We live in a world that is not easy to feel successful in. We are constantly being judged by the wrong qualities and measures. As a result, we are far too hard on ourselves. We live with an internal dialogue that is often far more critical than it is praising. We take stumbles to our core, attaching them to who we are so deeply, that they become our yardstick for whether or not we are a good person.
Everything ends. The parts of your life that you love and the parts of your life that cause you great discomfort. So how do you reconcile this? How do you come to terms with both sides of life’s coin?
This simple experience showed me how much our efforts to control the flow and outcomes of situations can cause us stress. The reason for this is simple: when we try and control how something goes, we immediately put expectations on its outcome and, by doing this, we set ourselves up for either succeeding or failing. We build a wall made up of some arbitrary standard against which we measure our performance against and, as such, we can either win or lose, succeed or fail. Think about something in your life that you are currently fighting against? What would it look like if you loosened your grip on the reigns and just allowed?
As a young child, if you get told, whether directly or subtly, that expressing who you are in a certain way is wrong, what message is that communicating to you? And, furthermore, what behaviors do you then adopt in order to self-correct?
It’s hard to accept that life is as it is meant to be when everything is hard. It takes a trust in the universe that is often beyond our strength. But there is always an uphill to get to the view at the top and there is always a winter before the magic of spring. In the cycles of your life, perhaps you are exactly where you are meant to be.
Are you currently dealing with stress and anxiety? Do you want to develop and practice tools to manage your stress? This meditation will bring you from the cognitive experience of your stress, to the more centered somatic (physical body) experience, to an energetic release. By the end of the meditation, the goal is for you to feel calmer, more in control, and far more grounded. You can use this to deal with a current stressor, to manage ongoing stress, or to prepare for future life stressors.
I am an empath. After years of wondering why things seem to affect me way more than they do others, I discovered this word. Empath. It now all makes sense. I grew up in an environment where my emotions were criticized and tossed aside, while at the same time having a significant person in my life who needed a lot of emotional care. The combination of this lead me to feel a lot for others, carrying their hurt, and then judging the emotions I have in response. If you too are an empath, you know it is not an easy experience of life. So many things hurt. I have memories of sobbing when a fish was caught in front of …
For the first time, the Wholistic Joy Podcast goes “round table” style in this important, upsetting, and necessary subject of body image. As we share our own stories and struggles around body image and the misery it has caused and continues to cause in our lives, we come away with ways that we can move forward and break the binds that keep us from living at our fullest and most beautiful selves. “It is strange to think about how much of it seeps into our everyday, even if you’re actively trying to remove yourself from it.” – Jenna Monroe “Who were you before the world told you you were too big or too fat?” – Rebeccah Brooking “We’re just constantly …
And how I am changing it for good It’s 5:50am when my alarm goes off. It startles me; reminding me once again to finally try and figure out how to get the volume down. I roll over, creatively coming up with all sorts of reasons why I deserve to sleep in this morning. And then it comes flooding back… Images of the ice cream I decided to eat last night right before going to bed. The slice of bread with almond butter I thought was an acceptable choice at 9pm. Or, if it was a particularly bad night, the full pizza I consumed despite my body telling me that I was full after the 4th slice. It’s like a steamroller …
“Personal growth is so important, but then we forget to apply it to our marriages or we don’t know how,” Beatriz Vargas In this episode, I am joined by certified coach and podcaster, Beatriz Vargas. We begin our conversation discussing the importance of having a “why” behind what you do. We discuss the power of having a life purpose behind your job and roles. We then go on to talk about the work that Beatriz does, focusing on marriages and wives in particular. What do you do when you want to work on your marriage, but your spouse is figuratively absent. We then extend this topic to include the other relationships in our lives. The message that we are left …
“When you are beaming with light, that’s the best way to help someone with their darkness.” On this episode, I talk to fellow South African and friend, Lee Buckton. With spirituality, wellness, and music at the front of his life, Lee is always seeking. In fact, this curious nature brought him across the Atlantic and to Atlanta where he runs his own, thriving dog training business. We talk about how curiosity and continually seeking helps you to grow and discover your true self. He shares the importance and meaning around staying in alignment with your vibrational set point and how to manage difficult emotions. Through his insights and efforts, Lee has found a way to always return to happiness and …
