3 Simple Ways to Release Trauma

The physical body is truly remarkable.

And the more we learn about it, the more we see how interconnected our physical body is to our emotional well being.

Thanks to neuroscience, we now know that the body stores stress, memories, and trauma.

In part because the physical body is always present!

Whether you’re watching a movie or sleeping, working on the computer or making a speech – regardless of where your attention is, your body is present in that physical space.

It’s like the silent witness.

Which is why, it’s even more important than ever to work with the body when a trauma occurs – from something small like a rejection to something big like a car accident or physical violence.

Yes, it’s vital to talk about what happened and process your thoughts and emotions. But don’t forget to also support your body in that healing work.

Because when we experience trauma, it’s common to feel completely unsafe.

Here are 3 ways to safely return to your body: 

1. Self Hug

Take your right hand and place it under your left armpit, kind of over your heart. Then take your left hand and place it on your upper right shoulder. Take a few deep breaths as you gently hold yourself.

As somatic therapist, Peter Levine notes, this technique helps you to become more aware of your body as a container. It also helps release tension.

2. Grounding

Place your right hand on your forehead. Place your left hand over your heart chakra in the center of your chest. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths until you feel a shift in energy and physical sensation. Then take your right hand and move it to the center of your belly, over your belly button. Breathe in again with eyes closed until feel a shift. This will help you ground back into your body and have more clarity and less anxiety.

3. Tap/Squeeze

Gently tap or squeeze your arms, and legs. This is another exercise that helps you return into your physical body and feel the stress/tension contract.

Whenever you feel trauma or even anxiety, try one or all 3 of these exercises and see if by reconnecting to your body you can release tension and feel more relaxed in this sacred vessel that is your physical body.

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Finding Real Belonging

Feel like you don’t belong in your family? In society? In the world?

Me too.

I used to think I was the only one who felt like this. Something was terribly wrong with me - I was flawed, broken because I felt disconnected. Everyone around me seemed content, loved, successful. They were all normal and happy.

Why wasn’t I?

Then I convinced myself that there must be a place, an actual physical place, where I could feel all of that- where I genuinely belonged.

So I went looking. First I crossed the country, from Boston to Portland. Then I went to Asia- Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia. I even tried the Middle East and Europe.

I thought I’d found it in Bali, but no…

It took fifteen long years for me to clue in.

The place I was looking for was inside of me, it was me.

True belonging is about connecting to your heart, to your core, to the YOU within you.

I finally had to stop “searching” and dive in.

If feeling alone and alienated resonates with you, here are the steps to your salvation:

1. Be Present With You

Stop running away from yourself. Happy, sad, angry, suffering. Be okay with whatever you feel right now. There’s so much power in moving into the pain or discomfort. That’s where true healing lies. In seeing what’s really real for you every second of every day.

A super powerful way to dive right into this is to do mirror work. Look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I love you. I really, really love you.”

The first time I did this, I started sobbing. Now I smile.

2. Connect

Even though peace and abiding happiness come from within you, we are social creatures. How can you feel more connected to like-minded people? Is there a faith based organization or spiritual center that you resonate with nearby? Is there a book group or club doing things you enjoy?

3. Seek Refuge

In Buddhism, you often hear the phrase, “Seek refuge in the Buddha, dharma and sangha.”

I love the word refuge because to me, it’s a place of safety, a place to lick your wounds, replenish and be refilled.

I interpret this Buddhist phrase to mean that:

• First we find our salvation and our home through connection to God-the Universe-Oneness (Buddha).

What path speaks to you? What form of the divine can you connect to?

Is it Buddha, Tara, or any one of the Hindu gods or goddesses? Jesus or Virgin Mary? Is it the great earth Mother? Nature? Or simply that which is un-nameable? The great unknown?

• Second, commit to a practice. This is dharma. The way of right action and right living.

Find a teaching- book, lectures, etc. where the words resonate with your beliefs. There are countless paths and ways: Bible, Talmud, Koran, A Course In Miracles, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Buddhist scripture, Wiccan, Pagan, Celtic, Native American...

Maybe you want a teacher who speaks to you.

Here are some resources to check out:

1. Hay House Radio (or their website)
2. Lion’s Roar (for Buddhist teachers)
3. Oprah’s Super Soul Sundays
4. Krista Tippet’s Podcast, On Being

• Third, connect to others who are on a similar path.

This is sangha, or satsang. It is spiritual community. Seek out your spirit brothers and sisters. It’s hard to do this work, and we all need love and support. This is where community comes in.

