Mental Health and Wellness Archives - Page 3 of 27

Start Over Helps You (and My Blog Story)

Start over is a theme that many of us have experienced and maybe a lot since 2020. Whether we wanted to or not, it can be our ticket to our best lives… and that’s what this article is about so you can embrace your start over opportunities.

One thing we can all have a say in is… evolving in our personal growth and what matters to us.

Embracing what healthy gains we’ve made brings rewards for our daily lives.

And embracing starting over as a new way or perspective is a blessing gain…

It’s a micro mindset pattern shift you can practice in your day (maybe even today), so you can see and feel how start overs are good, and not bad or sad interruptions.

That self-training helps our future and best outcomes.

Because changes in life are meant to help you and if you see it that way, you help yourself grow and further.

For most my younger adult life I played the victim without knowing I had that internal narrative.

I also thought that choices I made would be permanent. I was naive.

And when good situations didn’t last, I was disappointed.

I saw them as failures.

And I fell for that over and over again.

If you didn’t have role models and influences growing up that drilled into you the more positive ways and helped shape your self-esteem, then that’s the pattern you’re likely to fall into.

And the saving grace is we have the Universe on our side as fall back and providing answers to us.

We may call it luck, but it’s part of the plan. 😉

You’ve probably heard the saying that the Universe keeps serving up the same lessons. The lessons are there to help us and not make us feel less than..

…I didn’t know that in my younger years.

And as years went by, I grew up in wisdom and got revelation, leaning more into internal truth.

Truth and reality aren’t the exact same thing.

Reality is what physically is happening or not happening. Truth are the thoughts that are real and factual. And lies are the opposite in false beliefs. Ego perception makes you believe they are real, when they are not.

And in that case, then anyone can be a victim to their own ego.

Recognizing this, my life realities started to better align with truth, where I also realized nothing stays the same.

I told my ego the truth, that it wasn’t just what I experienced.

Because everyone has their versions of uncertainty.

In my belief lies I had bought into, I was the only common denominator for the situations I faced.

So that made me the victim. But I turned that narrative around one situation at a time.

Rewriting my beliefs with love over ego, starting with experience outcomes (reality) showed me the deficit in my faulty thinking that my mind led me to believe.

And took me from victim to abundant mentality.

It was micro-start overs from little lie beliefs that got me over the hump.

Being abundant minded, changes the identity to someone who takes responsibility for changing her thoughts to positive, loving ones for better outcomes and perspectives.

Perspectives transform your life when no influences can.

And if a perspective change is what you think you need, this helped me:

This one exercise helped to changing the tide…

Let’s take something most of us have privilege to do every day: we take a shower.

And imagine if one day you do your regular shower routine but you don’t get most the soap off your body or shampoo out of your hair. Maybe you were distracted and busy with shower thoughts.

After you’ve dried off and gotten dressed for the day, you realize that small miss.

What are your options?

Live with the fact and try to forget about the remaining residue.

Or…

Take a few extra effort minutes to go back in the shower again and rinse off knowing that you’d have to dry with a towel again and essentially re-trace all the steps you would do when you got in the shower the first time. It’s a small hassle in a busy day.

And while most would probably just live with it and get on with their day…

If you have the extra few minutes, you’re better off to get back in the shower.

Why?

…So you can get your best day.

If you don’t do a redo, then you keep the residue theme running in your day as part of your thoughts and maybe a physical reminder.

If you do rinse off again, you start clean and fresh.

So those extra 5-10 minutes back tracking was worth the time.

Initially our lazy bone tendencies can kick in and resist.

But fight the urge and jump to the though part of what you’ll gain in those critical decision moments.

Change the thoughts in your mind to productive ones, such as: you’ll be happier later on.

Picture yourself happier.

Try this taking extra minutes with another daily self-care or micro routine you do that didn’t work out the first time… maybe cleaning, shower, or grooming routine.

Take an extra 5 minutes.

For the narcissist, you don’t have to tell them twice, but for the rest of us — those are good minutes.

The micro change in our new habit and patterns creates new perspectives.

Eventually you don’t mind a redo or start over whether it’s a shower or a season. You teach yourself not to succumb to immediate feelings and wants for better outcomes.

