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Happy Thanksgiving!! Level up your Gratitude all year long in 1...2...3..

11/17/2021

Thanksgiving is a wonderful reminder that a life well lived is one full of gratitude and thankfulness. Here are 3 easy ways to cultivate more gratitude in your life all year long!

1. Appreciate everything
Gratitude doesn’t have to be saved for the “big” things in life. The habit of being grateful starts with appreciating every good thing in life and recognizing that there is nothing too small for you to be thankful for. It can be as simple as appreciating the sunshine on your face or your delicious cup of coffee or tea.
2. Find gratitude in your challenges
As Aristotle said, “It is in our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
What this quote implies is that gratitude is not only about being thankful for our positive experiences, sometimes our most challenging experiences can lead us to discovering new levels of gratitude. Dig deep into some of your own past or present experiences and look for that light. Many times, you will find that the challenge or experience has led you to a deeper understanding of your compassion, empathy , strength wisdom and more.
3. Practice mindfulness
Set some time aside every day to write down five to ten things you are grateful for. With each item on your list, picture it in your mind and sit with it until you can feel the feeling of gratitude in your body. “Sciency” Fun Fact! By doing this exercise every day will rewire your brain to be naturally more grateful!

xox Genia

What is your favorite way to incorporate thankfulness into your every day? Let us know, we would love to hear from you

One Minute Mindfulness

10/11/2021

‘Being present’ and ‘mindfulness’ are major buzzwords in self-improvement these days. And not without reason. Have you ever noticed how many things in a day you do automatically, with your mind wandering or elsewhere? We get dressed, we drive, we interact with our partners, eat, etc. all while thinking about something or someone else. We live so much of our lives on auto-pilot.
I know there are many definitions of mindfulness out there, some of them are lengthy and perhaps confusing, some make the practice seem complicated. It really doesn’t have to be. There is no right or wrong way to do it, and you have all the tools already inside of you.
Mindfulness is simply, paying attention on purpose to the present moment.
Practicing mindfulness allows us to slow down our racing thoughts and focus on only one thing at a time. You’re not clearing your mind or suppressing your thoughts. Rather, you are focusing your mind right here, right now and learning to accept your thoughts without judgment.
Here are a few quick, easy and fun mindfulness activities to get you started. Play around with them, see which ones work for you. As you’re going through these actions, listen to your breath and focus on the task at hand. Pay attention to your surroundings and when your mind wanders(which it will), bring it back to the present, noting the things that you can hear, see, and feel.
• Take a deep breath.
• Show yourself compassion.
• Write in a journal.
• Stand in the sunshine.
• Move your body.
• Take a walk.
• Make a gratitude list.

If you have any one minute mindfulness exercises you would like to share, I'd Love to hear them! xox GS

Sh!t Just Got Real...

1/19/2020

Close your eyes and imagine that you just bought yourself the most fabulous pair of amazing, kick ass and snazzy new shoes. You’re feeling awesome, got a spring in your step and bouncing into your day full of inspiration, optimism and confidence. You’re bopping along when all of a sudden it happens. Someone, maybe a co-worker, loved one or random stranger at the bust station stops right in front of you, drops their pants and proceeds to produce an enormous, massive, and explosive pile of shit right there, right in front of you. Horrifying, right? So what do you do? You probably wouldn’t think “Oh boy, how wonderful this giant pile of shit is, to hell with my new shoes, let me just jump right in there with both feet and dance around a bit.” More than likely, after your initial horror, you would choose to step around it and keep moving on with your day, leaving the giant pile and its administrator where they are.
So why is it that so often when we are presented with somebody else’s “shit” such as their judgments, opinions, resentments, assumptions and nastiness, do we not only step right into it, but pick it up, play with it, snuggle it close and choose to call it our own? Don’t we have enough of our own shit to deal with? Is there some shit shortage on the horizon that we are stocking up for? Some sort of SHITpocalypse?
Just like when we are stepping out in our brand new fancy shoes, every day is a new day to venture out into the world with our brand new selves and every moment gives us the choice to either jump in to other people’s judgements, fears, resentments and assumptions with both feet or simply step around them and stay in our own lane. Remember; at the end of the day, other people’s shit does not have to become our reality. -G Silva

