This is a topic that's been on the forefront of my mind for a while now. It's something I struggled with for years and continue to see come up periodically both in my life and in my friend's lives too.
Being too hard on yourself can show up in many ways. Of course there's the obvious: anger and resentment towards oneself upon failure, overworking, and resenting yourself after having hurt someone you love or let someone down. To the more subtle aspects of the problem where we experience these feelings for things like missing a day at the gym or drinking too much wine with friends.
Abundance is everywhere. Look around you, everything you see is in abundance: trees, mountains, grass, buildings, sky, ocean. Abundance is absolutely everywhere. If your mind is resisting this affirmation it's simply because you were taught otherwise by someone so profound that it ingrained itself deep into your subconscious and it's literally altering the way you think and live every moment of your day. What if I told you that they were wrong? What if I told you that they just simply didn't know any better because that's also what they were taught? They were taught their whole lives that "we don't have enough", "we can't afford to do that", "they have more money than us" etc. What if i told you that there IS enough and abundance is readily available to anyone and everyone who simply accepts it and detaches themselves from their old way of thinking.
I just spent a week in beautiful Santorini teaching a yoga retreat. Literally, a dream come true from me. But, it hasn't always been this way. I have struggled a lot in this department over the last couple years. It has taken me years to grow the balls to finally turn my dreams into reality. And it didn't happen overnight and I would love to say that I no longer doubt myself, but that's not the truth either. I do still doubt myself, but I know better than to listen to those condescending voices in my head now. I know that failure isn't the end of the world anymore. Dreams really do come true. But it all starts and ends with you. I wanted to share my tips for making your dreams come true because nothing lights me up more than you seeing you rock the shit out of your life. A couple tips I have for making your dreams become a reality are as follows:
Have you ever wondered why some people like certain people while other people despise them? Ever wonder why you might admire certain personality traits while other people can't stand them? Well, I hate to point out the obvious, but it actually has very little to do with that person or trait, it has more to do with YOU. Still in disbelief? Read on. Whether or not we judge people for the better or worse, we are still judging them. There are three main reasons why we judge people, here they are:
Do you love yourself? I mean really love yourself. Like, when there's no one listening to your answer, do you love yourself? Sometimes it seems hard to tell if your actions and thoughts are products of self love or self loathing, but when we're really honest with ourselves, we can tell the difference. More importantly, we can feel the difference. I'm sure you understand the importance of self-love. Imagine what a negative impact it would have on your life to be married to someone who constantly put you down, called you bad names, be-littled you, didn't believe in you, and downright hated you. Worse than that, imagine that that negative and toxic person always making you feel inadequate... is you. Imagine hating yourself. How are you expected to do great things in this life if you hate yourself? Having
Our self worth is so important to our overall happiness. And I believe that happiness is the most important thing in life. You can have everything in the world, yet, if you're not happy, YOU'RE NOT HAPPY! So what is the point of any of it? I believe that happiness is the goal for everyone, whatever you're trying to achieve, its because deep down you have a desire to be happy. It saddens me that so many girls these days attach their self worth and happiness to their appearance. I feel like this is a heavy subject that is overlooked way too much these days. Its a subject that's very important to me because I value happiness so much... and... I have been there, too. This isn't really something I've shared before, so be kind please.
It breaks my heart that I feel the need to sit down and write this blog, that so many people do not love themselves. In fact, I bet the vast majority of people don't completely love themselves. THAT breaks my heart. I get it though, I can totally relate. There are so many factors influencing our perception of beauty all of which put an immense pressure on us to look, act, and be a certain way. It starts with our childhood when our brains are still developing and creates negative thought patterns that if we don't work to overcome, will stick with us for the rest of our lives... So scary!
I truly think that anything in life is a practice. If you want to be happy, practice being happy. If you want to be healthy, practice being healthy. If you want to be mindful, practice being mindful. You get it. This is why they say that yoga is a practice- because you're never done. There is no destination, you're always continuing to better yourself through a practice of self-love, mindfulness, stretching, and strengthening. Same with life, right? For a while now, I've been practicing gratitude and goal setting and am happy to introduce to you what I consider to be my most powerful practice for success: journalling.
It's not what we do that makes us happy, it's how we do it. You can have the best lifestyle ever, you can have more than everything you need, yet still be unhappy with your life. It's true that money cannot buy you happiness, but gratitude sure can! ...
Every action, word and thought you put into the world has an impact on your life and on your environment (this includes people who are near you, too). Be careful with what you put out there. Are you making a positive difference or a negative one?
There is no such thing as a good day or a bad day. The sun will simply rise and all natural life will continue on its own way of survival. A squirrel cannot have a bad day. The biggest difference between a squirrel and a human is our ability to think, analyze, and then overthink everything haha. If you can control your thoughts, you'll never have a bad day.
If you're not a regular meditation practitioner, you probably think meditation is a waste of time. I admit, I used to be one of those people. I had heard about all the benefits from meditation, and while I believed it to be true, I thought I was doing just fine on my own. I guess I assumed it was normal to be anxious after breakfast if I wasn't doing something active.
There are so many opportunities in our everyday activities to add a little more yoga. Here are only fifteen of them. Use the comment box below to share more when you come up with them!
You can be happy, healthy, and amazing everyday. Start it off with these tips to insure your day is as badass, spectacular, and memorable as you are.