Embrace the lesson here is: don’t skip what will bring more joy and a clear mind as the biggest gain rewards.

And on a grander scale in your life, start over with what you first started with that has never left you. That you still think about today.

Those can be part of your dreams come true realities.

Another wisdom lesson is: forget time. Time never heals. As you grow wiser, you realize changes and experiences heal.

We can’t gain time. And the feeling of lost time can keep you stuck if you let it.

Like take me for example, I started a blog in 2009 that took off.

And a few months in I had to quit.

The blog was about my local area businesses I was living near and I ended up moving that year.

So the blog no longer made sense to me as I couldn’t be in that area, and it was hard to juggle writing with the busy work life I had in the hustle and bustle of DC.

Then in 2019, I started over where I picked up writing again.

And then started this blog in 2020.

Starting over in blogging again was so different the second time around.

I had some blogging skill experience under my belt but the landscape had changed.

In 2009, very few out there knew what a blog was.

And when I came back a decade later, the internet scape was full of blogs.

But that didn’t stop me as blogging is something I have felt passionate about since I got my first taste.

Despite the challenges, I still feel as passionate if not more, so I know it’s meant to be.

In your start over or start overs, if you come back, that’s a good sign too! Because most things in life we don’t go back to unless it’s meant for us.

…Maybe the first time we weren’t ready, the timing wasn’t right, or we needed to make a little tweak (or perspective adjustment in ourselves).

It was all of the above for my blog.

My blog topic this second go round is so much more personal and about helping my reader’s personal growth, happy life, and healthy living.

In my first blog experience where I got the chance to interview business owners, I wouldn’t have been ready yet to write on personal topics.

But with another decade, personal growth, and more life experiences, then I was able to launch and sustainably contribute writing in this blog.

So my encouragement to you, my blog article reader, is to use your start overs as your opportunity to take steps in the areas you couldn’t do the first time around when you weren’t quite ready.

The first time wasn’t a failure.

That was your introduction.

Going back is a high call.

We can miss our higher calling if we choose to look at time and deadlines as rules.

If we allow for our entire life to be the time span we accomplish our goals, then we open up opportunities.

How you finish is what matters most, not how you started.

So it’s never too late no matter if you’re in your 30s, 40s, or 60s and beyond.

And in the shower metaphor… by the end of your day, you won’t have remembered the time getting back in the shower, but you will remember feeling like a million bucks coming out and what you achieved that day because of your feelings… and that maybe you wouldn’t have if you let soapy thoughts last.

Just something to consider about your start over that every day and morning opportunity is. 🌅

I like to reset every day with new food creations. I was inspired to start over with this sweet potato squid turmeric salad bowl of anti-inflammatory food goodness. 🍠

Love Over Ego For Extraordinary Life

Love over ego has never been so needed in our world of multi-dimensional complexities and chaos.

If we were able to act in love in every one of our situations and everyone did the same, then our planet would be a place of peace.

And in our smaller world we live in, it’s easier to find daily love amid our joy that we get with peaceful and feel good micro moments. Like when we have chocolate dipped strawberries. 🍓

Enjoyable moments help us get through our challenging situations.

…That can happen daily and in everyday moments.

One big reason is because the ego strikes for no rhyme or reason, and shuts out love. But we’re equipped to override this from happening.

In my journey, I discovered this phenomenon from my office working life situations where I was tested and I sometimes saw two sides in people… almost like a head and a tail side of a coin.

…One minute, a person could be acting pleasant and then the next minute, not.

You probably know what I mean…

Someone is triggered or irritated by something someone else says or does.

At the time of witnessing this, I thought these types of recurring scenarios with different people and situations were because of personality differences… or if it happened often with the same person, a personality clash.

💡But then later got revelation: that was only part of the problem.

The root problem is that all of us have a built in brain ego-feature that doesn’t act when we want. And can act up in our minds.

And we have the choice to choose self-awareness and to find love over ego.

Those are the two sides of the coin.

Love is love and ego represents fear.

Love is more obvious to us, and ego and fear are not. So that makes ego super dangerous.

Fear can be triggered in anyone at any time. Fear can show up as subtly as insecurities that cause irrational decisions to be made.

But if we replace fear with joy inside us or in our spirit, then we can revert to love that’s in us.

