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Stop taking things so personally.

It’s not about you.

The words that other people use, the way they “make conversation”, and the way they speak to you is a window into who they are.

Listen from this space snd believe them.

Do they take the things you say personally?

Do they expect you to make them happy by doing as they say?

Do they make everything about them, even when you are talking about you?

None of this is about you.

You aren’t doing anything wrong.

They are showing you who they are, what’s important to them, and how they see the world. And it’s not you.

Their energy is strong and they will pull you into it and before you know it both of you will be defensive and taking things personally.

You can break that cycle, but you have to understand it’s not about you, even when it feels personal. It’s still not about you.

When you see people this way, there are no surprises. You get insights into their character every single time they open their mouth.

It’s when you see others through your lens, and make it about you that you misread someone.

You might be wondering which part is about you. You might know deep down there are two sides and that you’re playing a role in it.

It’s true. You do have a role.

Pay attention to how you feel. That’s your part.

Own your triggers – they are showing you places you haven’t healed.

Own your reactions, they are showing you what you care about.

Own your thoughts, they are showing you what you believe.

But don’t own another persons triggers, reactions and thoughts. Those are about them.

Merry Christmas!

They say all New Years resolutions have typically worn off already.

If that’s true for you, you aren’t alone.

Transformation isn’t a walk in the park. Old beliefs and past conditioning are challenged, and what is comfortable for us is consistently reinforced through our thoughts and actions.

Wayne Dyer talked a lot about I AM.

I didn’t understand it for the longest time, but I get it now.

Wanting to be thin, or wealthy, or free, or full of love still separates you from it.

If you want it, it means you believe it doesn’t already exist in you.

The I AM takes that separateness away that I Want creates.

I am thin. I am wealthy. I am free. I am a being of love.

It has a totally different energy to it.

Dr Dyer says the best time to practice your I AM statements is in the moments just before you fall asleep.

Choose yours now, so you’re ready for them tonight.

We can’t go back.

It’s a sad reality because there is always some place in our history where things seemed easier.

Our relationships may have been easier.

Our choices may have been easier.

Our obstacles may not have seemed so daunting.

Sometimes it would be nice to go back and maybe not know the things we’ve learned, or to see things in a different way than we did at the time. Maybe we would make different choices or soak in different moments. Maybe it would just be nice to revisit some of the best days of our lives and the people that were apart of them.

But we can’t go back.

Wishing things could be different now isn’t helpful, this is where we are.

The days I would go back to weren’t easy days…they were going to horse shows, riding Starpasser, and the days when my kids were little. I worked hard. Those days were long and I spent a lot of my time feeling very tired.

It struck me as I was having a lot of “wishing I could do it again” moments, I probably didn’t know at the time that “those days” would be some of the best days of my life.

What if the days we are living now could be the best days of our life when we look back at them?

We need to live them like they are.

We need to make good choices, the choices that keep us progressing and learning and working hard. The choices that tire us out and make the days feel long but also give us direction so we can go somewhere.

That’s what makes for good days to look back on.

We appreciate the struggle in hindsight because it meant we were doing something our future self will thank us for.

Live for now.

It’s all you have.

And make “now” some of the best days of your life.

I’ve never been a big risk taker.

I’m the baby of the family, I lean towards feeling safe and letting someone else go first. It’s the way it’s always been.

But I have learned the value of being brave and how it changes your life. I’ve written about it several times. I’m a different person simply by choosing to be brave.

Risk is something I’ve been keeping my eye on over the last few years.

There are dumb risks that don’t have good odds and don’t often work out.

But there are other kinds of risk too. The kind you take when you get in your car and drive. Lately they have been telling us that if you don’t wear a mask in public you are taking a risk.

But those things don’t feel like a risk to me because of my competency and beliefs.

What I’m starting to figure out is that a “calculated risk” looks and feels very different than one that isn’t. We might not consider it a risk at all.

Staying in your comfort zone is not the way to a better life. Daring to take risks will. But don’t take a risk for the sake of taking a risk. Just keep growing and moving forward.

Just for today allow yourself to become totally lost in a moment.

Find something that makes you totally lose track of time and become completely absorbed in what you are doing.

It would be amazing if we could spend the whole day blissed out, but if you can’t spend the day just find a few moments to totally lose yourself.

