Loving Through: Allowing Yourself to Reflect.

For the last 4 years I have allowed myself to take time and to really reflect upon each year as it comes to an end. Not just choosing the good moments, but all the moments that led me to now. I know we don’t want to think about any of the bad ones again, but I view it as growth, a lesson and so being able to look back, I can see what has changed, how I have changed, and to really know if I have healed what needed to be. For me it is a healthy way to start of a new year, by releasing the old and embracing the new, without bringing baggage along, instead I bring an empty suitcase.

I know it is not always easy to remember a whole year and especially the beginning of the year, but a few ways to jog your memory is looking through your pictures on your phone, if you journal look back to the start of the year., and if you don’t have any of these, just allow yourself some space to meditate, be still and think about things that occurred this past year, believe me you will remember more than you think!

I have never been big on New Year’s Resolutions, instead I chose to set an intention. After I look back upon the year ending, I think about what it is I would like to learn, improve, grow or start for the New Year. It is something you can write and place on your mirror, hang on your wall, put in your car, where ever you want and however many places you want, so each day you see it and our reminded. You only need one. Mine for this year is: Love in new ways. I know it sounds more like an affirmation but for me, it is a reminder a challenge for myself, to see love in ways that I may not have. To be open to more, not just good, but also any challenges of life.

Reflecting on another year can stir many emotions for each of us, but that is where you need to listen. Listen to what those emotions are, where are they coming from, how are they making you feel? Reflecting on those questions can bring you to an answer you may have needed, but it will also bring you peace and hopefully excitement for the new year ahead. Each year, month, day, moment we have the ability to change and rewrite our lives, how amazing is that?! I hope 2022 brings more love, peace and kindness into your life and into this world. XO-Rach

Loving Through: Listening to our Soul.

I believe we all come here with our own built in compass, a guide that helps us navigate life. Some call it intuition or a knowing, but I believe it is my soul, my highest self telling me what I have always known.

No one in this world knows us better than our own selves, but yet we allow others to influence us on our decisions, feelings, beliefs and thoughts. Have you ever had a feeling when something was right or wrong? Like there is this magical pull in your tummy, almost like a fire brewing inside, well that is your soul, your knowing, whatever you call it. Have you ever gone against that knowing? What happened when you did? I can say from my own experience I said, “ I knew this or that, but why did I do something different”?

Society has never talked or educated people on what their own bodies are capable of nor has it been acceptable to listen to your own compass. It is not egotistical to own and be who you are, to feel free to be that, and to be unapologetic for your choices that you make for yourself. We all have this inside of us, but you need to stop and listen to yourself, that is the only place where you will find your answers. Yet, we have relied on outside sources for most of our lives, our parents, teachers, bosses, whoever it maybe, not knowing or listening to our soul.

We all have our own path, choices to make, and our purpose for being here, so why would you want anyone else influencing that? Don’t keep going against yourself, what you truly feel, believe, and know to be the best for YOU. The more you stop, listen, breathe and take a moment to sit and ask yourself what it is you need to know or do, the answer (s) will be there. XO-Rach

Loving Through Our Age.

Today I celebrate another day here on this earth as well as my last year of being in my 40’s. Grateful doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel in this moment, so many emotions and so much love. I live with no age, because it is just a number, it doesn’t define me or limit me, it is just a blessing for another year, month, day, and moment I get to spend here.

Every year of life brings change, some are amazing and others not so amazing, but in each of them there is an opportunity to love. I think about the last 9 years of my life and the amazing transformation that has happened within me. Saying goodbye to souls who I loved dearly, leaving a marriage that I never thought I could, but with all that sadness came light. I got to live on my very own for the very first time in my life, made decisions on my own, and learned to love myself and others in a new wayI never knew I could. Yes at age 44 I finally lived on my own! Age does not matter! Age has become something of a death sentence as our numbers climb. My daughter said to me the other day, “Your life is half over”, I laughed and thought, I will be blessed to have another 50 years!

I think about when we are young and all we wanted was to be older and when we get older we wish we were younger. I believe we all need to find our child spirit again, because that is the fountain of youth. It is where our dreams, passion and pure joy of life is at. I remember coloring my mom’s hair when she was 39, thinking to myself she is so old. And at the age of 40 I started coloring my grays away, but for the last 6 months I stopped. I decided this is me, this is the process, so I am just embracing it with confidence and love. It doesn’t matter if we have wrinkles, grays, or things are sagging south! What matters is loving who we are in every single moment, day, month and year we get to be here.