Either way, it’s no one’s fault as we’re all damaged goods in an imperfect world.

No one living is perfect, but our damaging ego in us wants us to believe we are in some way.

So getting that deeper love message into our core is our ticket out of fear-based living… that’s all the things we’re scared and worried about in this world.

But first we want to heal what’s broken inside us.

If we never get through our pain and suffering that still needs healing from the past, then we have wounds that show up as resentment and unforgiveness that’s not love.

In my life, I didn’t even know early on that I needed past healing until I did self-help reflection and shadow work inviting in love.

I could’ve let clouds hang over because that’s how the ego thrives.

I didn’t know there was another way.

And anyone who you come across who hasn’t declared healing from their past is living in some form of their ego cloud when clear blue skies ahead are available. 🩵

My early goals in life was to come out unscathed. Or I should say that was my naive ego goals.

…But I didn’t even get past my early 20’s before I knew every bucket area of my life was off… nothing was as I thought it should be as an adult. I measured myself against those around me, my culture’s shoulds, and what my ego led me to think.

The biggest problem is the ego voice and personality is usually the loudest in the room in us and around us. Ego blocks out quieter spirit whispers and ideas of what would be best and most loving.

…So back to my past office work situations, I did not understand what was happening to the person sitting in front of me.

It felt surreal what I was experiencing as unpleasantries and the tone coming from their mouths.

And I found this could occur in personal situations with immediate family. So it wasn’t just work bosses.

Ego infected moments were all over this world… and destructive.

And even the most unaware affected are aware they are not happy and causing destruction in relationships. It’s a sad way to be.

A way to stay clear from being run by your ego and causing damage is asking: what did I do to contribute to this? How can I change the future from repeating?

How can I bring back love into this situation?

Another way is to get informed such as from an article like this.

This shines light and responsibility to making a positive change and seeking personal growth in an imperfect world.

Otherwise the past never gets healed and no healing growth happens.

Then the ego continues to deeper infect and spin perception of reality for a lifetime if allowed.

🌟Good news is, anyone can end this destructive ego pattern in them if they also choose to be better internal listeners, and let in love over ego no matter what siutuational triggers they receive.

Committing to be a better person is one good motivator.

You can’t change others, but you can positively affect your life one situation and moment at a time.

The Seeking Love Over Ego Opportunity (Or Challenge) For You…

🌱Commit to evolve quicker and embrace change.

🌱Identify with your loving self because you are loved.

With those loving mindsets, you move your sails toward a greater future destiny, even when you don’t know what that is.

🌱Let down your guard sometimes.

What If you let yourself be vulnerable?

Let in new better ways… remember, you can always go back to the old ways that weren’t working well. 😉

Show up as the lovely person that people refer to as kind or doing good. They’re the ones that attract others and have a happy life because they live aligned.

With lovely attitudes, there’s no room for ego plays.

🌱Find your love over ego in situations.

This bypasses unproductive anxiety, fear, and worry that rob joy.

Reset by going to bed early could be the remedy for a bad day. A good night’s rest is known cure for getting more loving thoughts.

🌱We can openly talk about more adding love (and less ego) in everyday life instead of making it an “elephant in the room” because it’s not exciting to talk about and ego conceals itself.

If we brush aside our ego fears but let those eat at us, then we pay the price and the people around us suffer too.

“Love” spelled backward is “evol” and when we add more love with “ve”, we get evolve. And we shut out fears.

And, these are loving life goals we can consider:

Seek meaningful work for a satisfied life.

That can be easier to find and do if we disconnect weekly from our noisy surroundings, so we can listen to what our inner self is trying to tell us is best for us.

When we re-strategize and are willing to pivot with a little risk, we get to live out our best life and the world around us gets the best of us.

Choose to live love on purpose.

We can focus on love that is healthy.

For ladies, think of yourself as a ladybug. There are 5,000 species despite similar appearance.

Our destiny was there even if we couldn’t see it fully. We had a few red ladybug stripes.

Before we became our ladybug selves, we went through a caterpillar metamorphosis.

Through younger struggle and experiences, we became our full potential selves. We saved plants on our journey as our loving work on our planet. 🪴

We also showed up lovely and cutely clothed with ladybug matching black polka dots. We’re admired and even called good luck. 🐞We added more love tho this world.

