A Little 30 Day Challenge for September

If you’ve been around for a little while you’ll know two things about when it comes to food: 1. I have been in recovery for Anorexia for   years and 2. I believe that how we fuel and treat our body directly relates to how we feel, act, and do. I’m a big believer in what we put in our body translates to what comes out of our body (and not just in an input = output in the bathroom). Making choices to eat healthier, eat a more balanced diet, and being mindful of how we “treat ourselves” when it comes to food is such a big part of life. I’ve personal noticed a change in my attitude, my productivity, my day to day when I eat better versus when I eat junk foods. Which is why I’ve decided to challenge myself for the whole of September. 

A little backstory for August to get us started…

Vacation and travel has always been one of those “throw aways” when it comes to eating. We all are guilty of indulging when we are on vacation and when you are traveling to and from vacation, it is hard to find those perfect snacks that meat all the travel criteria. It often just becomes a time for us to just throw caution to the wind and eat all the bad things we wouldn’t normally eat. There is NOTHING wrong with this. 

Where it becomes wrong is when we get back from vacation. When the time comes to get back to healthy eating, making good food choices, and getting back into routines. It is so easy to just let those bad habits continue on as “treat” moments and then next thing you’ve gone down the full rabbit hole into eating bad all the time. 

I’m totally guilty of this and have no shame in admitting that I’ve been eating a little too much junk food since we came back from vacation. So, to get out of the junk food hole I’m going to do a little September challenge. I’ve found Sugar to be my main problem, so…drumroll please…I’m going to go mostly sugar free for all of September. 

When I say sugar free I mean no candy, no soda, no artificial sugars of any kind. I am going to try and stick to the following “sugar” sources: fruit, honey (for baking), and a chocolate chip here and there for when I bake. 

I don’t think this will be too bad as I’ve been taking a couple small steps over the past week or so to cut back on the sugary treats that I’ve been consuming. The only bits that are left to cut out are Soda and Sour Patch Kids. I really think that kicking this out for a month will give me a chance to re set myself, so that I won’t chug it all down when/if I do decide to eat candy or drink a Soda again. 

At this point, I don’t plan on making this a permanent change, but rather one to get myself back to a good place with my “junk” food consumption. I want to be back to a soda once a week (if that) as well as having some sort of candy in a small small portion once a week (rather than a whole bunch everyday). If at the end of September I feel like I don’t want any of it anymore, then that’s fine too. 

I’ll be posting my progress on Social Media, as well as doing a mid month check in post and an end of month wrap up.

I would love for you to join me in this challenge! Are you up for it? 

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Dealing With Forgiveness

Forgiveness is one of those tricky things to figure out and incredibly hard to do. A lot of times, to forgive is to give up a lot of bottled up emotion, to open yourself to feeling that emotion and then letting it be “free”. That is hard. Without even realizing it, we can become dependent on that bottled up emotion and use it as an excuse to other issues that we may have. We fall into a trap of holding on to emotions, to bitter experiences, toxic relationships or people, and letting that dictate our future. 

It is hard to believe how much our past experiences can play into our future decisions and life. Well, maybe not that hard to believe when you think that everything we have gone through as an individual makes us who we are. Every decision, conversation, experience, person we interact with, plays into shaping who we are. When we have a negative experience, or experience a level of trauma caused by another person, that leaves a whole pot of emotions that then factor into everything else.

Forgiveness is essential to healing, to moving forward, to letting go of those emotions that cloud our future. This doesn’t have to apply to any major trauma or event (although it quite often does), this can honestly just be forgiving someone of a mistake they made or for what they said when they had an off day. Without forgiveness, those emotions (and that person) hold power over you. You may or may not realize it, but it is there. It factors in to every decision you make, and you’ll see that one day. 

However, how do you forgive someone who never “admits” to what they have done to you? Never recognizes the harm? Never even gives a thought to what happened or how it affected you?

Sure, in a perfect world, this would never happen. And we can all sit and say, “If I’m wrong, I’m wrong and I’ll own that” and while most of us would, not all would. When you are trying to cope with something that has happened to you, and the person who did it doesn’t even recognize or admit to it, it takes a different kind of forgiveness to occur. That forgiveness is truly for yourself. It truly says that you are ready to move forward, to free those emotions, to free yourself from your past. You aren’t doing it for anyone else, because in these instances, there isn’t anyone else to do it for. 