Just for today and just for a few moments let go of the must-dos and just do.

P.S. Oprah and Deepok started a new 21 day meditation today. It might be a good way to lose yourself if you don’t have any other ideas. There is an app to download or click here to sign up.

Here is an excerpt from today’s.

“Today we discover that we don’t have to struggle to shed our burdens – all we have to do is expand our awareness. In that awareness we find inner fulfillment that is our true self. This state of expanded awareness is the lightness of your life, and allows you to effortless let go of heaviness that doesn’t serve you.”

Sign me up for that.

I used to think doing hard things meant taking big risks, travelling off the beaten path, and overwhelming myself with too many promises and commitments but still trudging through.

I used to think doing hard things meant I would win some award for tackling the hard path.

I used to think doing hard things meant surviving hardship, so I accepted living in a life that was hardship.

But my opinion has changed.

Making life hard on myself meant I didn’t have the mental energy, support or wherewithal to dig deep, understand why or evolve my way of thinking.

A hard life wasn’t the answer.

There were no medals, hero cookies or badges of honour.

There was sympathy, martyrdom, and victims.  There is no honour in that.

Now I make choices that will make life easier.

I keep myself in good company with good people.

I don’t buy things I can’t afford.

I pay my bills, I keep my promises, I stay away from trouble, and I look after what is mine to look after.

But I haven’t stopped doing hard things, I’ve just changed what it looks like.

Doing hard things means being brave, being resilient, and being humble.

Doing hard things means trying to see differently, stretching my mind to expand my awareness of things I didn’t know existed, becoming a better version of me, and pushing through my own resistance to try new things.

Doing hard things mean being thorough, staying away from shortcuts, digging deep, and not quitting until it’s done.
Doing hard things means not believing something is impossible.

And we can do hard things.

Learning about ego is an interesting journey.

We don’t recognize it in ourselves if we aren’t arrogant or pompous and so we assume we are free from it

But we aren’t. It’s a continuous journey.

Ego shows up as separation from each other.

Anytime we think we aren’t as good as someone else, it’s our ego talking.

Whenever we think someone else has done something wrong and we are upset by it… that’s our ego.

When we are shy, nervous, expecting perfection, not speaking up or speaking our truth, when we are criticizing (ourself or others), or in blame… it’s all because of our ego.

Ego isn’t bad, it just is. The more we can move away from it and be humble and kind, the easier life is. That’s when we are being our best selves.

Just for today, let’s be observant about all of the ways ego shows up for us. If you make a judgement about your ego, that’s ego too.

Try not to judge, just observe. And let’s see what we learn about ourselves.

When a marriage comes to an end, it is an extremely fragile moment in time.  

Anyone who thinks otherwise is dead wrong.  

Something happens energetically that makes you shaky, vulnerable, and completely unsure of yourself, and almost every move you make.   Thus making you very susceptible to taking someone else’s advice, good or bad, because you really don’t know the difference.  

A girlfriend of mine was given some advice, about 6 months post separation, by someone she trusted, to sleep with 10 different men before she committed to anyone.  

Every time she did, she spiralled into a crazy mess inside.  

By the third person, I looked at her and said, “I don’t really think this is working for you” and explained the pattern of destruction I saw after every encounter.  She was surprised, but so relieved for me to let her off the hook.  She couldn’t see it.  

What I know for sure is, at this incredibly messy time it feels like nothing is working… But some things will work better than others.  Some things will help you.   Stay close to the things that make you feel a little bit better and on the right path.  

Progress makes us happy.

That means that celebrating our small wins, better choices, and new understandings is important.

When we aren’t happy it’s so much easier to stay the course.

The journey is always one step forward and two steps back. But this doesn’t mean you aren’t making progress. In fact it’s quite the opposite.

You can’t control the results, or the way things happen. Sometimes things go exactly opposite of what you had expected.

If you watch closely for the ways you handle the “2 steps back”, you can determine if you are making progress. The 2 steps back is where you see your progress most clearly because you’ve been there before.

Notice what’s different this time.

Did you make a better choice this time? Did you react differently? Were you able to turn things around quicker? Were you able to keep your heart open? Did you use better words?

These are the only parts that truly matter.

It’s grad season, and I look at the teenagers of today, full of hope for the future.

In my arrogant youth I thought I could handle it all, we got married, had a baby, started our own business and bought a house all in the same year.

