Break the Judgement Cycle

Do you get relief when you cast a judgement on someone else? 

Does it make you feel good to know that someone else is worse off then you? 

Do you feel a sense of self righteous regal when you judge a person for how different they dress or act vs. how put together and normal you are? 

I can guess with a bit of certainty that since you are reading this right now your answer is the same as mine, HELL NO!

I feel crummy and yucky inside when I judge. I wish I never ever had a judegemental thought. 

I want to break the cycle and detox my judgement cycle and I hope you do to.

 You see we all judge. Each and every single one of us has judgements pop up from time to time. We’ve been hard wired since we were kids to judge.  Weather it came from religious beliefs systems, family beliefs, TV, the crowd you hung out with, the beliefs you learned along the way might still be holding you back from creating a better life. 

You must be brave and look deep within, be honest with yourself to see them, but they are there. 

I feel like I have always been super open and willing to do just about anything in life (maybe sometimes to open) and because of that I assumed that I was so not a judge mental person. Hell, to each his own, who am I to judge? Is what I always thought. 

Then I read this incredible book from Gabrielle Bernstein called Judgement Detox. 

Damn.  Unbeknown to me I guess I do judge after all. I picked up this book not because I felt I needed any judgements to be detoxed, I’ve just read other books by her and like her writing style, so this judgement thing was a character trait of mine I totally stumbled upon.

A lot of our judgements start from within. We are so hard on ourselves to be these perfect little humans and as you know it just doesn’t happen. So what do we do? We first judge ourselves and then since that doesn’t feel very good we move onto the next best thing, we pick out what we believe to be character flaws in other people to judge in order for our ego to feel better about itself. 

It truly is a vicious cycle my friends. 

So in order to kick this ugly ass judgement cycle to the curb for good, the gorgeous Ms 

Bernstein suggests that we must first become aware of the judgements. Notice if you judge someone at the grocery store for what they’re wearing, or if you judge someone’s FB post there are small judgements happening all day long, become aware of them. As you are becoming aware of them do not judge yourself and get mad that you are thinking these thoughts, simply notice them.

Once you get used to observing them you want to notice how they make you feel, do you feel gross and yucky or do you feel justified? Observe why you may have felt justified. 

This is the point where you take it a step further and you journal, purge it all out, why do you feel justified? Where did this justification come from? Is this something I learned to judge from my childhood? Is this judgment a mirror reflection of something I don’t want to face inside myself?

Get deep babe and get it all out on the paper, you’ll start to recognize your pattern. 

Knowing your pattern is literally half the battle. From there you can banish the cycle away in various different ways, but for me its a surrender prayer. 

“Dear spirit, I need help with my judgement toward myself. I’m ready to release this now. I welcome in the presence of love to take me back to my truth and grace. I’m ready to surrender this judgment and see through the eyes of love.”

I hope this post resonates with you today beautiful. Once you start to recognize these judgment patterns and offer them up I promise your life will be so much more light. So much happier, more full of love, peace and oneness. We’re all going through our own journeys, we all flow through life different and that is the most beautiful thing!

If you want more insight on this topic pick up Gabrielle Bernstein’s book, Judgement Detox, Yao won’t regret it! 

I hope you have a beautiful light and love filled day! MUAH!!!

Stay Present

Mahatma Gandhi said, “The future depends on what you do today.” 

How true is that? As I read it I thought about how simple that concept is, yet how often we tend to forget it. So many times we go about our days on airplane mode. Work, school, the kids soccer practice, dinner, bath, TV, bed. Our days go by in a blur and by the end of it we are left feeling empty and burnt out. There is an infinite amount of beauty, blessings and miracles around us at any given time and we don’t make the time to stop and appreciate it. We feel we’re to busy. Our phones pretty much hold the damn key to the universe, they do everything for us, why wouldn’t we be constantly distracted and detached from the present moment whilst holding our iPhones? 

 I don’t want to live a life where I don’t value the little things and since you are reading this, I know you don’t either. 

Listen beautiful friend I lived for many years of my life numb, in a fog, firmly detached and unplugged from the world around me and it was scary at first to feel the vulnerability of being open and fully present. For me I got so used to being numbly on autopilot in a drug induced haze going through my days.  I had zero capacity to be fully present with anyone.  I had to fight tooth and nail to climb out of my fog and re-learn what it’s even like to be present and fully engaged in my life. 

A lot of you don’t have to go through something so traumatic and life changing in order to wake you up to the miracle that is your life. We all have different journey’s we’re on and various lessons we must learn in this lifetime. (I just happen to be the one that has to learn the hard way, and that’s ok.)