At its core, forgiveness is for the person doing the forgiving, NOT for the person being forgiven. This is so so so important to remember. When you are working through your own hurt and trying to move forward, that is for YOU. It is not for anyone else and when you are at that point of forgiveness, you need to be sure that YOU are ready to forgive. To let loose those emotions. To truly be free. Not because someone is pressuring you, not because you feel like you have to do it. 

Forgiveness is more than just saying “I forgive you”. It is more than just uttering words to yourself or someone else. It is a promise to yourself to let go of what happened. To let go of the emotions attached to whatever it was. When you are ready to forgive, you are truly saying, I am done. I let go of what happened. I let go of my feelings around what happened. I am letting go of what happened. 

Forgiving does not mean that it didn’t happen. It does not mean that you be perfectly healed. It does not mean that you will never remember or never have flashbacks. It does mean that you are ready to take that next step in healing. That you are ready to lose the chains that have weighed you down. 

For me, forgiveness came naturally once I took stock of where I was at in life. I had realized that what was done to me was not done out of hatred. It was done because that person simply did not know better. That person loved me, still does love me, and they simply did not know any other way to be. Forgiveness became my way of taking back my life. Freeing myself from what I was, where I was going, who I was turning into. I didn’t say anything to that person, I didn’t feel like I needed to. At the end of the day, I did it for me and I was the only one that needed to do it. 

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Friday Morning Cups

5198051616_IMG_3835.JPGSo, I’ve never posted a picture like this. It’s not in my comfort range of things to share. My body isn’t perfect (hello DR stomach that will never be normal again), but I’m OK with it. I’ve had two sweet babies and my body has proved itself again and again.

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I’m constantly told that I’m so lucky to be the size that I am. That folks would love to be my size. If I could profit off of everybody that told me how lucky I am, how they wished for my size, what am I doing, how do I eat, and the worst- I must not eat anything at all (which as a recovering anorexic is just lovely to hear 🙄), I would be a rich person. I hear constantly that I shouldn’t complain about this or that because overall I’m petite.

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Let me tell you something- just because I’m a smaller size doesn’t mean anything. I’m a fairly confident person and don’t often have moments of insecurity, but there are times that I feel iffy about my body. I work out regularly, I make sure that I fuel my body appropriately (and that doesn’t mean I don’t eat popcorn or candy every once in a while), and I have been blessed with some good genes. I am well aware of my size and how that is viewed, but newsflash, I still have my moments.

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Body confidence, body positivity, body issues are across the board. It doesn’t matter what your size or shape is, everyone is entitled to (and will probably at some point) feel insecure. And when someone is feeling insecure, we shouldn’t invalidate their feelings by telling them they shouldn’t feel that way because guess what…insecurity hits everyone. We are all beautiful, but we all have our moments. Let’s recognize that, cut the crap comments, and be supportive.

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The Busy Gal’s Guide to Meal Prep : Guest Post Featuring Kelsey from AdventuringKelsey!

Entrepreneurs, diligent moms, and workforce women alike all have one thing in common. We want to be efficient with the time we have. We want to spend the least amount of time on chores, errands, and those annoying work tasks that always end up following us home, and the most amount of time with friends, family, and a glass of red wine (give or take on your preferences).

I am a teacher, and from the day I began my career I knew that meal prepping was what I needed in my life to ensure that extra time to spend on the things that I enjoy. Being a person who purses a healthy lifestyle, meal prepping has become very beneficial to my way of living. I can hear you now, “You’re telling me to take 3-4 hours out of my sweet weekend to plan and cook food?” Heck yeah I am. I totally get it. I know the feeling of the weekend being too short. But don’t you feel like week nights are even shorter?! Why not have an extra hour of time each night to spend playing with your kids, cuddling your fur baby, or catching up on your Netflix shows while still having a delicious dinner prepped and ready to go? I know that hour provides me with endless possibilities and it feels FABULOUS.

Let me provide you with a few tips to get you started on this journey. Trust me. You won’t regret a minute of it.

