A Small Town Trip with Big Time Gratitude

As many of you know, I believe that gratitude is essential to our emotional, mental, and physical wellness.

Like anyone, I’ve experienced my fair share of ups and downs, and I’ve found that a consistent gratitude practice has helped me to become a stronger, happier, and more resilient person.

When I am actively practicing gratitude, I am more productive, my relationships are stronger, I take better care of my body and I feel as though I experience life on a whole new level — it’s as if gratitude opens my eyes a little wider to the incredible journey that is life.

While I’ve got a pretty consistent gratitude routine going, I’m always on the lookout for new activities and ideas to incorporate into my gratitude practice.

So I was absolutely thrilled (and very grateful!) when the one-and-only Kate Durie invited me to attend her {the GRATITUDE kit} workshop at Hello Yellow this past week in beautiful Almonte.

How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

I love surrounding myself with intelligent, accomplished, hard-working people — I want to be inspired and energized by my circle.

I also seek out inspiration online, in books, and in my community. In my bid to be constantly learning, I am continually exposing myself to some pretty brilliant individuals.

Sounds great, right?

99% of the time it is!

But surrounding yourself with powerful, accomplished people can be a double-edged sword:

On the one hand, motivation is never in short supply, but ocasionally motivation can morph into something darker:

Comparison.

What Being a Sidekick Taught Me About Ego

Let me start by saying that I’m not particularly proud of the story that I’m about to tell you. I’m not proud of the fact that my ego sometimes rears its ugly head from time to time.

But I believe it’s something that we all experience, and I hope that can inspire an open and honest conversation about how the ego can motivate us — in all the wrong ways.

When you’re managing an event, it’s your job to make sure that your work is unseen.

Done right, it should appear seamless — as though you aren’t even there. It’s your job to be the unpopular time keeper, to swallow your pride and cater to the whims of those around you, to clear the overflowing garbage can and to make sure that cabs are called on time.

Your place is behind the scenes, working to make others shine.

In short, it’s your job to be Robin, not Batman.

Learning to play second fiddle

So when I spent the better part of last week playing Robin to my dear friend and colleague’s Batman, my ego was put to the test in a way that I didn’t anticipate.

5 Money Mindset Makeovers for 2014

Like any dramatic love affair, my relationship with money is long and complicated.

We’ve been through thick and thin (literally) and have been in each other’s lives for many, many years.

I grew up with a lot of privilege — I lived in a very comfortable home with frugal parents who always gave us what we needed (and then some) and who taught us the importance of money management early on.

What I also learned is that like many people, my relationship with money is deeply, deeply emotional.

Money can make me feel like I’m on top of the world, and like I’m a complete and utter failure — sometimes in the same week. I’ve shed tears over money, panicked about money, and jumped for joy about money.

I’ve gone through phases where I’ve tracked and monitored my funds down to the last cent in elaborate spreadsheets, and I’ve had times where I’ve spent money without a care in the world (that’s really only happened twice and doesn’t last much longer than a month).

But the one thing that had stayed consistent in my relationship with money is that it feels as though money always has the upper hand.

5 Happiness Experiments for 2014

At the beginning of the year I wrote a post about five productivity experiments that I was planning to undertake in 2014, and it ended up being a pretty popular post.

They ranged from a new way to organize my to-do lists, to making time for reading daily. You can read the full post here, and I’ll posting an update on my progress soon.

To continue on with this year’s theme of openness and experimentation, here are five happiness experiments that I’ll be running in 2014:

The One Person You Need to Trust

I feel like the universe has been trying to teach me a lesson about trust over the last few days, but not the kind of trust you might think.

I’m not talking about vulnerability in relationships, or having faith in the universe, or confidence in my colleagues.

I’m talking about something much more personal.

Trust in myself.

Carl Sagan Ruined My Party (A Story of Perfectionism)

I sat back in my chair, staring blankly at my computer screen, slowly coming to terms with the sentence I had just read.

I had just been levelled by a major truth bomb.

All I could think was “Carl, why you gotta play me like that?”

The kindly scientist whose video on tesseracts and the fourth dimension had captivated me for hours, and who made my cry with his famous pale blue dot speech had just punched me right in the gut and taken the wind right out of me.

How, you ask?

With this:

How do you describe yourself?

Words are mighty things, indeed.

We use words to give ourselves names and titles that become identities that we wear as we move through the world: daughter, bookworm, boyfriend, athlete, home-owner, grandparent.

While each of these words carry a significance on their own, when we weave them together into identity statements, they become tools that we use to help us understand ourselves, and help others interpret our being.

Sometimes those are words that we have assigned to ourselves, but often these words, names, and titles are given to us by others. Over time, we let others name us and we begin to wear their interpretation of us as our own.

So if you’re looking to reclaim your power in 2014, let’s start with how you talk about yourself.

My Wish For You This Year

I hope you all have a wonderful, safe, and exciting new year’s eve! See you on the other side in 2014! xo

Beautiful photo courtesy of Danka Peter on Unsplash

The Power of Finding Your People

You know that feeling you get after meeting a dear old friend or colleague for coffee? Or the one you get when you meet someone at a party that you just ‘click’ with?

Of course you do. It’s magical.

That feeling of being understood, being seen, and being valued. It is intoxicating. It is empowering. That feeling of connection can be overwhelming in the very best way.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” – CS Lewis

But if we know how magical that connection is, why do we settle for spending time with people that don’t have the power to make us feel that way?