Dry Brushing

Something I’ve incorporated into my routine and that I recommend to people whenever they ask me for any additional ways to get a skincare boost. Not an expert but I’m that person who does her research on any additional health benefits people can get from alternative sources. So here are some reasons why you might want to give it a try:

🌸The mechanical action of dry brushing  exfoliates dry winter skin. 

🌸Helps detoxify the body by increasing blood circulation and promoting lymph flow/drainage. Start from your ankles and brush upward toward your heart. Then from your wrists also towards your heart. Perform about 5 strokes on each part you’re brushing. 

🌸Unclogs pores. Some report smoother skin. I like to use my dry brush with with a body scrub because the beads allow for stronger exfoliation and removal of dead skin. 

🌸Stimulates your nervous system, which can make you feel invigorated afterward. One of my favorite benefits. 

🚿Perform on dry skin before you shower. Brushing the skin while it is dry allows you to exfoliate and increase blood circulation without removing moisture, since hot water can do that. Apply lotion after your shower. 

Make The Most Of Your Twenties

Some major points I picked up reading The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them

💥Invest in your identity capital- your individual resources, personal assets, investments you make in yourself. This is what we bring to the adult marketplace. How we solve problems, how we speak. This requires exploration. Have the nerve to make commitments that can help you build a stronger identity, be more resilient, and have a clearer sense of self and direction. 

👭Build your weak ties along with your strong ties. Having close friends is important, but it’s also a good idea to branch out to those outside of our comfort zone. Usually those are the people who know things we don’t and can help information and opportunity to spread faster. We limit ourselves when we huddle with only our close ties, the same people all the time. 

🧠 Create a sharp narrative of who you are. Build your story and identity off of your talents, experiences, desires, and plans. Claiming your identity and parts of it like your job or career isn’t the end, as people might assume and fear. It’s just the beginning. Making choices and choosing a direction in life are essential and shouldn’t be pushed off. 

💪🏼 Don’t be afraid of being challenged. You are passionate about what you do, but at times feel anxious and incompetent? Then you’re most likely in a solid, challenging, secure job where you and what you do actually matter. The twenties is a transitional period. Many of us have never held full time jobs before. Even the social expectations at work are different than usual. You probably wont get instantly complimented for your hard work. Twentsomethings find negative info more memorable than positive info, in comparison to older adults. The seat to the emotional brain- the amygdala- is more active during these years. As we get older, we feel more secure and grounded. It generally gets easier not to break or feel like a leaf being blown around by the wind. Learn to grow roots and stand in the wind. 

Students of Life

In school, we are not taught how to live life. 

We are not taught how to be happy. 

Or how to be confident.

How to make good friends or build healthy relationships.

How to choose right from wrong. 

How to make decisions.

To separate feelings and emotions from intellect and reasoning. 

If we want to learn how to be successful, happy, true to ourselves, resilient, emotionally, and spiritually developed… we have to take those matters into our own hands. 

I’ve always seen myself as being a student. I've always loved school and education.

But it wasn’t until I started working on myself and my goals that I understood how much I love being a student of life.

What always astounds me is how life itself is our greatest teacher. It is our best coach. It won't give up on us.

Because it always comes back with a new challenge. Often times, an even harder one. 

I've always been passionate about living an amazing, exhilarating, fascinating life. For me personally, the best way to do that is to learn. Learn from the best, from the knowledgable, the strong, the wise… 

This is why I have compiled lists of my favorite resources.. to share with my viewers and followers. You can check them out on my website here. 

Tread New Waters

"Normalize changing your opinion when presented with new information.” 

Whether it be how we view different facets of life, others, and even ourselves. 

When we are unable to challenge our current beliefs and perceptions, is this not a sign of intellectual immaturity and setback? 

This is how we grow and develop. One of the best ways to learn about anything is to study and explore it from different angles. I’ve done this by studying or independently researching different political views, religions, and even medical theories and practices. It’s all helped me to become even more certain of my personal decisions and views. Always trying new things and asking if there is something else that totally escaped my field of vision. Talk to those who have a different vision, maybe one that’s even scary or weird to you. 

Learn from the best, but also learn from those who see and do things differently. Sometimes you can find answers there you never thought possible. Or maybe you’ll find something you didn’t realize you were looking for. Don’t hold yourself back. Allow yourself to tread new waters.

Turn Your Breakdown Into A Breakthrough

 I was talking to a friend the other day about the concept of choosing to allow things to build you instead of break you. 

Then today while listening to a class by Gedale Fenster, he expounded on the same concept in different words. He said, “allow your breakdown to become a breakthrough.”

I kept replaying those words in my head. How amazing it is that we can respond to things in one of two ways, and the choice is entirely up to us. 

I think about inspiring people who I follow or know personally, and how each one has his or her own challenges. Those people choose to allow their setbacks to make them stronger, and to make them even better at living out their personal mission and purpose. They use the pain to grow and propel them forward. 

Many times we look at difficulties and personal struggles as something negative and “bad.” But how do we know they really are?

Perhaps if we redefine the definition of “good” and “bad”, or even allow things to show themselves for what they truly are (by being open-minded and playing fair to the truths that are possible for us), then we can make the challenges into beautiful things. Whether it is a purpose, calling, passion, redirection, redefinition of values, and goals… 

There will often be forks in the road. 

