Reclaiming Your Joy: Remembering What Makes You Feel Alive

Hey Boo,

If you’ve been in survival mode long enough, joy can become an afterthought.

You become so focused on getting through the day, handling responsibilities, healing from what hurt you, and keeping everything together that you stop asking yourself a very simple question:

What makes me happy?

Not what makes everyone else happy. Not what makes you productive. Not what makes you useful. Not what earns approval, keeps the peace, or proves that you’re doing well.

What makes you light up?

Sometimes healing is learning how to ask that question again.

Survival Changes What You Pay Attention To

When you’ve spent a long time surviving, your attention naturally goes toward what needs to be fixed, handled, prevented, or endured. You learn how to anticipate problems. You learn how to push through exhaustion. You learn how to take care of other people. You learn how to keep going even when you’re running on empty.

And somewhere along the way, the things that once made you smile may slowly disappear from your life. Not because you stopped deserving them, but because you were too busy surviving.

There comes a point in your healing when survival is no longer the only thing you want.

You want to live.

You want laughter.

You want creativity.

You want peace.

You want experiences that make you excited to wake up.

You want little moments that remind you:

I’m still here.

And that desire is not selfish. It’s reclamation.

You Don’t Have to Earn Joy

Many of us were taught- directly or indirectly- that enjoyment comes after everything else is finished. After the work is done. After everyone else is taken care of. After you’ve accomplished enough. After you’ve healed enough. After you’ve become the person you think you’re supposed to be.

But life keeps moving. There will always be another responsibility. Another goal. Another problem to solve. Another version of yourself you’re becoming.

If you constantly postpone joy until everything is perfect, you may spend your entire life waiting for permission to enjoy it. So, give yourself permission now.

Buy the flowers.

Play the music. (Or make it.)

Wear the outfit.

Take yourself somewhere beautiful.

Dance in your kitchen.

Color. Create. Rest. Laugh loudly.

Try something you’ve always wanted to try. Return to something you loved before life became heavy.

Joy doesn’t have to be extravagant to be meaningful. Sometimes reclaiming your life begins with something as small as saying:

“I like this. I’m going to do more of it.”

Meet Yourself Again

One of the most beautiful parts of healing is discovering who you are outside survival. Because you may not be the same person you were before everything happened. And you don’t have to be.

Maybe your interests changed. Maybe your dreams have changed. Maybe things you tolerated no longer feel right. Maybe you’re craving softness where you once craved excitement. Maybe you’re craving adventure after years of playing it safe. Maybe you’re discovering parts of yourself that never had room to exist before.

Let yourself explore.

You don’t need to have your new identity completely figured out. You can simply become curious.

Ask yourself- what makes me lose track of time? What makes me feel peaceful? What makes me laugh? What have I always wanted to experience? What would I do more often if I stopped worrying about whether anyone else understood or approved of it?

Your answers are breadcrumbs. Follow them.

They may lead you back to parts of yourself you thought you’d lost. And they may introduce you to parts of yourself you’ve never met before.

Joy Can Feel Uncomfortable at First

This part isn’t talked about enough.

When you’ve been accustomed to chaos, hypervigilance, disappointment, or constantly waiting for something to go wrong, peace can feel unfamiliar. So can happiness.

You may catch yourself questioning a good moment instead of experiencing it. You may wonder how long it will last. You may feel guilty for enjoying yourself when other areas of your life aren’t perfect. You may even feel vulnerable allowing yourself to hope again.

That’s okay.

You don’t have to force joy. Just practice allowing it. When something feels good, notice it. Instead of immediately moving to the next thing, stay there for a moment. Let yourself smile. Let yourself receive. Let yourself experience something beautiful without asking it to become permanent. Joy doesn’t need to last forever to be real.

Your Life Gets to Belong to You

Reclaiming your joy is bigger than hobbies, vacations, or self-care days. It’s about ownership. It’s deciding that your life will no longer revolve entirely around what happened to you, who hurt you, who left, who chose you, who didn’t choose you, or what you had to survive. Those things may be chapters of your story, but they don’t get to write the rest of it.

You do.

And perhaps one of the greatest acts of reclamation is building a life that feels so authentically yours that you no longer need anyone else’s permission to enjoy it. A life filled with things that nourish you. People who feel safe. Dreams that excite you. Boundaries that protect you. Moments that make you laugh until your stomach hurts. Quiet mornings. New experiences. Old passions rediscovered. And tiny pockets of happiness tucked into ordinary days.

You survived what tried to dim you. Now you get to discover what makes you glow.

