Have you ever wondered how you’re supposed to get it all in? (work, family, nutrition, exercise, meditation, journaling, pets, community, etc, etc, etc)

Sometimes, it can feel like self-care is just a whole other list of stuff to add to your already-packed day. 

When I first started paying attention to this thing called self-care, it took me around 90 minutes to do my routine in the morning. My kids were little at the time and they woke up early, so I decided to get up even earlier. That meant I had to get up at 5:00am to get it all in. My son, Oakley, had some sort of 6th sense, though, and he would hear me sneaking downstairs. 

That meant that many mornings I would be trying to meditate while Oakley would nestle in my lap and stroke my eyebrows, sucking away on his thumb. (He had this weird but endearing thing for eyebrows and brush cuts.)

Then I would try to do some yoga and he would crawl all over me while I attempted to breathe deeply, be patient and get the...

2 things to share with you today. 

First, I’m hosting a complimentary community call on Saturday October 2nd enticingly titled (insert fanfare noises) The ¾ Year Review.

If you feel like: 

• you’re always on the go 
• that your life is very busy and stressful
• there don’t seem to be enough hours in the day 
• you kind of have that ‘wind-blown look’ just from day to day living;

this call will help you get a handle on things.

One of the key teachings in Courageous Self-Care is to create a better relationship with time, and one way to do that is to look to the past with gratitude (rather than regret) and towards the future with anticipation (rather than fear).

During this 90 minute workshop-style call, you’ll get practical experience in honouring what has already happened and then we’ll set some intentions for the final quarter of 2021 so that you finish strong, clear and content.

You can expect to leave the call...

If you make your own smoothies, you’ll know that it’s more of an art than a science. I mean, sometimes I use the exact same ingredients on consecutive days, and one day it will be a lovely shade of enticing bright green and the next it’s some weird shade of brown. Kind of like Yoda’s bog. It’s inexplicable.

My husband, Paul, and I alternate who makes breakfast, because we generally like a hot cooked meal like a veggie stir fry, oatmeal or avocado toast. We include smoothies as often as possible. In our house, it’s a well known fact that my smoothies generally taste better than Paul’s. After all, I won the food studies award all three years in high school (which I thought was completely embarrassing at the time but now seems to come in handy).

Paul’s smoothies tend to be more on the experimental side, as in raw broccoli or cauliflower mixed with some fruit and maybe some almond milk. If you’re thinking that sounds gross, then,...

As I gaze out our front floor to ceiling window for inspiration, I see a gorgeous tall tree that’s turning from green to glorious yellow. It’s hugging the side of a stylish brick building where the sun is casting its leafy shadows. The sky is bright blue and it feels like a day full of promise.

I’ve got some medicinal teas percolating on the stove and the house to myself. What riches.

Now that you’ve got a good idea of my whereabouts, I’ve also got 3 things to tell you.

Thing 1

Tomorrow (September 15) is the end of the Earlybird Special for the book study that’s starting soon. It’s the most influential, game-changing book I’ve ever read, which is why I’m so keen to share it and you’re invited! All the details are at this link. 

Thing 2

One of the most important tenets of self-care is learning how to listen to your intuition and then trust it enough to act on it, even (and especially) when it’s...

Do you try really hard but don’t get the results you would expect for all the effort you’re putting in?

Would you say you’re a good student of life but you’re kind of (secretly) disappointed in how the Universe shows up for you?

Are you on a spiritual path but it just seems to be going reeeaallllly sloooooowwwwwllly?

That’s definitely where I was a few years ago. Pre-pandemic, really. I was doing all the things I’d been taught to do (meditation, gratitude, yoga, breathwork, journaling, etc) and yet it felt like A LOT of effort for kind of mediocre results.

Then we went into isolation and it was a huge gift because all of a sudden, I had time to do a course I’d been gifted called The Energy Codes, with Dr Sue Morter. It had sat in the ethers for many months but with us not going anywhere, Presto! - I made it happen.

And I fell in love. It felt like I had finally come home. Like everything I’d done up to that point had led me to that...