Truly, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. This is why the world feels unnatural because we don’t really belong here. And yet, here we are, contracted to experience human existence in all its messiness and glory.

Isn’t it time to fully embrace it and genuinely live it open heartedly and unapologetically?

I say yes. And welcome to the club.

Where will you start? Share your ideas just below the blog!

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Self Love or Shame?

I’m a big fan of Brené Brown because she’s willing to research topics that no one wants to talk about, like shame. One of my favorite books of hers is Daring Greatly.

In it, Brown says that shame needs three things to grow: silence, secrecy and judgment.

We all have shame, those places inside where we feel bad about ourselves, unworthy, embarrassed, ashamed.

I used to have a lot of shame around my body. I learned from reading Daring Greatly that this – our bodies – is the #1 shame trigger for ALL women!

When I was a binge eater, I was embarrassed both by my body but also by my behavior.

There were many lonely evenings when I’d buy a pound of peanut M&Ms or a packet of Oreo cookies and inhale the entire bag in an hour. I was ashamed that I had no control, that I'd consumed so much food like a vacuum.

Years after I overcame my eating disorder, I met my spiritual teacher, Ma Jaya. She was a wonderful storyteller and I especially enjoyed the stories about her early life, living in Brooklyn, married to a tough Italian man.

Back then, Ma was also overweight and (like many women) was perpetually on a diet. One night, she was enjoying her dinner when her husband made a wise crack, “eat a little more.”

After that, she stopped eating in front of him.

Instead, she’d hide a loaf of Italian bread in the bathroom. When dinner was over, she’d bring the salad bowl with all the leftover oil and vinegar with her into the bathroom and soak the bread in it, scarfing down the entire loaf.

Listening to her, I could relate. She was me. I never wanted anyone to see me binge eat. I always did that alone.

But she was also NOT me.

Even though she wanted to be thinner, she always raved about how gorgeous she was back then – voluptuous, sexy. She had no shame. She simply loved herself skinny and fat.

What about you?

Is there a part of you that you disown? An aspect of who you are that makes you feel ashamed?

I know people who are embarrassed because of their sexual orientation, because they don’t feel smart or intelligent, because they can’t stay sober, because they have dyslexia, OCD or ADHD.

Instead of ignoring that part of you, or pushing it away, can you pour love and light into it?

We do this by accepting it, by loving it, embracing it and opening up about it. When we share how we feel flawed, broken, or imperfect with someone we really trust, it helps heal us.

Empathy destroys shame.

How would that feel?

When I read Brené Brown’s book, it set me free. Why? Because I realized that the places where I judge myself or feel shame are so often the same ones that we all do.

Once I saw that these “flaws” weren’t really specific to me, it seemed silly to hold on to them anymore.

After all, we are spirit beings having a human experience. And I’m resolved to make this the best one ever – and that means loving ALL of me!

What do you think? Are you in? Share one thing you're ready to release!

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Living the Dream

Have you ever had a person in your life who saw your inner beauty, your soul radiance?

I have.

One of the first times this happened, was when I lived in Hong Kong. I was in my early twenties, struggling to find my way as an adult, and living 10,000 miles away from my family, friends and culture.

I admit it, I was lonely and scared.

Six months later, I met Diana, a young woman from the U.K., and we instantly bonded. As I got to know her story, I soon discovered that she was in need of healing as much as I was.

But Diana’s challenges were not mine.

She was model material and looked like a Roman goddess with her shapely tan figure and aquiline silhouette. She was a water nymph, forever running around in a bikini, sun bathing and swimming in the warm ocean. In my eyes, she was the epitome of beautiful.

Not only that, but she oozed confidence.

She was a master painter and earned her living on commissions for oils. Her work reminded me of the classic art I’d studied both as an undergraduate and then in Italy. It could have hung in museums next to Ingres or David.

Meanwhile, I was dreadfully unhappy. Not only did I have no clue what I wanted to do, I didn’t even really know how to live a healthy life. Since arriving in Hong Kong six months earlier, I’d worked a job I loathed in a factory in the most polluted district in the territories. 

Because I was afraid and alone, I’d buried all my fear and anxiety under mountains of food and had gained another forty pounds. To make matters worse, I’d then shaved off all of my long blond locks in an effort to “expose” myself and stop hiding. I now resembled a Buddhist nun.

Looking back, I can say that I was deeply immersed in a “dark night of the ego.”

I was shedding aspects of myself, questioning who I was, trying to make sense of the world. But I didn’t know how to walk through the process and felt both alone and petrified.