That’s what our life legacy and relationships can be like. 🧡

How to Be Humble Lesson For More Happiness

How to be humble in our lives is a key to our success and leads to more of our happiness.

In climbing mountains, I realized how small I am in the elements and that teaches how to be humble lessons. — Climbing mountains is a humbling experience each time. You get to appreciate your existence and what you have as blessings.

We know the feelings of how to be humble when we know we’ve been given a second chance as the blessed feeling and gravity of meaning permeates every fiber of our being inside us.

If we can carry that temporary feeling along our life’s journey that helps us grow and be successful (in how we define success).

Reachable daily micro doses of success bring more happiness to our lives because we feel good about ourselves.

That’s healthy balance.

It doesn’t matter what level of success or even what the success is as long as we feel good about it and inside us.

Success is relative to our lives.

Some examples:

You complete a task you’ve been dreading… that’s success.

You get a success check mark ✅ that means something to you… success is confirmed on your screen.

You successfully complete a class or learn a new skill you’re proud of.

You figure out something you thought you didn’t have the ability to, prior to now.

You organize something and feel accomplished success.

You get a new revelation about a past situation where you didn’t have clarity before.

You find a new better way to react… that’s super success because often those lead to more personal success.

All these examples give you the you got this feeling. And when free from any pride attachment to what we accomplished, we feel joy of accomplishment.

I made these sweet dessert shells that turned out flat, like potato chips. But in the process, I learned a new method of what not to do.

By staying humble in spirit believing every experience is a learning experience, I redefined success that kept my joy. Plus, I got a sweet bite.

And in your daily experiences you’re learning something new and new about yourself that helps you.

From that lens, you feel good and stay positive in your situations.

Finding our positive “feel goods” keep us grounded and lets us keep going and growing.

When grounded, we stay humble.

That little switch in approach helps our life…

It slows down our knee-jerk reactions and makes us think about what the aftermaths could be.

Humility as outer clothing and inner way desire brings out our best.

Defaulting to humility and learning how to be humble is a form of our self-control… and not one that’s easy to master.

We live in a world where our patience and self-control is daily tested.

But by acting humble, we exercise better self-control.

Exercising self-control is an evolved skill that grows us, but learning can be humbling to say the least.

Wanting to be a better person can be a good motivator as we’re equipped and when we reach the point where we want to grow.

When our motivations are humble ones, we’ve reached a deeper level of ability and usefulness in our lives.

Acting humble is a good starting point. It’s the opposite of acting in pride that can come off as arrogance to others.

Adding more humility keeps our healthy blood pressure, improves our relationships, and adds to our happy lives.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. – C.S. Lewis

…And thinking of others more.

Each of us matter here and everyone else matter too. When we celebrate our wins quietly or with humble brags and brag on others too, we know we’re on the better track.

Humility attracts others while boastful pride pushes people away.

But, humility is often against our modern culture’s ways.

We’re not usually encouraged to be selfless, and all along were probably subtly taught to be selfish and to think of ourselves first…

But somehow we also learned to give credit to others.

In each different situation, we’re faced with new considerations like: should we keep our thoughts to ourselves to not offend anyone with what we say, or should we speak our mind?

There’s no definitive yes or no right answer.

…The right is in how we do express ourselves that matters most in our best outcomes.

We give our imperfect best, and there’s nothing better than best.

Others are different than us… and thank God for that.

How we react to others’ imperfection moments is on us.

We can be humble even if the act we feel upon us wasn’t good… even if initially or deep down we want to give some humble pie lessons.

Finding our humble way is easier if we consider others first, and then we’ll naturally be humble.

…We can’t please everyone and we shouldn’t try, but we can pause and consider other people’s feelings before we act.

Then we’ve done our best and taken the first responsible step.

We can always come back and apologize or give a humble explanation like not seeing another’s perspective but appreciating them.

If we’re humble, it shows up in our comebacks. And then we don’t have to be perfect or scared to say something we’re 80% sure we should say.

I remember when one of my former bosses said to me: if you don’t know what to say, just say thank you.

…and that left an indelible impression on me.