A few weeks ago, I had one of the scariest experiences of my life. My daughter had an unexpected medical emergency in the middle of the night and it sent me into a panic. (As in I couldn’t even remember how to dial 911 panic. I totally forgot about the “send” part to connect the call.)

As someone who doesn’t normally panic, it was a humbling experience. My husband is highly trained in first aid, so he attended to Zoe in a much more level headed way. At one point, he told me to get dressed so I could get in the ambulance when it arrived.

That clicked and I ran downstairs. It was then that I remembered my choice to trust in the Universe. In the midst of the nightmare, I decided to trust that everything was working out for our highest good. 

Once I remembered to trust, I was able to take some slow deep breaths and become more helpful and less of an issue.

Everything worked out better than we could have expected and Zoe is totally fine, thank goodness.

The...

Were you brought up to believe that working hard is the key to a successful life? That was the vibe for me. As the descendent of Germans, Hungarians, Irish, Scots and Ukrainians, putting in a solid effort was the only option for my pioneering ancestors.

During World War II, my grandfather walked/escaped with his family from the Ukraine to Berlin. His mother had a baby on the way (adding to her other 5 children), as they hid in barns and begged for food to stay alive. In Berlin, he met my grandmother (who had survived her mother’s death and then abandonment from the rest of her family), wooed her, married her and then convinced her to join the rest of his family who was leaving Europe behind for the unknown jungles of… Paraguay.

It was a large Mennonite community who boarded boats and made their way to a basically uninhabitable piece of land in Paraguay, called the Chaco. Other groups had tried to make a life there but had left after only a few weeks because the...

Several years ago, I was reading a great magazine called the Intelligent Optimist (which is sadly now out of print). It had one of those “In” and “Out” columns, as in what’s in and what’s out. 

I noticed that it said Balance was out and Harmony was in.

That got me to thinking. A lot. I was captivated by the notion and found myself doing a deep dive into considering why balance might be out and harmony might be in. I did some research into the concepts, and then I decided to see what my body had to say.

It confirmed what the Intelligent Optimist had suggested. Balance was indeed “out”. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. Balance is definitely important when you’re doing things like walking (especially on tight ropes) or canoeing or taking a tour on a Stand Up Paddleboard. It’s good for tree pose, standing on ladders and high-heeled escapades.

But if you’re trying to live your life so that it fits into one of...

I just told my daughter, Zoe, the title of this week’s blog post and asked her if she could guess what JOMO was. She asked, “Joy of missing out?” 

“Yes!” I replied with surprise. “How did you know?”

“Just because of who you are,” she answered. Awww. Isn’t that so sweet?

Then we had fun thinking of some other J-word possibilities:

Joseph of Missing Out

Jello of Missing Out

Jiggly of Missing Out

So really, you see, joy is the only option.

Now, here’s what I want to share with you about FOMO and JOMO. ( By the way, I didn’t come up with JOMO. A few months ago, I was searching for an image that could depict FOMO and I saw some photos that said The Joy of Missing Out. I thought it was brilliant and tucked it into my back pocket, knowing it would come in handy at some point. We're at that point now!) 

Last week, the fam and I were getting ready to go backpacking into the wilds of the Rocky...

Let's get right to it and let's be blunt, shall we? This past Sunday kind of sucked. Of course, even in the middle of something sucking, I’m thinking: This will make a great blog post as soon as I get through it! Sure enough, I got through it (with tear-streaked mascara tracks running down my face for much of it) and it seemed like there was some gold in there for you, which makes it all worthwhile.

What I wanted to share with you are 3 important things to know about thoughts.

1-Thoughts are magnetic

When you have an uplifting thought, other thoughts of the same frequency want to join in the fun, which is very nice.

On the flipside, when you have a thought that’s pessimistic, negative, sarcastic, resentful, angry and so on, you’ll notice many of its cronies seem to flood your brain. 

Case in point. On Sunday, I was cleaning our fantastic new home while my family did other things. A little pity party started brewing with a thought like: Why am I the only...