Difficult People

I do a LOT of relationship coaching. Makes sense, right? It’s one of the most important aspects of our lives, healthy relationships. So let’s dive into this.

 Why bother with this relationship?

Here’s a question that I’ve wondered, and I hear my clients ask sometimes too – especially when the relationship just seems so challenging, so much work to maintain, we ask ourselves, “why bother with this relationship anyway?”

Let’s address it in the context of marriage. Why bother with getting married, or staying married, when you know – either first hand, or from watching other people – how difficult marriage is?

Relationships & Expectations 

I think it’s really easy to get confused about what marriage is for. I see this all the time. And I know it all too well, from my own experience of being married for twenty-seven years. 

We come into marriage or a committed relationship with expectations of how the other person is going to make us so happy.  We have needs and...

Naturopathic Medicine with Dr. Allison Brumley

I recently interview Dr. Allison Brumley, a dear friend, about her journey to becoming a naturopathic doctor.  We discussed everything from what inspired her to study naturopathic medicine to how she feels about intuitive eating.   I was very inspired and uplifted by her insights and knowledge about the human body and I think that you will be too.  I'm sharing some of the highlights here, but if you want the full experience be sure to listen to the podcast!  Here are the insights about naturopathic medicine from Dr. Allison Brumley.  No matter what your beliefs are about naturopathic medicine, you can learn from this amazing woman.

Dr. Brumley has weathered the storms of life graciously and has an amazing outlook on how the body works as a whole and how we can better serve our bodies, minds, and spirits.   We can all benefit from her knowledge and experience.  I asked her the following questions and these were her answers:

 Can you ...

Your Intuition Matters

Today we are going to dive into the topic, intuition. I am going to talk about it in three different contexts: physical or body intuition, mental or cognitive intuition, and spiritual intuition. You do not have to be a guru of any sort to practice living more intuitively. I know this topic can seem a little intimidating to a lot of people – We tend to be highly cognitive.  In our heads all the time.   I’d like to address it in practical terms with practical ways to apply living intuitively.

Body Intuition

Here are some examples of what I’m talking about: Let’s get specific, starting with body intuition: I’ve noticed that women lose touch with knowing what to eat because there is so much advice and conflicting information about nutrition and wellness out there – and as we get older and maybe a little dissatisfied with the changes our bodies go through, as our metabolisms change from hormone fluctuations of the normal life cycle of being a female, it is di...

Cultivating Hope In Uncertainty

How self-awareness matters

Self-awareness if the foundation of a solid mental health strategy. Taking care of your brain.  Your mental health really matters.  So taking care of your brain is so important.  When I think of the opposite of mental health, it’s mental illness.  Mental health can affect every part of a persons life and the lives of those around them.  Mental health can get in the way of peoples abilities to connect with other people.  Most of us go through life unaware of how to heal those parts of us that need some care and loving attention.  I’m here to help you heal yourself.  I’ve devoted most of my own adult life to my own healing journey and I love sharing what I’ve learned.  

Anxiety amongst the circumstances of 2020

It’s fall of 2020 and we are still dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.  I’m seeing a lot of anxiety. I’m seeing a Hyperawareness of how the world has changed.  We are micromanaging our physical health and then on...

With the current circumstances of a pandemic happening and a polarized election around the corner, there is a collective amount of anxiety and overwhelm happening with individuals and families. I’ve been busier than ever lately with coaching.

I want to help you if you are having a difficult time navigating the restlessness going on in our country and within your own head and heart space.

When anxiety comes on, we have choices, but often times we don't think we do. We don’t have to be consumed in the overwhelm and shut down, or rely on ‘hope’ that things get better.

Instead, we can utilize some powerful anxiety coping tools and call upon our ability to be present, practice mindfulness, and cultivate some inner resilience.

Here’s what I’ve noticed as a student of psychology, a yoga instructor for over twenty years, and in my coaching practice. There are three different ways anxiety comes up for most of us, but for now I’m going to focus on the number one cause, our Though...