*A Gentle Reminder*

You don’t have to be who you were before the pain. You don’t have to rush toward some perfectly healed version of yourself either. Just keep becoming. Keep exploring. Keep choosing yourself. Keep noticing what makes your spirit feel a little lighter. And whenever joy finds you- even in the smallest moment-

Let it.

You are allowed to enjoy the life you’re rebuilding. You are allowed to create new memories. You are allowed to laugh again. You are allowed to want more than survival. And most importantly:

You are allowed to feel alive again.

This Week’s Reclamation

Ask yourself:

What is one thing that makes me feel genuinely alive- and how can I make a little more room for it in my life this week?

You don’t need to transform your entire life overnight. Start with one joyful choice.

Then another.

And another.

Because sometimes healing isn’t just about releasing what hurt you, sometimes healing is remembering how good it feels to be you.

Until next time.

Heal. Grow. Glow.

Your Boundaries Are Not a Betrayal

Hey Boo!

There comes a point in reclamation when finding your voice is no longer enough. You have to use it. You have to say no when you mean no. You have to stop explaining yourself into exhaustion. You have to recognize when something doesn’t feel right and trust yourself enough to respond accordingly. You have to decide that access to you is no longer automatic.

And for many of us, this is where healing gets uncomfortable. Because reclaiming your boundaries can feel a lot like disappointing people who benefited from you not having any.

When Boundaries Feel “Mean”

If you’ve spent years being the understanding one, the accommodating one, the dependable one, the peacemaker, or the person who always gives one more chance, boundaries can feel unnatural at first. You might feel guilty for saying no. You might worry that you’re being selfish. You may overexplain your decisions because simply saying, “That doesn’t work for me,” somehow doesn’t feel like enough of an explanation.

You may even find yourself managing someone else’s feelings about a boundary that was created to protect you. But as I said before, guilt doesn’t always mean you’re doing something wrong. Sometimes guilt is simply what happens when you begin doing something differently.

Especially when the old version of you was taught that being loved required unlimited access to your time, energy, emotions, or attention.

Boundaries Are Where You Meet Yourself

A boundary isn’t just something you establish with other people. It’s a promise you make to yourself.

It says:

I will listen when I’m uncomfortable.

I will stop ignoring my needs to make someone else happy.

I will pay attention when my body tells me something is wrong.

I will not continuously sacrifice my peace for connection.

I will honor my limits.

And perhaps most importantly, I will stop abandoning myself to avoid being abandoned by someone else.

That’s reclamation.

You Don’t Need Permission

One of the hardest lessons to learn is that other people do not have to understand your boundary for it to be valid. They don’t have to agree. They don’t have to like it. They don’t even have to believe that your reason is “good enough.” Your boundaries aren’t negotiations about whether or not you’re allowed to protect your well-being.

You are. Period.

And sometimes the people who react most strongly to your boundaries are the people who were most comfortable with you having none. They’ll be alright. Let them adjust. Their discomfort doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve done something wrong.

Boundaries Don’t Have to Be Harsh

This was a big concern of mine. I didn’t want to be mean or become someone I wasn’t to establish boundaries. But reclaiming your boundaries doesn’t require you to become cold, guarded, or disconnected.

You can be compassionate and still have limits. You can love someone and say no. You can understand someone’s circumstances without accepting behavior that hurts you. You can forgive someone without restoring their previous level of access to you. You can wish someone well from a distance. And you can be soft and still be unavailable for disrespect.

Boundaries aren’t walls designed to keep everyone out. Healthy boundaries are doors.

You decide who enters, how long they stay, and what is required for continued access.

Start With the Small Things

Establishing boundaries doesn’t require a swift and drastic shift. In fact, after years of people pleasing, I found it easier to establish and maintain boundaries by building slowly and steadily. Not every boundary needs a dramatic announcement.

Sometimes reclamation sounds like:

“No, I can’t do that today.”

“I need some time to think about it.”

“I’ m not comfortable with that.”

“I don’t want to discuss this.”

“I need some space.”

Or simply-

“No.”

Full stop. No essay. No list of evidence proving why your feelings deserve consideration.

Just a decision that honors you.

The more you practice honoring the small boundaries, the easier it becomes to recognize when the bigger ones are necessary.

Some People May Prefer You Old You

This part can hurt.

When you begin healing and changing, there may be people who miss the version of you who overextended, overexplained, tolerated, rescued, or remained silent.

They may tell you that you’ve changed. And maybe you have.

But maybe that’s the point.

Reclamation isn’t about returning to the person you were before life hurt you. It’s about uncovering who you are now- with wisdom to recognize what you deserve, what you need, and what you will no longer accept.

