Category: Question and redefine everything

“The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.” Socrates

Over 2500 years after Socrates determined the definition of terms to be the beginning of wisdom, we seem to have lost the importance of this critical practice.
Depending on how we define things, different avenues open up in front of us and other options cease to exist.

The way we define the terms of our life shapes our reality!

Join me in questioning and redefining the important elements of life in a way that quiets our inner critic and soothes our neurobiology to replace stress with peace. I welcome you to question my definitions and share your own.

How You Can Kick Stress in The Butt by Cultivating Resilience – A practical view.

Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the amount of stress you are experiencing in your life that you feel you cannot control? The good news is you can control cultivating a skill that will enable you to bounce back to your optimal, balanced state when life knocks you down. This skill is resilience.

Resilience allows us to overcome stress and adversity without experiencing disruption in our optimal functioning, either psychologically or physically.

Unlike futile attempts to reduce stressors which we cannot control, resilience involves growing inner strengths that help us regulate our response to stressors. As a result, we are able to mitigate the development of unhealthy stress-coping mechanisms such as compassion fatigue, burnout, and/or mental illness.

If life’s ups and downs often take you off kilter or if you feel overwhelmed and stuck by what seem to be endless challenges and adversity, I invite you to explore different ways to boost your capacity for resilience. Research shows that resilience is invaluable in helping you increase physical, psychological, and mental health; improve performance; and enhance personal relationships.

The truth about stress

Stress affects almost 70% of us and is linked to more than 90% of today’s disease. We refer to stress as the epidemic of the century, and we blame it for feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and unhappy.

In actual fact, what we experience as stress is simply all the changes our body makes to rise to the challenges of life. The pressure we feel when we have to step up to these challenges and demands is because when we step up we temporarily leave our home base where we function and operate in balance. This home base is known as homeostasis and is the state when our body systems, such as our immune system, operate at their best. 

When we are dealing with the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, a horrible tragedy, or a manager who is ineffective and manages by fear, we disturb our optimal balance to keep up with these challenges.

Allostasis is the process by which our body attempts to return to our home base of homeostasis in the face of an actual or perceived environmental, or psychological stressor. Although our body’s systems promote survival in the short term when dealing with stressors, if stressors are prolonged over an extended period of time they can cause significant damage and lead to disease.

Allostatic load (McEwen and Stellar, 1993) describes the amount of changes the body has to make to adapt to stressors. The higher the amount is, the higher the potential of occurrence of damage to our bodies.

For example, acute stress promotes the release of stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, which in small quantities reduce inflammation in the body. However, chronic stress leads to high levels of cortisol, which ends up suppressing our immune function, which increases our susceptibility to disease.

Stress itself is not the actual problem. The real problem is that we operate under our stress response for way longer than what we were physiologically designed to do.

What is the reason that we are operating under our stress response for too long, and how can we bounce back from our stressed state to our balanced state?

Why resilience is the best response to stress

Some life challenges are more stressful than others. But whether we are dealing with the loss of a loved one, a divorce, a death, or some other adversity, pain and suffering in life is inevitable.

However, a hidden culprit seems to perpetuate our suffering and delays bouncing back to a place of balance. This culprit is our thoughts and perceptions about the situation, which often lead to behaviors that do not help. 

Consider your biggest stressors over this last month and why they felt so stressful. Ask yourself: Was it the situation itself that kept you up at night, or led you to relieve your negative feelings with unhealthy behaviors like having one too many glasses of wine to de-stress, or was it your thoughts about the situation?

When we get laid off, for example, it is not the single event of losing our job that increases the imbalance in our body and contributes to the heavy load of stressors. It is also our thoughts and all the energy we invest in considering and worrying about all the things that could go wrong: the possibility of losing our car, our home, our ability to survive. 

Resilience is therefore a choice to take back control of our thoughts and how we want to interpret life situations so that we return to our home base sooner. In this more balanced state our body is not flooded with stress hormones, we have access to our thinking brain, and our body systems are able to operate well to support us through the challenging situation. 

Existing research supports that resilience has been shown to increase physical emotional and mental wellbeing, performance and relational health. It also has been linked to improved finances, academic performance and lower incidence of mental health issues that typically develop under chronic exposure to stress. 

