Your brain is constantly looking for evidence that what you tell yourself is true. So if you’re constantly telling yourself, “I don’t have enough time,” then. . . you guessed it. Your brain is going to go to work finding evidence that supports that belief. Here’s what to tell yourself instead.

This week I reached over 5000 minutes of meditation. Though I have practiced meditation for several years, I have been wildly inconsistent. Some days I don’t meditate. Some weeks I don’t meditate. There have been entire months when I haven’t meditated. Consistency and accountability have their place, but I’m much more interested in how we can show ourselves compassion. 

What might happen in your own life if you could trust yourself? If you could release what doesn’t matter? If you could stop looking outside yourself to see if you’re being and doing enough?

We are wired to be tuned into others, to want to belong, to assimilate to the group. There’s nothing wrong with that—to a point. But when we get so lost in that noise that we forget how to please ourselves, then we have a problem. That’s when our light starts to dim.

5 or 15 or 45 minutes of time for yourself is not going to fix your problem if you’re spending the other 16ish waking hours of your day trying to be all things to all people and striving to meet impossible standards.

Because some days you need someone like Lizzo or P!nk or India.Arie to remind you that you are perfect, just as you are.

This year has taught me again and again that we contain multitudes. We are living contradictions, vessels for both darkness and light, and we deny ourselves the wholeness of our experience when we consistently push one away.

I’m putting what matters most to me in the driver’s seat. My fear and my worry are invited to come along for the ride (there’s really no stopping them). But they aren’t allowed to take the wheel.

You’ve got a plan for voting (and you’ve likely already voted!). Do you have a plan for how you’re going to take care of yourself next week?

Hemming and hawing about the choices we need to make—or second guessing our decisions once they’ve been made—is a massive drain of our energy. Here are some strategies you can try to take the drain out of decisions.