“It’s being able to wake up and know that you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing…and that you found something that lights you up when you do it,” Ben Swafford. Today, I share reflections with Ben Swafford. Area manager, trainer, and ERYT for CorePower Yoga, Ben’s life moved from saying cheers as he poured drinks, to saying Namaste as he teaches yoga. His life is all about movement, on his mat, his snowboard, his paddleboard, and anywhere else he can. While an energetic life has always been core to who he is, this energy has found an outlet that is of deep service to others. He describes himself as an Atlanta native, rooted in kindness, strength, acceptance, and …
On the show this week, I am joined by professional stuntwoman and deep thinking yogini, Sadiqua Bynum. Sadiqua is a former UCLA gymnast whose aspirations are to inspire and encourage others to see the light that is inside of them and express the ways in which individuality should be celebrated as this allows us to figure out who we really are. We explore the journey she took in uncovering who she really is, the questions she had to answer, and perceptions she had to extinguish. It wasn’t always a simple matter of self-reflection, but she realized that by doing the work, making some mistakes, and allowing herself opportunities to learn, there is so much to gain. We also talk about …
Do you struggle with listening to your own voice and trusting what that voice is saying? Is your mind overrun by the opinions of others and the influence those opinions have on you? Do you struggle with vulnerability? Today on the show, I talk to Caroline Smith, certified yoga instructor and wellness coach. Through her coaching business, Heal Love Connect, she helps clients using mindfulness, reflection, and action to break through bad habits, form new habits based on their unique needs and goals, and create a life they love. Together we talk about the work she has done on learning to trust and listen to her own voice. This has been a lifelong process for her, showing up in all …
A week or so ago, I wrote about how “my balloon popped” – roughly translated into me sobbing in the bathroom as all of my emotions erupted in a sad and personally disappointing way. A week later, I am living in a state of deep-rooted bliss. I have spent each day feeling energized, productive, fulfilled, joyful, more patient, proud, and motivated. What’s changed?
Yesterday was not a good day. The balloon burst. I’ve been telling my kids that my head is like a big balloon – it gets filled with air and, if it doesn’t get a release, it will burst. The meaning behind this metaphor might seem obvious, but let me explain. To say I like quiet is definitely an understatement. It’s more than that, I’ve come to realize. I am enormously triggered by noise stimulation. Now that I think about it, this is not a new thing. Back in my younger days, I was always very party-averse. There was something I just found very uncomfortable about being in an environment that was loud and busy. I always left those situations feeling …
Every time you say yes to doing something, you are saying no to another. And, is this “no” an acceptable sacrifice?
In this episode I reflect on the experience of taking my 4 year old daughter, Maya, to her first ballet class. This was a magical, proud, and beautiful moment – definitely one for the mom books. However, it also took me down memory lane in terms of my own ballet journey as a child. I started ballet as a way to correct my feet. I was born with a pretty severe case of “pigeon toes”. As a result, my options were either to break my legs and reset them or to start ballet super young and do the work to turn out my legs slowly. Of course, if you know anything about ballet, turn out is key. Sadly, my body …
What is meditation? When you think of meditation, you no doubt picture someone different from yourself, sitting cross legged on the ground, peacefully stationary for hours. And, while you are not incorrect with this image, this is not what meditation looks like for the majority of practitioners. Basically, meditation is a group of techniques all having the conscious attempt to focus attention in a non-analytical way, and then attempting not to dwell on any thoughts that arise. Meditation offers our mind the gift of learning to choose, at any given moment, where our focus goes, where we wish to be. Benefits of meditation Studies have shown that having a regular meditation practice reduces stress and anxiety, improves coping, increases productivity, …
Take the quiz now! Knowing how to fill your cup is so helpful in managing stress and avoiding burnout. Typically, we only incorporate self-care in response to a crisis, suddenly feeling the need to give ourselves some long overdue TLC. A better approach however would be to include self-care practices into our daily/weekly life so that we never reach the stage of depletion. Once you know your self-care style, you can begin to design a self-care routine that is easy to maintain. That way, when the stressful season arrives, you are better prepared for it and it doesn’t leave you feeling depleted. Take the short quiz now.
