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!
How Meditation Changed My Life & Tips To Make Your Meditation Habit Stick
Meditation is a powerful tool that can totally change your life! I know because I am living proof of this – I wouldn’t be a coach today if it wasn’t for meditation! Read on to learn more story and tips on how to make your own meditation habit stick!
My Story:
I had heard from dozens of people “you need to meditate!” I was high strung, very stressed out and having regular anxiety/panic attacks. I decided that I didn’t want to live my life medicated any longer, so I went off my anti-anxiety meds and started looking for natural alternatives. After trying out many things, I found 2 things that worked and made a BIG difference: probiotics (read more here) and meditation!
The probiotics helped get my gut bacteria balanced out (there’s a lot of research showing link between microbiome imbalances and anxiety). The meditation helped me quiet my mind and unlocked many different doors that got me where I am today! At the time I started meditation, I was honestly afraid to be alone with my own thoughts. I was constantly overwhelmed and on the verge of falling apart. I had just experienced some significant health challenges due to a long term leg injury and gained 50+ pounds as the result of my inactivity. I was depressed, anxious, and desperate to find a way out.
I had just met my husband, an avid meditator for years at that point, and he saw that it was obvious I could use support in quieting my mind. He encouraged me to meditate and I told him I had already tried and it didn’t work. Although I had tried, I had the incorrect expectations and understanding around meditation, which made it a painful process. I would sit quietly and attempt to stop all my thoughts, and if you’ve ever meditated, you know that’s when your thoughts come loud and fast like a fire hose. I would sit there, struggling to stop my thoughts, getting frustrated at myself and feeling like I was wasting my time. This lead to more anxiety and I always came out of the meditation more stressed out then when I sat down. After more than a dozen attempts, I decided that meditation just wasn’t for me and wrote it off entirely.
The Turning Point:
My husband heard my struggles and supported me in understand that meditation isn’t simply about stopping your thoughts. It’s about being present in the moment and letting your thoughts float by without being attached to them. He taught me about mindfulness meditation which is about focusing on your breath as an anchor and place to put your attention so you don’t get wrapped up in your thoughts. Knowing that I still was having trouble with that, he started me off in a much better place – active meditation. Active meditation is simply doing a task that requires to conscious effort so you can get into a zen-like meditative state.
I started off with meditative coloring, crafting, nature walks and I loved it. When I was physically doing something, I found it easy to get to a calm place in my mind and let go of my thoughts. I practiced active meditation as much as I could and really enjoyed it… my mind had been changed about how great meditation can be! Then I graduated to short guided meditations (5-10 minutes). I would sit and listen to soothing voices as people narrated my meditation experience. It was so easy to get into a meditative state and I felt amazing at the end! They were so enjoyable that I found myself listening to longer and longer meditations and eventually working my way up for 30+ minutes! I started to notice immediately that I was a lot less stressed, less reactive to things that used to trigger me and was genuinely enjoying life more!
Finally I had found my groove in meditation! After months of this, I finally moved onto quiet self guided meditations. These are more advanced techniques, so if you can do this, give yourself a pat on the back! I would spend 10-15 minutes each day of quiet meditation. At the time many things in my life had improved, however I still found myself searching for answers. My job wasn’t bringing me any joy but I had no idea what my next step would be. My health challenges and extra weight left me feeling disempowered and doctors had literally told me I was “broken,” so I was sad about that. All of my answers came through my quiet meditations!
During my meditation, I would hear these divine whispers pointing me in the correct direction. I was really sick of feeling “broken” and one day a giant lightbulb clicked: I wrote million dollar grants for the National Institute of Health and did research for a living… why had I not looked at the research to address my personal health struggles?! I threw myself into deep research and went deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole, loving every second I was researching about health. Long story short is that through research I solved all my health problems, completely changed my life and inspired me to become a health coach to help others. Meditation had turned me onto my new life path that I had been longing for!
Why you should meditate too:
There is TONS of research out there sharing the amazing benefits of meditation. It helped me completely change my life path and the more I looked inward for guidance, the more clear it became where I was going in my life.