Despite being only twenty, Diana had a timeless wisdom. She immediately saw through the extra pounds, the glasses, the shorn hair, straight to my essence, to my inner beauty.

Not only that, she saw through my self hatred and shame. And instead spoke to the inner radiant goddess that dwelled inside of me. Her ability to hold me in that space helped me crack out of my own self judgment, emotionally buoyed me and gave me the confidence I needed to take real action.

With her support, I got clear about what I must have in my life. Then I began to make the changes I desperately needed. First, I quit my job and within two months found a new one that fit all my criteria. Next I moved house.

As I acted, I began to claim my power. All because she saw me when I couldn't see it for myself

Is there someone in your life who sees your magnificence?

Someone who can hold the space and knows who you are in the world?

I currently have a Master Mind partner who does this for me. I paint a picture of how I want my life to unfold, how I want to show up in the world, and she not only sees it, she cheers me on, builds it up, brainstorms with me to make that vision manifest.

We all need these light-holders, these love seers in our lives.

Who is doing that for you?

Is it a best friend, a relative, a pastor, coach or therapist?

Take inventory. Look around at your support system, at who surrounds you. Are these folks backing you up, validating your dreams, and helping to elevate you?

If so, you’re in good hands. Because here’s the thing: We can’t do it alone. We need help, we need support, we need cheerleaders.

If you don’t have a team or a trusted confidante, think about who around you could be one. Is there someone you really trust? Or someone you admire that you could reach out to?

We all have greatness within us but it can be hard for us to see it in ourselves. That’s why we need encouragement, support and that special person, seeing us in all our glorious magnificence to help us reach for the stars.

Who holds your dreams?

Share your story with me by leaving a comment below.

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Hello Beautiful!

I watched a video over the weekend that a college student posted on YouTube. As she explains, she did a little social experiment in which she called different young men and women ‘beautiful.’

Seeing their faces transform at her words, I was reminded of the same thing happening to me not so long ago.

As a girl and young woman I never felt especially beautiful.

From the time I can remember, I struggled with being overweight. My parents were always on my case about what I ate, how much I weighed and, being sensitive, even a drop of criticism was too much for me.

I saw myself as flawed.

It didn’t matter that I had a pretty smile or wavy hair. I was fat, not as smart as the rest of my family and… simply, not good enough.

My lack of self-love and acceptance sent me down the slippery slope of drug abuse and uncontrollable binge eating until I decided to begin the work of healing myself.

First, I quit drugs at twenty. Then I began to tackle why I was emotionally eating. And guess what? It was to give myself love and nurturing.

After many years of working on this, I successfully healed myself by twenty-six. I got to a healthy weight without dieting, without “white knuckling” around food, without any addictive need to eat or check out from life.

But I still didn’t feel beautiful.

By the time I turned thirty, married and with one child, I began feeling undesirable. Slowly and overtime, my love life had grown stale and I was emotionally distancing myself from my husband. I actually began to feel old and unwanted.

A few years later, as I deepened my own inner growth and spiritual commitment, my marriage completely collapsed. At that point, I thought I would be single for the rest of my life.

The internal work I was doing, opened me up to a greater sense of love - of myself- and feeling beautiful in the eyes of God.

Around this time, I began a new job working for a kind and gentle man. We became colleagues, then friends, and then we fell in love.

He told me I was beautiful.

Those words woke up something inside of me. It was as if I'd forgotten that I was beautiful to people, too, and not just to God. But I had to believe them for myself.

I mean, I had to really believe them and not just hear them. This can only happen if we push judgment aside and open up to love, to self-love and to total self-acceptance. 

I share this story because many of us – both men and women- don’t believe we’re beautiful.

We compare ourselves to movie stars, judge ourselves against photo-shopped pictures in magazines and see every flaw, every wrinkle, every stretch mark.

His words helped remind me that I am beautiful both on the inside and out.

Now I tell myself how much I am loved, how much I love myself and how beautiful I am, every day!

How about you? Is there someone in your life who needs to hear that he or she is beautiful? When was the last time you said it?

Tell her.

Watch the smile spread across her face as she takes in your words, as she sees herself as if through your eyes, beautiful, whole, loved. See how her eyes radiate from within as she lights up, knowing that she is beautiful.

Words have the power to change lives.

Do you agree?

Leave me a comment below.

Watch the video on my Facebook page. Click Here

What My Anxiety Taught Me About Love

It’s never easy when you come up against your ego.

Or to be more specific, when your shadow behavior is pointed out to you by someone you love and trust.

