Find a comfortable position and take a full deep breath. Once you’re settled, close your eyes or soften your gaze and tune into your breath. Notice it without trying to change it. Feel the air move through your nose, finding its way to the base of your lungs and slowly allowing it to slip away with a soft exhale.

Place both hands over your heart and feel the heart space expand. Then, ask yourself: Am I willing to give myself love today as I am?

If you are, offer yourself permission to do just that and release any negative thoughts that may be lingering in your mind.

With your next inhale, fully settle into the words, “I am worthy.” As you let the air go, allow those words to transform into “I am enough.”

Trauma, dysregulated emotions, high levels of stress and anxiety, all have a way of rewiring and changing your nervous system. The changes are so significant they can cause disease as you witness and carry your dis-ease; they cause coping mechanisms and self-harm, and a host of other significant life impacts. Yet, there is a way to retrain the autonomic nervous system and your relationship to your experiences.

I sat down with trauma and addiction therapist, Polyvagal Institute Course Developer, teacher, and author Jan Winhall to talk about how to shift out of flight/fight/fold and freeze, and how we can connect with ourselves and change and get out of the impending danger we feel that keeps us from relaxing and enjoying our lives.

Welcome to Pause & Affirm! This quick, upbeat hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace! This quick hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace!

TAKE A MOMENT TO RELAX AND ALLOW THESE WORDS TO SETTLE IN YOUR MIND, HEART, AND SOUL.

MOST DOWNLOADED MEDITATION OF 2023

The past often works to own our present and our future because what has been gone unhealed and unaddressed. We tend to believe that if we simply move on, what was will fall away.

Yet, this thinking robs us of a beautiful opportunity and great expansion. The events in our lives are lessons, building blocks that teach us what we came here to learn, ways of being, our desires. Our experiences teach us contrast. It shows what we want and what we do not. In this understanding, we can go deeper and explore our needs spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

As 2023 winds down, we are turning our intentionality, focus, and desires to what is next. In every new chapter, there is something that must come to a close or be grown upon to take you to the next experience, the next level of where you want to be.

In doing so, there are often a few hard pills that you must swallow to get to that place. While growth is not the most comfortable thing we do, it is one of the most powerful. Today, you and I are taking a one-on-one deep dive into those hard pills and what to do about them so that you can build a life of accountability and self-authority, refusing to abandon your needs and desires, and find a space of stability that you simply haven’t had the tools to touch before now…

Welcome to Pause & Affirm! This quick, upbeat hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace! This quick hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace!

TAKE A MOMENT TO RELAX AND ALLOW THESE WORDS TO SETTLE IN YOUR MIND, HEART, AND SOUL.

In this week’s mindset reset, we look at shifting your thoughts toward what you want to create in 2024. It’s important to not look at goals, but instead look at the systems of what is working and what isn’t. Today’s mindset reset breaks it all down through a few fundamental questions to ask yourself.

Sometimes we crumble under the pressure of “toomuchness,” where you feel the need and desire to slow down but ALSO don’t feel like you can or simply don’t know how.

If you feel like you are constantly running into a wall, you are not alone! Slow living is a conscious, effort-driven choice. That many of fail to remember is always available to us. The thing is, even the most mindful person can still struggle with giving themselves permission to slow down.

Today, you and I are taking a one-on-one deep drive into some of the signs it’s time for you to take a break and I’ll offer some grounded ways for you to care for yourself when you need it the most.

Welcome to Pause & Affirm! This quick, upbeat hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace! This quick hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace!

TAKE A MOMENT TO RELAX AND ALLOW THESE WORDS TO SETTLE IN YOUR MIND, HEART, AND SOUL.

Peace during the holidays can be difficult to find. Settle into these inner peace affirmations to clear your mind, find stillness, and enjoy the meaning of connection and the holidays.

Sit back. Release and restore.

Anxiety, stress, and depression are all active in our world today, and none of us are actual strangers to any of these issues. Many people are living in fight or flight, in survival mode right now, and reaching inner peace feels nearly impossible, especially during the holiday season.

So today, you and I are going to take a one-on-one deep dive into turning inward and finding inner peace. It is not something that you can simply turn on. It’s not something that you decide to do, and then just do it. Inner peace is a state to be achieved.

Welcome to Pause & Affirm! This quick, upbeat hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace! This quick hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace!

TAKE A MOMENT TO RELAX AND ALLOW THESE WORDS TO SETTLE IN YOUR MIND, HEART, AND SOUL.

Sometimes we all need gentle reminders. Reminders that tell us to feel differently than we are feeling at the moment. Reminders that breathe life into us and remind us there's nothing wrong with us. There may be wrong situations that are occurring in our lives, but we ourselves are not broken. These gentle reminders are the subject of today’s Mindset Reset.

It’s no secret that trauma changes us. What is a secret is how it changes your behavior, thought process, nervous system, and how it helped you develop ways to keep yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically safe.

I opened my computer and logged in to find an article that caught my attention on MSN entitled 10 signs that Indicate a Person Has Lived a Hard and Challenging Life (msn.com)

The article confirmed many of the behaviors I’ve encountered both with clients and even myself from my trauma. That’s why I thought you and I should take a one-on-one deep dive into the interesting things you may be doing without realizing it’s telling more of your life’s story than you may realize.

Welcome to Pause & Affirm! This quick, upbeat hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace! This quick hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace!

TAKE A MOMENT TO RELAX AND ALLOW THESE WORDS TO SETTLE IN YOUR MIND, HEART, AND SOUL.

With the holidays here, there’s often an uptick in depression and loneliness.

So, this week we’re taking a one-on-one deep dive into what loneliness is, how it smothers our self-love, the difference between being alone and feeling lonely, and how to make small shifts to release feeling this negative emotion. Sometimes it’s as simple as realizing we are not as lonely as we think.

Welcome to Pause & Affirm! This quick, upbeat hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace! This quick hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace!

TAKE A MOMENT TO RELAX AND ALLOW THESE WORDS TO SETTLE IN YOUR MIND, HEART, AND SOUL.

Today’s Mindset Reset, Tiffany S wrote in and asked: “Danielle, I have heard you talk about the need to relinquish control and let go of the fight, but I’m not going to lie to you. Sometimes, I feel like doing so makes me a pushover or a doormat. I’m worried the people around me will abuse me because they know that I’m just going to let it go. I heard you also say that we want to get into a place where we’re surrendering, but again, that makes me feel like self-respect and self-love are not possible for me if I live in both spaces. Can you help explain—maybe I’m looking at it wrong?

We have emotions for a reason – they’re there to tell us something. Ignoring those feelings doesn’t make them go away. They will eventually surface, and if you wait too long before addressing them, you’ll likely find yourself dealing with a sudden flood of emotions. By processing them as they come up, you allow yourself to find a healthier mindset and keep that all-consuming feeling of being overwhelmed at bay.

Today, you and I are taking a one-on-one deep dive into overwhelm and the dreaded experience of forecasting—this comes up often during the holiday season, and we will stop it right now!

Welcome to Pause & Affirm! This quick, upbeat hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace! This quick hit of inspiration is meant to remind you of your greatness, inner light, and peace!

TAKE A MOMENT TO RELAX AND ALLOW THESE WORDS TO SETTLE IN YOUR MIND, HEART, AND SOUL.