Age has been defined in this culture in the most horrible ways I believe. We are defined by our minds, bodies and not our souls, our love. Some of the most amazing people I know and have known have been treated unfairly because they are deemed old, that they served their purpose and now do not have one. What I know is with age comes wisdom, stories and memories that helped shaped our world. Stories that carry love and joy and stories that bring us lessons.

No one knows when our story will end, but that is the beauty of life, that is our lesson to live each day with love, to say I am sorry, to forgive, to hug, to kiss, to cherish all that we have and not dwell on what we don’t. Each year, each moment we can change our lives, age doesn’t stop that, we do. So remember today and everyday to love like it is your last. Wake up each day with your child spirit and believe anything is possible, because it is. We live in a magical place, we are the magic! XO-Rach

Loving Through Divorce.

Divorce is different for each person, the reasons why, if kids are involved and so many other factors. It makes each journey unique, although the outcome is the same, there is an ending of a marriage. There is not a guidebook on how to act or think during this process, because when it comes to humans everyone reacts and feels differently about this decision. I know in my own experience it was pretty tough to Love Through this process at first, but I learned quickly I was not who I wanted to be nor acting the way I wanted. So I changed a lot and in doing so I found love and that is how I could move forward in this journey.

As humans we live in our emotions, which is not always a bad thing, but it depends on the emotions we are living in. If you are feeling anger and hate, that is how you will navigate any experience in life and with divorce that only fuels the fires that may be burning in one or both people. Believe me I am aware of these feelings, the feeling of someone hating you so much because you chose to make yourself happy, but what I want you to understand it is not your job to carry someones pain or suffering, that is for them to heal and navigate through. Divorce is like death, it is an ending and in all endings you need to carry love, for yourself and for everyone involved. When you have kids this magnifies the need for love more than anything! Their whole entire life is changed and it doesn’t matter the age of your kids, because it is an ending of a family they have known their entire life. I became very aware of how my kids each felt, because they are all different and each path is different on how they processed this life changing event. My vow since day one was not to allow my kids to feel it was about them and that I was here, presently, loving and supporting them in all ways that I could.

Divorce is not easy, but it can be a beautiful thing even if you do not have a good ending with your ex. To be happy, healthy and in love with life is what each of us in this lifetime deserves and is meant to experience. Never feel bad about your choices, but also be aware of your why’s and what you are sending out into the world.

Love is the one gift we all have and even in the dark and sometimes horrible moments, when we feel we don’t or shouldn’t give love, that is when it is needed the most! XO-Rach

Loving Through a narcissistic relationship.

To me it is almost impossible to Love Through this type of relationship. It is the after math where love is needed to move through and forward. It is hard to find this love at first, because you are broken, every single piece of you is scattered all over the place. You feel alone, misunderstood, and honestly you can feel crazy. Crazy for how you allowed yourself to be in this abusive and traumatic relationship, but you aren’t crazy, you are brave.

A narcissist will destroy everything inside of you, they will make you doubt yourself over and over, till you finally just give up on yourself and go with what is said and told to you. You will live in fear and sadness. Fear that you will never feel alive and sadness for the person who has died inside of you. They take what they can, make you weak, make you worthless. They don’t care what age you are, what sex you are, they just want you to love them, to obey, to live their life in the way they want. You will give up your dreams, your desires, and your heart. You won’t even know it is happening till you are so far in and don’t see a way out, that is when you feel stuck, where you feel like you are dying, a million times over and over.

