A toxic family leaves imprints upon children and grandchildren that often last a lifetime. Low self-worth minimizes realization of personal potential. Social awkwardness or isolation diminishes quality of life. Many have a relentless desire to fill a vast gap within the heart, one that drives drug, alcohol, food or sex addiction. It’s a rare family that values love beyond control and chooses to proactively address toxic dynamics. Often family members, through good intention, place Band-Aids atop dysfunction. A wound is […]
Spiritual terms are confusing–especially in a yoga and wellness market bombarded with mixed messaging. Enhanced wellbeing is experienced through spiritual growth, so it’s important to break through the lingo and be empowered along the way. Here are my NINE TOP SPIRITUAL TERMS EXPLAINED: The Great I/Self The greatest reality, the oneness and truth from which individual experience arises and to which it returns. Known by many names including consciousness, the natural state, presence, the Great I is most profoundly experienced in […]
A toxic boss can push triggers throughout the day so it’s no surprise we leave work exhausted and frustrated. Once we awaken to recognize life is a transformative journey, it’s ideal to work independently or in collaboration with like-hearted individuals. Here’s why: If you value connection, mentoring and supporting others, a toxic boss pressures you to fall in line, play by his/her rules and align to an egoically-structured model. We’re left with inner dissonance: It’s frustrating to align to denser energies–such […]
The future of wellness is intuitive, sustainable and silent. We’ll value refined awareness, choose connection over isolation and eat intuitively. It’s easy to foresee and here’s why: Collective wellbeing mirrors individual transformation. If you know personal development of true wellbeing, you also know the journey of the collective. It goes something like this: We each seek happiness. Much of life is a relentless pursuit of this desire through possessions, titles, educational degrees, accolades and more. Along the way, each of us […]
Stress levels in Boston are high. Walk into a coffeehouse on a Sunday and you’ll see rows of professionals and students transfixed to laptops compensating for hours that evaporated during a busy week. For me, this is opportunity. I’m soon to move to Cambridge with an easy walk to Harvard Square. I help people understand stress and cut through worldly noise to connect with their truth. Brain and body can only receive so much information before there’s overflow, what we […]
A second chance in relationship offers potential for true intimacy – especially if you’re each worn out from the battles of ego and its struggle to dominate and be right. Ego wants to divide and separate. True intimacy is a shared depth of inner joy and spiritual contentment. It is the experience of each other and our world through this understanding. Intimacy begins when each person takes responsibility for their own happiness. Inner wellbeing arises as a result and reliance […]
My eating disorder began at 17, just before start of studies at Uni. Raised in a family that emphasized persona, my guise became perfection. Through grades, wardrobe, friends, weight – or lack thereof. A perfect persona translated to perfect love; to fall short of perfection was to be unlovable. For eight years, as I desperately sought love through perfection, my self-hatred intensified. I thought myself never good enough. At anything. I saw therapists and doctors, yet was too ashamed to divulge that […]
Going no contact with my narcissistic family was the most difficult time of my life. I was submerged in a whirlpool of tears: Would I be sucked down? Could I catch a breath? Or emerge anew? My son’s recent high school graduation allowed me to reflect further upon the pain of leaving family to become whole, to gather strewn parts of myself and bathe them in love. The Dance at 18 As my son and his classmates danced hula during […]
Learn about your brain and you’ll understand many of your habits–including why it’s so challenging to step away from a digital device. Every time we try something new, a combination of brain cells connect to create a pathway that supports learning. The more the circuit is connected, the stronger it gets. The less a pathway is used, the weaker it becomes. Neuroplasticity: The Brain’s Ability to Change For those who choose to learn throughout life, neuroplasticity is a particularly exciting […]
I took the off-road journey to self-love: the white knuckling, dust-in-the-mouth, barren path of addiction. My body became a shell and I nearly died. Yet in the most wondrous of ways, my heart was broken wide open. For eight years, whilst an outwardly ambitious grad student and young professional, I had a major eating disorder. It consumed my thoughts, smothered my esteem and ravaged by body. Each day saw the obsessive pursuit of easy-to-purge foods and a subsequent quest for […]