My point I wanted to hit home with you this week is that you have a life you are living right now that you may (or may not) be only fully engaging with at 50%.  When you step into the present moment and become fully aware of the world around you miracles start to happen. You notice the beauty around you that has always been there, you simply hadn’t noticed. Your children are happier. Your friendships are deeper. Your love is stronger. You become a damn rockstar to those around you because you are there. You are not on your phone zoning out while someone is speaking to you. You are not day dreaming during a presentation. You are open, fully engaged, receiving everything the universe has to offer and wants to give to you right now!

Let this be the reminder you needed to hear right here right now gorgeous!  Wake up to all the beauty and priceless miracles you have all around you darling. Lord knows its not all rainbows and sunshine but we all have so much in our lives to show gratitude for.  The more we awaken to the beauty and the miracles the more we will have in our daily lives. 

Remember you are made of love and light and you deserve to fully be present, awake and aware of all of the beauty and the love that surrounds you my sweet. 

I hope you have a very loving and lighter filled Monday 

Forgive yourself

Happy Monday beautiful friends! This week I wanted to strike up a brief convo about forgiving yourself. We have all done things throughout our lives that we wish we could have done differently.  I personally struggled with this for years, and it kept me absolutely crippled. I had this rock solid feeling that if I ‘let myself off the hook’ for all the messed up things I felt I had done over my ‘Rebelious’  years then that would be me not re-paying my karmic debt. So in other words I figured I needed to hold onto all of that stuff, all of that guilt and shame I carried around with me simply because I felt that I was obligated to. Once I finally got to a point where enough is enough, I have got to move on and forgive myself, I learned how to release it. Learned how to forgive. I want to share a few strategies here with you today that I have found to be immensely effective on my journey to forgiveness.   There are many various amazing books out there that can cover this topic on a much deeper level then I’ll be going in so I will reference those books in the comments below if you’d like further resources on the subject. 

#1 Meditation.  Hands down. This tool is the strongest and most effective to practice for your growth as a human in general, but especially while forgiving oneself and others.

#2 Journaling. Yep, straight up journal like you used to do back in your adolescent years when nobody could look in your ‘secret diary’ let it out baby cakes, use that pen and paper as a soul healing mechanism. You might be surprised with what you come up with. 

#3 Talk about it. Open up. Use your voice and let it out. Talk to a trusted friend about this stuff, it might feel weird at first if your not used to opening up about things you’ve been through in your past, especially the things you carry around with you that your still not willing to forgive yourself for. Always remember you are not the only one with a past gorgeous, even the shiniest human has skeletons. 

#4 My favorite- The burning ceremony. This one I freaking love! I’ve done this particular ceremony many times and for many different reasons, I just happen to find the most release personally when I do this beautiful spiritual practice. OK so what you do is you get out your handy dandy journal, A.K.A diary, hehe, and you let lose, write down all of it. I want you to let those damn skeletons out of your closet, air them out because we’re going to burn them. Write down everything you are currently not forgiving yourself for, it may be some things that happened years ago or some things you are doing in your life currently. Just write them down. Once you’ve got them all down on paper go to a safe place outside, (no doing this inside) make sure you aren’t around anything that could possibly start an uncontrolled fire, I personally used my fire pit and I would advise using something like a burn barrel or fire pit to be safe. You will throw your paper into your fire pit then throw in a lit match, close your eyes and say the words “I release the ties that bind me to these actions, I forgive,  I accept me, I love myself for all that I was, all that I am, and all that I will become.” Feel the words wash over you as the paper burns to a crisp. It’s done. Take a deep breath, make sure your flame is safely burned out, and your done. 

What is your Purpose?

“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it.” Gautama Buddha

Do you know what your purpose on this big ole earth is?  Have you found the thing that lights you up like a freaking crazy person? That thing that makes you want to shout out loud I love what I do! I love what my soul was put on this earth to create! You get so excited about it you talk to everyone about it, even your little chihuahua! HeHe!

If you haven’t fallen head over heels in love with your purpose or you still don’t know exactly what that is, don’t fret! It’s time for you to go on a journey! 

I thought I knew my purpose, I was fairly happy with the way that things were going in my life honestly. I had so much I was grateful for, healthy daughter, a husband that loves me, a new home, a job doing hair that I loved. What the hell, its all good!? 

But I knew there had to be something more, I just had this intuitive feeling that I was meant to help people in some way, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. So I opened up my heart and did a little soul searching. After having a conversation with my husband where he casually said, ‘Why don’t you write a book?’ It was like time stood still, I got goose bumps, butterflies in my belly and tears in my eyes. That is my purpose! I am meant to use my journey as a catalyst to help others!

I can’t freaking tell you how happy I am to be working on my book and connecting with you guys in this way! It’s mother loving epic babes!!!

