Anxiety can be an annoying, frustrating, paralyzing, and completely scary emotional experience. According to the Oxford dictionary, to be anxious is to experience worry, unease, or nervousness, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. Anxiousness can be a temporary emotional experience, or it can develop into something a bit more serious.
Experiencing anxiety can you leave you feeling overwhelmed and out of control. For individuals who tend to feel anxious often, it can turn into various forms of a mental illness (or emotional disorder) called an anxiety disorder. There are many types of anxiety disorders such as: Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Post Traumatic stress Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Agoraphobia and Separation Anxiety Disorder to name a few.
Everyone experiences anxiety from time to time, but when it happens for longer period of times, more intensely, its important to see a professional.
Symptoms related anxiety and anxiety disorders look like
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The holidays are here, and for many, that means braving the mind, heart, and spirit to withstand encounters with challenging family members. As the holidays is often associated with family time, its important to note that its ok if you don’t have one of those families that seem ideal to be in the same space with. Families are made of people, and people have problems. People have hurts, blind-spots, wounds, anger, shame, and insecurities that they carry with them everywhere, and what better time for someone to release their unhinged troubles, than with family?

Many families have those members that just cant hold their opinions and judgement to themselves. There’s those family members who have poor boundaries, and are inappropriately intrusive, asking questions and probing for answers that aren’t their business to hold. There are the family members that tend to start problems. Then, there just might be someone you’re very close to, that tends to easily trigger the more unpleasant emotions within you.

For all these reasons, its important to mentally and emotionally prepare yourself to enter any of these spaces. There are ways to mindfully and intentionally engage with others. One of the key components to maneuvering interactions with others is being self aware of your boundaries, as well as those of others. Many conflicts are rooted in not being in tuned to boundaries. Either over stepping or not respecting another’s boundaries, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
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Working with individuals who have survived trauma, is one of my greatest passions. Research has suggested that 75%-85% of the population has experienced a trauma at some point in their life, however most people do not recognize certain events as traumatic, or they minimize the impact that such events have had on their lives. Needless to say, its pretty rare that anyone leaves this Earthly experience, unscathed by tough impacts of trauma.
Trauma can be experienced in so many different ways. You can experience trauma as a result of experiencing or observing physical, mental/emotional, verbal, sexual, or financial abuse. You can experience it as a result of institutionalization. You can experience it thru a major accident or natural disaster. You can experience thru systemic oppression. It can be experienced thru loss. It can be experienced thru neglect. You can experience it thru exposure to or involvement in violent acts, whether in your neighborhood, a business, in combat, on social media/online or in daily life.
Trauma has major impacts on the brain, one of many being a disconnection from certain emotional experiences. Because your brain is trying to preserve the parts of you necessary to survive and protect itself, trauma can leave you unaware of or disconnected from your emotions. For those who have experienced multiple traumas, especially over the lifetime or for an extended period of time, which is known as complex trauma, it can become even harder to access certain emotions. Trauma as its most simplified core, is an experience, that removes a sense of safety from an individual. After trauma, you develop hyperawareness around what you can do to remain safe. As a consequence, the human brain, creates all types of methods to help you maintain “safety”.

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August 8, 2019 marked one year since my mother passed. I gave myself intentional space of solitude from October 2018 to February 2019, to do as minimal as possible. I utilized my energy for work, rest, and self care activities. Self care included weekly and monthly involvement in dance, paint, therapy, life coaching, acupuncture, personal training and travel. In this time of stillness, I spent a lot of time in introspection. I allowed myself to feel the depth of my sorrow, and at times despair.

As a big believer in the therapeutic art of journaling, I constantly wrote about mental, emotional and spiritual experiences thru this time. It was necessary for me to constantly process what I was experiencing, in order to not be completely consumed by grief with an onset of depression on top of my normal depression experience.
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As all types of fears, insecurities, and trauma based responses arose, I was intentional of asking myself, what can I learn from this? I was extremely emotionally fragile during this time, and I allowed myself the space and gave myself the permission to honor my emotional experience. I feel like most of what I will share can be applicable to anyone, but I must preface these reflections, by mentioning that much of the inner work I’ve done, has been centered on processing traumatic experiences, and relieving symptoms related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. As a mental health practitioner and community healer, I have to constantly keep self care, self awareness, and wellness in the forefront of my life.
There’s many roles and responsibilities that I carry, and I take them all seriously. Self actualization and self love are very important to me, therefore as I’ve increasing became a more conscious and spiritually grounded person, challenging and removing anything that’s an internal or external that's a threat to my peace, freedom, or purpose, must be assessed.
So much has transpired in the last year, both externally and internally. I have grown immensely, releasing many unhealthy thought and behavior patterns, while also acquiring acceptance and courage in many ways that I found difficult before. In light of this growth, and in honor of the gift that loss brings, I wanted to share major lessons experienced since my mother passed.