You are allowed to become someone who protects their peace. You are allowed to become someone who doesn’t answer every call. Who doesn’t accept every invitation. Who doesn’t carry every problem. Who doesn’t repeatedly offer access where respect is absent. You are allowed to choose yourself.

Your Boundary is Not a Betrayal

Not every boundary will cost you a relationship. Some might.

But if a relationship can only survive when you have no limits, silence your needs, or continuously betray yourself to maintain it, then the boundary didn’t destroy the relationship. It revealed the truth about it.

Remember that goal isn’t to keep everyone. The goal is to stop losing yourself.

So as you continue reclaiming the pieces of yourself you once surrendered for survival, remember this-

Your needs matter. Your limits matter. Your peace matters. Your ‘NO’ matters.

And you don’t have to shrink, explain, apologize, or abandon yourself to prove that you are worth loving or respecting.

Your boundaries are not a betrayal of anyone else.

They are an act of loyalty to yourself.

And maybe this chapter of your reclamation isn’t about learning how to hold on. Maybe it’s about finally learning what you are no longer willing to lose:

You.

Reclamation Reminder

I can love deeply without abandoning myself. I can be compassionate without sacrificing my peace. My boundaries honor the life, energy, and person I am reclaiming.

Heal, Grow. Glow.

Til next time.

3 Keys To Boosting Your Confidence

Hey Boo!

Since I’ve been on my healing journey, I’ve reflected a lot on the importance of confidence. Often, I find myself thinking, if I was more confident, I would’ve never let that fly! Or even, if I was more confident, I would’ve taken that opportunity. If I’m being honest, my low sense of self worth and lack of confidence have been my biggest obstacles personally and professionally. In the past I shrunk in social spaces and sought to blend in rather than take up space. No doubt, I’ve stifled my coaching business with my lack of confidence as well. For the first year, I felt like a complete fraud (imposter syndrome) and would rarely even mention my coaching services or abilities.

As I continue to heal and build, I have learned that the key to success is inner confidence and I want to increase that – both for myself and my clients. So let’s build our confidence together. Not just because it feels good, but because self-confidence also translates into other areas and creates healthier relationships, resilience, better work performance, and the courage to try new things. Here’s what I know so far:

Many strategies, ways of thinking, patterns of behavior, and practical tips exist for improving your life and self-image, but none of them are worth anything without foundation. You know deep down who you are, and that is the foundation. It would be best to have a certain level of confidence to find that and show your true self – here are the three keys to absolute inner assurance.

1. Get To Know Your Values

A person must know and understand their values to feel genuinely confident inside. As part of who you are, your values are the building blocks, the foundations, and cornerstones of who you are. Whether it be beliefs, progress, family, fun, nature, achievement, or freedom, a value you hold most dear.

What causes you to feel angry, frustrated, demotivated, or deflated when encountering some people and situations? Of course, we think negatively when one or more of our values is denied, suppressed, or repressed since it diminishes a fundamental element of our identities. But, on the other hand, do you know those times when you’ve felt alive, unique, or thrilled? Those are the times when you honored your values. You need to get to a point where you are experiencing accurate alignment, like that, consistently.

Your values are all yours, and no matter what happens, no one can ever take them away. However, you can have absolute confidence in them because they’re there all the time, just waiting for you to notice and use them. When you get to know your values, you can start making choices and aligning your life around them. Talking with a coach or therapist to recognize and honor your values is the first step to seeing where change needs to occur. Taking this self-inventory will help you gain confidence in yourself and who you are.

2. Exercise Your Confidence muscle

You need to exercise your confidence to ensure that it does not shrink or waste away. Consider the case of someone who doesn’t take many risks, goes through their daily routines doing what has to be done and doing it well, but not expanding their horizons very much. Because something is too scary or because it’s not who you are, or you don’t want it, you might talk yourself out of doing it. It is that kind of person who lives within the boundaries of their knowledge and comfort. Taking a more negligible risk requires them to be less confident, and they become less satisfied as a result.

No matter how big or small, take risks to flex your confidence muscle. You may benefit from stretching yourself in an unfamiliar direction, from trying something new or trying it a bit differently. You much be open to possibilities around you and push yourself to learn, grow, and become more. You will develop more confidence the more relaxed you are to risk, opportunity, and possibility.

3. Watch What You Say To Yourself

We all talk to ourselves as we think about things. We say something like, “I could never do that” or “I will never succeed.” This type of inner talk can be pretty negative and self-sabotage our goals and find joy. Creating new mantras in our heads that are more positive takes time and consistency. Like establishing any new habits, it’s essential to be mindful of what we are doing and thinking to make an overall change. Replace your old mantras with one or two new and positive ones and add more until you develop a new mindset. The mantras should be personal to what you need; however, here are a few positive mantras to implement.