We all have the capacity to nudge our brain to take a new path to staying calm during difficult situations so we can avoid the negative consequences of being stressed out all the time. Resilient people suffer just as much as their non-resilient counterparts when they experience the death of a loved one. But they choose thoughts, behaviors, and actions that help them make intelligent use of their emotions to mitigate the long-term impact of chronic stress such as burnout or depression. 

Cultivating stress resilience in life is not a one-size-fits-all approach and it is a process that we must remain committed to. It is simple, but not easy, to guide our brain to recognizing the control we have over situations, even if they are devastating ones.

Here are some simple, everyday actions you can begin doing to enhance your resilience and change your response to stressors:

1.     Start your day on the right track.

Set your alarm a little early and give yourself the opportunity to start your day with a gratitude meditation. If you are not yet comfortable with meditation, you can give yourself the space to recount three things you truly feel grateful for before you even get out of bed in the morning. Your brain does not know the difference between your thoughts and reality, so setting a positive tone for your day will start you off in a state of balance.

2.    Challenge your stressors.

Stress is the non-specific response of the body to demands from the environment. Ninety-five percent of what we worry about never happens. What worries can you say no to today to decrease the demands you place on your body?

3.     Embrace your vulnerabilities and imperfections. 

Vulnerabilities are part of our common human connectedness. Resisting, hiding, and isolating are traits that are not rewarded by the environment and actually activate our stress response. If any of your characteristics sabotage the accomplishment of your desired outcomes, use them as an opportunity for personal development and change.

4.     Change your brain’s propensity to assume the worst by using positivity.

Have you noticed your tendency to assume the worst more times than not? This is because our brain evolved this way in order to keep us safe. By directing your attention to any positive aspects of a negative experience, you actually become an active participant in rewiring your brain for happiness.

5.     Just breathe.

Did you know that your very own breath has the power to calm your heart rate when life events disturb its balance? Your breath is the only bodily function that involves both voluntary and involuntary muscles and nerves. By resting your attention on your breath and observing it become deeper and more regular, you actually activate your parasympathetic response, which is your built-in antidote to your stress response.

6.     Connect.  

Human connection has been proven to be a potent stress reliever. A recent study showed diminished nervous-system-threat-response when we hold the hand of a loved one. At times of stress resist the tendency to isolate and reach out to someone you trust. 

7.    Be kind to yourself like you are to your best friend.

Self-criticism and self-judgment activate your stress response as much as being chased by a mountain lion. When you realize you are slipping down the slope of negative self-talk, shift your attention to five things you did well in the last 24 hours.

8.    Minimize unnecessary headaches. 

Little every day annoyances like looking for your car keys on your way to an appointment can add quite a bit of stress to your life. What small daily tasks can you organize to save yourself time and headaches?

9.    Nurture your beautiful body.

Instead of feeling frustrated with the lack of time to engage in a gym ritual, find every day ways that are within your control to nurture your body. Strive for balance and not perfection in finding ways you can nurture your body consistently. Dance like no one is watching. Add five positive actions to your nutrition or activity levels for every negative choice you make. 

10.  Nurture your beautiful mind.

Resist the habit of allowing negative information flow from the outside world to be  your focus and attention. Instead, feed your mind positive information. Listen to TED Talks, read a book, listen to a guided meditation, recount your blessings, or engage in voluntary work toward a cause you are passionate about. Much like enriching your garden with water and Miracle Grow, feeding your mind positive content will provide you with the necessary nutrients to cultivate a stress-resilient brain.

11.  Quiet your mind with meditation.

Meditation is the simple practice of directing your attention to what is here now and to not allow it to wander off to worries about the past and the future. This simple practice has been shown to produce a myriad of physiological and psychological benefits by robust scientific research. Just do it!  

12.  Develop a night-time ritual of celebrating your daily victories.       

We often lay awake at night focusing on things we could have done better. What if instead we get into the habit of acknowledging all the things we did well? Research shows that directing our mental activity to things that make us smile is a powerful way to use our mind to develop a happier brain. 

Final thoughts

Challenges and adversities are an inevitable part of our life, which we cannot realistically eliminate or reduce. And these challenges will often cause stress. However, we can cultivate resilience, a skill that allows us to cope with stressors in healthy ways by making intelligent use of our emotions to bounce back to a balanced state quickly and avoid maladaptive coping. 