In those work getting-off-the-ground years, I had a habit of talking too much and that grew in my sales roles where I was supposed to talk if I wanted to have a sales career.

…New salespeople often talk more than they listen. It’s a rookie mistake and one I had.

Saying whatever was on my mind was a young habit I had to grow out of, so that I could be more focused and have a focused message.

Slowly, I learned to listen more (two ears, one mouth).

This helped my work performance and also my life personally as I stopped partaking in gossip culture that I grew up around.

Gossip wasn’t aligned with what and who I wanted to become.

And those positive changes helped me to grow more of a humble heart.

I needed to go through the lessons and my immature ways to get the old ways out of my system.

And that led me to slow down, pause in speaking, and learn how to be more humble.

When we pause to speaking or acting, we have a better chance to embrace our humble moments.

Maybe that’s you too.

…Or maybe you’re on the opposite extreme from where I was… where you’re the quiet person in the room absorbing everything everyone is saying… pausing maybe too often when taking a fearless step is what would help you.

Throwing out a humble brag once in a while could be the nudge you need to build up your confidence and healthy pride.

If so, hopefully this article is the awareness or reminder message for you to take action on.

Maybe… you can grow from some humble moments with yourself about what you need.

And for any of us in our humble journey, purposefully being a little vulnerable to step out in change is what we need.

When we’re vulnerable, we’re more tentative that makes us humble acting as the first step.

So then finding our vulnerable ways, like opportunities to purposefully be an underdog in new territory can get us out of our comfort zone.

Challenges, changes, and newness feelings keep us interested and invested to keep going and sensitized to our surroundings.

Feeling vulnerable again, we’re naturally growing humility.

There we can find our small successes again that keep us growing and deeper learning how to be humble consistently at our core and attracting more of what and who we want in our lives.

Mind the Gap For Happiness Today

Mind the gap as a metaphor helps us in our lives.

It started out as a carved out message reminder in the London Underground waiting platform to pay attention to the gap getting on the train.

London "Look" message painted on the pavement are like "mind the gap" messages in the Underground. — A London Look painted message is helpful for some who stop to look. 🛑

And all around London you find painted “Look” signs 👀 and messages that can be helpful or at least interesting to look at.

For a brief moment then, we look down at our feet so we don’t misstep.

Most of us have seen these type of signs… or have had the experience of riding a bus, subway, or metro train where for a gap moment we were mindful seeing or not seeing a sign.

The mind the gap written sign is a metaphor for our unscripted happy lives… putting mindful focus on what’s actually in front of us, and putting emphasis on the love and productive sides of our lives.

Mind the gap metaphors are opportunities for more awareness in our lives (and what they’re becoming).

…Because if we’re living in daily awareness knowing what we’re doing, observing what’s happening around us and how we react, then we’re less likely to slip into the gap in our conscious lives.

The gap could be fear, darkness, or what we don’t want.

In our unconscious sleeping lives or altered state of consciousness in meditation, we intentionally look for falling into the gap calm and silencing the mind moments, so we experience better health and stress calming benefits.

It’s our awake subconscious mind that often adds complication to our lives as we’re moving and taking action, but only partial conscious of what we’re thinking.

To bypass our awake subconscious from derailing our happy outcomes and thoughts, we can ask revealing questions to ourselves:

Are we inconsistent?

Is what we say different than what we actually do in certain areas (because rarely is it all the time)? Or are we projecting onto others when we’re the ones that are going through the projected experience?

Is there a misalignment in our life?

Do we feel disconnected in some way?

Do we lack purpose and meaning and a reason to wake up on time?

These are all opportunities to make internal life shifts that will change our outer habits and happiness to bring more on!

We can look around for signs to get more in tune with our mind, will, and emotion alignment that is our entire soul being.

We can also check in with our our external influenced-internal deeper desires coming from our spirit, Universe, and higher source greater than ourselves.

Our spirit in us never dies as our essence being.

And our thoughts come from higher sources other than our current, past, and future dream thoughts.

We get clues and hints from those around us on our planet and what’s happening to us in our daily lives.

But hints are usually subtle and missed… they’re in the daily miracles and we witness them if we better mind the gap.

I can’t tell you the number of times a day I have a random thought that pops up, and in awareness I notice the external noise in my life repeats the same message or exact words seconds later.