If you’re like me, then you understand what it feels like to try and change something in your life, put your heart and soul into it, but continue to fail and fail and fail. You question your willpower, your strength, maybe even your worth. When I learnt that there were stages of change and, if you are not in the right one, then failure is inevitable, this completely altered how I went about making changes. I now understand that, if I am not 100% ready to take action, the change will not stick and I will not be successful at it. Knowing what stage you are in will empower you with crucial information so that you can take the necessary …
In case you didn’t catch last week’s episode, this is the new and slightly different Wholistic Joy Podcast. It is self-reflection on the go: real moments, real stories, real life. I keep things raw, unedited, and, as I said, real. In this episode I talk about how hard it is to do the things we know are good for us, like exercising, eating healthy food, and other acts of self care. I then go on to discuss my favorite night out – the SSB night in – and bring up the yogi principle of brahmacharya, or moderation. Moderation sounds pretty boring, I know, but living life moderately may actually be a significant key to living a life of peace and …
Welcome to the NEW Wholistic Joy Podcast: self-reflection on the go. Real moments, real stories, real life. In this episode, I introduce my new approach to podcasting. Brace yourself, it’s a little different to what you’re used to. But, it is unedited, raw, and real. I then go on to candidly talk about how harsh we are on ourselves. Have you ever uttered the phrase “I am such a failure”? I have…many times. But as we search our days for evidence to prove this false reality true, what are we missing? As much as there might be evidence proving our failures, there is likely way more evidence proving our awesomeness. Sadly, we filter these out and we don’t deserve to. …
When I became a mom for the first time, I did exactly what I was expected to do: give my entire self to this tiny human. That is what unconditional love is all about, isn’t it? Fast forward a year and I had become a miserable, depleted, angry version of myself, forcing love from a place of bitterness and resentment, instead of the authenticity and heart I had intended. In the process of denying myself in order to give everything to my new daughter, I had shifted from “I get to love my baby” and turned it into “I have to love my baby”. The want became a should. I had completely forgotten the most important thing about loving another …
I go through periodic blue days. They come about every other month or so; I wake up and I am just feeling sad. Everything gets harder to do and I find my healthy habits slip far out of my control. I have just come out of another blue period and in this one I realized something, I believe to be, profound. What if these blue days are my heart’s way of forcing me to purge all of the unwanted emotions that I have “kept under control”? Kind of like your body getting rid of bad food. What if, instead of trying to make myself feel better, what I ‘m supposed to do is feel, temporarily, worse? In this episode I …
I’ve come to perceive glimmers of a belief that when these blue days arrive it is my heart, or my soul, or very being telling me that I need to feel deeply. When our heart is feeling heavy; when we have asked it to hold too much for too long, we have to honor its need to release that which it can no longer keep ahold of.
What I ask of you is to be selfish: to give to yourself exactly what you need; to fill yourself up with self-love, abundance, and care. I ask you to be selfish, because you, as any other, deserve to feel the fullness of your own heart, soul, and life.