So many people I have talked with say that they don’t have time for meditation. I think you don’t have time to NOT meditate! Taking a few minutes per day to meditation has shown to increase your productivity and mental clarity throughout the day, which helps you be significantly more effective. Turning inward for guidance helps you focus on what’s important instead of wasting your time on things that don’t matter to you (like what I was doing in my dead end job and the bad habits I was doing to escape my terrible job). Meditation gave me hours back everyday and made me a much better, happier person!
I’ve made a compelling argument of why it’s beneficial to add meditation to your self care routine. However, sometimes it can be hard to start a new habit. The next trick is making the habit stick!
Here are some tips for how to get your meditation habit to stick:
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- Start with active & guided meditations!
- Active meditation is easy! It is doing things that get you into a relaxed meditative state. Coloring, nature walks, doing the dishes, crafting, anything where you zone out and lose yourself in an activity that doesn’t require your mind.
- There are thousands of guided meditations available for free that you can use! Check out youtube or one of the many meditation apps for more guided meditations.
- Start small = 2-5 minutes is enough to start!
- Many people think that you need to meditate for 15-30 minutes per day. While that’s a great place to be, it’s often not accessible for someone starting out a meditation habit. As little as 2-5 minutes done every single day make a big difference in your life!
- Be consistent = meditate daily!
- Just like any other habit, consistency matters much more than duration when you want to establish a new habit.
- Establish a daily routine!
- Creating time in your calendar for a daily meditation routine is a huge key to success! Remember that doing things in the morning is the best way to ensure that they’re getting completed each day.
- Identify yourself as a meditator!
- Identifying yourself as a meditator is a great way to trick your brain into making it easier to establish a regular habit!
- Start with active & guided meditations!
By following these tips you’ll be able to easily form a meditation practice that benefits you without feeling like you don’t have the time!
7 Tips To Reduce Your Stress <5 minutes!
A small amount of stress in our lives can be a good thing, like having a deadline inspires you to complete a project in a timely manner. The problem is that most of us have chronic and consistent stress that never goes away. When stress becomes chronic or severe it can quickly create problems for your mental, physical, and emotional health. Long-term stress is often a contributing factor in many health conditions, including heart disease, lung disease, and even increases the risk of accidents. The good news is there are things that we can do to reduce stress to help us live happier lives!
Read these 7 tips on how to reduce your stress in less than 5 minutes:
- Long hugs (greater than 30 seconds): long hugs release oxytocin, which promotes feelings of relaxation, increases happiness, decreases stress!
- Grounding: sometimes called earthing – getting your skin to touch the ground. We are bioelectrical beings living on an electrical planet. Walking barefoot, laying on the ground, and wading in shallow water are all great ways to reduce your stress.
- Dancing & singing to music: Singing and dancing your heart out for a few minutes is a great mental reset technique! Choose a song that makes you feel happy.
- Do something tactile: this is a great way to activate your senses, which gets you out of your head and back in your body. To do this, simply focus on one thing you can smell, hear, touch, etc. Maybe it’s petting an animal or smelling a relaxing essential oil, etc.
- Quick burst of exercise: doing a few minutes of exercise is a great way to boost your mood, boost your energy, and reduce stress & anxiety! It’s as easy as 1 minute of jumping jacks or running up and down your stairs a few times.
- Body scans & progressive muscle relaxation: close your eyes for a minute and focus on your body. Starting with the muscles in your head and moving down, focus your attention on all of the muscles throughout your body. Notice how each muscle feels and then relax each muscle. If you are having a tough time relaxing a muscle, squeeze it & relax. The goal is to breathe into your muscles to reduce the tension!
- Deep breathing: it only takes 3 long deep breaths to reduce the stress in your body! You can simply take long, slow, deep breaths filling all of your lungs or you can focus on box breathing where you breath in for a count of 4, hold your breath for a count of 4, breath out for a count of 4, and hold no breath for a count of 4.
Try one of these stress management techniques out today!
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 is Great for Mental Fitness!