I wanted to bring this topic to you today because I see so many beautiful people walking around on auto pilot, and I used to be one of them. You see we were all born with our own unique set of skills, or gifts. We were meant to use these special gifts we were blessed with and shine them onto the world! Living a life of purpose is not limited to certain people. You are meant to live that amazing purpose driven life as well babe. 

So please if you haven’t found what your purpose is yet, let this be your wake up call and open up to new possibilities. Go on the journey. Try new things. Hell, try things that maybe even scares you a little bit. Don’t limit the possibilities. 

As the Author of The Light in the Heart Roy T. Bennett so beautifully said, “Believe in your heart that you’re meant to live a life full of passion, purpose, magic, and miracles. Be brave enough to live the life of your dreams according to your vision and purpose instead of the expectations and opinions of others.” 

That’s some powerful stuff right there. I hope you go onto have a beautiful day friends, and please comment and let me know if this was helpful to you or if it sparked a light inside you, MUAH!

Why do we fear Vulnerability?

Happy Memorial Day beautiful babes!
I’m hanging out by myself here at home while the hubby is working and Bella is playing at a friends house and that means I have had plenty of time to be inside my head. I love and often times covet my precious alone time and sure I’ve got more then enough chores and grown up shit to do around this place, but my head keeps pulling me back to the thought of  vulnerability and how bad it can suck. I am more then happy to use this blog today as some what of a journal on what vulnerability looks like for me and my life and I would freaking love if you commented and did the same when we’re all done.
To me vulnerability is about being completely raw, wide open, and exposed. Often times I would think of vulnerability as being un-safe. I learned at a very young age how to be a people pleaser. How to sort of read a person in my own way and I would recognize how I thought I should act or be in order for that person to like me. Of course what happens when you do that over and over inevitably you lose yourself right? You have ultimately became the person in which you think everyone else would like to see.
I know for me it happened without me even really knowing it, until one day it was hard for me to recognize even the most basic facts about myself, like what my favorite food was or what my favorite hobby was, or even my favorite book. My life had so easily become like a front. The older I got the better I had become at this people pleasing crap. And there were definitely times when that front saved my ass because I had many demons I was battling with and I wasn’t ready, willing, or able to take a honest look at them yet.
The problem is that even after I fought the good fight and changed my life and well being for the better I still kept a bit of that front up. What I mean is that even though I was physically and mentally healthier I still hadn’t opened wide and cut out the people pleasing cycle of fakeness, if that makes sense. I still kept my past demons and skeletons tucked safely away in my closet of comfortability.
I mean come on who the hell wants to air their dirty laundry for people to have a field day with the judgements and so on. And who cares anyway?

Listen here beautiful, this is what I’ve learned. You take your power back and find your truth and your light when you own all the past shit that you believe holds you back right here in your present life. I know for me specifically I was literally trying to get myself so far away from the Brittany I used to be that I basically dis-owned a huge part of my life story. And by doing that I gave my power and my light to everyone else. I let other people’s thoughts of me be my guiding light.  I let what others said about me be my truth. It wasnt until I finally owned every single dark and light part of my life and my story to be my truth. We all have done things. We all have been through things. We all have our own demons, even the sweetest person you’ve ever met in your life has a past, has a story. No one is exempt from life.
This being open and vulnerable thing is not going to be easy and I have a feeling this will be an ongoing daily practice I will have to do, but I am going to commit to doing just that. Especially here every Monday with you guys I will promise to be completely raw and real and open. I’m not going to waste your time with any form of fakeness, I promise to be strictly me when I’m with you and I hope you do the same.
Now go enjoy your cookouts and Memorial Day festivities and I will talk to you again next Monday beauties! (Also if you feel so inclined hit the follow button and that will give you email updates every Monday when there is a new blog post. If you have any questions at all please don’t hesitate to ask them. This is my first blog I’m brand new at this and I could use all the feedback I can get!) MUAH!