This could come from a television screen, audio on my device, or something I read.

Those aren’t coincidences without meaning.

I use those daily miracle opportunities to mind the gap for a moment to reconnect with my spiritual self and tune out culture.

That helps to connect us to our deeper, higher, and loving selves that block out the fear and unrest sides.

Zooming out, our loving lives are not happenstance and chaos. There’s a productive plan and order. And we’re not alone. Ever.

If we navigate toward our love, then we don’t have to go down dark side trails that lead to rabbit holes that then lead us back to light.

Observe thoughts…

There’s no better way to empower our happiness than changing our thoughts to the better ones we want. It’s also the quickest way to our happiness if we know how to exercise this higher power we possess.

We start by observing or witnessing our thoughts as though we’re an objective third-party to our thoughts.

We’re our own mentor and coach.

This is on top of all the other roles we carry out in our day. So we’re juggling life in the real world and the greater Universe.

And it pays in reward with growth, better life clarity, and alignment.

Then, we can separate ourselves from our negative thoughts holding us back… and non-serving beliefs we could’ve picked up while growing up or along our journey.

To serve us better, we may want to pause and look into those and do shadow work to better understand ourselves while the idea is fresh in mind and so we don’t have to back track.

Then, we can start to take the old beliefs that shaped us and transform them in our happy and evolving better lives when we mind the gap.

A gap question example to ask ourselves:

Do we dislike something in our daily life that we wish were different?

We have better control of our outcome when we mind the gap.

Real Life Example: Why is there a window in our bathroom that we have to clean and make sure that it’s covered so no one peeks in?

Instead we re-write the thought and think: thank you window for being there to give us natural light.

The more daily examples we can flip to the positive, the more we bring light and happiness into our life.

Are we living in joy?

Our subconscious minds, the side that agitates problems, get nourished by feeling bad or pity, so we can end up doing the unhealthy things.

But when we’re lifted up and feeling good, we do the healthy things. And we enjoy more too.

So it’s a double win to find more joy.

That comes about from shutting down bad thoughts in awareness. We’ve saved ourselves wasted time and energy.

Joy is internal and in our control and can be experienced in this moment.

If we find in our free time we’re thinking, I wish I had more time to enjoy… then we’ve missed it because we can focus on enjoying now.

Now is what we have to enjoy.

The glass half or almost full pulls us out of our own misery (that’s our choice).

Doing what it takes to get ourselves to enjoy and feel good again is a healthy priority and can be our goal so we look forward to the rest of our day where we get more than one.

Using our 5 body senses is a good, easy way that we like:

…Maybe we read a good book, watch a feel-good movie, listen to happy music, or do a healthy activity to get there. But we purposefully get there. 👉👈

Then we’re able to forget about time and unproductive thoughts in our happy distraction.

Maybe we do that in quiet moments or in yoga to re-center.

And maybe we go to bed early to start a new day that changes our mood. Or we enjoy a no-butter guiltless snack bite like this honey-glazed matcha lemon coconut cookie.

Honey glazed matcha cream lemon coconut cookie bites.

Those healthy moves turn the tide moment by moment to bounce us back to our productive, happy self.

Then our happy outlook follows and improves, and that helps us to grow our lives, healthy ambitions, and selves.

And we also look forward to creating new ways where we look up and out to make us feel good and accomplished.

New way examples include:

-learn a new skill

-contribute to a new group

-volunteer

-develop our better daily habits

-write out our good intentions for the week/year to come

-strive to become the best we can be or a better person

And in our growth, we can pause to check-in and see where we stand in our pride snapshot that can get in the way of our happy, productive lives at any time even if we’re well on our way.

It’s part of the subconscious mind and ego that never shuts down as long as we’re breathing.

Are we free of pride and selfishness?

We know by the relationships we have with others and ourselves whether it’s going well deep down in us.

We feel good or we get a pit in our stomach when a name or thought arises.

People serve as reflections to our lives. At any time we can mess up with them by not trying or being considerate and doing the best we can.

And more easily we can tell if we’ve created barriers over better communication that may be all we need to provide in better thought re-writes in us.

Pride can show up as many flavors… like this mixed bowl of homemade soft ice cream with avocado ice cream.