Practicing gratitude in your day to day is a great way to bring more happiness into your life. This simple act of changing your perspective can have profound effects on your mental health, physical health and can bring more positivity into your world. Make it a point to be aware of how you are reacting to situations and look at things from a new perspective. You would be surprised at all of the amazing ways practicing gratitude can impact your life. Check out our list below for how gratitude improves your life:
- Gratitude increases mental strength: Studies have shown that practicing gratitude can have profound effects on those who have experienced trauma. Gratitude can really help build resilience to better help your brain cope with stressors.
- Gratitude improves self-esteem: Those who are grateful are able to really appreciate and be happy for others accomplishments. These types of people don’t play the comparison game or feel resentment towards or jealousy.
- Gratitude enhances empathy and reduces aggression: Grateful people overall experience more positivity and are less likely to retaliate against others and have fewer tendencies to seek revenge or cause harm.
- Grateful people sleep better: Those that spend even 15 minutes a day reflecting on why they are grateful can get a better night’s rest than those who don’t practice gratitude.
- Gratitude improves psychological health: Studies have shown that gratitude reduces many toxic emotions such as jealousy and frustration. There is a link between gratitude increasing happiness and overall well being.
- Gratitude opens the door to more relationships: When you practice gratitude you’ll have a more positive outlook overall and an energetic personality that others will be drawn to. Your openness will help create new connections and other people will want to be around your energy more.
- Gratitude improves physical health: Practice gratitude overall has great health benefits. You’ll experience lower stress levels, and fewer aches and pains. Grateful people are more likely to take care of their health, exercise, and eat healthy meals.
Practicing gratitude has so many amazing benefits. When practicing gratitude you’ll be more open minded, overall healthier and will attract great things into your life!
Dogs Improve Our Health!
We get so much love and support from dogs! They make the world a better place and teach us the meaning of unconditional love! Today is “Make a Dog’s Day Day” which encourages people to adopt pets from a shelter. If you have been thinking about getting a dog, today is the best day to do it! And if you already have a dog, today is a day to do something special for them to show them extra love!
Here are some benefits we get from dogs:
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- Endorphins from petting: petting can boost serotonin, and other “feel-good” hormones to help boost your mood.
- Unconditional love: Dogs can be there for you even when other people can’t. They love you no matter what type of day you’re having.
- Dogs are good for your heart. There are studies published between 1950-2019 that found dog owners have a lower blood pressure and healthier hearts.
- Dogs can help improve brain health and cognitive function of those with mental illness.
- Service dogs, therapy dogs and emotional support dogs help people with all kinds of disabilities or conditions by performing functional tasks or providing support and companionship.
This is the 3rd annual “Make a Dog’s Day Day” which was invented by Subaru to do something special for the animals that are always there for us. So go to a local shelter and adopt a dog today! Or if you already have a dog, spoil them with something special today!
Body language speaks louder than words!
Body language says a lot about how you feel in a certain situation and tells others a lot about what you are thinking! Body language is controlled subconsciously without us even realizing that we are saying a lot. And because your body language is not conscious, you can be showing different emotions than you intend to be and communicating different messages than your words. These subtle incongruencies are picked up by others and can negatively impact your interactions. If you are looking to change your body language and subconscious feelings, then EVOX can be a great option for you.
EVOX is a biofeedback device that rewires your brain for more success and happiness in your life. It identifies the underlying emotions and core limiting belief patterns holding you back and sends biofeedback providing the exact frequencies needed to release these stuck patterns PERMANENTLY.
EVOX literally gives you a mindset makeover to reprogram your beliefs and move through the things that are holding you back! It is the best course of action to help you transcend the areas where you feel stuck, so you can have better health, fresh perceptions on life and relationships, new peace of mind, increased mental clarity, and more!
This is ideal for people who are stuck in unproductive thoughts, emotions, or behaviors and are ready for their life to improve. These issues are tough to address with conscious thought because they are rooted in the subconscious. The great thing about EVOX is that it helps you improve any subject in your life – whether it’s something that you’re good at and want to improve even more or something you’re feeling stuck around – health, relationships, wealth, communication, career, performance and more!
Reframe your mind and control your subconscious feelings for positive body language. Learn more about EVOX and book here!
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!