Although resilience is a skill we do not develop overnight, making small changes that re-set the tone on how we view life’s hurdles allows us to experience the joy of our power to change our response to life situations. This is possible even during extremely stressful and devastating times.

By incorporating practices that can address the myriad of stress issues within our control, we can improve our ability to cope with stressful situations and maintain our optimal functioning.  We can increase physical, psychological, and mental health; improve performance; and greatly enhance personal relationships.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. 

How do you cultivate resilience? What challenges you on this path? Your views, insights, and experiences are valuable in creating a better world by making stress resilience sustainable and practical for all of us.

I also offer a one-page resource you can use to increase your resilience via making intelligent use of your emotions. You can join the Myndzen community and have this sent to your inbox by clicking on this link: bit.ly/JoinMyndZen 

By joining the Myndzen community, you will also be notified as soon as additional resilience resources become available this year from Myndzen.

A Holistic Framework to Design New Year’s Resolutions that Work!

The countdown to the New Year is almost here!

We are just days away from opening the door to new beginnings. But how satisfied are you with how this year went? Was it all that you wished for, or do you feel disappointed because this was yet another year that you were not able to meet the goals you set for yourself?  Or perhaps you met your goals but feel frustrated because they did not bring you fulfillment?

I have a little secret to tell you.

If your efforts did not bring you satisfaction this year, there is a good chance that your energy was misdirected. 

Where you invested your time, attention, and resources is not what has the power to bring you fulfillment. 

As an Integrative Wellness practitioner and the poster child of the cost of success without fulfillment, I want to share with you a life construction framework that can help you design your new year to be the beginning of a truly satisfying life.

The truth about New Year’s resolutions

During this time of the year, most of us take the time to reflect on what went well, what did not, and what we would like to do differently in the new year.

“A  New Year’s resolution is a tradition in which a person resolves to change an undesired trait or behavior to accomplish a personal goal or otherwise improve their life.” – Wikipedia

But why do New Year’s resolutions have such a high failure rate?

By January 7, a quarter of us give up on our new year’s resolutions, and a mere month later more than 60% of us will give up on them as well. What is the real barrier to lasting change in life improvement endeavors?

New Year’s resolutions’ blindspots.

Broadly speaking, our definition of success, which gives birth to our life strategies and new year’s resolutions, comes from our family, society, educational system, and culture. 

It is an external view of success created by others and is problematic in the following ways:

1.    This view of success focuses predominantly on material accomplishments, such as the size of our bank account, house, or job title.

2.    It impacts only the physical aspect of our being while overlooking the other dimensions of our being, which are just as important: 

·     Our mental dimension, which includes our thought patterns, self-perception, beliefs, and how we view the world.

·     Our emotional dimension, which includes our feelings and the relationships we have with ourselves and with others.

·     Our spiritual dimension, which includes our true self, our personal development, our connection to community and the world, and our connection to a higher power, whatever that definition is for you.

3.    Directing our energy to meet status quo expectations does not provide us with the motivation we need to fuel the transformations we want to accomplish. When our efforts are supporting someone else’s vision, and lack emotional, spiritual, and mental rewards, we lose steam quickly.

4.    Living someone else’s vision negatively impacts important areas of our life. 

For example, one may unconsciously sacrifice their primary relationship or deep connection to their children for a leadership promotion or a higher paycheck. Or one can have an incredible career at the expense of the health of their body.

I know all too well the cost of not nurturing all aspects of ourselves and how they affect one another!

As a young immigrant chasing the “American Dream,” I placed too much emphasis on climbing the corporate ladder at the expense of my emotional, mental, and spiritual health. The imbalance in the neglected parts eventually resulted in the collapse of every part of me, including my spine. Living with a severe spinal condition is not easy. But it was my awakening to understanding why Integrative Medicine is the biggest trend in Wellness.

“Integrative medicine embodies the original, but often-forgotten, model of health and wellness: It focuses on a whole-person approach equally addressing the patient’s mind, body, community and spirit as the means to reach optimal health.”-Dr. De Mello

I personally may never be able to restore my physical health to its beautiful original state. But today I am living my life’s purpose: To inspire and empower my fellow human beings embrace the transformative power of holistic (integrative) wellness.