As the footage continues to come in from Jan 6 and the storm on the capital, I’ve found myself having to face head on my emotional responses. Watching the violence, the actions that are clearly motivated by hate and anger, it is hard not to respond with my own feelings of anger and, let’s be honest, intense judgement. Is this anger and judgement justified? It certainly feels like it. The more important question is rather: is this how I want to interact with the world? From a place of anger? Is my anger and judgement ultimately going to serve myself, my family, and my community in the way that I want to? I reflect on this as well as Inauguration …
I love mornings. Yes, I am one of those people who enjoys mornings more than night. I love the light, the fresh air, the alertness I feel. I am more productive in the morning, more motivated and inspired. And then I had kids… What used to be a time of easing into the day with reflective thought and structured activities, has become a time of loud, invasive, chaos. We have one of those sleep training clocks that sings a very uplifting piece of music when it is time for my small humans to get up. While they are pretty good at abiding by that subtle “don’t you dare get up before I’m ready” device, when it does start its deceiving …
Connect with Mother Earth and all breathing beings through this beautiful visualization and breath meditation. Allow this time of connection to remind you that you are not alone and that your very breath gives life to the beings that provide life in return.
Can you be courageous without being vulnerable? For the longest time, I too believed that courage meant that you felt no fear. I also believed that expressing your emotions and what makes you feel anxious or scared, was a sign of weakness. Tough girls don’t show emotion, or perhaps don’t even have emotion to show. Because I have big emotions, big reactions to things that others barely bat an eyelid to, there is something weak and flawed about me. But here’s the truth – can you even be courageous without first feeling scared, exposed, anxious? Put the other way, if you feel no fear, uncertainty, or social exposure, does it take courage?
“I would love to go plant based, but I can’t give up cheese.” “There’s no way I could go plant based. I love cooking and flavor too much.” “My family would never make the change.” “I just have no idea where to start.” Sound familiar? These are just a few of the reasons I have heard when the subject of converting to plant based (aka vegan) has come up. If you’ve thought or uttered any of these, know that you are not alone (present author included). It’s not easy I get it, it is not easy. It is a big change. Chances are, you grew up in a house where meat and dairy were as common as taking your shoes …
Spend some time experiencing your joy; basking in the light, glow, and warmth of how your body experiences the joy you feel. By practicing and giving space to how joy shows up in our bodies, we give ourselves the opportunity to learn how to notice the small moments when they happen; the ones we may have missed before.
In this episode, I outline the process of setting an intention for your new year. Resolutions set us up to fail, but by setting an intention you can only learn, grow, and succeed. After defining what an intention is, we work through a series of meditations, journaling prompts, and small rituals that will help you to say goodbye to 2020, release what you need to release, and find your guiding principle, your intention, for 2021.
The problem with the New Year’s resolution is that it’s too easy to fail. There is only 1 way to succeed and if we miss that mark we label ourselves as a failure. As such, I have given up on setting New Year’s resolutions and instead set New Year’s Intentions. If there is one thing that I want you to take away from this, it is that this is supposed to lift you up in your weakest moments, not tear you down. Let your intention be a light, when all else feels dark and confusing.
I get very emotional today. I can’t help it. This week has been filled with an internal struggle between the joy of the holidays and the grief over the reality around me. I share why I am feeling so much sadness at the moment, how important this sadness is to feel, and why I am grateful for it. Just a warning, I do tear up a bit, but please don’t see that as a reason to avoid listening. Trust me, the world needs you to feel your sadness.
What you bring to this world, no one else can bring. The value that you add to others’ lives, no one else can add. You have a light that deserves to shine brightly. The world deserves to see your light. So shine, amazing human, shine.
In this episode I share a few ways that you can keep the joy and not lose your s**t over the next couple weeks. This time of the year is so crazy. There is so much to get done, so many expectations to meet, including and especially the expectation of having to be happy all the time. I mean, its the most wonderful time of the year, right? The tips I give are simple, easy to implement, and can be applied to absolutely any stressful situation, not just a pandemic Christmas.
Our vision of ourselves is cloudy at best. Our authentic selves are covered in layers of context, subtle messaging, expectation, and obligation. But when you take a look and do the work, something begins to happen… It is very hard to ignore or deny the truth once you are alone with it.
Seeing as we are all facing new and unique stressors, not only this holiday season, but this whole strange 2020 and season of life, I have put together 5 ways that you can manage that stress. These are things that you can use when faced with any stressful situation or period of sadness. You cannot avoid stress, sadness, or even anger, but you can soften its grip on you.