The Importance of having a Self Love Practice

Happy Monday my lovelies! Today is gloomy and yucky here where I live, you know one of those grey outcast days that just seem to suck the life right out of ya, and it took everything in me to get up, get my daughter off to school let alone my other various morning rituals I can’t seem to function without. We all have our off days, our days when we need to just stay in the bed and give ourselves the permission to just relax.
It felt like the perfect day to discuss the importance of having a self love practice. When all we want to do is lay back down in the bed and tell life to wait, we’ll join back in tomorrow, I feel that is our souls’ way of telling us its time to slow down, show some love to yourself so that you can keep going at this crazy pace you’ve got me going in. We’ve gotten so used to multi-tasking, staying busy, and ignoring our bodies warning signals and then we get totally burnt out and turn into grouchy little brats. At least that’s what happens to me when I don’t take time out of my busy schedule to show myself some love.
I feel you if your thinking your too busy to add in one more thing to your schedule. I get it. I’ve been there, in fact that’s what I’d been saying for years but you know what? I got so sick of feeling like I was on a hamster wheel of life constantly moving yet I felt like I wasn’t truly getting anywhere. Once you commit to doing something special for you every single day, you will start to notice not only the huge blessings that is all around you everyday but you’ll also start to notice all the tiny little blessings we skip over throughout the day because we’re on that hamster wheel going round and round and we’re not paying attention to anything out of our peripheral.
Having a self love practice can look however you want it to. It’s time for you to reflect on the things that light you up. What is it that you wished you had more time for? Is it golfing, working out, walking the dog, going for a run, yoga, meditation, a nice warm bath? Take some time now to think about what you picture yourself doing that makes you feel warm and fuzzy and happy. Maybe you don’t have a clue yet what it is and your racking your brain and nothing comes to mind. That’s cool! You get to go experiment! That’s exactly what I had to do until I found what it was that is now my self love practice. It is like food for your soul. So if your going to experiment take about a week doing the same thing and see how it feels.
For instance try a yoga class for a week, or go for a walk every evening for a week, or get up and meditate every morning for a week. Whatever you decide just do it. Put your heart into this and commit to show up for yourself and put you first by starting with this one practice of your choice that is only yours. This is your way of saying to yourself, ‘you matter, your worthy of this and I’m going to take care of you’ because its no one else’s job to take care of us beauties, that’s all up to us.
So right now I want you to pick a time of day that would be realistic for you to stick to every singe day and schedule it in. Literally put a reminder on your phone, set an alarm, whatever works best for you. I want you to make this promise to yourself and mean it.
My self love practice takes me about an hour every morning but it doesn’t have to take you that long, honestly if you want to start by allotting yourself 15 minutes for your practice, great!
Just get going with it love bug. And give it your all!
If you found this helpful or inspiring in any way it would light up my heart to hear how you implement your self love practice in the comments below!
Next week we are going to be discussing vulnerability and why we fear it so much, come back and visit so we can grow together!
Choose you, choose love!

Self Sabotage

This is a topic that takes a lot of courage and faith to be able to take a deep look within yourself and acknowledge where in your life you may have the habit of sabotaging your own growth oppurtunities in life. This isn’t very easy and it doesn’t happen overnight. It will change your life in the most wonderful way once you learn to get out of your own way and surrender to all the many blessings life can give you.
Self sabotage is an addiction and as you go through the journey of detoxing you will cleanse yourself of these harmful habits. As with any addiction you have to be willing to admit that it is a problem in your life and its inhibiting you from experiencing true happiness. If I was asked 7 years ago if I ever did any self sabotaging I would have said ‘hell no, I’m the victim!’ Now in hine sight I can honestly take a look back and I know now that wasn’t always the truth.
So as you read along if some of this strikes a nerve and feels a bit like truth great! Don’t judge yourself or lay blame for any sabotaging ways you may be currently doing, just see them. Observe them with curiosity rather then judgment. I want you to journal them. As you notice with gentle curiosity that you may be cutting yourself short in a form of self sabotagery, (ha! I don’t think that’s a word) I want you to take a look at it on paper. Use your own private journal that is for your eyes only and write down the situation you feel you sabotaged.
It is sneaky and can come in various yucky forms ex: procrastination, lying, flaking out on awesome opportunities or fun times, ditching on plans with friends or loved ones for something that’s not nearly as important etc.
I know for me my sabotaging manifested primarily by me cutting myself off from really opening up in relationships for fear of being vulnerable and then being rejected. So because of some of my past stuff I carried around that fear with me into my present and it stopped me dead in my tracks every single time. No growth for me until I could take an honest no bull shit look at it on that paper.
It doesn’t matter if you tend to be a loner in or not, we all crave human connection. I used to think I didn’t need any friends, I have my husband and daughter and that’s all I thought I’d ever need.
But that is a very skewed way of me to think because we can’t be everything for one person. For instance my husband cannot be my mentor, bff, shopping buddy, fashion coordinator, and lover! He would be exhausted and I would be wearing basketball shorts and a Cavs t-shirt most days.
So lets work together beautiful peeps on this self sabotage stuff. Lets have the guts and courage to take an honest look at our sabbotagery ways, write them down, accept that we do them and work on building more heathy loving habits in their place.
Please leave me some feedback if this was helpful to you in anyway and also if there is any topic in particular you’d like me to touch upon here on this blog. I’ve created this platform to interact with you and to be of service in anyway to you. I get as much out of this as you do gorgeous peeps! Have a beautiful light filled day!