Journey to Self Love and Empowerment
Self-love is a superpower. It’s not about being perfect; it’s about embracing your quirks, strengths, and everything that makes you wonderfully YOU.
Let’s make this week (and everyday) about celebrating the incredible person in the mirror. Start drafting a love letter to yourself, embrace your awesomeness, and let the self-love party begin!
Self-love is fuel for your journey in life – it powers confidence, resilience, makes you magnetic and gives you that unstoppable sparkle in your eyes.
Curious to dive deeper into self-love? Read our tips below. Check out part 1 and part 2 of this series for more!
Mindfulness and Reflection:
Incorporate daily meditation and reflective practices. These moments of stillness help you connect with your inner self, promoting self-awareness and a sense of calm.
Joyful Self-Care:
Pamper yourself with activities that bring you joy. Whether it’s reading a book, taking a long bath, or pursuing a hobby, prioritize self-care as a way to express love to yourself.
Nourishment and Hydration:
Fuel your body with nourishing food and stay hydrated. Taking care of your physical health is a tangible expression of self-love, contributing to overall well-being.
Invest in Personal Growth:
Commit to ongoing personal growth and mental expansion. Consider enrolling in courses or activities that align with your interests and contribute to your development.
List of Self-Love:
Write a love letter to yourself. Create a list of 100 things you love about yourself. This exercise serves as a powerful reminder of your unique qualities and strengths, fostering self-appreciation.
Remember that you are your greatest ally. Embrace every part of who you are with kindness and love! By nurturing your relationship with yourself, you cultivate resilience, confidence, and radiant energy.
Explore the Natural Wonders: 10 Must-Try Hikes in Colorado
Getting out into nature is not only a great way to stay active and healthy, but it also provides an opportunity to experience the awe-inspiring beauty of the great outdoors. Colorado, with its breathtaking landscapes and stunning mountains, offers hikers an endless amount of trails to explore. Whether you’re a seasoned hiker or a beginner looking for a new adventure, here are 10 must-try hikes in Colorado that will be an amazing way to spend time outdoors and get a great workout in!
- Star Dune at Great Sand Dunes National Park: This unique landscape features towering sand dunes, and the hike to the Star Dune, the tallest dune in North America, is an exhilarating challenge. The panoramic views of the surrounding Sangre de Cristo Mountains make the trek even more rewarding.
- Garden of the Gods Inner Loop: Nestled in Colorado Springs, Garden of the Gods is a geological marvel. The Inner Loop trail takes you on a journey through magnificent red rock formations, offering incredible photo opportunities. The hike is relatively easy, making it perfect for families or those seeking a leisurely stroll while taking in the natural wonders that make this place so special.
- Maroon Bells Hikes: The Maroon Bells, near Aspen, are often regarded as the most photographed mountains in Colorado. There are several hiking options available, ranging from shorter loops to longer, more challenging treks.
- Hanging Lake Hike: Located in Glenwood Canyon, the Hanging Lake hike is a true gem of Colorado. The trail is relatively short but offers a steep ascent, rewarded by the sight of a crystal-clear turquoise lake nestled within a natural rock amphitheater. Be sure to tread lightly and follow the Leave No Trace principles to help preserve this fragile ecosystem. Please note that reservations are needed to hike the Hanging Lake Trail.
- Mount Bierstadt: As one of Colorado’s iconic “14ers” (mountains exceeding 14,000 feet in elevation), Mount Bierstadt is a favorite among hikers. Located in the Front Range, the trail to the summit is challenging but rewarding, with sweeping views of the surrounding peaks and valleys.
- Monarch Lake to Crater Lake: For a serene mountain lake experience, head to Monarch Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. The hike to Crater Lake takes you through lush forests, open meadows, and rugged terrain before reaching the pristine alpine lake. Enjoy a peaceful picnic by the water’s edge and soak in the tranquility of this hidden gem.