Not sure what to do about the school year yet? Are you spinning in confusion about what to do – home learning or send them?

We’re in the same boat over here … on the one hand it’s my son’s senior year in high school and he loves his friends, he’s really missed them, he loves his extra-curricular activities – swim team, debate team, and chamber orchestra; all of those are up in the air.

My 14 year old, he loves getting out of the house and seeing his friends too, school has always been about the friends and change of scene for him, so we’re figuring things out.

But I wanted to tell you our story of how we homeschooled for seven years, why we chose to public school when we did, and some of the lessons we’ve learned from our experience in hopes of helping you decide.

I cannot tell you that homeschool was ever ‘easy’ and that it’s for everyone, mainly because there is a heightened sense of responsibility we take on for our children in wanting them to do well and be prepared...

The million dollar question for me has always been – why do I think about my body all the time? And why do my yoga clients? And why do my performing arts students?

You probably won’t be shocked to know that I chose to deep dive into this work because of my own challenges and struggles with body image and chronic dieting, so figuring out how I could do this? How I could figure it out for myself, and my yoga clients, my music students, my beautiful daughter, and still feel like I could enjoy food and life without all my mental band width being taken up on body image and confusion about what to eat. That was something I really wanted to solve and I did and I have and I want to share it with you.

I started worrying about body image in my early Teens when I was cast in our high school musical as the lead, Miss Lolita Banana of Havana, Cuba and learned that I would have to traipse around the stage, dancing and singing in a bathing suit. The musical is called Damn Yankees and I did...

 Basic Sheet Cake For Any Occasion

Dry Ingredients:

2.5 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder (heaping)

1 tsp salt

1.5 cups sugar

Wet Ingredients:

1 cup whole milk

¼ cup sour cream

1 Tblsp. Vanilla

1 Tblsp Almond Extract

6 egg whites

¾ cup butter

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare sheet pan with parchment paper.

• Set butter and sugar aside for a moment.

• Sift dry ingredients (except sugar): flour, baking powder, salt. I use a wire whisk in a big bowl and get the dry ingredients to a super fluffy state, fully incorporated.

• In a separate bowl: Blend egg whites, milk, extracts and sour cream.

• In the mixer bowl (I use my Kitchenaid) beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and beat again until creamy and pale.

• Add half of the dry ingredients until crumbly. Then add half of the wed ingredients into mixture. Scrape down the bowl and add the rest of the dry ingredients a little at a time, then slowly add remaining wet ingredients. Beat until co
...

When I hear the word bias, I think of either news organizations that slant their coverage to favor one political position over another or racial prejudice.

I learned about cognitive bias in my psychology courses in college —the collection of faulty ways of thinking that is apparently hardwired into the human brain. The collection is large. Wikipedia’s “List of cognitive biases” contains 185 entries, that is a significant amount!

Some of the biases are not a big deal at all, like the Ikea effect, for instance, which is defined as “the tendency for people to place a disproportionately high value on objects that they partially assembled themselves.” I know this one all too well.

But If I had to single out a particular bias as the most pervasive and damaging, it would probably be confirmation bias. That’s the effect that leads us to look for evidence confirming what we already think or suspect, to view facts and ideas we encounter as further confirmation, and to discount ...

Lately, under the Quarantine circumstances, I’ve been helping clients feel better, and it has led me to think of how I can help my readers get better at feeling their feelings without judgement.

Many of my clients are saying things like, “I shouldn’t feel this way because I’m so blessed,” or “I don’t want to feel so worried about everything, but I can’t help it.”

I help them see that they are resisting uncomfortable emotions. But this isn’t the answer to feeling better.

It is not an easy skill to do, to get good at feeling your feelings while they are happening.

It is common for us to hide our emotions from other people while they are happening, because often times, it is inconvenient to express them in certain circumstances and can be inappropriate. But what tends to happen is we become really good at suppressing and avoiding our feelings as a habit, which can cause problems, the main one being, feeling awful and not knowing why.

Suppressed emotion doesn’t just go awa...