You've Got to Feel It to Heal It

12/5/2019

Have you noticed lately that it’s become increasingly difficult to avoid, suppress, and force ourselves into fake states of positivity? It seems that, our “negative” emotions are bubbling to the surface where they cannot be ignored any longer. (You will notice I put the word negative in quotes, as I have learned to jump away from the label “negative” because I believe that this becomes a bias, negative=bad . What I’ve written ahead is about “emotions and thoughts” as signals and data. Labeling them, for me simply leads to judgment…)
It’s no wonder so many of us get stuck in the swamp of pessimism, and distractions. Life is challenging! The first necessary step is to actually acknowledge that we are in pain. This sounds incredibly simple, yet so many people choose to fight their symptoms rather than committing to understanding them. But here’s the secret. You ready? “Negative” emotions are not something you need to fight or fix any more than you’d need to fight or fix your immune system as it tries to ward off an infection. The reality is, is that the things we struggle with the most are our greatest sources of empowerment.
I see a lot of hashtags all over social media that seem to put a spotlight on our resistance to pain, like #fightanxiety and #warondepression. And while it’s totally understandable to want to conquer them quickly and hopefully painlessly, thoughts and emotions are not something to be battled and conquered. They don’t need to be fought, but rather acknowledged, listened to and respected.
Because this process has not exactly been front and center of modern mental health movements, committing to your own healing can seem daunting and hopeless. Few people have truly learned how to welcome their painful, suppressed emotions, listen to what they have to say, and come out the other side stronger, wiser and more truly in alignment with who they are.
Here’s the thing: True healing doesn’t look cool. It’s not a fighting and a conquering, True healing requires vulnerability and radical honesty with yourself. The truth is, your “negative” emotions that you have been ignoring, judging harshly, or fighting to get rid of are simply messengers. Your “negative” emotions are ON your side, NOT against you.
There are often several layers of limiting beliefs and fears in our subconscious yet all we ever see are the surface symptoms that show up in the form of depression, anxiety, resentment, fear,bitterness and so on. Like so many of you reading this, I spent much of my life trying to fight or run from my emotions until I learned a much more effective approach: listening to my emotions.
So, if “negative” emotions shouldn’t be fought, ignored, run from or harshly judged, how do we actually heal? While healing is not a one size fits all and each of our journeys may take different forms, here are four concepts that have made a huge transformative impact on my journey.

1. Listen to your Thoughts.
This is the simplest first step you can take. Every time you feel a “negative” thought pop up, no matter what it is, make time that moment to just stop and listen. Actively quiet your mind and let the emotion have space to express itself.
If you prefer, you can also write all your current emotions. What are you currently struggling with? Let that particular emotion speak. A lot of time just getting your thoughts on paper and out of your head will lessen the charge of the emotion and present you with some clarity.

2. Ask questions.
Ask yourself what is this emotion trying to tell me, (is it fear, low self-worth, lack of trust, etc.) or what is really going on here? With focus, and practice, can be surprisingly easy to get answers from your subconscious mind. As soon as these emotions are given time, space, attention, and unconditional love, they waste no time revealing what you need to know.
Maybe the message is simply that you need more time in your day to rest, or that you need to leave a job or relationship. Whether big or small, the guidance you receive will help you shift your life in a way that is more in alignment with who you are. This is the beginning of true healing.
3. Practice gratitude for your emotions. Thank them for showing up
This is probably the most challenging thing on the list. Your emotions really are guiding you and alerting you to what is out of alignment in your life. Left unchecked, our emotions can be like a toddler throwing a tantrum. If we don’t listen, the louder and angrier they become.
Once you literally start to notice how your emotions are just signaling you toward solutions, it becomes much easier to feel grateful for them and trust them! When they do show up, a simple “thank you” will almost immediately lessen the intensity of whatever emotion you are experiencing. This step took me a bit of practice, but over time I found that I could have gratitude for even my most painful emotions without any effort, faking or forcing.