- Section 16 / Palmer Loop: Located near Colorado Springs, the Section 16 / Palmer Loop trail offers a moderate hike with stunning views of the Front Range.
- Alberta Falls Hike at Rocky Mountain National Park: Rocky Mountain National Park is a hiker’s paradise, and the Alberta Falls hike is a must-do for nature enthusiasts. It’s a great choice for families and those looking for a moderate hike.
- Black Canyon of the Gunnison: Known for its dramatic cliffs and deep, narrow gorge, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison is a must-visit destination for adventurous hikers. The challenging hikes along the canyon rim offer breathtaking vistas and a sense of awe at the power of nature. Take your time to absorb the beauty and ruggedness of this unique Colorado treasure.
- Timberline Falls Hike in Rocky Mountain National Park: Embark on a thrilling adventure in Rocky Mountain National Park with the Timberline Falls hike. This challenging trek leads you through alpine tundra, dense forests, and finally to the magnificent Timberline Falls. The cascading waterfall and the surrounding mountain peaks make this hike truly unforgettable.
Colorado’s diverse landscapes provide an abundance of hiking opportunities for nature enthusiasts and adventure seekers. From the mesmerizing sand dunes to the towering peaks, each trail on this list offers its own unique charm and rewards. Lace up your hiking boots, pack your water bottle and camera, and get ready to take a memorable journey through the natural wonders of Colorado. Remember to practice Leave No Trace principles and respect the environment to preserve these magnificent trails for future generations. Happy hiking!
Embrace the Great Colorado Outdoors: 10 Fun-Filled Activities in Colorado to Make the Most of Summer
As summer approaches the sunshine is calling us outside, now is the perfect opportunity to get outdoors and create lasting memories with your friends or family! From adrenaline adventures to more serene tranquility, we’ve compiled a list of 10 outdoor activities that you and your family can enjoy together. If you like exploring scenic trails or splashing in refreshing waters, get ready to make this summer an unforgettable season of connection, laughter, and exploration. So gather your loved ones, grab your sunscreen, and let’s dive into a world of outdoor possibilities! (To learn more about the best sunscreens to choose, check out my blog here.)
Here are 10 outdoor activities that you can do this summer with your family, friends, or solo in Colorado!
- Go stargazing! Check out this list of the 15 best places to stargaze in Colorado.
- Go to the Rocky Mountain Outdoor Center to do a number of fun outdoor activities!
- Plan a summer weekend getaway to a ski town.
- Visit an amusement park. Check out the list of Colorado amusement parks here.
- Take a stroll through the Denver Botanic Gardens!
- Try forest bathing! Boulder is hosting free forest bathing hiking to truly unplug and get in touch with nature.
- Explore Colorado’s rich Native American cultural sites.
- Take a drive through one of Colorado’s 26 beautiful, scenic & historic byways.
- Go for a walk with the family in the evening when it’s cool. Go to a park or walk around part of your neighborhood that you don’t usually go.
- Go to Breckenridge to find the “secret” troll Isak Heartstone.
Now is the perfect time to get out there and explore! With endless opportunities to choose from you can create the perfect summer experience. Our list of 10 outdoor activities has something for everyone, ensuring that this summer will be an unforgettable season of memories and fun!
Mirror Work Works!
Mirror Work Works – How to Improve Your Self Love!
Self love is an essential key to living a happy life. One of the most effective tools for increasing your self love is mirror work. Mirror work is a very simple concept – it involves looking at yourself in the mirror and saying/thinking nice things about yourself. Although it’s a simple concept, it’s not always an easy practice. I highly recommend doing these exercises if you want to improve your self love and acceptance.
How Does It Work?
