My brain is often unkind to me. Too often, I do something a little mean or inconsiderate and my brain just escalates on guilt.

I know it’s unreasonable to turn a single instance of rudeness into a mental referendum on whether I’m a worthwhile person. My brain jumps to the occasion, though, providing a litany of every time I did some similar bad thing. Give us a few minutes and my brain and I are already sifting through the evidence from childhood. It’s pretty convincing.

I’ve tried to tell my brain that this is unwelcome and a bad habit, but that went about as well as you’d expect.

My brain would take my suggestion that its thought patterns were mean and stupid and marshal that as further evidence that I was mean and stupid.

Arguing against my brain lead to more guilt, not less. I resigned myself to watching a highlight reel of my regrets every time I messed up. Often I wouldn’t acknowledge times when I had messed up because I was so afraid of triggering my brain’s unkindness and feeling worthless.

A few months ago, I had a backwards insight: if arguing with my brain didn’t work, what if I tried just agreeing with it? I decided to pretend that my brain was actually being kind and helpful, instead of trying to hurt me. When it started to escalate guilt, I would act thankful.

This seemed like an obvious lie. It was awkward to respond to my brain’s steady supply of painful memories with gratitude.

My gratitude made so little sense that eventually something had to give. Resolving the cognitive dissonance forced me to believe that my brain really was just trying to help! It was showing me all these painful things because… Because it wanted me to learn! And so… So it was showing me a pattern rather than focusing on just one event!

This explanation started to feel more and more true and my gratitude started to feel less and less fake, until… It wasn’t anymore.

My brain’s mental flood no longer seems unkind. More than that, it has now become, to my great surprise, something I’m genuinely thankful my brain knows how to do. As I practice radical acceptance and staring into my regrets, my brain’s ability to launch litanies is a powerful tool to help me learn from my mistakes. When I notice myself feeling down about something mean or inconsiderate I’ve done, I can call upon my brain to contextualize my emotions with a rich cascade of similar situations.

This is probably the most singularly useful faking-it-until-making-it I’ve ever engaged in. If your brain has similar unkind tendencies, perhaps you can try pretending to be grateful for them?

A Closing Prayer For The Old Year

A Closing Prayer For The Old Year

“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:18 KJV

“And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.

And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” ~ Colossians 3:15, 17 KJV

May Our Heavenly…

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No matter how difficult and defeating life can sometimes feel, there is always something to feel grateful for.

Choose yourself, always.

You deserve to be adored and cared for in every way that your mind, body, and heart needs and longs for.

Learn to love yourself and loneliness won’t be something you’re afraid of.

Start with a clean slate this 2020 without any remnants of the hurts of the past. Take the lesson, thank the person, but leave the rest behind.

Let him go not because he didn’t make you happy but because he made you sad so often.

Hello There 2021

Happy 2021 Everyone!

You survived 2020, and although things may not feel all that different I have hope that things will somewhat return to normal. As much as I am excited for the new year, now comes the hard work of really practicing what you preach. Last year it was all about returning to yourself—analyzing what patterns you needed to break. One of the biggest lessons for me was realizing that…

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HAPPY HOME

There is one home

For all of us

The light shines

Throughout, all the day long

The walls tremble

With laughter

The high road is

The only route there

Trees guard about

Our every trail

And hideaway

The only time we

Hide is when we

Play, oh how blessed

We are to love

We are to live

Together, Amen

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blind human walking

Lampshades exist to protect our eyes from the

Light that burns our souls when we

Lay in the sunshine, can we

Listen to waves until dawn

Liars are experts at the con

Love has brought my cerebral horror to

Little thoughts to my tongue and

Linguistically I’ve demolished that

Love that once felt like your vacation boat

Lined up at the dock, waiting patiently for a

Little voyage into endless…

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I thought 2020 would be the year I got everything I want. Now I know 2020 is the year I appreciate everything I have.

30 Ways To Practice Self-Love and Be Good to Yourself

1. Start each day by telling yourself something really positive. How well you handled a situation, how lovely you look today. Anything that will make you smile.

2. Fill your body with food and drink that nourishes it and makes it thrive.

3. Move that gorgeous body of yours every single day and learn to love the skin you’re in. You can’t hate your way into loving yourself.