Recently I had a conversation with my husband in which he shared that over the past year I’d demonstrated more controlling behavior.

He gave a few specific examples, some I agreed with and others I wanted to immediately reject.

My insides squirmed listening to him.

I just wanted him to stop, to go away and leave me alone.

Didn’t he understand anything?

It wasn’t that I was being more controlling it was that I was finally coming in to my own, doing what I wanted as opposed to what other people were telling me to do.

I felt hurt and rejected. Because that’s the only way an ego can feel.

My husband was infinitely kind, loving and soft when he spoke to me but what I heard was, “You’re a controllingbit** and I don’t want to be with you.”

My ego had been bruised. I felt raw, almost like a frightened little child.

After our conversation, I slowly began to unpack it, trying to make meaning of his words and my reactions.

I realized that my initial response to the conversation was defense. “No. You’re wrong. This is really all about you. You don’t want me to take my power because then you’ll feel threatened.”

Perhaps some of that was true.

In relationships, we always have to be sensitive to power issues between partners.

However, being in a loving relationship, I knew his intention wasn’t to hurt me.

As I began to work through his words and, more importantly, my response to his words, I began to entertain the notion that he could (maybe) be correct. So I asked myself: “What if he’s right? What could your behavior be showing you?”

I realized that I was acting more uptight and clinging to control as a response to moving in a new direction.

In other words, because there was more uncertainty in one aspect of my life (career) it was triggering my anxiety. And I was compensating by trying to control other areas of my life, ones I could actually be in control of (my home life).

When I got to this level of understanding, I was ready to talk about it again.

I shared my new insight with my husband. And he heard me – listening quietly - and responded with love and compassion.

Within that context, my behavior made sense.

It wasn’t really that I wanted (or want) to control him or anyone, it’s just an automatic default setting my ego falls into when I come up against anxiety.

Then my husband went one step further. Thinking out loud, he wondered if what was really being triggered by this uncertainty was my core issue: abandonment.

Lots of us struggle with abandonment issues.

My mom left my sister and me when I was four years old. Although we saw her frequently and went to live with her six years later, that time was filled with upheaval. We moved so often that I went to five different schools. In my young mind, I became convinced that somehow it was all my fault and that I was not lovable.

I initially turned to food and ate to fill that void, the emptiness of undeserving.

After I released that, I filled it with people, activities, and by never letting really anyone in because then they could hurt me. I spent years yearning for love but being too afraid to actually open up to it.

In a way, it’s actually a loss of faith.

It’s my forgetting that I am safe and that the Universe loves and supports me. Instead, I fall into a fear reaction that drives me to do everything because no one can be trusted.

Over time my behaviors have changed and by deepening my spiritual practice, I now trust in God, in other people and in the Universe. And I know that I am loveable and loved.

This internal relaxing has allowed me to open up to new possibilities, to stretch myself emotionally and let love in even more.

Yet those of us on this spiritual path know that we move in a spiral direction.

We keep coming back around to the same issues over and over again. Only each time they get more subtle.

So I shouldn’t really be surprised that I'm facing my abandonment once again.

The old feeling that conjures up a scared little 4-year old girl.

In this turn in my road, I’m working on loving both the feeling as well as the frightened child.

Reminding her that she is safe and loved, that those old stories are just that, old and not real anymore.

As I embrace these aspects of myself and let love in, I know I am being healed.

Instead of rejecting my anxiety or my abandonment, my job right now is to love them and embrace them- these dark emotions that I don’t want to feel or acknowledge.

I bring them into my heart and relax.

Light and love come streaming in and I don’t have this frenzied or uptight need to control. It’s a relief in a way to be able to relax.

For me trust is the opposite of abandonment.

As I dissolve my old ties of abandonment, and let them go, I replace them with faith and trust. I breathe into my heart and know that I am loved, and that I am never alone, ever.

Curiously I came back to love through looking at my shadow behavior – my need to staunch my anxiety with control.

I’m grateful to have people in my life who love me enough to show me even what I don’t want to see. Because despite the pain of hearing the truth in that moment, the lesson it has taught me has been well worth it.

And I am the better for it.

What's your take? How do you respond to uncertainty?

Let's start a dialog. Leave your ideas below.

Is This Really the World of Dating?

My friend Heidi posted a link to a Huffington Post article, My “Naked” Truth yesterday. It's Robin Korth’s account of dating a man who enjoyed her “head and heart” but not her body.

He told her he couldn’t get turned on by her physically because she was “too wrinkly.”

