What happens when we intentionally and consistently use affirmations? Big things start to shift! Affirmations help to deprogram harmful thought patterns. You know the ones. The ones that tell you you aren’t worthy, you aren’t enough, you don’t belong. It’s time for those thoughts to go! They aren’t yours.

When we practice using affirmations a shift in our emotions, habits, and thought patterns begin to happen, leading us to live in closer alignment to our true, compassionate selves.

You deserve to feel empowered, worthy, and authentic, and you don’t have to wait around for someone to give it to you! Empower yourself today by using these affirmations. As always, take what you need, leave the rest.

Most of us have heard of the body positivity movement, and while its intentions are good, unconditionally loving one’s body and appearance can seem unrealistic to a lot of people, especially when we consider that 80% of women and 34% of men reported being dissatisfied with their bodies That’s why we want to share a middle ground with you, body neutrality, a place where liking your body isn’t a prerequisite for feeling good about yourself.

According to philosopher Khen Lampert, radical compassion is a specific kind of empathy directed towards the distress of others. This type of empathy is called radical because it includes the inner imperative to change reality in order to alleviate the pain of others. According to Lampert, this state of mind is universal and stands at the root of the historical cry for social change. Radical compassion means total compassion with nothing excluded. Radical self-compassion applies this empathy to the self. Here are 3 practices for exercising radical self-compassion for the wellbeing of yourself and all living things.

We say yes a lot, and if you’re anything like us you might have a habit of saying it when you don’t always mean it. We do this for so many reasons – we don’t want to say no in fear that we won’t be asked to hang out again, we might fear disappointing someone by not agreeing to help, or we might worry about being perceived as lazy or unproductive. Whatever the reason is, by justifying why we constantly need to satisfy others, we in turn our betraying our own self-respect. The thing is, your time is never less worthy than someone else’s. Once we reconnect with our awareness and see how truly valuable our time, space and energy are, we can be better equipped to know where to set our boundaries and how to honor them; and sometimes that means saying “No.”

The past few weeks have been emotional. It’s June 2020 and communities across the United States and all over the world, are coming together to stand and fight for change. It’s been both heartbreaking and inspiring. And as we confront systemic and institutionalized white supremacy, and work to eliminate and counteract racism, we must not forget about taking care of ourselves. Remember, the fight doesn’t stop. Our collective strength will continue, and our voices will be heard.

It’s okay to take a moment to recollect ourselves, because by neglecting self-care we run the risk of burnout and exhaustion. Self-care is essential to maintain our energy and motivation, because the fight doesn’t stop.

Need a break? Experiencing exhaustion, distraction, or stress that seems to last forever? You might be experiencing burnout, but no need to panic! We’ve created a 5 step guide to help you overcome burnout. Read below to find out more about what burnout is, signs and symptoms, and how to get back to focusing on living a better life!

Self care doesn’t have to be a face mask and a glass of red wine (although those sound great too) it can also be as simple as learning how to say no, asking your body what it needs, saying goodbye to a toxic relationship, or just taking a moment to sit outside.

Let’s use this Valentine’s Day as a reminder to nurture ourselves and to reconnect with who we are. We’ve picked 5 self care tips to help you reconnect with yourself this Valentine’s Day (and any day).

WHY CARDS?

We’ve talked before about how powerful positive affirmations are in our blog post You Are Not Your Appearance. They are used to help us decrease negative self-talk and improve self-esteem. There is even MRI evidence that suggests certain neural pathways are positively activated during self-affirmative tasks. (Cascio et al., 2016) The benefits of affirmations are abundant but how can we use them in our day-to-day life? 

It’s recommended to be consistent when practicing positive affirmations. It’s important to recite them often and biggest of all: believe them! A great way to use affirmations is by creating your own affirmation deck of cards. Conveniently sized, the cards can serve as pocket-book sized reminders of your worth wherever you are. Gift them to friends, leave them on a stranger’s car, or use your whole deck by shuffling them and choosing one card to focus on each day, week, or month. 

GROWING INTO OURSELVES IS A JOURNEY.

It can be painful, tricky, misleading, and complicated. It’s only natural to look to others to determine our place in the world. Many of us have grown used to defining our worth through our job title, the amount of likes we receive, grades, age, etc. And oftentimes we find ourselves looking to our appearance and comparing it to that of other people in order to place ourselves.

Self worth is how we view ourselves and the value that we believe we have. How we measure our worth is the important part.