Make space for joy amid the messiness of life
You are enough: reconnect with your true self, embrace your imperfection, live rooted in self-compassion, and become your own best friend.
You are imperfect and in progress and you may at times feel broken or in pain – but this is simply because you are human in a messy world. We all struggle and you are not alone. Learning to embrace your imperfection, to live deeply rooted in self-compassion and become your own best friend, brings freedom. Like a deep, extended exhale. Deciding once and for all that you are enough frees up energy to create, play, connect, rest, do work that scares you and lights you up, or otherwise build a life you want to wake up to each morning. It helps you feel safe and at home in your body and your life.
You are not your ego or personality – these are your learned defense mechanisms – the way you learned to feel safe, belong, or get your needs met. Reconnect with your true self underneath all the conditioning and fear, the learned patterns of thought and behaviour. You’ll find freedom here as you peel away what no longer serves, come home to yourself, and begin owning and walking in the beautiful truth of who you are.
You don’t have to look or sound or feel or live like anyone else – who you are is needed. Celebrate the beauty of diversity. BE you. Offer your light. Show up fully to life in every season. Handcraft a life that feels like home.
Inside: All of you is welcome here. Stop bullying, shaming, and fighting against yourself. Accept your whole self and befriend your inner critic in order to live in wholeness, freedom + joy. “All of you is welcome here.” This is my new favorite saying in life and work. When I hear this spoken what rings …
Inside: Diversity is beautiful and needed. When each of us honours our wiring and operates in our strengths we form a beautiful whole. Have fun with this short quiz and identify which of these 5 plants or fungi most feel like you! I like messy people. Colourful, honest, owning the truth of who they are …
Inside: Parenting is hard on the ego and challenges us to confront our own wounding. What helps, regardless of their age, is to become a student of your children. This post contains referral links. Our children arrive a unique bundle of personality and passion, hardwired for strength and struggle. Parenting is hard on the ego, …
Inside: What it means to hold space, how to know if you’re the right person to hold space for another, and 5 ways to hold space without losing yourself in the process. I include details about holding space for my son as he fought for life. This post includes referral links. As I advocated for …
Inside: In the liminal space of emerging from winter into spring, it’s important to resist urgency, to give ourselves ample space and nourishment and compassionate tending as we slowly unfurl. This is the third time I’ve been sick in the past five months. I didn’t get sick once all the years I was advocating for …
Inside: Journey to Freedom – there’s an inextricable connection between truth-telling and unshackled living. We cannot know freedom without being real. And freedom is, largely (NOT solely), an inside job. This post includes a referral link. My intuition or inner voice is telling me to allow this season of my life to be less about to-do’s …
Inside: If you’ve ever felt stuck in fear or pain, if you’ve spent time hiding or procrastinating on what matters most to you, if you’ve felt despondent about the state of your life or the world, learning how to practice fierce self-compassion will help. This post includes referral links. Fierce self-compassion is what helped me …
Inside: I felt a call to come home to myself. An invitation to stop running, trying to belong or find my place in the world, permission to remember and own the full, messy, glorious truth of who I am. Not who I used to be or how I wished I could be. I choose to …
Inside: Learning empowering ways of navigating stress puts us back into the driver’s seat when our life feels unmoored or shaken. We can continue building our resilience toolbox so we can show up brave, whole, and on purpose in every season (even the hardest of them). This post contains referral links. Learning empowering ways of …
Inside: When you’re stressed out remember your stress reactions are biologically the same whether it’s to literally save your life or if your stress is due to a triggering, annoying, or frustrating situation. That’s not your fault. That’s biology. This post contains a referral link. We can’t avoid all stress (not to mention that not …
Inside: What you need to know about stress: This is part one in a three-part series to help you feel more empowered as you navigate stressful life experiences. Would you agree that right now life feels more hectic and stressful than ever? That there are fewer times when you feel amazing in-the-moment clarity and confidence …
Inside: If you genuinely want to step off the hamster wheel and enjoy an unbusy life, then you will need to go nose to nose with fear. This post includes referral links. I have never felt that I fit well in this noisy, competitive, frenetic world; fear told me that I didn’t have what it …
Inside: How to create a chain reaction of good habits. Learn why healthy habits are far more effective at making lasting change than willpower, motivation, and self-control. Habits are what turn hope into action. Have you ever tried to make a change, but no matter how hard you tried or willed yourself to change you …
Inside: There is freedom in a relationship with healthy boundaries. Boundaries are not a punishment but a kindness to you and those you love. The word boundaries sometimes has a negative connotation. There seems to be an idea that only stern or cold people are good at setting boundaries. Or that boundaries only need to …
Inside: How to build boundaries with yourself that honour your wiring and help you live a fulfilling and meaningful life that feels true to who you are and what you want. This post includes referral links. Boundaries are necessary for all relationships – work, kids, friends, and with ourselves. Building and honoring brave boundaries is …
Inside: Media offers us quick fixes, spiritual gurus sell us bypassing, our own fear nature beckons us to hide under the covers or jump on the next shiny bandwagon; all feel preferable to slow, soul-stretching, deep work. But sustainable growth takes time. Don’t rush who you’re becoming. In the summer each year I listen inward …
Inside: You don’t have to hunt for joy, manufacture it, or figure out how to lead a stress-free “perfect” life. You can ALLOW joy to live alongside whatever else you’re experiencing. You can WELCOME it into the messiness of your life in every season. You can learn to expand your capacity for joy. You don’t have …
Inside: Why is sleep so very important? What are the phases of sleep and what does “quality sleep” actually look like? How much is “enough quality sleep”? How does it do these amazing things for health and wellness? And, most importantly, how can you get better sleep? Rest matters. A lot. Yet THE most important …
Inside: If you feel overwhelmed by life, one of the kindest and wisest things you can do is to gift yourself an abundance of rest. This post includes amazon referral links. In a culture that idolizes doing more, acquiring more, being more, and that conditions us to believe that our worth is tied to our …
Inside: There are so many ways to build a beautiful life. There are many paths to get to joy and there are many routes to wholeness. There is more than one right way to be human. Sensitive Content: grief, child loss The shift from summer to autumn is hard on my mind, body, and soul. …
Inside: How to befriend yourself: Self-awareness helps us show up to work, relationships, to all of life — with integrity and confidence. These 10 ideas will help you get to know yourself better and deepen your roots of self-awareness and self-compassion. This post may include affiliate links. I heard a quote recently on one of …
Inside: I’m turning 50! The past decade of my life has been full of sorrow, emotional and physical pain, joy, adventure, growth, and day upon day of ordinary beauty. It all came tangled up together. I’ve decided to embrace it all. Sensitive Content: suicide, grief, depression The past decade has been a wild ride. As …
Inside: I sat down to write today and this poem came out. Recently my clients have been telling me that my work is helping them find their way home to themselves. A beautiful testimonial. The journey home is a hard and messy one but it’s also the path of freedom. This is who I am. …
Inside: How to navigate self-doubt in your creative life and work with gentleness and kindness. This is a guest post by Nicole Gullota. The post contains referral links. In my second year of college, I signed up for a publishing workshop where a handful of hopeful writers were eager to learn the secrets to securing …