4. Commit to yourself.
When I look back, I see that most of my time was spent desperately trying to rush to the “perfect” life. I wanted to magically arrive at a place where I had no emotional or physical issues, and everything looked perfect on the outside. I was committing to everyone else’s needs, wants and desires around me somehow thinking that my value, worth and happiness was dependent on others’ acceptance. It was during these periods that I felt the most lost, dissatisfied and in pain. The game changer for me was when I realized that it’s only the world on the inside of me that truly, deeply matters.
Committing to yourself means you have decided that no matter what, you’ve got your own back. You will be disciplined with yourself and will not try to skip out on progress and growth for a quick and easy “fix” (sorry, true growth cannot be hacked, fast tracked or a rush job). You will no longer try to appear perfect from the outside and you will give yourself permission to be real, raw and vulnerable with yourself. Once you fully commit to yourself, true healing will occur in the deepest depths of your being leading to deeper awareness, fulfilment, empowerment and inner peace.
Thank you for taking the time to read this! I would love to hear your thoughts!

Are you Happy or Are you Stupid?

7/9/2019

“Are you happy?”
“Not really…”
“Then, you are stupid?”
“No!”
“Happiness isn’t a choice. There are so many things that make us unhappy. There are people who break our hearts…”
“Is that what you believe, that things make you unhappy, that someone can break your heart?”
“Yes.”
“Someone can make you - force to be unhappy, really?”
“Yes. Does that sound stupid?”
“It sounds like you believe it.”
“I can’t help it. Life sucks.”
“Life is full of choices. Do you want to choose unhappiness?”
“If we really do have choices, then of course it would be stupid to choose unhappiness.”
“Exactly.”
“So, are you happy or are you stupid?”
Dialogue Adapted from The Toltec Art of Life and Death by Don Miguel Ruiz.

None of us believe that there are tiny light switches located inside of our skull and attached to our emotions that others can reach in and flip into the “on” or “off” setting. But we are conditioned to believe it is so. We are taught while we are young and then we reinforce those lessons through our language and our behaviors cause us to feel different ways.
We regularly hear and use phrases like:

“They broke my heart”
“She made me feel sad.”
“He made me angry.”
“They offended me.”

But these are false claims based upon absolutely no truth or factual reality. Why don’t we question other people when they make these statements? Why don’t we question ourselves when statements and ideas like these are offered by our internal voice?
Because it’s normal to say and hear phrases like these.
It’s what we learn as we grow up and we begin reinforcing our beliefs in these lessons by using these ideas through our language. Take another look at the dialog at the beginning. Consider the statement,
“Happiness isn’t a choice. There are so many things that make us unhappy. There are people who break our hearts…”
This is a couple of those commonly believed statements jammed into one claim. But can we choose to “be happy” and actually be happy? Not unless we first believe that we actually have a choice.
Do things actually make us unhappy or happy? Yes, if that is what we believe, but we can believe that we control our reaction to things. Again, we have to believe that we have an option first; otherwise we simply default into the mindset of what is socially common. While we are emotionally reacting to something, it isn’t the event or circumstance; it is the meaning we have created around it.
Do other people break our hearts? No, we break our own hearts and are then taught to blame the “other person”. Kyle Cease, comedian and motivational speaker, says that we believe in the meaning around a relationship that we are in and when it ends we might see it as a reflection of “who we are” and thus see ourselves as not worthy. So we are in effect breaking our own hearts by constructing our beliefs around what relationships mean to us. Even if our partner ends the relationship suddenly without explanation or begins a new relationship at the same time, we interpret their external action and react as if their actions cause an emotional response within us, but it is actually our own doing.
It is not just the choice of choosing happiness but the step towards owning the responsibility to choose. When we blame others for how we feel, or blame external circumstances for our internal feelings we are fundamentally giving up our responsibility to feel differently. By owning how we feel and seeing our internal states as a reaction to our beliefs or the resistance to what we don’t want to believe, we take the first step towards constructing our own happiness by taking back the power of choice.
Jesse Silva 7. 10.19

