What WOMAN Means to Me – Series Kickoff!

This is a start to an extensive and beautiful collaborative series about what WOMAN means, as the concept of female and woman is unique to each and every individual. We will be hearing from women and men from all walks of life, all shapes and sizes, all colors, all cultures and backgrounds. So read on, and stay tuned! Self-Awareness is such a crucial part of self-care, and self-love, as we can only truly find our self worth and state of happiness once we look at ourselves. We must ask ourselves questions that force us to delve deeper and peel back the layers to find awareness of our true beings; self-awareness helps us understand why and how we are important to the world…. because we are ALL so important, and so incredibly worthy! Self-awareness can start with some simple questions…. Who am I? What makes me happy? What do I appreciate about myself? What do others appreciate about me? What do I appreciate about others? How do I perceive myself? How do I perceive others? What truly makes me happy? What truly makes me proud? So much of my identity is being a woman. My Mom and Dad raised three strong, independent,

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Be Your Own Advocate

Whether within recovery from poor self-image, people pleasing, lack of self worth, or an Eating Disorder, having a voice for yourself is crucial. Advocacy is one of those things that doesn’t necessarily seem natural to us, in that we were never taught how to assert ourselves, promote ourselves and look out for the greater good of our souls. We grew up with parents, or guardians of some sort as our advocates, teachers, coaches, tutors, aids, peers, counselors, and even companies and government officials who speak on behalf of us. Within daily life, as an individual, the only advocate is yourself. It takes courage, adjustment, and self-acceptance, but the moment you start to advocate for yourself, the moment you begin to look out for the greater good of your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing, the moment you talk on behalf of your soul, is when you will truly be advocating for yourself, and this is self care at its finest! If you don’t advocate for your emotional well being who will?! No one. Because, you, and you only, are the one who knows your limitations, boundaries, feelings, emotions and state of wellbeing. The absence of advocacy calls for compliance, blurred boundaries,

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Self Love, Short and Sweet

  Here is my professional and personal take on self-love, I’ll make this short and sweet! Self love is a new concept to many, in that it is not something that we were taught about in school, it is not something that was drilled into our minds much like math, science, and geography, instead it is a concept that is incredibly foreign to us. Why is this? Why is such an important and crucial concept so new to us within our adult years? I don’t quite have the answer to this, because the lack of self-love has fostered a world of negativity, hatred, illness, and self-loathing. In a world filled with selfies, hash tags and filters, it can be easy to view self love as selfishness, narcissism, and fabrication…. and yes, this does exist, but this is not self love. Self-love is appreciating the person that you are, accepting yourself for your flaws, loving yourself for the good and the bad, loving the black and white while also embracing the grey! Self love is loving yourself, for yourself, not for someone else’s gratification, not doing it for likes on Instagram and Facebook, not doing it for followers, or social acceptance,

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National Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2017!

This week is Eating Disorder awareness week! What does this mean? There is an entire week dedicated towards educating the public and honoring those within their Eating Disorders and Eating Disorder Recovery. February 26th to March 4th will be focused on continuing the conversation about Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder, and Eating Disorders other specified, as well as, educating the public about the truth behind Eating Disorders, continued funding towards Eating Disorder treatment, honoring the recovered, and spreading love and awareness to those affected by Eating Disorders and those who lack an understanding of Eating Disorders and Recovery. The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) host’s week of awareness, therefore I encourage everyone to visit their webpage. NEDA offers a plethora of ways to not only get involved within Awareness week, but also offers resources for those in need of extra support, see below for a list of services…   Free online screening for Eating Disorders Local and online resources for those in need Ways to raise awareness and get involved within the recovery community Local and global walks in honor of NEDA awareness week Stories of hope Resources for treatment and insurance Public health concerns and a conversation

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Essential Oils and Self-Care Series pt.1

Essential oils are the Holy Grail to my self-care routine. They were an amazing supplement to my therapy, nutrition planning, and treatment plan during the beginning of my recovery. Therefore, I will be starting a Self-Care series about how I use essential oils within my daily, and weekly routine. Today’s post is dedicated to prevention and intervention for that oh so dreaded cold….yes it’s that season, everyone is getting sick, therefore why not boost that immune system and soothe the senses!? When it comes to Eating Disorder Recovery, getting sick with a cold, or the stomach flu, or really anything, is just a part of the process. Your body is doing its very best to build up your immune system, therefore weird things start to happen, like getting sick! In the beginning of my own recovery, I was constantly sick with a cold, sinus infection, bloated, and swollen, because my body was figuring out how to be healthy again…. because in reality, my body wasn’t being treated very well for a good ten years! This was the hard part of recovery…. remember, it gets worse before it gets better! Therefore, essential oils played a major part within this not so

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