1.Be Kind to Yourself Being kind involves avoiding negative words. Refuse to tell yourself that you can’t….because you can (and we both know you can). Stand in front of your mirror and find something beautiful to compliment yourself. Say it out loud and say it proudly, more specifically never say “I like this…but”. No buts. In order to be kind to yourself, you have to fully love yourself for who you are and who you were created to be. Love yourself in all forms and the easiest way to do that is love the journey that you are on and following that comes loving yourself and the milestones you create through your journey. Finally, stop comparing yourself to others. Don’t measure yourself by their success. I can guarantee that their success that you are comparing to came with a price. Be kind to yourself to know that you are YOU and YOU are beautiful. 2. Meditate Every morning, I find myself in my beauty room on the floor doing deep stretches, breathing deeply and meditating on the silence before the hustle and bustle of the day comes out like a double barrel shotgun. Not only does it calm my inner being but it helps me to celebrate that I am alive for one more day. That is a privilege, not a right. I also daydream when I meditate. I daydream about my future, even just the day’s excitements that turn my daydream’s into success’. 3. Be active Activity is measured in a few different ways here. The obvious measurement is by physical activity. If you like yoga, do yoga. If you like to run, run. If you like to lift, lift. My point is, whatever you like to do that moves your body in a positive way, do it. No one is going to do it for you. No one can get you up and out of bed each morning and make the decision for you to be active. But you can. The other part of being active is keeping your mind and spirit active and positive. When you keep your brain active, whether it is by journaling, reading, blogging, etc. you create a positive attitude within you. Be intentional in your everyday life to be active mind, body and spirit. 4. Don’t waste your valuable energy Now, this may seem counterproductive to being active right? Wrong. This has everything to do with surrounding yourself with positive people. Positive people motivate, encourage, and lift you up with expecting nothing in return or showcasing what they have done for you. Be that and do that. Assume people have good intentions but don’t settle for hate, gossip, malice, arguments, or people who try and take credit for you and your life. Bottom line—avoid spending time with stressed-out people who want to bring you down with them. 5. Expect more from yourself Since you are responsible for you and your actions in YOUR life, you must expect more from yourself. Begin each day with that. Expect that today is going to be a good day, every morning and guess what? It probably will be. Decide that you will not be achieving your goals on some random Monday but TODAY. If you expect your spouse and everyone else around you to love you, then YOU love YOU. Do what you expect from others. 6. Make peace with the past days, months and years My sweet readers, if you have been around me with and without this blog, you know that my life has had some rocky mountain times. More than I would care to admit. I have had many, if not more, valleys than I have had hills. I have been less than an expectation of what a daughter, mother, sister, or friend should be at times and I have had more curve balls thrown at me than pitched in a 12 inning baseball game. My point? I made peace with all of it. I can’t change anything that has happened. I can’t wish for it to be different. I can’t hope that it will all go away. Because it won’t. All I can do is make peace with the things that have or have not happened and move forward, creating a better surrounding for me to be connected to. Moving forward doesn’t mean forgiving and forgetting. Forgiveness is for you. Forgive yourself for the things that have happened but if someone has hurt you or a situation has made you uncomfortable to keep those people in your life, do not feel bad for discarding of them and moving to find your own happiness. You have one life. One. People will expect you to revolve your whole life around them but in the end, when you are alone, you will be filled with regrets that you didn’t live the intentional life that you wished for all along. Make peace but also move forward to create a positive change. People will say that you abandoned them, they will guilt you in to thinking you are a terrible person, you will get all of that nonsense, but the truth is that they are mad, jealous, pained that you have chosen the higher road and have chosen to not sulk in the past. 7. Make small goals – and stick to them If your only goals for the day is to get out of bed and get dressed, my friend we may have to discuss this over coffee. Smalls goals are things like: move more, eat better, find a new job, read more, travel more, etc. Ok, so traveling can be a bit of a challenge but you get my point. Make goals. Set new heights for yourself (remember we must all move forward) and stick to them by writing them down, monitoring them, and posting them where you can see them daily. On a closet, wall, bathroom mirror, which cares where they go, just put them where you can see them every day and every night. Mentally or physically check them off and the process you are going to take to achieve them every night. Find a day each week, to circle back to your goals and increase them, make changes to them, and keep the beat alive in them. Most importantly – ACT ON THEM IMMEDIATELY! 8. End each day with gratitude Be thankful. Always, always, always be thankful. Find, at the very least, one thing to be grateful for each day. Maybe some days, you have a whole list and other days, you laid your head on your pillow and that is all you can find, but it is something. Once you start ending your day with “things I need to be thankful for” instead of “what did I forget to do today”, something comes over you. You start to feel better about daily decisions and worries that are in and out of your control. Because let’s face it, 30% of the things in your life are out of your control and there is not one thing you can do to change that. Some weeks are easier than others, some days are easier than others, and let’s be honest; some minutes are easier than others. But I promise you that if you just hold on and trust yourself, there is beauty outside of situations and people causing negativity that have brought you to this moment to fight for yourself. You are worth investing in and showing up for yourself every day. After all, at the end of each day and more importantly, at the end of your journey here on earth, you are all you have. My friends, you are your first priority. Don’t ever push your happiness aside for someone else’s. You will find people in life that groove with you; never force someone to fit into your journey. Everyone comes and goes and stays forever for a purpose.
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One of my resolutions for my birthday year is to take more photos. January was a rough month to capture photos because I feel like I spent half of it playing catch up from the holidays. One event that was special this mnth was my mother's birthday! We had a get tpgether but do you think I captured one photo? Sorry mom! meet sophia. she is my Oma's "guard" dog. molly is sophia's "guard"dog. meet Oma. She is a very lovely soul. quiet winter weekend mornings have got to be my favorite. this is how my Abby likes to help make the bed. chief investigator reporting for duty. there is nothing that says winter in michigan better than a heavy duty scarf. this is how bestie's pass time waiting for a race to start. nothing compares to a sunday morning with these two. we call this adulting. we adulted so hard in january, that we purchased a headboard for our bed. we also call this winning. no words. have i mentioned that calico's, especially this one, are crazy? no, well, they are. the last saturday of january was quite adventurous. i started with a free demo spin class, scooped up my mom to head to an flea market sale at a local vintage shop and finished with a basketball draft for daniella. below are some shots of those things.
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