"Running" into Mindfulness

9/6/2018

For the first 30 years of my life I was a runner. Not in the literal sense, per se, although that was certainly the start of it. When I was three, I was on a cruise with my family. The ship was complete with a daycare for little ones like me, so you know, the adults could well, adult. I remember walking into this magical wonderland full of toys, games, swings and bright colors, but even better, there were kids in there just like me! I was in kid cruise heaven! As I scoped out the scene, I spied a huge beautiful slide and I knew right then that would be my first conquest. There were other children in front of me, waiting their turn, so I watched and I waited while my anticipation and excitement grew. It was finally my turn and as I ascended the stairs I heard one child call out “copycat.” At first, I didn’t think much of it but with each step I took, the choir grew. When I finally reached the top, I looked down to survey my descent and saw almost every child (well that’s what it seemed at the time) in that day care surrounding the slide now chanting “copycat copycat” pointing, looking and laughing directly at ME. I slid down the slide, while the tears slid down my face. With each inch of that slide my confusion, hurt, anger, embarrassment, and sadness grew. I reached the bottom, immersed in the cacophony of the “Copy Cat Choir,” and the second my three-year-old feet hit the ground, I ran right out the day care door like a shot out of a starting pistol. Took my little old self away from the pain, the hurt, the embarrassment, and the anger--and it worked. In that moment, my life as the “Forrest Gump” of emotional avoidance began.
And so, for the next 30 years my strategy worked like a charm. Anger? Run. Negativity? Run. Confrontation? Definitely Run. Hurt, Pain Sadness? Run. Argument? Who needs resolution when you can Run. Relationship, job or whatever giving me guff? Just Run Run Run!
So sure, my runaway habit may have led to wrecked relationship and forgotten jobs, and yes I had lost more than a few friends and a couple of husbands along the way. Yet the fallout seemed a small price to pay for the benefit of never having to feel and deal with anything uncomfortable. I was winning the race, right? Maybe not, as my race was about to turn into an obstacle course and I was soon about to find out that all this time I had simply been running from myself.
She may never walk or talk again, I vaguely overheard over the din of monitors, bells, and hallway chatter. I was just opening my eyes for the first time in over 10 days not quite sure of the events preceding. “It was a hemorrhagic stroke” the doctor said, “we have no way of knowing the extent of the damage.” I didn’t like what I was hearing, so true to course, I closed my eyes hoping to run from this horrible dream. I was released a few days later complete with a wheelchair, tons of medication and a full-time nurse.
Physically, the doctor was right. I couldn’t walk and my words, that sounded fine to me on the inside, came out like a garbled mess. There I was, stuck, a prisoner of my own mind with no way, nowhere and no how to run.
Nietzche said, “If you stare at the abyss long enough it will stare back at you”. Oh yeah, I was about to be in the front row for that show and it was going to get rough.
Have you ever had moments when the prospect of revealing your real self-caused you to quake? When sudden feelings of shame, guilt, or embarrassment popped out of nowhere? When you fumed about someone’s words or actions for days? Well, that was me, sitting there, stuck in my head, all my fears, unhelpful thought patterns, and stifled emotions - the whole lot - revealing themselves to me in phenomenal clarity. I couldn’t run from them, physically or mentally. It was like the tape was stuck on repeat over and over in my head. The more I would try to ignore them, the louder and more creative they seemed to get, begging for attention. Then one day, exhausted by this mental marathon, I stopped. I took a deep breath and just stopped. I surrendered.
The next few months was a headfirst dive into the abyss, I leaned way deep down into my darkness, cried myself into exhaustion and gave myself permission to accept and to experience my grief in whatever way it chose to manifest: Depression, anger, despair, isolation, tears and rage. I felt them all, deeply, to my core, but then an amazing thing happened. There was a gift. Facing these wounds one by one in the intimate setting of my own mind was by no means fun. They were truly are awful, to say the least, but one by one a gift arrived when I allowed each wound to heal. It arrived in the form of deeper self-awareness, wisdom, strength, self-love, compassion, empathy, clarity, faith, acceptance and forgiveness. This gift came from owning my feelings and taking full responsibility for my choices. The good, the bad and the ugly.
This deep dive journey has strengthened me, and taking responsibility for all the events in my life has allowed me to embrace myself completely. It has given me the gift of living my own truth, and has led to my most profound healing and the ability to take back my power. I take responsibility for everything that happens in my life and I believe it takes courage, faith and a sprinkle of optimism to see that regardless of all the pain, there is always valuable treasure if you just look.
I look back and know with all my heart and soul that my stroke was the best worst thing that has ever happened to me. It led me to cultivating my own self-love, reconnected me with my true self and my fundamental goodness. I learned how to live dead center in my true self rather than at the edge of my being, scanning for external validation and running from discomfort. My life is filled with beautiful, real, authentic and loving relationships and I have found the joy, fulfilment and inner peace that was waiting for me at the finish line. Funny thing is, it wasn’t out there somewhere… it was inside of me the whole time just waiting for me to stop running.