When you look in the mirror, your emotions about yourself are reflected back at you. Whatever you are saying to yourself in your head is visible in the emotions on your face. If what you are saying to yourself is not very nice, this can be a challenging exercise at first. Thankfully it clearly shows you what thoughts you will need to shift if you want to improve your self love and live a joy filled life. And that’s the beauty of mirror work, it helps you become much more aware of those background thoughts you are saying to yourself, which is the first step at increasing your self love and the first step at shifting your mindset! The great news is that once you get into the habit of doing this regularly, it starts to become fun and you’ll learn to really enjoy this exercise!
Mirror Work Exercises
I recommend trying these exercises everyday for 21-30 days to dramatically improve your self love!
- Start off by smiling: this is one of the easiest places to start with mirror work. Stand in the mirror and close your eyes. Think about something (anything) that makes you really happy. Feel those happy feelings in your body and allow yourself to have a big smile from these feelings of happiness. Now open your eyes and keep smiling at yourself in the mirror for 1 minute. Notice how beautiful you are when you are smiling.
- Compliment and love yourself: this is the next step in building onto your mirror practice and can be added on after doing the smiling exercise. It’s very simple – look in the mirror and give yourself compliments out loud or in your head. They can be any kind of compliment (about your physical appearance, your personality, etc). Just spend 2-3 minutes complimenting yourself and saying “I love you” to yourself. Look at yourself as you would your best friend and simply be kind to yourself with your thoughts and your words. If you notice yourself having a not so nice thought about some part of you, be sure to find ways to compliment that part of yourself. The trick to this one is to look yourself in the eyes and say I love you to yourself so much that you actually believe it and the reflection of you says “I love you” back.
- Gratitude for your whole self: this is the most advanced type of mirror work. I strongly recommend working through the first two exercises before even attempting this last one. Again, the idea is simple – look at yourself in the mirror and give yourself compliments and be grateful to yourself for how amazing you are for 5 whole minutes. The catch? This exercise is to be done while you are standing in front of the mirror naked. Looking at every part of yourself in the mirror means that you can’t hide your negative thoughts about your body from yourself, they’ll be reflected back at you. Each time you notice yourself saying something negative, find a way to compliment that part of yourself. Although this may be the most difficult exercise, it’s definitely the most powerful and transformative.
Show Yourself Grace
Mirror work can be very tough in the beginning but the rewards make this exercise worth doing. Remember that like anything else, this is a process and it’ll get much easier with time. Even practiced people like myself can have negative reactions to looking at yourself in the mirror. Heck, I’m a mindset coach and I still catch myself occasionally saying negative things about myself when I look in the mirror. But I know firsthand how much this works! Fifteen years ago, I noticed that I never looked in the mirror. I would go days, weeks, even months without so much as glancing in the mirror and when I did I would grimace and say terrible things to myself in my head. After doing mirror work, not only do I now look at myself in the mirror, the vast majority of the time my first response is to say something nice to myself in my head. This exercise has helped me learn to love myself inside and out!
Benefits Of Mirror Work
The way you do one thing is the way you do everything. So if you’re saying negative things about yourself, you’re probably saying negative things about others and the world around you. So the benefit of loving yourself more will show up in every area of your life! Practicing self love daily will help reduce your overall stress and anxiety, boost your confidence and self esteem, increase your happiness and satisfaction with life, allow you to start living your full potential and so much more.
How else could your life improve when you increase your self love? Try it yourself today and find out!
Choose Happiness Today!
Happiness is amazing for your health! It improves your immune system, decreases your blood pressure and reduces stress in your body! However sometimes it’s tricky to feel happy when you’re stressed or unhappy in life. Thankfully it’s still possible to choose happiness no matter what the situation!
Here are some tips on how you can shift your mindset to choose happiness!
- Choosing happiness is NOT about ignoring negative emotions! It is very important to feel your emotions even if they’re negative! When you resist or ignore your negative feelings, they persist in your life and tend to get even louder. If you want to release negative emotions, it’s important to honor your feelings by acknowledging their presence and accepting the fact that they’re there. When you acknowledge and accept your negative feelings, you allow them to be released.