1. Life Goes On.

As someone who has essentially lost both of my primary parental figures, my maternal grandfather and mother, it felt like life would completely halt. There are times within the first 7 months of my grief of my mother’s death where it almost felt like it wasn’t ok to continue life or accomplish anything without my mother being able to experience it with me. However, she was a person that chose to live life up until her very last breaths. I’ve always been a curious, explorative and ambitious person, and I realized there was no need to change that; if anything, I chose to continue being in that power, and even more so in honor of my mother, I allowed these parts of me, to continuously drive me.


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It has been over a year since I have posted a blog post on BE! While I won't divulge into a thousand updates on one post, I did want to share some news about what's to come.
Last March, I made a career shift, which occupied much of the mental space that I would typically use to write. The summer of 2018 was busy as I focused on my Coco Coalition events around the country. In August 2018, my mother passed, and of course, that was a big life event, which frankly lead to me pausing many of my projects.

From October 2018 to February 2019, I gave myself the permission to focus on what I needed to do, to have a healthy grief process. There is no "right" way to grieve, however, I do believe that there are instrumental steps to take so that grief does not evolve into an emotional experience that leads to maladaptive coping mechanisms. For myself, allowing myself to feel my emotions, be honest with those around me, rest, and challenge myself to participate in joy cultivating activities was extremely important.

My focus became self preservation. I was intentional about doing what I needed to do to sustain, and if possible, experience joy. I visited loved ones through travel, enrolled in my first love, dance, and tapped into my creative side by painting and coloring regularly. Boundaries were essential. Constantly processing emotions through journaling and therapy truly helped me through this time.

In so much reflection, I decided to implement some changes to BE. I'll be offering more reflective and personal development products, in order to continue supporting others on their journey of self love. I have a couple of journals and books on the way in September and October. BE will also be focused on providing resources that help others towards self love and overall wellness, so look forward to an expansion of the "Resource" tab.

I am excited to continue sharing what is going on, and creating content that empowers and heals.

BE Healed,

​Tiffany W.
 

When someone is coughing, sneezing, experiencing an itchy throat, or bleeding, we know something is wrong and will typically inquire with concern about “what’s wrong” with that individual. We see symptoms of physical illness and acknowledge that something in that individuals body is compromised. On the other hand, when we see symptoms of a mental illness, we either are completely oblivious, attribute the symptom to the person’s personality, dismiss it, or tell the person to change, stop or get over it. Would you tell someone with cancer to just stop having a compromised immune system? Or tell someone with an asthma attack to just fix their breathing?
I bet that’s a hard no.

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If I asked the average person in the US what routines and practices they implement in their life to take care of their physical health, something tells me at least 3 out of 4 people would have some answers. Even if they aren’t considered to be at their healthiest, most people can at least share general ideas of steps to take towards improving their physical health. If I asked the same questions, and replaced physical health with mental health, I’m not too confident that one would be able to share information as quickly or thoroughly.
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With so much information about mental health and major mental illnesses available to the masses, why is the topic of mental health still not integrated into our thought process about general health management? It seems that mental health becomes a trending topic when an atrocity is exposed in the public eye, e.g. a mass shooting, a suicide or substance induced death of a public figure, and then gently fades from peoples’ attention until the next time. Because mental illness (not mental health) becomes a circumstantial topic, I presume it can only be understandable why mental health is a back thought, but it is a personal focus of mine, to change that.

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Sometimes what you “know” doesn’t help you or make sense until an appointed time. Sometimes you don’t walk in what you “know”. Sometimes, something can make sense or feel like common knowledge, and you just don’t connect to it, even though it sounds good. Sometimes, you share concepts and life wisdoms that sound good or are relevant to others, but those same concepts aren’t intertwined in your life as best as they could be. Sometimes its just easier to talk the talk, but not walk the walk.

Some of us spend our life collecting the many wisdoms known to human kind in order to live with the highest intention and clarity. We gather wisdom thru reading personal or mental development materials, acquiring formal knowledge through schooling, reading and memorizing spiritual texts, and going on personal pilgrimages with hopes of arriving to a higher state of consciousness. In recent times, I know motivational memes have become popular, along with the practice of collecting compelling and insightful quotes.

