Gratitude is hope

So I wanted a car to replace my 15-year-old Honda with more rust than body, with failing springs (which feels like driving with cinderblocks for wheels), and not one but two broken taillight covers. When I shared this with a cruel narcissist from my early life, I was told to be grateful that I had a car at all.

“You could be riding your bike everywhere or buying a bus pass every month,” he said.

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Courage to create

Please enjoy this excerpt from Braving It, one of my absolute favorite books. You gotta read the whole thing…there’s so much in here about living boldly and freely! This post is from the chapter: “Create your joy”

“Creativity takes courage,” said master French painter Henri Matisse. It definitely does take courage to dance and sing and paint when we feel like we can’t. We don’t know how, and even if we do, we’re not “good” at it. One look at the stores on Etsy, at what people are creating, or anyone whose work is on display at a gallery or museum, or dancers online or on stage is enough to stop us. We could never…

But, beautiful someone, we can.

Yeah, we can

We can move our feet to music. We can open our mouths and make sounds to musical notes. We can put pencil to paper and draw lines. We can look through the lens of a camera, find a gritty urban scene, and capture it in a compelling composition. Read More

“I am beautiful”

Please enjoy this excerpt from my new book,
You, Beautiful: Getting gorgeous from the inside out…Coming Soon!

“I am beautiful.”

What would it feel like to say this to yourself — and really mean it?

Most of us would feel silly or even cringe looking in the mirror and saying these words. We’d think first, not true. (Says who?) Second, that’s so vain. (Again, says who?)

Valuing ourselves this way — as inherently beautiful and by implication, worthy of love and respect — is a radical act Read More

Just getting started

Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten.

— Natasha Bedingfield

The theme I have for you this month is “Just getting started” — and beautiful someone, we SO are, in every way.

So what if today is the day the everything changes for you? What if today you realize that you are braver than you know, stronger than you think, and more valuable than you’ve ever let yourself believe?

Because nothing in Braving It is out of reach for us. It may seem that way because our brave has been hiding behind years of conditioning and tons of clutter that we’re having trouble reaching around. But once we clear out the bad memories, unhealthy relationships, preconceived ideas of what and who we should be and are capable of…we can fill that space instead with honest, courageous choices.

As songwriter Natasha Bedingfield sings in Unwritten, Read More

Dream your dream

Your dreams are one of the truest parts of you.

To have the energy and passion you need for any dream, it’s got to be first and foremost about what you want to bring into your life. It’s easy to get distracted by what other people think, even people we love and care about, or even by what the headlines say.

We tend to listen too hard to other people’s ideas about what we should and shouldn’t try or what we’re good at or how we should spend our time and lives. We take the headlines too seriously and immediately apply them to ourselves, when they don’t.

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