- Visualization is a great tool to shift into a feeling of happiness! Taking a moment to visualize things going well in whatever situation you’re in gives you a mental and emotional boost. The great thing about visualizing yourself as being happy is that the brain doesn’t know the difference between the visualization and reality. So not only are you normalizing the feelings of happiness in your body, you’re actually convincing it to shift into an emotional state of happiness to match the visualization!
- Gratitude is an excellent way to embrace your happiness. No matter what is going on around you, it’s possible to pause and find gratitude for things around you. If you’re in a negative situation this can be tricky but it’s still totally possible. By choosing to focus on gratitude, your choosing to see the silver lining in the situation and you’re consciously choosing to be happy in that moment!
- Positive affirmations & positive internal monolog are a great way to shift into happiness! Choosing to have an upbeat attitude and say positive things to yourself is encouraging and supporting. When you practice this you can have a great day and feel good no matter how much things seem to be falling apart around you. And similarly, positive affirmations are also programming your brain with positive things. Whatever we repeat to ourselves is programmed into the subconscious and it’s the job of the subconscious to make it true and find where it’s already present in our lives!
How is your self esteem? Here’s some self esteem boosting tips!
On a scale of 1-10, how high is your self esteem?
Having low self esteem can negatively affect many aspects of your life. It may interfere with normal day-to-day activities and even hinder your ability to create relationships. Low self esteem can affect both your personal and professional life in big ways. The good news is that there are ways that you can boost your self esteem!
Here are some things you can do to change your perception of yourself:
- Think positively and writing down 10 great things about yourself
- Reach out to loved ones and friends to ask them what they think your best qualities are
- Surround yourself with a positive and supportive people that are cheering you on
- Incorporate more physical exercise into your routine because exercise releases endorphins
- Do something with a purpose because helping others is a big boost in self esteem and gives you a greater sense of purpose in your life
- Plan and be proactive about what you need to focus on. Procrastinating or putting things off until the next day is a drain on self esteem and can make you feel overwhelmed
- Listen to your body – rest when you need to! We can often push ourselves which makes us feel drained and can cause us to focus on the negative aspect of ourselves.
- Make sure you eat right because nourishing your body is a necessity to have balanced emotions and mindset.
- Set time aside for yourself because self care is an essential aspect
If you’re having trouble looking on the bright side or want support in moving past some tough emotions, reach out to Kitty! She can help you start accepting and releasing the negative emotions and together we can start thinking creatively and help you figure out how to move past it!
Schedule a mindset coaching call with Kitty today!
How are you setting 2022 up for success?
How are you setting your new year up for success? January is the perfect time for reflecting on 2021 and planning what you want in 2022. Intentionally planning what we want to achieve in the new year makes us much more likely to reach our goals!
Here are some ideas of how you can set yourself up for success and be intentional on what you want to create this year!
- Vision boards: Vision boards are a fun way to see your goals on paper and put your big dreams out into the universe. Creating a visual representation of your intentions and goals that you can look at everyday is a great way to program your subconscious mind and shift your mindset to success.
- Writing out your goals – Journal on your goals and write down everything you want to achieve this year (and beyond!). Then choose the most important things on the list and create an action plan of how to get there. This will help you stay focused on what you want and give you the steps to get there!
- Creating intentions (themes you want to focus your year around): Set themes to focus on this year. Will you be bringing more gratitude into your year? Maybe you want to focus on being calm and centered. Take some time to think about how you want to show up and how you want to feel this year and set that intention!
- Start a new healthy habit: Create a new healthy habit for yourself. Do you have a morning routine that energizes you and mentally prepares you for the day? What about an evening routine that helps you wind down and get ready for bed. Focus on creating a new habit that will improve your life and your health.
- Create a schedule that incorporates doing more things that you love: In this new year, intentionally plan a schedule that you love, incorporate more time with your family, work in gym time, and blocks to relax. Intentionally creating a schedule that you love will make you happier day to day and you’ll always have something to look forward to!