Bowl of homemade avocado ice cream with mango and chocolate.

Pride can show up in some situations, and not others. It’s gray to us unless we make it black and white.

But, when we’re observant of ourselves and our lives, we authentically know if we’ve crossed our lines.

We can also ask ourselves these revealing questions:

Do we always have to be right?

Do we feel superior in certain areas or do we gladly welcome in new ideas and continually willing to learn?

Do we feel we’re entitled to certain things?

Do we dishonor people’s time by showing up when or if we show up?

Do we assume what others think or would say before they’ve spoken? Do we jump to conclusions?

Those are all signs that we have layers of unhealthy pride running our show that are hurting us and our relationships.

One improvement way is if we approach our relationships as though we’re a team.

There’s no “I” in team and that helps with our pride checks.

When we do our part independently, and consider interdependence on the team, then we’re on a balanced, healthy track that builds more healthy pride.

We want to do more for ourselves and others.

If we’re willing to compromise, make adjustments, and re-route while letting go of the outcomes, those help us bypass problems and allow in our happy lives.

Letting go of what’s not working is a good mind the gap example.

We gain more clarity and our lives get easier. We don’t get in our own way.

Staying clear keeps us aligned to our best life in our choosing. 🎉

Dolphin Pose Yoga + Water Animal Flexibility

Dolphin pose yoga is a common pose like Downward Dog. Both animals are enticing to pet and add joy to our celebration of life.

Dolphin pose yoga is named after a cute dolphin like this guy.

But if you can’t get your hands on petting a dolphin, today is National Strawberry Parfait Day.

You can celebrate a simple moment of joy with a summertime strawberry lemon parfait you can make that’s healthy and 100% delicious!

…You can also get in your Dolphin pose right where you are! 🐬

For inspiration, dolphins are one of the friendliest animals to us out there… and we think of them as our happy, summer ocean friends we can pet.

…Next to our dog land friends. And maybe that’s why the yoga Dolphin pose is similar to Downward Dog… and both poses are done on dry land.

In Dolphin pose yoga moves, instead of your arms fully stretched out, your elbows bend while your forearms and palms are laying flat like pancakes on the mat.

Because of this, your nose in awareness is also a lot closer to the mat.

…Like dolphin beaks called rostroms that are in placement where noses usually are on mammals.

This gives dolphins their appearance that they’re smiling and then when they show their pearly whites, we smile… and maybe that’s partially how they charmed their way to Hollywood as celebrities in Dolphin Tale with Florida home perks. 😉

But back to noses, dolphins have blow holes at the top of their heads where air is connected to their lungs.

This is where they breathe like us (and not like fish with gills)… and we can remember them in our daily Ayurvedic yoga breathing.

On the mat (…maybe you’re there now?), our Dolphin pose yoga fins and palms are also flat on the mat for good yoga form.

You get a good stretch in your entire body from head-to-toe in Dolphin pose yoga moves.

What you may notice that’s different is your body formation.

Your top half of your body may not be the same length as your bottom half.

If you have long legs and a shorter torso, then you won’t be as high peaked.

Your upside down “V” in the air will look different if that’s your body description. So you get to play around (or splash around 💦) in your Dolphin pose.

…You’ll be more like a hill than a mountain by design.

And that helps you to embrace your unique body and special creature that you are!

…You look more like a dolphin swimming instead of jumping hoops in dolphin show formation. 😁

Like us, dolphins are social and intelligent creatures with abilities.

To get more of their vibe, you can swim with a dolphin and not be afraid that you’ll be thrown.

Well, I take that back…

Once upon a time I swam with dolphins… or a better description is I was thrown from a dolphin’s beak landing into a pool of water.

That was a dolphin ride! Even though in the beginning I wasn’t sure what to expect 🤔

But I did know dolphins are happy and friendly creatures, so I knew we’d get along great in the end. And we did that day.

So all was good…

And I got my Vata anti-worry and cool and simple Pitta balancing self-therapy day in.

In that spirit, you can try these other water animal yoga poses that help with flexibility, and you can do on dry land without a splash.

Water Animal Poses

You can use Dolphin pose as a transition break pose before ending in Fish Pose (that’s an opposite position pose on your back), reminding us that dolphins aren’t fish.