Conciousness, Mine.

8/28/2018

Jesse Silva, Monday, August 27, 2018

I am actively engaged in diminishing my Ego. I must stay aware of my feelings and reactions to things in my external world which insight my Ego and his many tools and to seek other responses for myself. Figuring out that how I feel at any moment is up to me; in that moment. Because this is true the actions of others don't hurt me, as my Ego would have otherwise lead me to think.
This means that I am no longer the center of my world. Instead I must behave and believe that I am connected with everything, but not more or less important. This is critical because if I see myself as less than important my Ego will grow to protect me. If I see myself as more important, then my Ego will grow to support that perception. And being connected to everything is the only way to stay curious, learning, open and discover novel ways of seeing my life. Without complete connection I cannot see anything but what my Ego would falsely create for me to see.
Everything is connected, but it is in the connections that I must learn to grow. My relationships with anyone I know must be forged with a mindset of disciplined openness. I must see others with compassion and gratitude and imagine their best version, even when I don’t see it. I must remember that there are no Bad Intentions and the proof of this lies in the real fact that each person is doing the best that they can with what they’ve got at every moment. When I am lead astray from this real fact, it is because my Ego is strong if I let it grow to be, and it will always try to paint a grim picture of my life and the people who fill it.
Pain is the reminder for all of this. It exists and persists, but it is not an inevitable force of disheartenment, so I must choose to accept its existence but not to accept it as suffering. I must meet pain head on and use the compassion I have for myself to partner with it, so I can quiet it. I believe the alternative to pain is “to love”.
This is not a mere adjustment of my thoughts about myself in my world, it is seeking the truth inside of fear, anger and hate. The truth about them that I have found is that they have no reason to exist except as a reminder that my Ego would have me believe in them if I didn't believe in love.
I may not have achieved higher consciousness as I am not sure there is a way to tell. I do know that deep curiosity has helped me to see things this way. To continue to question everything seems to keep the journey going and along the way those things (fear, anger and hate) have fallen away as the needless and useless choices that they are.

Resolutions? Nope, not this year!