- Make yourself a priority with consistent self care: Many of us tend to push our self care to the bottom of our to-do list. Self-care is incredibly important for our mental health and overall wellbeing! By filling ourselves up mentally, physically, and emotionally as our top priority, we are more productive, happier, and have better lives overall!
- Sign up for Kitty’s Believe, Receive, Achieve program, an all in 3 month journey to shift your mindset and transform your life! You will create a vision of your dream life and learn the secrets tips on how to bring this vision into reality. This program is designed to help you identify what is holding you back and release these blocks so that you can start living your best, most empowered life. In addition to learning tools and techniques, this program will teach you how to implement small lasting changes that will make a big difference in your life. This group launches on January 31st and is filling up fast, so reserve your spot here now!
Gratitude Guided Meditation
Gratitude is one of the most powerful things you can do to create a happy, balanced, peaceful life! This means it’s a great way to start the new year off on the right foot! Check out my amazing gratitude meditation focused on giving gratitude to your body!
Hacks to building healthy habits!
Starting a new healthy habit can be challenging! It’s common that we let our desires for the results lure us into biting off more than we can chew. New Year’s resolutions are a perfect example. We want to lose 30 pounds so we start January 2nd off running 5 miles, stopping eating sugar and eating kale with every meal. Those are all huge goals compiled into one day and so it’s easy to get discouraged and quit.
Thankfully there are many simple ways that you can implement a habit that will stick! Here are some great tips that will help you create a sustainable habit.
- Start small and focus on one thing at a time: The best way to build a habit is by committing to smaller goals and increasing as things get easier. By setting smaller goals and achieving them, we will be more encouraged to succeed! Take your end result and break it down into bite size chunks to create milestones. Choose only one milestone as your goal to focus on at any given time. I know it can be tempting to add more, however that can easily burn you out. By choosing one and only one milestone goal to focus on each month, it is easy to turn it into a habit that we can sustain long term. Once you have got it down, then add another goal (ideally adding 1 new goal per month)!
- Make it fun: If you associate a habit with pain, you’ll find reasons not to do it. If you associate it with pleasure, you’re likely to make time for it. Be creative and find ways to make your new habit more enjoyable!
- Plan ahead: Planning exactly when and how you’ll do your habit will go a long way toward making it happen, so be sure to plan in advance. It’s easier to forget to do your habit if it is not planned and scheduled. If you put something on your schedule and commit to it, it’s easier to build this habit. Setting reminders for yourself to ensure you remember can also be helpful.
- Consistency matters more than intensity: Make sure that you’re creating a habit enough times per week that it can become a habit. The consistency of keeping up with the habit week after week is the most important aspect. Do your best not to skip a day, this breaks your habit. If you do skip a day, don’t judge yourself or beat yourself up. Just get back to it tomorrow! Then identify what prevented you from sticking to your plan and work to solve that problem in the future.
September is Self-Improvement Month!
Self-improvement is so important! The most successful people and leaders in the world work on themselves and are always focused on self-improvement. Working on self-improvement helps enhance strengths, improves mental health, and can heal relationships.
Here are a few tips for self-improvement:
- Go for a walk or exercise. Getting some exercise during your day will improve your mental health, and can really improve how you overall show up for yourself and others.
- Meditate. Slowing down with meditation is a great way to improve self-awareness and self-esteem. Lower your stress, anxiety and foster kindness through meditation.
- Read more books. Reading will help keep your brain sharp and improve overall brain health.
- Adjust your diet. Incorporate more fruits and veggies and eliminate processed foods as much as possible. Making small tweaks towards a healthy diet creates big results in your physical and mental/emotional health!
- Schedule a private coaching session with Kitty. If you’re feeling like you need an extra boost, schedule a private coaching session with Kitty can really help you get on the right track!