I wrote this article to share with you a step by step path to bring holistic wellness home. If your current life planning method has left you feeling unfulfilled, I invite you to try planning your new year using an approach that works. The holistic life model has allowed me and my clients to break through conditioned ways of being and live a healthier, balanced life we enjoy. And you can too!

A new approach—The Holistic Life Model

At no point in our life do we get educated on the importance of caring for our entire being. A robust body of scientific evidence however, indicates that the most effective path to well-being is possible when we consider and care for the whole person: body, mind, and spirit. Our mind, body, and spirit are not only interconnected with one another, but also have a significant impact on all important areas of our life: health, career and finances, family and relationships, and spirituality and self-development. 

You can bring the Holistic Life Model home this year by creating a life plan (and new years resolutions), that involves caring for and nurturing all of you—the WHOLE person. Do you typically try to address a physical problem by taking actions to bring well-being into that physical area alone? Instead, you can begin to address the physical problem by including actions to bring or increase well-being into all four areas of self: mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual.

For example, you probably will not be able to experience lasting positive change in weight loss endeavors if you only focus on creating new eating habits. Weight loss is most successful when we combine addressing core issues that perhaps lead to emotional eating in combination with new eating habits. Which area of your life is causing you stress that you attempt to soothe through food? Is it your primary relationship, the one you have with your manager, or your difficult sister? Improving the quality of that relationship will help address the cause of emotional eating and increase your chance of accomplishing your weight goal.

Here are the steps you can use to plan a Holistic, Fulfilling, Happy New Year:

Step 1: Clearly define your vision.

If you had a blank canvas, what kind of masterpiece would you dare to create for your life?

Allow yourself the freedom and the space to dream for a minute. 

Write down the elements of what you would define as a fulfilling life of health and balance if you paid attention to your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual self in all important areas of your life: health, career and finances, family and relationships, spirituality and self-development. Don’t limit your self by one-dimensional visions, like “becoming a millionaire.” Envision what kind of parent, or partner you want to be, how would you make a change in your community? In your vision, what do your daily rituals look like? What are your spiritual practices?

Don’t limit yourself by focusing on what you don’t want, like dropping an extra ten pounds. Dare to dream about what excites you. In your ideal life, would you be in the best shape of your life? Would you challenge yourself to win a dance competition?

By taking the time to create your life vision, circumstances will no longer drive your life. A strong vision will allow you to bring intentionality to all that you do to support you in becoming who you want to be.

Step 2: Identify the area currently in need of the most improvement.

This step can be a tricky one. Often times, an imbalance in one area is the root cause of what we experience as a problem in another. The experience I shared earlier—of trying to lose weight by dieting, when the root cause of your weight gain is emotional eating to deal with stress from a toxic relationship—is an example of this. 

You are the expert in determining which part of your life needs your attention today to provide you with the highest return on your investment in improving your life experience as a whole.

Maybe you have accomplished much success in your career, but your primary relationship suffers. Maybe you have worked your way into great physical fitness, but your finances are in disarray. Maybe you have a great home, but you feel lonely. Or perhaps you have a good job and are financially comfortable, but you don’t feel fired up because your company’s vision is not congruent with yours. The clarity that comes with recognizing your biggest area of struggle will allow you to take the small, bite-size steps that will positively impact every aspect of your life.

Step 3: Determine the actions within your control that contributed to your problem.

The conventional way of thinking leads us to an automatic path of blaming external circumstances for our problems. However, this approach deprives us of the power to change the trajectory of our life story.

How did you contribute to what has become a challenging area of your life?

Maybe you can see how a person you chose to keep in your life did not honor your personal values or boundaries. Perhaps you kept one eye closed because you were afraid of being alone.

Maybe you followed a career path that is not meaningful to you for the high paycheck or because you believed it would enhance your sense of self-worth.

Or perhaps you played small and sacrificed your full potential because you were afraid of failure.

Becoming crystal clear about which of your actions created a problem in any aspect of your life may seem hard, but it is so worth the effort.

By recognizing your power to create your reality, you open the door to endless opportunities to make the necessary changes in the new year that will help you change your problem area into a break-through.

Step 4: Identify the small steps you can take today that will move you toward your vision.

We often get overwhelmed by choosing goals that are too elusive, like “being a millionaire,” meeting “the one,” “driving a Tesla,” or “living in a beach house.”

