You always see me recommending meditation as a tool to help in various areas of self care and personal development. However, many don’t actually know how to meditate. Either they don’t believe they can quiet their mind, or they feel they don’t have the time or a way to take 10–15 minutes just to themselves.

There’s also the belief that you have to be some sort of Deepak Chopra-like spiritual guru in order to develop a meditation practice and routine. While it’s true that you could gain a deeper sense of spirituality when you meditate, or go into a trance-like state, the idea of meditation is to essentially loose that time/space/self-awareness. People put so much pressure on themselves to have the perfect meditation or to do it right or well that they just don’t do it at all. They think they are simply not allowed to think. The truth is, it’s next to impossible to not think. …

This post is for those who’ve bought into programs and struggled to succeed. I am sending you a ton of love right now!

This whole financial freedom in just 8 weeks; or thousands of new followers at the blink of an eye; or create a whole new prosperous online business overnight is all smoke and mirrors. It’s fake news folks. Sorry to burst your bubble.

The truth is: To succeed, you need a foundation, a strategy, effort and time. You can’t be a stay-at-home mom with no money, no followers, no experience, no knowledge of business, tech, social media, etc., one day and suddenly start making 6 figures in just 8 weeks - from ground zero. …

I can say I am a pretty strong person, both mentally and emotionally. I’ve been through a lot in life that would make some people crumble. Not that I’m bragging. I just have a lot of fortitude. Maybe it’s because I come from a family of strong women including a mother who was a street cop in Atlanta. If we’d cry, she’d give us something to cry about. We had to toughen up. There’s no crying in baseball!

I also co-founded and operate a nonprofit animal rescue. I see the best and worst in humanity everyday. There’s no shortage of animal abuse, neglect, and abandonment. I receive messages day in and day out via Facebook, Instagram, email, or text about animals in our kill shelters that are about to be put to sleep; images that you wouldn’t even want your worst enemy to see and that you can’t unsee. Never mind the actual hands-on, front line, in the trenches stuff we have to personally witness. People often say: “I don’t know how you do it.” Really, I don’t either other than I have a job to do, and if I’m a blubbering mess, then I can’t do that job. Sure, there are times when it’s over, and I pour a bottle of wine down my throat while sobbing on the kitchen floor. Thank God for my dogs. …

Me? I wasn’t a morning person. I was so the don’t-poke-the-bear type before my first cup of coffee. Everyone in my family knew this. They would speak in hushed voices and not say a word to me until I gave them the go-ahead. Oscar the Grouch had nothing on me! But, that also meant my days were pretty crappy. I constantly had negative thoughts and emotions about anything and everything. My life was a amalgam of hurt, regret, guilt, shame, worry, fear, and disappointment.

The problem was: I was completely unconscious of it. “This is just the way I am” was my personal mantra and belief. I thought “I’m just an angry person. What of it?” Well, ‘what of it’ was: It’s not good to go through life as an angry, unhappy person. You tend to piss a lot of people off, or they just don’t want to be around you. …

This holiday season is going to be quite lonely for many. With new lockdown orders, and in some areas curfews, many aren’t comfortable traveling or attending social gatherings. I have seen a number of posts and comments by friends and friends of friends about spending the holidays alone, which can be quite depressing.

We’ve already seen an increase in anxiety, depression, loneliness and isolation since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Suicide rates have also been on the rise. Cook County, Illinois and Fresno, California are just two major cities who have reported and increase in suicides this year with a 13% in Cook County so far compared with the same period last year. In Fresno, suicides were 70% higher in June than in the same month last year. …

A friend of mine had to get a new car. His lease was up. He had bad credit and was self-employed with little to show for a regular income. His dad had agreed to be a co-signer on the lease for the first car, but he wasn’t going to do it again. When I asked my friend: “How’s it going with finding a new car?” He said he was terrified, nervous, overwhelmed, and freaked about the whole process of trying to buy a new car. I could understand his concern, but was there really the need for such internal melodrama?

We as humans have the tendency to make giant mountains out of little molehills. We look at life’s challenges as “problems” and live in them rather than living in the solution. We put so much focus on this alleged problem with tunnel vision, that we can’t see the solution, nor can we take a step back and be grateful for all of the good in our lives. …

“There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” -Madeleine Albright

I did a post the other day in one of the many Facebook groups, which is dedicated to female entrepreneurs about being nominated for a Women in Business Award. As someone who never graduated from college and grew up in a small town in Georgia with blue collar parents, I was rather pleased with and grateful for the recognition. I was also happy that I was nominated for my work in the nonprofit space, which often doesn’t get recognized as an actual business endeavor.

For the most part, the women in the group were graciously supportive and congratulatory. …

Now that the election is (technically) over, I think it’s time for a mental reset, don’t you?

2020 has been the tornado that landed us all in Oz. I don’t think there’s been a more chaotic year in modern history, which included a global pandemic, riots, and one of the most important elections in the world- all within an 8 month time-frame. It’s no wonder we’re a bit frazzled.

So many have suffered on so many different levels- physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, and personally. Our businesses and jobs have suffered. Our relationships have suffered. Our kids have suffered. …