I remember early in my nursing career when I was eager to work. I wanted to learn everything I could. I wanted to be helpful. I wanted the overtime in my paycheck. I said yes, every time they called. I said yes every time there were open shifts. I said yes to the 3 am to 3 pm shifts. I said yes to the 8 shifts in a row. I said yes to the “I’ll go home and sleep for 4 hours and come back for 8 more. I said yes to everything. Until one day my parents were up visiting from their home 7 hours away. I got that same ol’ call to come to work in an hour and I said, “NO. My parents are visiting and I don’t want to miss a minute with them.” The response from my co-worker went something like this, “...but we haven’t even tried to call anyone else because we KNEW you’d say yes.” 

That did it for me. That was the moment I realized that I was being taken advantage of. My time with my family was not a priority for them, it did...

You know that saying, “if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got”? Have you ever thought about the habits you’ve created in your life? The ones that maybe don’t serve you so well, but you do it anyway, simply because you always have. Why is that a thing? 

We are so quick to write off our poor decisions because “that’s just who I am” or “this is just what my family does.” Think about the things in your life that are like that. How often do you use your upbringing, your past, or those bad habits as an excuse for not improving your life? How often do you write off a decision as something you choose because of something that happened to you before? 

Here’s an unpopular opinion: You get to decide what choices you make in your life. 

This isn’t a conversation about privilege. This isn’t a conversation about manifesting...

Offering someone compassion doesn't always feel as easy as criticizing them. Because it feels hard it might even feel “better” to criticize before we offer compassion. Sit with that for a second… it feels better to criticize others than it does to offer compassion. Not just others, but yourself too. It feels better to criticize yourself than to offer yourself compassion because that is easier. Like water, we do take the path of least resistance. But like water in a flood zone, that path can certainly be destructive! 

Today, I want you to check your inner dialogue. Whether it’s walking through the store or after a conversation with your co-workers or interacting with a customer. Your knee-jerk response is likely one with a negative approach. “What is she wearing?” “I cannot believe she allows her kids to do that!” “Grow up and manage your money like an adult and you wouldn’t need to put items back.”...

My husband and I have this great arrangement in our marriage. If I’m working at the hospital, he cooks supper, if I’m not, I cook. I had mentioned this at work one day and one of the ladies told me how lucky I was that he would do that. For a while, I thought she was right, I am pretty lucky, not every husband would cook for his family while his wife worked 12+ hour days. And then I thought… wait a second. Although I have a great husband who is loving a supportive, I’m not "lucky" that he cooks supper 3 times a week. It’s not about luck as much as it is the things we value. We have an understanding of each other’s time and energy… Don’t go all thinking that my husband is more evolved than any other man because truthfully he is not. He calls all my work woo-woo and has never once read a personal development book in his life. However, from day one in our relationship, I knew that my time, my energy, and my financial contribution...

I don’t know about you but as a child, I thought that my family knew what was best all the time. What we did and believed was elite and any other opinion was “wrong.” I’m talking about things like Chevy trucks, John Deere Tractors, and Pepsi. I remember the first time I saw my older sister drink a Dr. Pepper and my 8-year-old sassy self told her that in our family we drank Pepsi so she needed to make a different choice… and yes that is read with ALL THE SASS. My sister was aware of something that I didn’t know at that time. She had lived enough life to learn that it is okay to choose something different than those before us. 

As you grow and evolve, you may find that you are ready to make some choices that look different than those of the people around you. Maybe even different from the choices you’ve made in the past. I’m here to tell you, THAT IS OKAY. The apple may not fall far from the tree, but it is still an...

Have you ever considered the four phases of your menstrual cycle? If you’re not trying to get pregnant (or avoid pregnancy) you might be totally unaware of the phases, with the exception of the week you bleed. Let me tell you why we need to change that. 

You know that each month your hormones fluctuate through each of the phases and each time the change, they create different desires in you. Just like Mother Nature shows off her four seasons throughout the year, you experience similar seasons throughout the month. Let’s break it down. 

Spring/Follicular phase: In this phase your body is preparing an egg for ovulation. The hormones responsible for this will make you want to plan things and create to-do lists. This would be an optimal time to create your monthly menu, shopping list, or create daycare plans for your kids. 

Summer/Ovulation: In this phase, your body releases that egg. You are now fertile. All the hormones required to allow...

Do you wake up in the morning and immediately want to crawl back into bed? Do you find that you have a short fuse, one that is much shorter than you’d like? Do you have a desire to “do more” or “do better” but don’t have the energy to do so? Yes? This might be burn-out. It is a normal part of so many people’s lives, and it shouldn’t be. Living in a state of burn out can lead to adrenal fatigue, and subsequently hormonal problems. Those could include thyroid dysfunction, estrogen and progesterone imbalances, endometriosis, etc.  

I remember early in my nursing career when I was so excited to be able to serve my patients and was even more excited for that professional level paycheck, that I worked all the overtime possible. If I got that call at 5 am where the hospital was looking for help, I said yes. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes that call came in at midnight, or 2 am, and I would still say yes. It usually meant I’d...

Have you ever felt like the weight of the world is on your shoulders? Like you just need a breather, a break, a minute to be? Maybe you're the mom who has cried in the shower or at the kitchen sink, because that weight has to be released somehow. Most women will tell me, "there's not time." There's too much to get done to take a vacation or to even take a "day off." And that may be true. BUT... you don't necessarily need a vacation to release some of these burdens. You don't need a day off (although I don't discourage a good vaca, or stay-cation once in awhile), what you need is to learn how to carry the burdens that are only yours and more importantly, release the ones that are not. 

Two weeks ago we talked about recognizing the burdens that are not yours and leaving them where they are. Today, we're going to dive into how to release the ones you're already carrying. Often times, we think it is our responsibility to carry the weight of the world. Someone we love is hurting, so...