There were times I thought I was breaking, and there were more times I would find myself broken.

Some of these graduates will make life look easy, and some of these young adults will fall flat on their face 100 times.
And both sets will be ok.

They are not supposed to have it all together.  

They are not supposed to have fancy vehicles and the best clothing and a job that starts them at the top… as parents we have to remember perspective.  

The more you fail, the more you figure out what your priorities are and who your friends are.

The more more you lose, the more you appreciate the wins.

The more you live, the more you appreciate the journey.

These blooming adults need all of these experiences in order to turn into the people this world needs them to be.

We don’t need to wrap them in bubble wrap, we just need to be there to love them when they fall down, just like we kissed their owies when they fell off their bikes.  

We don’t need to be angry when they make a mistake or make a bad choice, instead we need to be compassionate because we know mistakes hurt deeply, and if they make the same mistake enough times they will learn from it just like we did.

We don’t need to expect them to become rich and famous or make the big leagues… that’s our own ego and inexperience talking.

We just need them to know we admire who they are becoming, no matter who that is…and that we love them no matter what.

Life is going to kick their ass, we don’t have to be the ones who do it.

You. Get to know yourself. Become aware of your feelings, the reasons you respond the way you do, and why you have made the decisions you’ve made.

Awareness of who you are and why you do what you doesn’t change you, it makes you better.

Awareness allows you to take charge of your life. You can make decisions with intention, you can choose more of what lines up with your values, and you can walk away from things that don’t.

The best part of a deep self awareness is the peace it brings you. The heavy burden of shame over your inadequacies and quirks lifts as you learn the interconnection between them and your strengths, and you begin to find humour in your knee jerk reactions.

We all enjoy someone who can laugh at themselves because they don’t take life so seriously.

The best thing you can do is to get to know yourself better, it will reward you in more ways than you can imagine.

The more life experience I get the harder I work to become more compassionate and a better human.

I have used my struggles to understand myself and what its like to be someone else.  Occassionally I take the odd walk down memory lane, and certain moments have me struggling with who I used to be.

I haven’t always made the best choices, I have closed my heart and pushed people away, and I have almost never been my best self in hard times.  Flipping through my memory bank I can easily come up with several examples of where I wished I had made better choices.

I try to forgive myself quickly when I feel the stab of regret, not to make what I did ok, but because I make better choices when I’m my best self.  The truth is I didn’t know better and I believed I was doing the right thing at the time.  I allow these brief memory trips to serve a purpose.  They give me a reason to do better in the future, to hone my skills, and to find more evidence as to why I want to be a better person.  The feeling of regret is sharp and easily slips into shame.  I would rather learn from it than repeat it.

I have wondered… when other people learn, do they sometimes feel regret?

Will the people who have acted from ego, wanted to see others suffer, and closed thier hearts, ever feel regret for their choices?

I imagine that they eventually do, which is why it’s important to always remember to be gentle with each other, even when we don’t agree with their choices.

Hard doesn’t mean laborious and physically exhausting.

Hard means dealing with uncomfortable emotions, pushing yourself past limits, and living outside of your comfort zone,

Hard is digging deep, when it’s easier to walk away.

Hard is searching for clarity on something you don’t fully understand.

Hard is asking yourself what you truly want, and waiting for the answer.

Hard is looking at a 10 year vision for your life.

Hard is getting along with someone who you would rather never talk to or see again.

Hard is admitting you have an addiction and working towards healing.

Hard is doing something you believe is right even though it might be the unpopular decision with your closest peers.

Hard is showing up for life every single day.

Hard is making the world a better place.

Hard is putting a target on your back by standing up for what’s right.

Hard is sticking with an idea that keeps being rejected by others.

Hard is being brave, being vulnerable, and being humble.

Hard is choosing love when you’ve been hurt.

The hardest work brings you the most benefit.

We can do hard things.

I find it interesting when someone would rather do what they’ve always done than try something new when the opportunity shows up.

Are you a person who joins in on the activities? Or are you someone who declines and hangs back?

I used to decline and hang back. I don’t know if I thought I was too cool or if I was just caught up in myself so much that I couldn’t see the value of a new experience.

I’ve now surrounded myself with the enthusiasts. The people who want to join before they even know the details. The people who cheer for others just because it’s fun, and the people who help come up with more ideas, follow suit, and want to belong for the sake of belonging.