 At the end of the day we all just want to be happy. Yet we forget that happiness is a state that we are in control of defining as we grow, learn, and do.

Perhaps going to happy hour was once your definition of what fulfilling social time looks like.

However, if your new vision is to live a life of service in the best shape of your life, maybe starting a hiking meet-up group for working moms is the action that will give you happiness now. 

Happiness emerges when we choose all the little actions we can feasibly do every day that support and nurture our life vision.

When looking at the area you chose to prioritize as needing the greatest amount of improvement, what small actions can you take every day mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically to support this new life vision? If your vision is to be in the best shape of your life this new year, you can start small. For example, you can commit to daily 15-minute walk after dinner each night; Establish a fitness buddy to share fitness rituals with; Make a healthy vegetable soup for the week.

By taking small steps everyday that help us live our goals, as opposed to waiting for the day when they come to life, we can reset the tone for new happiness.

Final thoughts 

As one year is coming to an end and a new one is about to begin we take the time to reflect on what has worked for us and what we plan to change to be happier.

Yet it appears that the compass of our traditional new years’ resolutions is societal expectations that misdirect our energy and leave us feeling drained, unfulfilled, and stuck at the end of the year.

It is clear that the traditional model of building a fulfilling life does not provide us with the framework to bring wholeness to our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual dimensions. 

There is a different way to approach life that puts us back in the driver’s seat—the Holistic Life Model.

This model requires that we are brave enough to step outside the orbit of status quo expectations and clearly define our authentic life vision.

Rather than only focusing on the size of our bank account, it involves deciding what kind of partner, parent, or community member we want to be. 

This compelling vision then generates the unfathomable motivation that helps us align our daily actions to support it.

When we choose to live a conscious, holistic life, we end every year fulfilled because we experience satisfaction in the present moment, as opposed to waiting for an elusive goal to become a reality.

So why wait for January 1? You can choose this moment to begin your new, holistic life.

If you need help to do this, I am here for you. It is my mission as a certified Integrative Wellness coach to support you in changing anything that is not working for you by focusing on what you can control.

Because I can tell you one thing with certainty. Despite all the amazing adventures of my life, achieving goals and experiencing life in three different countries, nothing—no money, no job titles, no awards—can top how amazing it feels to take back control of your life.

Happy New Year!

The One Love Affair that Can Reduce Stress

#SelfLove
Photo by http://yuliyajul.com

When the glaring reality of stress shows up in your life in the form of anxiety, exhaustion, or irritability, I bet love is the last thing on your mind.

However, considering that our relationship with stress defines every other relationship in our life, I want to tell you a little secret about a special stress-reducing kind of love: The love you have for yourself.

In this article, I want to share with you why cultivating self-love is a gateway to effective stress-reduction as well as the ultimate path to the gifts of optimal health, performance, and happiness.

Why is self-love so critical?

If you are skeptical about the stress-reducing properties of cultivating self-love, let me share with you some data from scientific literature.  

The most vulnerable populations for compassion fatigue and burnout are:

  • Highly-dedicated individuals –the best and the brightest (Killian, 2008; Meyers & Fine, 2003),
  • Drivers and high-achievers (Shanafalt et.al., 2012),
  • Individuals with high expectations of self (Figley, 2012).

Although on first glance you may think that the above individuals’ dedication indicates a great degree of love for one’s self, I invite you to reconsider. Could their dedication be driven more by perfectionism than by self-love? An endless striving for perfection harbors a great degree of self-judgment and a loud inner critic, rather that self-love. Which would explain the high vulnerability of these individuals to compassion fatigue and burnout.

In fact, Dr. Brene Brown’s robust research on vulnerability has uncovered that perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval. Most of us who have a hard time saying no, who push ourselves to the limit and sacrifice self-care and work-life balance for success, know all too well the cost of perfectionism. It is linked to depression, anxiety, addictions, eating disorders, digestive issues, and so much more. 

When I found myself falling from my top performer pedestal to the tight grip of burnout and illness, I had an invaluable epiphany: The endless chase of perfectionism and the adverse effects of stress may have meant that I had forgotten to love and honor one important person—myself.

How do you know when you don’t love yourself enough?

Until we love ourselves whole-heartedly, we are stuck in this never-ending chase for love, approval, and security from external sources.

