A guide to mindfulness meditation for beginners (or those with a beginner’s mind). Meditation—a practice that has received so much attention in recent years, and I’m so glad that it has. But unfortunately, what I also hear very frequently is people claiming they are “bad” at meditating. This is just not possible! This article will help to de-mystify meditating but if you take one thing away, it is that meditation is challenging, but does become easier and more possible with p

7 self-care acts that are good for your mental health Self-care is a huge buzz-word in our culture today and a lot of things can be considered acts of “wellness.” I am not here to judge works best for you, but I want to give a few suggestions to make sure your “self-care” routine is actually improving your emotional well-being. What is not self-care? I’d like to start off with discussing what may not be acts of self-care. One way I like to frame self-care is to think of it as

8 things to explore and consider before starting your next serious relationship. We are continuing on with relationship month and I wanted to tackle a question I hear about a lot—how do I know if I’m ready for a relationship? I often find people can be worried or anxious about this after getting out a “toxic” relationship, especially in situations where they have may be harboring regret for choosing that particular partner and/or for staying too long in the relationship. In t

Help with navigating an often difficult holiday for people not in a relationship. For those of you who are single, Valentine’s Day can be a reminder of what you feel like you are missing in your life. It seems the holidays were just yesterday and here comes another day dedicated to people in relationships. You might wonder why we need another day to celebrate couples (though I’m not hating on couples!) when every day we are seeing and hearing messages about how wonderful it i

The importance of finding yourself after losing someone you love. For February, I’m kicking off the start of an overarching monthly theme—every article within that month I will address the theme in some way, shape, or form. For those you who received my newsletter (thanks for signing up!), you will know that this month’s “theme” is romantic relationships, which felt like the natural choice. Do not worry; this is such a huge topic that I will likely discuss this more throughou

Exploring the expected and not so expected benefits of travel. I was excited to see this question not only because I think it’s an important topic but also because this question gave me the opportunity to remember all the places and people I have got to know through travel. Since I was not raised in a family that traveled, exploring the world was something I had to push myself to do. At first, it was quite frightening to encounter so much novelty previously unknown to me in s