I am confident.
I am grateful for everything I have in my life.
I am intelligent and focused.
Today is a phenomenal day.
I am growing
I am learning
I overcome all obstacles
I am making the correct change

Life gets easier when you genuinely feel inner confidence. Inner confidence is a gift that plays out in so many ways. And best of all? It’s something you control. This list provides a few ways to start increasing your confidence.

Learning how to act confident can help you feel more satisfied in many cases. Additionally, it’s always helpful to have someone in your corner when making significant changes. Getting a coach can significantly help you achieve your goals and create the life you have always dreamed of.

Are there any topics you’d like me to cover? Let me know in the comments!

Until Next Time Boo, keep Glowing…

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The 3 Biggest Mistakes People Make Before Hiring a Coach

Hey Boo!

If you think the best way or the only way for you to achieve your goals is to do it by yourself then you have Lone Ranger Mentality. While there are some things that we must do independently, we as humans were not created to be independent, rather we should be interdependent. That being said, if you try to do it on your own and find that you need some help then you are well within your right to ask for assistance. Do you believe that reaching out to someone for help somehow indicates that you aren’t enough? That it somehow means you’re incapable and not smart enough, strong enough or good enough?

Well, let me assure you, the people who come to coaching are all of those things, extremely capable, smart, strong and a whole lot more. They choose coaching because they are ready to accelerate their personal or professional lives and work with a professional who will empower them to achieve their goals faster, easier and with better results than they could on their own.

A coach will facilitate your self-discovery, the identification of your goals and the prioritization of those goals. Your coach will help you create your action plan as well as prepare for and overcome any challenges you encounter along the way. Your coach will hold you accountable for taking consistent action toward the realization of your goals. Accountability is one of the greatest payoffs of coaching. It is so powerful because it can make all the difference in terms of you being a Goal Achiever instead of just a Goal Setter and someone who walks the walk instead of someone who is talking the talk. Think of your coach as your success partner, whose reason for being is to help you get what you want quicker, easier and with better results than you could on your own.

If you’re thinking your life is good and you’re relatively satisfied, congratulations! That did not happen on its own. You have obviously done some fabulous work. You’ve already proven you’re the kind of person who proactively goes after what you want, and you get it. So why would you settle for anything less than great? Why would you settle for a muted life when you could amplify your existence and live out loud? Do you really want to play it safe and stay comfortable? Playing it safe and staying comfortable can take you no further than average.

Common Misconception: only people whose lives are a mess get coaches. That’s actually not true at all. It is not uncommon for some clients to be people who have previously achieved success with coaching in the past. Now that they’ve personally experienced the power of coaching, they realize just how much less they were settling for, for themselves and their lives. They were settling for good when they could have been experiencing great. Coaching can dramatically increase the quality of their lives in all areas, from increased sales to enhanced relationships and from better health to increased productivity. After coaching they feel, many for the very first time, that they are fully and vibrantly alive. Glowing, if you will.

So, we challenge those of you who are settling. We challenge you to stop settling for good. We challenge you to go for GREAT and beyond with coaching.

Do you have dreams or desires that you’ve left unfulfilled because you can’t imagine bringing them to life without adding a lot more to your already jam-packed schedule?

It may surprise you to know that coaching can enable you to be more, do more and have more by working smarter instead of harder. Your coach will lead you through an efficient process. You’ll begin by getting crystal clear about what you do and do not want in your life. What’s great about that is that when you figure out the things in your life that you’re tolerating or doing just because you feel like you should, you can create a lot of extra space in your schedule to tackle the things that are truly meaningful to you. Next, you will develop an action plan that details what it’s going to take, ‘the what by when’, for you to reach your goals. Finally, you will stay focused and on track by being accountable to your coach for taking consistent action and you will learn how to overcome any challenges that come up along the way.

Do you find yourself wishing other people were different; easier to get along with, more positive, more successful, trustworthy, or kind? Or do you find yourself thinking about how your life would be better if your circumstances were different if only you had a better job, more money, more time or more opportunity? Are you telling yourself that these external factors are responsible for what’s not working in your life or for preventing you from having what you want?

It can be very tempting to get caught up in this paradigm. But the reality is that if you are looking for or waiting for something outside of yourself to change and give you what you want, you will be waiting and frustrated for a very long time.

The reason for this is that you do not have control over anything outside of you. What you do have, though, is total control over yourself. You have total control over your thoughts, your actions, and your results.

It is a fact that your circumstances will change when you make a committed decision to do the things that will move you in the direction of what you want to experience in your life, and then do them. Hiring a coach is one of the smartest things you can do to ensure you take control and create the reality you want to experience.