I call this state the “bottomless pit.” You know you are in that state when nothing ever seems good enough and you are your own worst critic. Regardless of how much you accomplish, you are never fully satisfied. Perhaps this is because of the way accomplishments were rewarded in your early life. You may have established an identity that is derived from your achievements if you got “love” from others for your performance. You then forget all about your well-being or what makes your heart sing. You begin living your life to meet other people’s expectations, judgments, and perceptions of you.

How stress shows up when we don’t love ourselves enough

Stress is a state characterized by all the changes our body makes to meet the demands from our environment. However, although it is considered to be the epidemic of the century, stress is essentially what summons our resources to rise to the occasion as needed in different aspects of life.
In fact, up to a certain level, stress is defined as eustress (good stress) and it is what gives us the superpowers to ace a presentation, pass an exam, get through a family Thanksgiving dinner, or solve a complicated problem.

There is nothing wrong with being committed to performance excellence, but there is a big problem when our efforts are driven by the fear of not measuring up to others’ expectations. When we push ourselves to the limit to get approval, safety, and security from others, we are running away from this fear instead of going after something we value.

Giving control of how much is enough to others will push us past the good level of stress into the bad level of stress, called distress. 

It is well documented in scientific literature that operating too long at the level of distress, compromises every aspect of ourselves. Our body systems malfunction and we enter a state of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual impairment.

It is at that point that we experience exhaustion, irritability, ineffectiveness, and so many other symptoms of stress-coping mechanisms.

And as I learned all too well from my personal experience of burning-out and suffering a musculoskeletal disorder, this can lead to extensive damage in organs and body tissues, broadly described by the term allostasis.

How self-love transforms our relationship with stress

One of the most important lessons I learned from burnout is that meeting the demands of life from a place of worthiness and love for ourselves is a game-changer. It took a serious illness for me to discover self-love and to know how amazing being on my own side feels, but I am grateful for all I have experienced and the new direction of my life’s purpose: To translate all the lessons I learned from science and my healing journey into guideposts and strategies on how we can actually be successful without burning out.

Here are some examples of what living from a place of self-love can look like:

We may stay up late to meet a deadline, but we do so from a space of deep satisfaction, which re-charges our batteries with ample energy to conquer the world the next day.

We charge toward a goal that is aligned with our innermost sense of purpose and values. 

We feel self-sufficient in being our own source of love, approval, safety, and security. And from that beautiful, calm, balanced state our relationships transform at work and at home. We no longer cling to people, situations, and things, relating to them in a dysfunctional way that is rooted in fear. We trust that people, jobs, and all good things in life will be available to us as long as the energy exchange remains balanced and healthy. We also have the courage to step away from energy drainers. We don’t think it is the end of the world to give up a larger paycheck to work for an amazing leader or a company that lives their values.   We appreciate everything with a healthy dose of gratitude and we don’t play the martyr. We don’t take things personally, and we establish healthy parameters of giving and receiving while making appropriate adjustments when necessary. We have no reservations about setting healthy boundaries and we are proud to be a role model of work-life balance. We are able to follow the advice of Howard Thurman: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Final thoughts

Stress is an inevitable part of our modern life that none of us gets a free pass from.

However, the quality of love and trust we cultivate with ourselves greatly determines how resilient we are and the impact that stress will ultimately have on our well-being.

Until we become the source of love, trust, and safety for ourselves, our relationship with stress will continue to be problematic.

Our efforts will be tainted by an endless pursuit for approval and a hidden sense of fear.

We will then engage in dysfunctional patterns of being and relating, which often lead to reducing our optimal performance. Then we experience the adverse consequences of stress.

However, when we choose to cultivate a different quality of love for ourselves, we begin to do things that are aligned with our values. Then the magic begins to happen.

No matter what curve balls we have to deal with in life, we are able to trust in our ability to set our own parameters to deal with these difficulties. We do this with a sense of purpose and equanimity while growing inner strengths along the way.

Although you may be skeptical of the stress-reducing properties of increasing love and kindness for yourself, there is so much science that proves it!

But don’t take my word for it. Regardless of where you are in life, if you are not where you want to be, you can begin the only love affair that can change that.

I will share science-based strategies on how to cultivate more kindness and love for your self in my next article. If you would like to be notified when it will be published and begin to tap into the transformative power of Self-love, Join my loving community: bit.ly/JoinMyndZen