Loving yourself through the after is one of the most challenging things you will ever do in life, but it is also one of the most beautiful gifts you will ever give yourself. It is like a white canvas, fresh and new, where you begin to paint the colors of your own life. The toughest part is picking up the brush, because you haven’t been allowed to do anything on your own. But once you pick it up, that is the first step forward to painting your master piece. Then you need to decide what color to start with, this can take time, because you have to relearn to trust yourself again. This is a hard process, because you go back to a place where you were never right and were not allowed to make choices. But once you pick that first color, you will have a surge of confidence and picking the next one becomes easier. Your master piece can take time, sometimes a lifetime, but the whole point of this, is that you are moving and growing, learning who you are. What you like, what you don’t. What you want in life and what you do not. There are times when your brush strokes are not the way you want, but they are there for you to see your progress and where you need to keep working on something. The most important thing to remember is you are free. Free to grow, free to learn, free to love the way you know how, the way you want to be loved. Loving Through each stroke off your journey and knowing you are ok. You are worthy, you didn’t deserve anything that happened to you. Instead, it was a gift, a new canvas, a new life, where you are now the artist. Lean into that excitement, the wonder of life, and believe there are many different colors waiting for you to chose. XO- Rach

Love your story.

Every minute of every day we fill our minds with a story, each page evolves with every thought we think, but are we filling these pages with the truth or lies?

Our minds are powerful and can create thoughts that we might believe to be true, but are they really? Do you ever stop to think about what you are filling your mind with? Maybe you are listening to the chatter of others and allowing this to be your story?

It is sometimes difficult to declutter all the stories we have created for ourselves and others. We may not even know what is actually the truth and what is simply untrue. Our minds can create false realities for us, but that is where our power can shine, where we can decide who we are, what we believe and what we want to feel. We can not control what anyone may think, feel or say about us, but what we do have control over is what we are saying to ourselves every moment of each day. We can chose our story, our truth and know this may change tomorrow and that is ok.

We are made of energy and energy flows, we need to be more mindful of where that energy goes and what energy we are attracting. The power is always ours to decide what our story is. Life isn’t always easy, but we can either make it harder for ourselves or we can love ourselves and the story we create each and every day. XO-Rach

Loving Through as a single parent.

I never thought I would end up being a single parent, but here I am…

I don’t think many plan on this or hope for this, at least I never did. But what I know, is this journey has made me a better human, mom, and has taught me anything is truly possible in life.

What I have learned is a family does not require blood nor does it require what we have been made to believe, which is a dad and a mom raising humans together. I had to let go of this notion almost 3 years ago and tell myself that I could not be both a dad and a mom. That required me to let go of guilt. Guilt of knowing the person who is the dad could not live up to his end of his role. Knowing that how we parented was completely opposite and believing in myself that I was capable of raising our youngest.

Being a single parent requires you to become selfless. My mantra I say almost everyday in so many ways is this: “It is not about you”. There have been times when I cry, I feel alone, where the weight of the world is on my shoulders and I wish someone would walk in and make it all better. But it is in those moments where I have found gratitude and so much love for myself and for the people in my life who are here. You have to lose the notion that you can change people because you can’t. All you can do is believe that there is a reason for everything, even if you don’t know in this moment what it is. Life doesn’t always give you what you want, but what I know to be true is life gives you what you need. There will always be moments in our live when we question what the hell we are doing, but just trust yourself and know you will always be ok. I am here, after hell and back. Stronger, wiser, and loving every single moment of this life.

To wake up each and everyday for the last 3 years and get to raise this beautiful soul, who inspires me in every way and has taught me so much about myself and life, well that is all I could ever have hoped for in life. Do I wish this dad could be apart of this? Yes, if he was capable of it. I do get sad knowing he has missed out on so much, that he doesn’t get to see how amazing she is. How she has grown and become so very wise and such a loving, kind and compassionate person. But that is not for me to carry, that is for him.

To all the single parents out there, I see you, I understand, and you are doing amazing! This path is not for the weak, because it will make you strong. XO-Rach

Loving Through when there is no closure.

Closure is something that allows us to feel a certain cycle is complete. It could be in a relationship, a death, or anything that allows us to end one cycle in order to move on to the next. But what happens when we do not get that closure? How do we move on fully in life, letting go of the need or desire for this closure we seek? That had been a challenge for me, but one I have been able to navigate through. Two big major events come into my mind when I think about closure, one is my divorce and the other is the death of my sister. These events showed and taught me that I can only control myself, what I think, what I believe and the choices I had to make to move on and find my own closure. With my divorce I knew we would never be friends, never have a “nice” goodbye, but I had to dig deep to know that he was never on the same level as me, that there was a reason for my goodbye. I could never make him understand or value my thoughts or feelings when we were married, so why would I believe I could after? That is where I had to let go of the control and the belief that I would not be able to move forward with my life. What I discovered is closure can happen without that person, that you can wake up one day and something has changed inside of you, that you are in a place of peace.

