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist, board certified clinical hypnotherapist, and owner of Crump Wellness Services, is a guest blogger and coauthor of F.A.I.T.H. - Finding Answers in the Heart, Volume II. To order your copy of the book, click here.

by Judy Keating

One of my absolute favorite musicians is David Wilcox. He creates stories in song that move my heart, heal my hurts, and speak truths to me in ways I find hard to describe.  I consider him to be a poet laureate of our time. His song “A Break in the Cup” talks of the crack in the cup that holds love inside us all. And that no one can fill that cup no matter how hard they try.

I know there have been times when I have loved someone and felt their pain so deeply that I desperately wanted to fill them up with all this love I had to give. To make “it” better. With decades of learning I can now see that the “it” I was trying to fix was my own profound pain mirrored in that other person. And that to be in relationship I have to fill my own cup each and every day with love, acceptance, compassion, and humor at my own fallibility.

The tricky part comes when you do not see that those feelings are your unresolved issues knocking hard on your door. So you do what any self-respecting person would do—you blame, shame, or abandon the other person because they made you feel this way.  So they must be wrong. And it is our job to make sure they know it.

There is just one problem—this has nothing at all to do with them. Being in a relationship takes guts, because your own crud surfaces on a regular basis without warning. And yet we are communal beings who crave belonging in a tribe, and we thrive when we are blessed with those who love us, warts and all. 

Inquiry, when we are feeling triggered, is a balm if it is done gently and with compassion. Noticing you’re triggered is a gift. For in that noticing there is a space of non-reaction to the other in the relationship. In that split second of noticing, you begin to step towards being in relationship rather than banishing yourself to that lonely island called “being right.” When you feel a fight coming on, in any relationship, stop. Ask yourself, “In this moment, would I rather be right or in relationship?” The answer is less important than the inquiry itself. Either way, you are at choice in that moment and you are taking the wheel rather than that triggered part of you driving. 

In communication with others, there is a question that will assist you if you decide you want to build relationship. State what you feel, think, and believe about a situation, your significant other, or your feelings, and then say “Tell me where I am wrong.”  Then comes the really hard part—stay quiet.
People will be struck mute for about 30 seconds until they get used to you being willing  to truly let them clarify and refine their response to you. This means when they respond, you listen. See where that clarification gives you information that you previously did not see. Let what they have said sink in. Rinse and repeat. 

Please notice the above sentence does not say “Tell me THAT I am wrong.”  It allows for you to not have a full grasp of what the other person, thinks, feels, believes, or knows. It invites them in. It says Let me understand exactly what you are saying so we can learn and grow closer in this moment. Try it. See what happens.

Judy Keating is a coauthor of F.A.I.T.H. – Finding Answers in the Heart, Volume II. She is a facilitator, guide, energy coach, and public speaker. She calls her suite of services “Energy Inspiration” and is excited to be facilitating the Alchemical Creation Priestess Process beginning in September. For more information visit http://lisa-michaels.com/cmd.php?Clk=5444769. Discover more about Judy on her website at www.innerlifecoaching.net