Which way will you choose?

What Music Do You Need To Remember? (On Being Reinspired)

 The last several weeks have been quite intense. For the first time in the 8 months that I have been working as a registered nurse, I felt overwhelmed by the idea of going to work. Working as a new nurse in the midst of a global pandemic wasn't even the challenge. 

The last several weeks at work saw one of my patients having to be flown out to another hospital because her case was too complicated (blood leaking out into her lungs from her aorta), the first time having a patient have a stroke, my first time having a patient die on me, having to do CPR and postmortem care and several rapid responses...

For me, medicine has always been about my purpose, my mission, and my passion. I know I'm meant to be in this field and to eventually become a doctor. I love what I do and I'm so grateful I get to do it. 

But the other morning I couldn't see any of that. 

I felt overwhelmed with it all. And even though every nurse waits for her turn to face the inevitable of being in this field and knows that this is what we have chosen... facing people die, having to tell their loved ones, dealing with emergencies... it doesn't make it any easier. 

As I was driving to work that morning, feeling sad and dreading the next 14 hours.... listening to music... a specific song came on that changed everything for me. 

"You never know you crossed the line till you get to the other side... The only way out is to face it... cause no one ever taught us to hide... the hardest walls to fight are the ones we wage inside."

It took me back to my junior year of high school when I had just started at a new school and was having a hard time adjusting. It was a very challenging time in my life so much so that I did something I had never done before (being that I was way too studious and always concerned about doing well in school). 

I totally blanked while taking my chemistry exam. I literally looked at the exam that I had spent hours studying for and for some unknown reason absolutely nothing made any sense to me. I couldn't do simple math or understand simple instructions. It was like my brain shut off. 

I was so overwhelmed at that point that I even tried to turn in the exam right then and there, incomplete, and tell my teacher that I had to go home because I didn't feel well. He told me I could leave once I turned it in. I left school that day right after that class (which was my very first and it was only 7:45am) and spent the rest of the day incapable of doing anything but lying in my bed. I couldn't eat, study, get up, or talk to anyone.

The only thing that comforted me at that moment was this song. I spent hours listening to it. I have no idea why. 

I don't remember what I got on the test... but fast forward 3 years and I got an A in my college chemistry course which was on probation for failing too many students... and 7 years later I'm in a medical program attaining my doctorate in my dream profession. 

I hadn't listened to this song in a very long time, and it had come on so randomly and unexpectedly. I started to cry on my way to work (and it wasn't yet 7am). 

It reminded me of that challenge I had experienced and how horrible I felt at that time. It reminded me of everything I had been able to achieve despite it. It reminded me that I was where I was because I got through so many obstacles. It reminded me of how afraid I was and how I felt so stuck and incapable of succeeding. 

And yet there I was on my chosen trajectory. I was doing everything I had set out to do. And even though it was scary and HARD, I was doing it. 

I decided to see the positive in everything I had experienced in the previous weeks. How I officially felt like a real nurse. How much more confident I am because I've had to deal with these emergencies. How I feel like I can face anything now. How grateful my patients are and all the times I have people tell me they're proud of me or respect me for what I do and for helping their family members. How it is really cool to be part of a team of people who have the skillset to save others. 

At that moment I decided that I was going to have a great day. 

And I did. The first good day at work in a very long time. 

Lesson learned: remember the music. 

What is the music that you need to remember?

The Only Way To Grow

Pressure. Intensity. 

I love and hate them at the same time. 

Last week was my first time getting floated to the ICU. In the midst of the second wave of a global pandemic🦠. Without ever having had an introduction or orientation to the unit. Still a relatively new nurse👩🏻‍⚕️. Every patient on quarantine isolation. Not even sure how to use the monitors to take a blood pressure or how to print a telemetry strip. Not to mention I had a higher acuity of patients than I usually have. 😥
Then yesterday I was sent to the ICU again, which at that point was still overwhelming for me. With still needing to adjust and being slower than usual, and balancing that with five patients... I felt more pressure than ever before. 

What started out as something I feared... going out of my comfort zone, something happening to a patient and not knowing how to properly deal with it... became something I actually enjoyed and appreciated. 
On my way home from work last night, I realized that I felt no fear like I had previously. Because those two days forced me to make it like a fish out of water... I felt like I could really handle anything that came my way. 

It’s through the intense moments when we have to pull ourselves together and figure things out on the spot while pulling together the resources that you have... when you 1️⃣realize how strong you can be and 2️⃣understand that you can truly only grow and improve when you’re out of your comfort zone. 
Being on the medical-surgical floors has been a great experience, but the thrill and intensity of figuring things out and breaking through those challenges is one of the most exhilarating and profound I’ve ever had. 

✅Lessons learned: don’t fear the unknown, embrace it. Think of new challenges as being spontaneous in a good way and not as you being totally crazy and out of your mind (though I thought I might get to that point🙈), let the challenge make you not break you, give things time, you may end up being good at something you may not have thought otherwise, new challenges breed experience and knowledge which lead to confidence and mastery. 🧠