12/11/2017

Millions of people around the world will be ringing in 2018 with yet another annual proclamation of their Resolutions. Why? Because that’s what we do, that’s what we are taught. Knowing we are going to be asked “What’s your New Year’s Resolution” about 100 times in the first few days of January, we better have an answer or suffer the horrified look we will receive from the questioner!
This is the time of year, once again that we see coaches, lifestyle consultants and a myriad of Facebook memes reminding us of the pressing need to make ‘realistic’ resolutions and offering all kinds of ways to stay on track with them.
Nope. Not me. Not This Year.
The way I look at it, at least for me, it’s pretty pointless waiting all year to decide on one or two things that you kinda, sorta , maybe want to stop or start doing, but that you know full well you’re not really committed to following through with it anyway. Yet year after year in an effort to fit in, combined with a dash of good faith and then sealed with a kiss, poof, just like that; a resolution is born. After a few weeks, we all know what happens. The excitement subsides, the glitz, glimmer and sparkle have lost their shine. We pucker up once again, and kiss our resolutions goodbye. In what seems like a New Year’s minute, our grand intentions are replaced by feelings of failure and we suffer a self-imposed hit to our self-confidence.
So starting this year and for every year hereafter, when presented with the question “So what’s your New Year’s Resolution?” My answer is simple. My answer will be “None “.
Why? Because Resolutions don’t work.
One of the first words that comes to my mind when I think of resolutions is one of the words on my least liked list. Should. Just typing it makes my brain scream “JUDGEMENT”. Needless to say, formulating a resolution on the basis of judgement whether internal or external is to me, not a great foundation for success or a self-esteem booster. A few of the most common resolutions like quitting smoking, going to the gym and eating more healthily are, at the very core, all about what you think you SHOULD do. We base these “should’s” on other people’s expectations or the constant media reminders that we need to “Lose the Flab to Be Fab by Summer” rather than what we really WANT to be doing. So what happens when a resolution is based on a “should”? Many don’t even make it past January because the initial motivation subsides and commitment goes out the window. When we base our resolutions without the foundation of real personal meaning, or as Simon Sinek would say without knowing your “Why” and instead we “should” ourselves into trying to make it happen, the initial burst of motivation that gets us started doesn’t stick around very long.
What about Goals?
Many times, “resolutionists” believe they need to set themselves goals and objectives to see things happen, but I think they’re missing the point. Such goals, in and of themselves, aren’t sustainable. Setting goals that lack personal meaning (there’s that “why” again) is essentially pointless. Resolutions are like goals in that they’re about getting more of something. You are basically putting a spotlight between where you are now and where you’d like to be, which instantly makes where you are right now a place you don’t want to be. The very nature of goals is focus on what’s next, never at what’s now and this can hurt your self-confidence and esteem. Once you reach a goal, what’s next? Gotta have another goal. Then another, then another. You are always chasing the next thing! When do you get to stop and just enjoy life right where you are?
Why wait?
January 1st come and goes. Very quickly, the decorations are put away, the revelry subsides and all of a sudden the realization that you now have a whole year stretching ahead of you and summer is 6 months off. When you’re well intentioned resolution isn’t based on real personal meaning, the motivation that you felt when you proclaimed your plan can begin to feel like a burden, real fast.
My question is, why wait all year to make a choice about something anyway? Why wait for one particular day to make a decision, when there are 364 other great decision-making days available to you?
Revolution Personal Evolution
For me, living a fulfilled life is not about making some grand yet half-hearted decisions that don’t really mean anything or proclaiming a BS resolution because we feel we “should”. I invite you to join me to flip the script on “Resolutions”. Instead, let’s greet the New Year with the warm embrace of Personal Evolution. Let us resolve to make confident choices EVERY DAY OF THAT YEAR that propel us forward towards the best version of ourselves based on things that are more meaningful, fundamental, and in alignment to what really matters to us, and jump in with both feet.
Who’s with me??

Are you ready to unleash your AWESOME? Email me anytime! gsilva@raindancelife.com

What if pain, heartache and struggle are the ways which lead to abundance and joy?