…our ability to KNOW a truth and ACTUALIZE a truth is not the same thing.

As humans, we are an extremely curious and analytical species. We want to know the answers to life’s biggest questions. We want to be equipped enough to live our best life. However, our ability to KNOW a truth and ACTUALIZE a truth is not the same thing. Knowing a truth (cerebrally understanding/comprehending a truth) vs. actualizing a truth ( spiritually understanding and implementing a truth in your daily walk) are two very different subset of skills.

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We're 10 days in, how is your year going so far?

In the beginning of the year (the first couple of weeks) many people are still on a high from all the big declarations, goals and resolutions they made for the year, but that enthusiasm begins to fade by March. The enthusiasm begins to fade because most are focused on the big picture, but disregard what it takes day to day to get to the place that is desired.

​Our lives are a reflection of all the in-between steps, actions, behaviors, decisions, and circumstances that are in play before arriving to a "destination." It is what we do everyday that provides a compounding effect and shifts our lives. Aristotle said, We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

​Instead of focusing on the whole meal, take a step back and look at the ingredients. Prepare each portion of the meal. Plate it. Then, proceed to eat it. Some folks become so focused yet overwhelmed with outcomes and by the big changes in life, but it’s not necessary. There are simple things that matter EVERYDAY: 

Creating Tasks List: Having a plan and making clear lists of what you need to do, to accomplish bigger tasks really get you moving, and keep you motivated. When the brain sees you check off even the slightest task, it feels productive and releases happy chemicals, which in turn help you feel good. Imagine if you made task lists everyday, and were able to check off items everyday. By any check-in time, you would feel "accomplished." As opposed to just staying busy and sporadically working; you may not complete as many tasks and it may leave you feeling like a failure or as if you haven't made any progress

Making up your bed: Your environment matters. Order matters. It breeds clarity and good energy. Taking the time to make up your bed in the morning or before you depart your room, etc. give signal to your brain that YOU matter. You are taking the time to make your sacred place comfortable, clean and orderly. If you don't have a bed, then just make sure to keep some type of order wherever you lay and rest.

Healthy snacks: What you eat matters. Both your large meals and your snacks. Food is fuel and the better the fuel, the more productive you can be. 

Body movement: We are not meant to be sedentary yet most of us spend time laying or sitting. Make sure you stretch, get your blood flowing, get your heart rate up a couple of times throughout the week. Its not necessary for you to be a gym rat however, 30-45 minutes of exercise  3-4 times a week is highly recommended. We want to keep strong bones. We want to honor our bodies to decrease the chances of obtaining a lifestyle-connected illness or disorder. Also, using exercise as a tool to build mental tenacity will help you develop the discipline you need to see your goals through.

Having at least 1 hearty laugh: Laughter is revitalizing. Did you know that laugh therapy is a practice? Research has claimed that the muscles used in smiling are connected to the release of happy chemicals in the body. Both an authentic smile and a forced smile, boosts mood, but an authentic smile or laugh keeps the chemical flowing a bit longer. When you feel stressed or overwhelmed, choose to smile; find someone or something that makes you laugh. You can be more productive when you're in a positive mood.

Eating fresh, live food: I already mentioned earlier, that what you eat, matters. Regardless of your take on a non-meat diet, understand that there are so many benefits to eating fruits and vegetables. Live food has higher source of nutrients than food that comes from animals. Therefore because we're living with billions of live cells, we want to feed our cells what it recognizes most! Live food aids in your digestion, energy, concentration, ability to fight bacteria and viruses and so much more. You need to be sustained and think clearly while working towards your goals. 

Having a grounding practice in the morning (eg. prayer, meditation, thinking in silence, gratitude statements, stretching, affirmations, smiling at yourself in the mirror, etc.). The world is full of pandemonium and distraction. There are so many powers at play that challenge our esteem, confidence, focus, faith, and openness. This is why we must make time to be with ourselves and ground ourselves in our highest truth EVERYDAY. Just like you practice caring for your hygiene everyday, do the same for your mind and spirt.

Drinking water: The most natural detox, moisturizer, and energy booster is water. We are 70% water, yet most don't drink nearly as much water as they need, so they walk around dehydrated. Often times we're so dehydrated, we think we're hungry. Water helps you release toxins. Water nourishes the largest organ on the body, your skin. Wen you're hydrated efficiently, drinking more water gives you energy. Also, drinking the necessary amount of water keeps you satiated, which means you wont typically be reaching for larger portion meals. Giving your body what it needs not only makes you feel better physically but also boosts your personal morale, confidence in and focus on yourself.