After reading the piece, I found that I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

First it just made me sad that this is where we are in the United States in 2014. That despite all of our technological advances we are still so emotionally immature towards one another as individuals and as one gender relating to another. It also implies that we are woefully unaware of the power of words to harm one another and the pain that judgment brings.

Brené Brown tells us, the primary shame trigger for women is our bodies.

We women are all intensely aware of what we look like and are usually our own worst critics. So for Dave (the guy in the article) to not understand how hurtful his words and rejection of Robin’s body were to her is just plain stupid.

As my husband said to me after I read him the article, this is about objectifying women. Wanting the woman to live up to an image he has rather than the ability to actually see, love and accept what is right in front of him.

It made me sad too that this is the world of dating for older women.

I was reminded of some of the comments my father used to make about women. “She’s too overweight” or “she looks my age.” He often dated women decades younger than he was. Perhaps they were more nubile but what did they have in common?

Then one day I wondered, “What was he bringing to the table?”

The spare tire encircling his waist, his gray, balding head, wrinkles. Why was it okay for him to be imperfect, old, saggy and not her? It shouted of being a double standard. Yet most women are used to this and maybe that’s the worst part of all. That, having been objectified or pummeled by societal expectations of beauty for so long, we think it’s okay for men to have false expectations.

Fortunately, Robin provides us with a silver lining in her article.

Instead of accepting Dave’s words and allowing herself to be shamed, she took her power back. And she’s absolutely right. We all deserve to be loved exactly for who we are, what we look like clothed and naked, and for all of our opinions, beliefs and quirks.

That love starts with us, with us accepting ourselves exactly as we are from head to toe.

Read Robin's article and tell me what you think! (click here)

If you’re a woman, have you ever had something similar happen to you?

If you’re a man, how can you relate to what Robin experienced?

Leave a comment below! Let’s start a dialog.

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The Ugly Twins – Guilt & Shame

Probably two of the most painful culprits in the emotional arsenal are guilt and shame. These two can seriously wreak havoc on us. It wasn’t until I read Brené Brown's work that I fully understand the difference between them AND how to let go of one and positively utilize the other.

Guilt is the feeling we have when we know we’ve done something wrong or hurt another. We feel bad about our actions. Perhaps I yelled at my daughter in an unkind way or I forgot to leave a tip for the waiter. My action results in me feeling guilty.

Guilt can act as a reminder for right or wrong.

It’s like an internal morality indicator, letting you know if something you’ve done goes against your value system. Brené Brown writes, “[Guilt] is an uncomfortable feeling, but one that’s helpful. The psychological discomfort, something similar to cognitive dissonance, is what motivates meaningful change.”

Overall, when we experience guilt, it can propel us to make amends and change our behavior and so is seen as a potentially positive force.

Obviously taken to the extreme, guilt can be harmful and is especially destructive if we attempt to “guilt” another person, as in making someone feel bad if they don’t do what I want them to do.

Shame, on the other hand, is the internalization of wrongdoing with the interpretation not that my actions were wrong (that’s guilt) but that I’m a bad person because I’ve done this – (yelling, stiffing the waiter.) Then the berating, negative self-talk ensues. “How could I have done that? I’m so stupid, bad, a terrible mother…”

According to Brown, “…shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we can change and do better…” Shame harms us in that moment and her research indicates that, “shame is highly correlated with addiction, violence, aggression, depression, eating disorders and bullying.”

Shame is the voice of “I’m not good enough. I’m not lovable.”

It is who we become when we feel not enough. It is the choices we make to escape, check out, hurt ourselves or hurt others.

Because we’ve all been shamed in our lives and believed it, we now walk around feeling less than, feeling flawed, feeling like we are works in progress instead of wholly loved, talented, incredible beings.

As Brown notes, “Shame is so painful for children because it is inextricably linked to the fear of being unlovable. For young children who are still dependent on their parents for survival- for food, shelter and safety- feeling unlovable is a threat to survival. It’s trauma. I’m convinced that the reason most of us revert back to feeling childlike and small when we’re in shame is because our brain stores our early shame experiences as trauma, and when it’s triggered we return to that place.”

Now that we know more about shame and guilt, we can choose to listen to those old stories about who we are or make new ones. In the 25 years I’ve been working on myself, I see more and more clearly how simple it actually is. In fact, it comes down to one concept – are you ready?

Self-acceptance.

That’s it!