11/16/2017

At many times during my journey, this life has broken me. I have been torn apart by betrayal, abuse and loss and have felt the abyss of despair so deeply that at times I really wasn’t sure how or even that I would survive. In his book, Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday refers to these times as “Fight Club Moments”. Ryan offers that “Every great or significant life change comes from an event in which a person is thoroughly demolished, and everything they thought they knew is proven untrue–and from there they have to decide whether to get back up or stay on the ground.” This concept has so resonated with me, as throughout all I have experienced I have never viewed myself as a victim and I have always looked for meaning in the soul crushing chaos of my emotions. Even during the most devastating of circumstances, and I have had a few, I trusted that someday it would all make sense, that there was, in fact, a method to the madness and that if given some time, the lesson would become clear and that I would be better and maybe even stronger for having survived.
It blows my mind that it is so easy for people to dismiss or label as “Woo-Woo” or whimsical those who say things like “everything happens for a reason” or “there’s always a silver lining”” and fashionable to even ridicule and reject the idea that one becomes stronger by taking responsibility for everything in their lives, yes, even the things that majorly suck. Some self-proclaimed “experts” claim that this mindset can be viewed as dismissive to the process of grief. I have read and heard it said that this kind of help doesn’t really help at all.
As I take a pause, take a beat and take a breath, let me say I fully, wholeheartedly and unequivocally disagree. I have dived headfirst into the abyss, leaned way deep down into my darkness, cried myself into exhaustion and given myself permission to accept and to experience my grief in whatever way it chooses to manifest: Depression, Anger, Despair, Isolation, Tears, Rage. Yes, yes I have felt them all, deeply, to my core and I have grown stronger from knowing that the wave of pain does eventually subside and have found within these “Fight Club Moments” and all this brokenness that accompanies them, there is a gift. Don’t get me wrong, these devastatingly life altering moments are not fun, they truly are awful to say the least, but if you allow it, this gift will come you when the storm has passed and when the wound has healed. It arrives in the form of deeper self-awareness wisdom, strength, self-love, compassion, empathy, clarity, faith, acceptance and forgiveness. It comes from owning your feelings and taking full responsibility for your choices. In truly understanding and embracing that everything really does happen for a reason.
This is my truth. I own it. This deep dive journey and taking responsibility for all the events in my life have allowed me to embrace myself completely and has led me to my most profound healing and the ability to take back my power. I take responsibility for everything that happens in my life and I believe it takes courage, faith and a sprinkle of optimism (look for that silver lining!) to see that regardless of all the pain, there is always valuable treasure if you just look.

Yes, We all Have One! 8 Tips to Help Overcome Your Inner Critic

7/27/2017

Take a self-esteem inventory to give yourself a baseline.
It can be as simple as writing down 10 of your strengths and 10 of your weaknesses. This will help you to begin developing an honest and realistic conception of yourself.
Set realistic expectations.
It’s important to set small, reachable goals that are within your power. For example, setting an extremely high expectation or an expectation that someone else will change their behavior is virtually guaranteed to make you feel like a failure, through no fault of your own.
Stop being a perfectionist and acknowledge both your accomplishments and mistakes.
Nobody is perfect, and trying to be will only lead to disappointment. Acknowledging your accomplishments and recognizing your mistakes is the way to keep a positive outlook while learning and growing from your mistakes.
Explore yourself.
The importance of knowing yourself and being at peace with who you are cannot be overstated. This can take some trial and error, and you will constantly learn new things about yourself, but it is a journey that should be undertaken with purpose and zeal.
Be willing to adjust your self-image.
We all change as we age and grow, and we must keep up with our ever-changing selves if we want to set and achieve meaningful goals.
Stop comparing yourself to others.
Comparing ourselves to others is a trap that is extremely easy to fall into, especially today with social media and the ability to project a polished, perfected appearance. The only person you should compare yourself to is you.
Celebrate your success. When you meet a goal, successfully challenge a negative thought, or catch yourself extending kindness towards yourself, mark the achievement with a celebration! Taking the time to revel in your success and enjoy the moment can give you the inspiration you need to continue your journey to self-improvement.
Be kind to yourself. If you find yourself being excessively negative to yourself, stop and consider how you would feel if someone said these things about a close friend or family member. Extend that kindness and compassion to yourself.

Think hard about the root cause(s) of your insecurities. The first step to defeating these thoughts is to dive deep and learn about them, and this situation is no different. Identifying the events that led to a low sense of self-worth can provide invaluable information for challenging these negative beliefs and will give you an opportunity to break through the limitations that have been holding you back.