The Third Biggest Mistake – Wasting your time and money on stuff that doesn’t get you the results you want and is not ultimately fulfilling.

Let’s face it; there are an infinite number of things that you can spend your hard earned money and valuable time on these days. When you know you want things to be different or better it’s easy for you to waste your time and your money in one of two ways.

The first one is spending your time and money collecting information that comes in the form of books, software, seminars, reports or programs. You are collecting information that you believe can help you get what you want.

Now don’t get the wrong idea here, information is a great thing. I am a huge believer in books and programs being critical tools in helping you get where you want to go, but I want to make something very clear here.

Information alone will not get you results. You cannot expect that your sales will automatically increase just because you read the Guru of Sales latest book and you can’t assume that your monthly expenses will automatically organize themselves just because you purchased the newest expenses tracking software. You will get fulfilling results only by taking consistent action toward achieving your goals based on what you’ve learned from the information you’ve collected.

You may also be wasting your time and money by acquiring and participating in things that have nothing to do with, and even go against you having what you really want. (Example: investing in a new side hustle instead of completing your business launch.)

Have you ever allowed a month to go by where you indulge every food craving you had and did not exercise regularly, even though your deepest desire is to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight and lifestyle? Have you ever gone out and bought some expensive new technology you don’t really need or can’t really afford when what you truly desire is to feel successful and experience financial freedom?

If this sounds like you then you know what it’s like to be running on the hamster wheel of short term gain, in the form of immediate gratification, leading you to long term pain because your life experiences don’t match up with what you really want.

It’s very important to realize that spending your time or money on things that give you immediate gratification but have nothing to do with your goals and values will always leave you feeling empty. Completely and totally empty and looking for the next burst of short-term gratification.

Instead of wasting your time and money, why not invest in yourself in a way that will accelerate your personal and professional development? Working with a coach on an ongoing basis is the most time and cost-effective investment you can make in yourself and your quality of life.

Your coach can teach you how to make the most of what you’ve got and how to do more with less. Your coach will hold you accountable for taking consistent purposeful action towards achieving your goals.

By working with a coach, you will get crystal clear on what you really want, why you want it and how to get it. Having clarity takes the guesswork out of things. That way, you will be able to evaluate all future investment opportunities, and by that I mean any and all opportunities for you to spend your time or money, according to the coach’s ability to support you in fulfilling your purpose, your vision, your values and your goals.

The Second Biggest Mistake – Waiting for a “good” time to make a change or go after the things you really want in life.

Guess what, there is no good time. Life will always be busy. There will always be family and business obligations to attend to, errands to run, chores to do, podcasts and reels to watch and people and projects that want your time, energy and money. Your life will always be busy and it will always get in the way of what you really want, if you let it.

Wondering what you can do about it? You can focus on the simple truth. Today. Stop kidding yourself that the perfect time is just around the corner or some time in the future at some unspecified date. Instead, decide to connect with a professional who can teach you how to make the most of every moment starting right now.

Your coach will hold you accountable while keeping you focused and on track to achieving your goals no matter what life throws at you.

The Biggest Mistake – Telling yourself you can’t afford a coach.

The truth is that you can’t afford not to have one. Coaches are highly in demand these days because coaching has proven itself to be an extremely effective method for facilitating personal and professional development and fulfillment.

The word is out everywhere, it’s on social media, it’s in corporations and it’s in solid and thriving communities. The word is out that coaching makes sense and it really works. In studies that have been done on the impact of coaching, the results have consistently shown a return on investment of more than 100%.

Coaching clients from all walks and areas of life consistently report that it is the best money they ever spent because their investment in an ongoing coaching partnership enables them to achieve their goals. What’s even better is coaching enables them to achieve their goals quicker, easier and with better results. Now think about that for a moment. Think about what that means for you. Anything you want is available to you quicker, easier and with better results through the vehicle of coaching.

If you are still unsure, consider this, it’s not enough for you to say you want things to be different. Just wanting something doesn’t make it so. You must make a decision and then take purposeful action toward what you want. When you put your money where your mouth is and invest in a coaching program you demonstrate your commitment to achieving the thing that you want and at the same time you cut yourself off from any possibility other than total success. Some coaches like myself have affordable payment plans for their coaching programs and would be happy to discuss options with you.

Oh! One more thing before I go. In the month of May, I will be running a special promotion for my new 12 week transformational coaching program. 25 slots. 50% off. I will be providing more information on that in the coming weeks, but feel free to reach out to me if that’s something you’re interested in.

Until Next Time Beautiful Souls, keep Glowing…