All the words of criticism I heard growing up made me think I wasn’t enough and hell, I wasn’t ever going to be enough. But really, whose words were those? Those were the words my father said to himself, my mother said to herself, my stepfather said to himself, and on and on and on. It really was never about me, I just mistakenly thought it was.

Now I know it isn’t.

As one of my favorite teachers, Dr. Robert Holden says, “no amount of self-improvement can make up for a lack of self acceptance.”

So there it is – self acceptance is the shame-buster.

It starts right here, right now by saying to myself, “Shakti, I totally love and accept you. Right now, just as you are. Just as I am.”

Okay, now it’s your turn. Let me know how it goes.

How have you experienced guilt and shame? Share with me by leaving a comment below! 

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Enough is Enough!

Growing up in a family where conditional love reigned, it was easy to never feel good enough. My role was to be perfect, then I’d receive love. My sister was the "problem child" so consequently, the message I got was that I wasn't allowed to be in need, melting down or falling apart.

I had to be together and became a master at pretending I was when underneath I felt totally insecure and inadequate.

The way I navigated around New York City then was a good analogy for how I managed my life as a teen and young adult. I’d get off the bus at the Port Authority which, in the 1980s, was pretty shady. The area was still chock full of XXX movie theaters, prostitutes, petty criminals and other nefarious types. I’d walk confidently even when I was lost. Part of me knew it was a good coping mechanism, to act like I knew where I was going. Another part of me was simply used to donning the mask-“I know what I’m doing” even when the scared little girl underneath didn’t.

Because of the role I chose to play as a child, I never felt good about me, that I was enough just the way I was.

I had to be who you wanted me to be in order to be loved. I had to be thinner, more organized, responsible.

It felt like there was a hole in the center of me, a hole I was always trying to fill up – with food, with drugs, with boys, with travel. But no matter how much I tried, it was still there until I finally surrendered to God and to me, to accepting me just for me. As I did this, the hole was suddenly filled up with love, love of myself.

Or put another way, the recognition that I was indeed loveable just for being me.

This process took a while and pressed me to let go of a lot of my old beliefs about myself, my family and how to give and get love. And, like everything, lack still rears its ugly head from time to time. Especially on days when I don’t feel like doing anything (ever have one of those?) The voice inside says, “don’t be so lazy. Do something. Be productive. At the very least go for a run or water the plants…”

Those moments are opportunities to catch myself and remember my new orientation.

I can stop and say, “Can you see what’s going on, how you’re talking to yourself? How does that feel? Is it okay just to be who you are right now, to accept yourself just the way you are right now?”

And to remember that I’m enough just the way I am.

Yesterday I was in the supermarket waiting to check out and was perusing the magazine headlines when my eye came across More. I smiled remembering a conversation I’d had with a friend a few years ago. She’d said, “Why isn’t there a magazine called Enough?” As the words left her mouth, I knew she was right. Because not only do we get messages of inadequacy from our family we get way more from society.

It tells us we need more- more money, more clothing, more furnishings, more beauty, more Botox, more, more, more. When is it enough?

My answer is when we decide.

From decades of self searching, healing and studying, I’ve realized that it all comes down to one simple thing, self-acceptance. The more that I love and accept myself, the more life opens to me, love is attracted to me and I am connected to the divine energy of the Universe.

So what’s your decision, are you enough?

Have you ever felt lacking? Share your story by leaving a comment below. 

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Be Mine Valentine?

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Today is the day we are supposed to express love and, ideally, receive love. So how's that going for you? 

Being a romantic, I have always loved Valentine's Day, or at least the idea of it. I have had my fair share of disappointing holidays and I am sure I am not alone. I remember in high school sending many roses and cards to boys I had crushes on without even getting a nod.

So instead of looking without for someone to love or to love me, the thought I had today was to be my own Valentine. And if you were to be your own Valentine, what would that mean to you?

For me, it would mean pampering myself. Maybe taking the time to have a candle lit bath or getting a facial. I would definitely visit my friend Gina's chocolate shop (faithhopeandchocolate.com) to buy myself something totally decadent. Perhaps I would go shopping for something really pretty and cheerful and I would certainly get some take out and a movie I've been hankering to see and enjoy a quiet evening relaxing. 

And even if you are lucky enough to have a sweetheart, someone with whom to spend your holiday, still make it a point to treat yourself too. What is one nice thing you could do for yourself, in honor of you today? Maybe it's buying your favorite coffee drink that costs a few dollars more.   Or going for a walk through the botanical garden at lunchtime. What special message can you give yourself today that will allow you to feel honored, special and loved by YOU?

Let me know what you come up with, I'm all ears.