And if you’re starting in Dolphin, you can then transition into a Turtle Pose, turning and facing sideways on the mat.

This way you can use the length of the mat and get a new perspective of your surroundings.

💡This is a good metaphor in life to change your perspectives for good outcomes.

Turtle Pose is especially good for shoulder streching and tight hamstrings where you’ll feel a good stretch in those parts.

In the pose, your shoulders are a bit hunched over forward to give that turtle back look. 🐢

Turtle is a low to the ground pose where you’re seated and legs are ideally in “V” formation laying flat on the mat, or with slightly bent knees until you get more flexible.

Yoga is a journey.

Then you span your wings (that were fins in Dolphin pose) as far from one end to the other underneath your legs.

Maybe you bend forward with body closer to the mat if you can.

You can challenge yourself daily to bend forward as much as you can in the pose, and then build up your flexibility with knees straightening and legs flattening down toward the mat.

Then after you’ve spent enough time as a turtle, you can turn into a frog.

…Which btw, turtles are reptiles and frogs are amphibians even though they both live on land and water.

And in your land-water abilities, still optimizing the length of the mat, you can flow your legs that were positioned forward in a “V” previously… and move them behind you like frog legs.

Your arms can rest on the mat and floor in front of you.

Frog Pose is exceptional for inner hip and thigh flexibility.

🎉Between turtle and frog, you’re getting full upper leg stretches. Your legs are in the largest muscle group in the body.

You optimize your legs in Frog pose that looks just like the yoga pose name, so it’s easy to remember and get into the position.

If you’re a swimmer and know frog swimming strokes, then you’ll be a natural. 🐸

This is a good pose to challenge yourself and see how low you can go eventually, but if you can’t get there just yet (and still feeling a bit like a turtle), blocks are good to rest your forearms on.

For any yoga pose, don’t hurt yourself by overdoing it the first go-round.

Let yourself open up slowly like a lotus 🪷 and that way you protect your joints and tissues from injury.

💡It’s better to start up high and easy and then work your challenging way down, down, and more down to the mat over time.

In a good way, yoga can take you out of your regular norm and reset your mind because usually going down references in your day are easier than getting up and going.

You can pause and think about that one in the pose. And the longer you spend in the pose, the better! 😊

If you spend 5 seconds in a pose, that counts for total time. If you spend 30 seconds in one pose, that’s 6 times the amount for total time.

Not that you’re playing a game of keeping score, but the point is the longer you spend, the greater the daily benefit… and for next time.

Yoga flexibility is all about gradually stretching further each time.

The longer you hold the pose, the more flexible you become in your body’s abilities.

So don’t expect it to happen the first time.

And if you take a break or a season off from yoga, you’ll start over in flexibility. BUT, the your body cells don’t forget so you’ll likely get there quicker than the first time you tried.

Like dolphins that have good memories, body cells also have good memory.

And like the turtle fable metaphor, slow and steady wins the race.

If you’re naturally super flexible, you can rest your forehead on the back of your hands in front of you for both poses.

Then to round out your water poses, you can finish by going into a seated position and laying back into Fish pose. You can do a Dolphin pose yoga move before your transition if you like.

Fish Pose is a great stretch for your neck.

You lay back with your elbows resting on your mat behind your shoulders like you’re catching some rays. ☀️

Then you let your neck rest backward behind you.

Your neck could be wound up as we spend most of our day with our heads and necks leaning forward especially if we work most our day on a device.

So a counteracting reverse pose like Fish Pose helps our neck unwind.

Before you try it full on without prep, it’s good to stretch your neck looking up first to get it more ready and flexible.

Our necks are delicate because they have such small muscles that also have to hold up our heads that weigh like bowling balls.

Like other areas of injury, necks can take weeks to fully heal so be gentle the first few times.

For precaution, a good pre-stretch for the stretch can be practicing looking up toward the ceiling at least 15 seconds several times a day.

I micro-habit stack this move while I’m filling up the filtered water pitcher that takes about that amount of time.

You can also do head circular motions wherever you are and turn your neck from side to side. Those are good if you spend a lot of time car seated.

Hope this keeps you encouraged in your yoga moves and instruction. Stay cool! 😎