Ever wonder why you feel small? Fear is the culprit (catalyst) that takes over our belief system and stops us from becoming our greatest self. Now to decompose the fear and find a deeper connection with my introverted empath self through self love and acceptance. Guest written by Natasha Newstead

You are enough. Most days I believe these words on both a conscious and subconscious level when I say them to myself and I infuse them into my relationships, actions, and intentions. Other days the quality of thoughts I wake up having don’t align with this intrinsic state of ‘enoughness’ at all and it can feel like trying to get a derailed train on its tracks just to pull my thinking back to a place of neutrality and curiosity. Sound familiar? 

Compliments are tricky yet delightful little fellows. Most of us are much better at giving them than receiving them, but simultaneously still not that great at giving them. A conscious compliment that wells up in us from a place of genuine inspiration and demands to be verbalized is, in my opinion, the underdog of the last remaining free currencies of platonic love and should, therefore, be looked upon with reverie and altitude.

The next time you feel yourself stalling on a task you’ve self-assigned in the service of becoming a better more valuable version of yourself, take a moment to investigate the source of your resistance. What belief are you holding in the shadows of your consciousness that is in stark contradiction to the light you must hold yourself in, in order to reach the outcomes you desire? Perhaps now is not the time to act but rather the time to investigate.

John Prine didn’t cry over spilled milk, and I don’t think he would want me to cry for him now. Tears are reserved for tragedies, injustices, and the calling away of souls in the springtime of their young lives. It is no way to culminate the overlapping of existence with a man who lived a full and vibrant life.

I love to dance. I’ve loved to dance since I was a little girl. Growing up in a super remote and isolated community of homesteaders, dancing as a kid didn’t consist of making up choreographed routines with my school mates to our favorite Cindy Lauper songs or attending ballet class at an academy.

The global pandemic is happening for you - not to you. I know, I am annoyed by that sentence also, but it is true so we are both going to have to deal with it! If you want to grow from this instead of recoiling into a ball of stress and anxiety you must shift from a survival mindset to a thriving mentality. This field manual and ‘Thurvival Guide’ is a handbook for doing just that.

Self-love on its own is not going to bring about meaningful change in your life. Is it the underlying operating system needed to initiate change? Yes it is, because we need to believe we are worthy of change before we can action that belief… but will it shove you into the discomfort necessary to achieve that change on its own? No, no it will not.

Being alone is a state and is entirely different than being lonely which is a feeling. We do not need to learn to be alone so that we can create a companion free existence, but rather so that we can be better at being together. So that we can recognize our irrational demands and human needs as our own problem and not someone else’s burden.