Think before you speak: Being self aware of your language before you speak your words is a technique  of mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of present awareness of your internal state, as well as the experiences your senses are having at any moment and time. Many of use move through the world with a lack of mindfulness, intention or awareness. There's power in your words. Both the words you speak to yourself and the words you speak to others. This mindfulness practice will also benefit you as you navigate your journey of discovery, growth, and accomplishment. Being able to check in with yourself, and be mindful of what you need, what serves you, and what your capacity is at any moment, will allow you to flow with life and bring your desires to you in a much more efficient and fluid way.

BREATHE! When stressed, overwhelmed, irritated, worried or when overthinking occurs, practice taking a slow 6 second inhalation and exhalation through your nose. Breath work is the more underutilized yet powerful tool when it comes gathering groundedness but also focus. Also understanding this very concept is pivotal: You have EVERYTHING you NEED inside of you to obtain what you want and to become who you desire. Remembering and relying on the fact that within you is a supreme source of life and grounding, is so empowering. Your breath is life. Your breath is your power. How could you not take over the world with a focused intention as that?

BE Intentional,

​Tiffany W.

2018 is upon us. For some people, it's just another into the next month. For others, its a special opportunity to re-start, re-configure, and re-do time and their lives. With that being said, I would love to offer you a couple of simple reminders that I received this year, that may support you in your 2018 journey and beyond:

1. Setting intentions are powerful. Focusing on something you want to feel or a mode of character (e.g. altruism) that you want to manifest, provides such a well rounded experience. You will be tested and often granted those desires, and the effects are long lasting. For example, mine last year was freedom, faith & flow. For 2018, mine are confidence, focus, love, and flow.

​2. Goals are great, but open-mindedness and faith will lead you beyond your visions. Goals are good guides but can sometime be constricting and overwhelming. Set your goals, work towards them, but remember that great things can happen beyond your goals. 

​3. Don't underestimate yourself. We often look at others in amazement because of who they are, where they are, the lifestyle they've obtained, or feats they've accomplished. Its great to be inspired by others, however never forget to see the amazement within you. Don't forget that you can manifest an amazing life, filled with amazing roles, and amazing experiences.
 
​4. You don't need anyone's permission to live your best life. We're afraid of the unknown and we sometimes look for others' approval before we take steps and make decisions in our lives. Its your life. If its something you want to do, and it brings no harm to you or someone else, do it. If it works out, great! If it doesn't work out, still great.

​5. You never know how your life is impacting someone else. We are always being watched. What we don't see in ourselves, others may be inspired by. It could be how you communicate, walk, get things done, serve & nurture others, or laugh in the face of uncertainty that may leave appositive mark on someone else.

​6. In the end, it will make sense, if you're open to connecting the dots. When we're in the thick of life, it can be hard to see "the light." Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we respond. Therefore perspective is everything. Learning to find or even create meaning in life makes it a little bit easier to manage.

​7. Its ok not to know, and its ok to not feel ok. Its something about uncertainty that the mind can't accept. As humans we chase meaning and answers to life's biggest and smallest questions. This can lead us to feeling like we always need an answer for everything, to appease ourselves and others. Some seasons will be full of questions with no sure answers. Sometimes people will ask you what's going on and how do you feel, and you may not have words, not feel like your best...and its ok.

​8. Just leap. Whatever it is you've been scared to do, whatever conversation you've been scared to have, whatever place you've been scared to go to, just leap. At least its one more story you can add to the book of your life.

​9. BE Gentle with yourself no matter what. We can get a bit excited and overwhelmed with transitions, plans, goals, and anything that comes our way in relations to a shift and a desire for newness. Remember that life doesn't always happened as planned, and many times there are pleasant and unpleasant surprises.

10. Stay in your flow. Flow is good for us. In flow, time doesn't exist. In flow, we surrender to a stream of consciousness that overpowers us and allows us to experience ecstasy. In positive psychology, its a state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. 

​Lastly, before all goals and resolutions, think about how you want to feel, and what you want to experience mentally and spiritually. Follow those feelings. Whether its awe, peace, amusement, adventure, joy, freedom, fearlessness, or whatever, let these feelings guide you with ease.

BE You,
​Tiffany W.