I’ve lost myself. I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t even know what I like. These are all common statements that I hear in sessions with my clients. It makes me think of Julia Roberts in the The Runaway Bride and her quest to find out how SHE likes her eggs, because for years she had just gone with whatever her partner at the time liked. For whatever reason, whether it's caregiving, survival mode, or just plain old life, it is all too easy to lose the most important connection we will ever have – the one to ourselves. 

We become whatever we need to be in the moment to get us by. We become soldiers, survivors, advocates and caregivers, providers, business people, and experts in the game. We create coping skills and defense mechanisms to protect our gooey centers, and in the process, we lose ourselves completely. I remember once walking around in Nordstrom Rack, looking around and thinking, “I don’t even know what my style is...

I drove to the SFO airport on a very busy travel day to pick up my sister. If you have been to that, or any other airport, to pick somebody up, you know that pulling over to the curb is a challenge– partly because it is gridlock, and partly because the security officers will wave you along quickly if your passenger hasn't arrived yet. I had been texting with my sister, so I knew that she was there, curbside, waiting for me. I saw an opening where I could pull over just before where she was, thinking I might not find another opening. Just as I pulled over, I was able to see that there was, in fact, another place to pull over just where she said she was waiting. 

I pulled back out into traffic and pulled over again on the next block. As soon as I got out of the car to help my sister with her luggage, the security guard started yelling at me that I “can't do that”. At first I couldn't understand why he was yelling at me. I immediately felt super self- righteous...

I am sitting in a cafe working while my daughter attends an art class down the street. As I log onto my website's portal in order to work on my blog, I get a notification about the monthly charge being due – immediate derailment of thoughts in full swing! I start thinking about finances, about other things that need to be paid, and family business that I need to attend to. I need to call oral surgeons to find a good place for my son's wisdom teeth to be pulled, and I need to make a follow up appointment for my other son who just had his appendix out. As my mom always says, it's never dull! One distraction leads to another, and I quickly go down the rabbit hole of fears and worries. 

The bill notification sparked a million other thoughts, and it prompted me to look at my analytics page–like is this website even getting any visitors anyway? Let me Google how many visitors I need in order to make some money. Now let me Google how I can get those visitors. What else can...

What if I told you that there are some simple tools you can collect in order to make your life easier, happier, and more fulfilling? What if I told you that these tools are completely free, and fairly simple to implement. All it takes is your will to do so, and some level of consistency. You don’t have to be perfect - it’s just a matter of a few concentrated minutes each day. In this blog series, I will give you ten tools - a new one in each post. Use this series like a challenge, and practice in between posts. Even if you master just one of these tools, you will notice a difference in your life. Imagine getting all ten! 

How do you master life? I suppose if you ask a hundred people, you might get a hundred different answers. Some might talk about finances, or material success of some kind. Others will talk about accomplishments, careers, family, but you will notice a commonality with all of those things. They are all external. They are all circumstantial. The one...

Almost a year has passed since my father went into the hospital for Covid. Without going into too many details, he suffered an accident in the hospital and passed away two months later. We had a celebration of life for him in the spring, and I thought I would share my speech here, so that you can know and celebrate him along with me. 

Gratitude

All of my life I have seen my dad through a daughter’s lens. 

He took his role as a father seriously and filled it perfectly. 

Like the time he drove me and my boys to Mexico to reunite with my husband Octavio. We packed up my little two door Nissan, carved out little spaces for the boys to sit amongst the boxes of household items, and hit the road to drive from Santa Clara, California, to Nogales, Mexico. We drove for two days, and then met with Octavio just after crossing the border into Mexico. My dad was a great road trip buddy. I felt safe with him, even as we searched in the border town for the least sketchy hotel,...

Are you stuck in a job or career that is unfulfilling? Do you desire more in your life but don’t really know what that is? Are you tired of setting your own dreams aside only to help others pursue theirs? Do you feel like you're doing it all wrong? You are sacrificing all that time away from your family and the things you love, and for what?

You might  think that it's too late to start over, or that it is too much of a risk. After all, you have a family to support! Maybe you don't feel like you have the luxury of changing directions at this point in your life. You chose this path, you got yourself here, you just have to stick it out - make it work. Maybe you think you have worked too hard to get where you are, and the thought of starting over, at the bottom, feels exhausting. You might spend hours scrolling through job listings, as if somehow you will find the answer there, only to feel uninspired and even more desperate. 

The truth is that it is never too late. The...

I created a bookmark for this title in my blog five months ago. Hmm, maybe I am not the right person to be giving advice on procrastination! The truth is, we all procrastinate. Some more than others. Out of the free "life skills" tools that I have created for people to level up in their lives, the Five Days and Five Ways to Beat Procrastination has definitely been the most popular and most needed tool to date. 

There are a variety of theories out there as to why we procrastinate. Here are ten reasons why we procrastinate and a way to fix each one. 

Fear of Failure 

The truth is, procrastination is riddled with fear. You can call it fear of failure, or even fear of success, but at the root it is fear of change. Your ego will fight at all costs to keep you from evolving, and fear is one of its most powerful tools. I would even venture to say that all of the other reasons listed below for why we procrastinate, fear is always lurking in the background. The fear might show...

Today I learned of the passing of a friend. Our sons went to elementary and middle school together. I wasn't expecting it; it happened almost out of the blue. There was a time when it wouldn't have been such a surprise. A tragedy, of course, but not a surprise. In 2017 she was diagnosed with lymphoma. She underwent eight rounds of chemo, radiation, and topped it off with an autologous stem cell transplant. Her descriptions of the treatment were that it was brutal - especially the stem cell transplant. In her words, "This treatment pushed me physically and mentally in a way that none of the chemo or radiation of the previous 10 months had come close to." But there was light at the end of that tunnel, and she was declared cancer free in March of 2018.

Our boys were in fifth grade at the time. Her son chose my son, Andres, and another friend to be a part of his support group at school. They had some lunch time sessions with their teacher where they formed a safe space for him to share...

This past year, born out of an international pandemic, I launched my first ever location independent business. It has been a dream of mine since before I can remember, and now finally, at the age of 48, after careers in dance, real estate, event planning, and start-ups, I have done it. For the first time in my life I have truly aligned my passions, my talents, my skills, and my values, and poured them into a business that allows me to have a positive impact on peoples’ lives. And I can do that from anywhere in the world as long as I am connected to the Internet. 

But we all know that starting a business isn’t easy. In the beginning, as you are building, it feels like you are pushing a boulder up a hill. Some days you make very little progress. Other days it feels like there are too many obstacles. Then there are glorious days, where the ground seems to level out, even just for that day, and you make enough progress to keep you going. 

As I continue to push my...

What is confidence? Let's get right down to the nitty gritty of it. We're going to talk about what confidence is, and possibly more importantly, what it isn't. We'll also address some common misconceptions about confidence and explore our own personal relationship with it. So let's dive in.

The definition of confidence is: 

A feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities.

Let's use it in a sentence:

Hazel was confident that she would win the tennis match.

So why was Hazel confident that she would win the match? Did she have some kind of psychic powers that told her so? Possibly, but most likely not. I would guess that she had won lots of matches before. I would surmise that she has trained for many hours to gain the skills that she needs in order to win a tennis match. 

Now if the sentence was: Hazel is a confident person, that would be very different. That would mean that in general, and in most situations, Hazel is...