When my sister took her own life over 4 years ago, I had already said my goodbyes to her years before that, but I was left with wondering if there was something more I could have done or said to make anything different I know today that there is not one thing I could have done or changed, because I do not have that kind of power.

Closure can happen on Sunday sitting in your house and realizing the only thing you can control is yourself. This is our power, our control in finding our own closure, whether the other person knows it or not. When you can be kind and loving to yourself and let go of the control and begin to understand that we are all on different levels, you will find peace and knowing that you have closure.

Holding love instead of hate, forgiving without having “I’m sorry”, will allow you to move on to the next adventure of your life, with more love, compassion and empathy. XO-Rach

Living a Mindful Life.

I remember the days of jumping out of bed to begin the rat race called life. Where time was my enemy and each day played like the movie Groundhog’s Day. So many years repeating the same cycle, unfulfilled, stressed, and me playing the victim. I would day dream of a life that was filled with purpose and passion and a person that I knew existed inside, one who was free and loved everything that life held.

Today my life is not the nightmare it once was instead, I have peace, love and an awareness of what is truly important, which is being present in the now. My journey of living mindfully has changed every aspect of my life, but most importantly it has allowed me to heal many parts of myself. When you are present, you are not thinking of the past or the future, you are just being in the now. In the moment of now you become aware of so many things you may have never noticed before, sounds, smells, tastes, all of your senses become more alive and with that you develop a deeper awareness of life and yourself. When you are present it is a time to listen to yourself, to notice what your thoughts are, feel what is needed to be felt and then release them. I have become a better person and an observer of life, where I have learned so much about myself, others and the importance of listening.

Everyone says time goes so fast, how life is short, but so many are still living the rat race of life, why? Making changes in your everyday life to live more mindfully will actually bring you a sense of time, where you are able to stop, breathe in and tune in to what your heart is wanting you to hear. Living mindfully for me is living in my heart, not my head.

These are some of the ways I bring mindfulness into each day:

Wake up and be grateful for another day! Lay in bed and either write in a journal or say in your head what your intention for this new day is. Intentions help us throughout our day to be in the present, kinda like a check in to make sure we are staying where we intended to :)

Meditate for at least 10 mins, before you get that cup of coffee. I know this is hard, it was for me! But making that mindful choice, is amazing!

Walking without a phone! I know crazy, but try it, see how it feels, where your thoughts go and how you feel.

Anytime you eat or drink, look at it, smell it, imagine it. Then drink or take a bite, really pay attention, it will be a completely different experience.

I hope you try some of these mindful activities and they can become a part of your routine. To bring more awareness to our lives allows us to have more peace, love, freedom and a new sense of life. And if you want to know more or would like to talk, please reach out! XO-Rach

Loving Through the unknown.

This last year has changed me in ways that I never could have imagined. Leaving a job that I loved with the people I loved, was one of the toughest decisions I have made. To experience the power of myself and knowing what was good for me was a place I had not been before. I had always toughed out so many things in my life, but this time I knew that was not possible because I was no longer that person. It was the first time since I left my marriage that I did not have a plan, I had many ideas but nothing written in stone. In this space and time of this past year, I have been filled with so much gratitude because time has allowed so much to happen. I used to put time on a limit but, I have realized time is limitless. I truly was able to see what mattered and what did not, where I wanted my energy to be, and where it needed to leave. It truly allowed me to reflect on my life and to realize each day till now has always been unknown, that I might have had ideas or plans but, I had no control over what would happen. That is the beauty of life, it is always changing and guiding us to where we need to be, even if we don’t understand at that moment. I have been slowly letting go of the fears, not questioning or rushing to the “what next”, instead I have been choosing love and trusting myself and the Universe, knowing it has always had my back. Starting a business is a complete unknown, one I never thought I would even try or do, but what I have learned is I am me. I do things my way and realizing that I can not worry about what others may think because I want to stay true to myself, that is the only way I can be. I know this past year has changed all of us in so many ways, but I truly hope you have found the positives in all the negatives, that you see there is always another way to navigate through the unknown times. Life is unknown, so live it with love, embrace the mystery and let go of the fear. XO-Rach