4. Don’t believe everything you think. There is an inner critic inside of us trying to keep us small and safe. The downside is this also stops us from living a full life.

5. Surround yourself with people who love and encourage you. Let them remind you just how amazing you are.

6. Stop the comparisons. There is no one on this planet like you, so you cannot fairly compare yourself to someone else. The only person you should compare yourself to is you.

7. End all toxic relationships. Seriously. Anyone who makes you feel anything less than amazing doesn’t deserve to be a part of your life.

8. Celebrate your wins no matter how big or small. Pat yourself on the back and be proud of what you have achieved.

9. Step outside of your comfort zone and try something new. It’s incredible the feeling we get when we realize we have achieved something we didn’t know or think we could do before.

10. Embrace and love the things that make you different. This is what makes you special.

11. Realize that beauty cannot be defined. It is what you see it as. Don’t let any of those Photoshopped magazines make you feel like your body isn’t perfect. Even those models don’t look like that in real life.

12. Take time out to calm your mind every day. Breathe in and out, clear your mind of your thoughts and just be.

13. Follow your passion. You know that thing that gets you so excited but scares you at the same time. The thing you really want to do but have convinced yourself it won’t work. You should go do that!

14. Be patient but persistent. Self-love is ever evolving. It’s something that needs to be practiced daily but can take a lifetime to master. So be kind and support yourself through the hard times.

15. Be mindful of what you think, feel and want. Live your life in ways that truly reflect this.

16. Treat others with love and respect. It makes us feel better about ourselves when we treat others the way we hope to be treated. That doesn’t mean everybody will always repay the favor, but that’s their problem not yours.

17. Find something to be grateful for every day. It’s inevitable that you are going to have your down days. This is fine and very human of you. It’s especially important on these days to find at least one thing you are grateful for as it helps to shift your mind and energy around what’s going on.

18. Reach out to family, friends, healers, whomever you need to help you through the tough times. You are not expected to go through them alone.

19. Learn to say no. Saying no sometimes doesn’t make you a bad person, it makes you a smart person.

20. Forgive yourself. You know that thing you did one time (or maybe a few times) that made you feel bad, embarrassed, ashamed? It’s time to let that go. You can’t change the things you have done in the past but you can control your future. Look at it as a learning experience and believe in your ability to change.

21. Write it down. Head swimming with so many thoughts it’s giving you a headache? Write them all down on a piece of paper, no matter how crazy, mean, sad, or terrifying they are. Keep it in a journal, tear it up, burn it, whatever you need to do to let it go.

22. Turn off and inwards. Grab a cup of your favorite tea, coffee, wine, whatever your choice of drink, and sit down for a few minutes on your own. No TV or distractions, just you. Think about the wonderful things that are happening in your life right now, what your big dreams are and how you can make them happen.

23. Give up the need for approval from others. “You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches.” — Dita Von Teese

24. Be realistic. There is no person on this earth that is happy every single moment of every single day. You know why? Because we are all human. We make mistakes, we feel emotions (good and bad) and this is OK. Allow yourself to be human.

25. Get creative and express yourself in whatever way you like. Painting, writing, sculpting, building, music, whatever takes your fancy, and make sure you leave your inner critic at the door. There are no right ways to be creative.

26. Let go of past trauma and wounds. This can be a really tough one and it may be one of those times you need to turn to others for support. The truth is though, when we let go of things that have happened to us it’s almost like a weight is lifted off our shoulders. We don’t have to carry that around with us anymore. We deserve better.

27. Find your happy place. Where’s the one place you feel totally at ease, calm, happy, positive, high on life? Go to that place when you are going through hard times, or imagine yourself being there. Think about how it feels, what it smells like, what it looks like.

28. The next time you are feeling happy and on top of the world make a list of your best qualities and accomplishments. It may sound a little corny, but it can be a wonderful reminder when you are having a day that’s less than amazing.

29. Get in touch with your inner dialogue. If it’s anything less than loving, encouraging and supportive, it’s time to make a change. You deserve to be spoken to in the same way you would speak to your best friend, sister, brother, daughter, or son.

30. Have fun! Get out there and do the things that light your fire. Enjoy them, enjoy being you and enjoy your incredible life.

Words by Jessie Hays