THESE ARE MY PEOPLE!

They are the very best kind. They are excited. They are supportive. And they are so much fun!

Expansion of yourself feels good, and now I choose to expand whenever I get the chance (except when it’s my waist). What a joy filled journey it’s been.

If you’re someone who hangs back, I am here to tell you, you simply don’t know what you’re missing.

I don’t use the “single mom” card, although there are some times where I probably should admit I am not super human and I can’t do it all.

There are more single moms out there today than ever before, we aren’t an exclusive club, but there are a lot of us.

Is it easy to be a single mom?

In a lot of ways it is. I am a better mom now than I ever used to be and I don’t have to navigate around anyone else’s idea of what parenting should look like. There aren’t any mixed messages, there is no undermining… there’s just me.

The hardest part is finding the energy to juggle everything. In order to make everything work there are a lot of balls in the air. It’s better not to count how many.

Seth Godin said juggling is easy. As long as you learn how to throw the ball well, it’s right where it needs to be in order for you to catch it.

I might add to that, it’s important to be aware of which balls you pick up and add to the mix. One heavy ball makes the whole thing a lot harder.

Nobody cares about your story as much as you do, and it feels weird and stifling when people care about you more than you do so you probably resist it.

Which means that at some point in your life you will be the victim.

Someone will borrow money and not pay you back, or take advantage of your contribution, or betray you, reject you, leave you, or hurt you.

You might feel used and maybe abused.

You will be a victim at some point in your life – or maybe several time’s.

And no matter how much healing you do, or how much empathy you have, or how much forgiveness you have given – there will still be moments where you feel triggered by it again.

And those triggers may be here to teach you something new, or help you see something you didn’t see before.

Let them come, learn what you need to learn, and then let them go again. Staying in victim mentality isn’t helpful and it’s disempowering. You can’t make good decisions from there.

It’s always ok to fall in the ditch, you just want to be sure to get back out as quick as you can.

You have the choice.

You can do whatever you want.

You just have to decide you’re not going to let anything stop you or get in your way.

You just have to decide you want it more than you want to be held back.

You just have to dig deep and figure it out.

You can do it.

But first you have to decide if you want to.



I bought the book Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goldman when I was about 18 years old. It has moved with me 4 times now and I have literally never read the whole book yet. Although I love the idea, it’s a bit technical and doesn’t hold my interest.

The irony of a book about emotional intelligence being technical is not lost on me.

Emotions and the whole world of feelings are what keep life interesting. Without them we would be robots going about our business and our jobs.

When I pick up a book about Emotional Intelligence and it’s technical, I get bogged down and it doesn’t hold my interest. To be fair the whole book may not be technical, I wouldn’t even know yet – maybe in my next 25 years I’ll finally get through it all and I can tell you. Lots of smart people speak highly of the book, so this could just be me.

However, I was able to read one story I enjoyed when I opened the book to the middle (this is how I hijack a book I’m having trouble getting in to). The story is of a man who was successful as a lawyer. He had a tumour on his brain that needed to be cut out, and when they took the tumour they also took part of the temporal lobe that processes emotions.

In the story the man couldn’t make a decision because he didn’t have feelings. He would intellectualize everything. In a decision making process we need to be able to put emotional weight on one choice or the other, and he couldn’t do it. Making the next appointment with this man was painful because logically everything on his schedule was equal and he couldn’t figure it out.

Feeling is the most magical part about us. It’s a nuance that we need to tap into and it holds a world of treasure, the deeper we go the more rich we become.

This was the beauty of growing up on the back of a horse.

Communicating with an animal is all about feel. There is really no other way to do it well… I have based my whole world on feel.

Feel the music.

Feel the energy of a space.

Feel someone else’s energy.

Feel when you’ve said too much, or not enough.

Feel the connection with another person.

Feel the way words land, or the feel how one word in particular stands out.

One of my favourite movies ever is Reel Steel. In it, they teach a robot how to feel. Teaching someone how to feel is really really hard.

The whole movie is great, and if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth tracking down. I picked this clip because it’s showing how the Robot, Atom, is feeling the music. The nuance of how his body moves shows him feeling it, it’s totally not robotic at all.

Wouldn’t it be beautiful if we could dance our way through life?