The HAPPY Series: Have Gratitude

Are you a worrier?  Do you feel like you spend too much of your time focusing on what could go wrong instead of noticing what is going right in your life?

What about feeling like you need to be perfect?  Does it seem like all you do is try to measure your life against other people’s lives and always feel like you’re falling short of some ‘ideal life’?

And how are your stress levels lately?  Are you constantly feeling the pressure to get things right and maybe even feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders?

Do these sound familiar?

You’re not alone!  I think most of us can relate to some or all these issues, whether they are temporary problems or feel more like a permanent fixture in our lives.

How Hitting Rock Bottom Has Been the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me

This is by far the scariest post I’ve ever written.  I am used to putting on a smile and presenting a perfect picture to the world, so admitting that it’s not true is terrifying.  And to be honest, I’ve spent so much time lately focused on helping other people and giving advice on how they can find their own happiness, that it seems weird to spend an entire post talking about myself.  

I do realize, however, that my story might resonate with some of you out there.  My hope is that you will see that you are not alone.  I’d like at least one person out there to read this all the way to the end and see that there is a happy ending.  Hopefully by sharing my story I can help you find your own strength to keep fighting for your own happy ending.

What Is Balance & How Do I Find It?

A lot of people talk about finding balance or promote the idea of living a balanced life, but what does balance actually mean?  Is it the same for everyone?  And how do you get it?  

Sometimes we can get so lost in the process of trying to find balance that we don’t really stop and think about why it matters.  Today I’m going to talk about different ways to determine what balance looks like for you and then we’ll dive into some ways to go about finding it.

What is life balance, anyway?

How Living Mindfully Has Changed My Whole Life

Over the course of the last four weeks, I’ve taken you through a lot of information about mindfulness and given you many examples of how it could help you live a happier life.  What I’d like to do today is explain why living mindfully means so much to me personally and to also walk you through a few ways that it has changed my life. And when I say that, I mean it literally.  Ever since starting to practice mindfulness last August, my life has completely changed in the best ways possible.

I’m much happier with who I am. I’m less stressed about the little things. I’m not worried about the future.

The 3 Most Surprising Benefits of Mindfulness

I have to be honest…my life has been pretty darn busy lately. Not only did I launch this site, but I also immediately jumped into publishing a 6-week series about mindfulness. And on top of that I’m putting together a free 3-week mindfulness challenge (which you can read more about and sign up for here). To make it even more interesting, I started all this a couple of days before I had surgery to get my gallbladder removed. That probably sounds like a good amount of extra-curricular activities, right?  Well apparently, not quite.  

7 Signs That You'll Love Living a More Mindful Life

In the first couple weeks of this blog series, I’ve been explaining what mindful living is and have given some examples of how you can bring more mindfulness into your life. If you missed those blog posts, you can click here to go check them out. We’ve already talked about a few of the ways that you can tell if living more mindfully will help you become happier, but I wanted to dive a little deeper and give you 7 signs that prove you will love adding more mindfulness into your life.

A Step-By-Step Guide to Mindfulness 101

“Life is short.”  “Live life to the fullest.“  “You only live once.”  People give this type of advice all the time. But, it’s easier said than done. In our busy world, time flies by and we barely remember the drive home from work, let alone take the time to appreciate the scenery.   But it doesn’t have to be that way.  We CAN live life to the fullest. We CAN appreciate every moment. We CAN enjoy ourselves every single day.  How is this possible?

Can Mindfulness Solve All Your Problems?

Have you ever gotten in the car to drive home and then tuned out so much that you pulled into your driveway and don’t remember the drive at all?  It can be kind of scary to think that you were so engrossed in something else that you can't even remember driving your car.  Thankfully, that muscle memory of driving a familiar route is what got you home safely.  But what if we’re doing more than just driving mindlessly?  What if we’re living our entire lives on auto-pilot?