  1. Planning

It all starts with a plan. There are two different directions you can go with this. If you are a person who is trying to lose weight or watch what you eat, I suggest doing your planning on the app, MyFitnessPal. This is what I personally use because I can plan out each meal, log it in, and see how much I am consuming in a day. It helps to make sure I’m not eating too much, but that I’m also not eating too little. If watching what you eat does not matter to you, I’d suggest either writing your plan down on a notepad, or downloading a meal planner printable. There are so many free ones out there! After you have everything planned out, make your grocery list. I even go to the lengths of making sure I write down how much of each item I need. That way it won’t be necessary to make extra trips to the store throughout the week.

  1. The Cooking Process

Start by thinking through what you are prepping. What’s going to take the longest amount of time? Can you multitask by baking your chicken while you chop up the veggies? This one takes some working through, practice, and simply just experience. I won’t lie to you, when I first started prepping it would take me anywhere from 4-5 hours. I’ve gotten it down to a science now where food is cooked up, packed up, and the kitchen is cleaned up within 2 hours. But that’s because I figured out what works for me and the meals I typically prepare (I’m not one to expand my horizons with meals often). If something can bake while I work on preparing another item, that’s the first thing I pop in the oven. If prepping my lunch is going to be quicker than my breakfast, I start with the lunch. Think your meals through, and just know it’s going to take some time to get used to.

  1. 0553CED0-1C9C-4401-B5D1-76D6F7C9F213.JPGPrep it ALL!

It may sound tedious. But seriously, prep it all. The granola you’re going to put on your yogurt? Portion it out and put it in a baggie or small Tupperware. The spinach, banana, and berries you’re putting in your smoothie? Put them in a Ziploc and toss that in the freezer. You won’t regret it when your workout ran longer than expected in the morning and you don’t have time to measure out and toss every ingredient in the blender. You especially won’t regret it when you’re packing your lunch for the next day and can barely see straight from exhaustion. It’s SO convenient to just be able to grab things and go! It’s really nice when you know it’s healthy and that YOU prepared it. It’ll make you feel a lot better than that Egg McMuffin you picked up at the drive thru because you were out of time. Trust me on this one.

Processed with VSCO with f2 presetI get it. I know it sounds like a lot. And I’m not going to lie to you, at first it will be. But once you get in a routine you will never regret spending a couple hours of your weekend preparing your meals for the week. Heck you don’t even have to prep all of them at first, or ever. If you enjoy cooking dinner for your family each night, don’t give that up. Just prep your lunch instead so you have something you can grab quick before heading off to work. Or maybe mornings are just really hard for you and you don’t want to have to think about your breakfast in the morning. Spend 30 minutes on Sunday getting those breakfasts ready, and grabbing them will be like second nature.

Happy Prepping!

Kelsey

The Gal behind Adventuring Kelsey

www.adventuringkelsey.com

@adventuringkelsey

Loves collaborating with other exciting women!

 

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Summer Vacation 2018 : Canada

We started a tradition last year that every year we would take one week in the summer to go somewhere we’ve never been, rent a cabin on a lake (preferably, but just a cabin works too), and disconnect. Somewhere without phone service, somewhat secluded, where we can focus solely on each other and ourselves. Last year we went to Maine and it was a whopping success. This year we decided to take it one step further and head out of the country and up to Canada. It did not disappoint. 

We decided at the outset of this trip that we were going to travel “easy”. We weren’t going to rush getting to places, we weren’t going to wake up super early just to drive somewhere, but rather just truly take our time with everything. This is key because what is the point of vacation if you are just rushing to get to places. How are you supposed to truly enjoy yourself?

We got off to a little rough start with some car trouble, but sorted it out early enough into the trip (and without any trips to any car places) that it did not impact our traveling or trip in any major way. We decided to split the 9-10 hour drive up into two days and our first stop was Syracuse NY. After a full night of sleep, in which Colton got to sleep in a “big” bed for the first time, we headed for the border. 

I have to say that part of America is absolutely beautiful. A lot of farm country, water, and a large area with not a lot of people. Crossing into the border was easy enough and after a few short hours, we were pulling into the driveway of the cabin we rented (found on AirBnB). 

I cannot even begin to describe how beautiful this location was. I’ve always heard of places being described as “picturesque”, and here we were, staying in the most picturesque location! I cannot talk about it enough, just perfection. The cabin itself was really well set up as well for what we were needing, and every wall facing the lake had a window in it. You literally never did not have a view of the water (except the boys room, which had a driveway window). I fell in love with the spot almost instantly.

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Our first full day in Canada we spent exploring the Capital area of Ottowa. We strolled along Parliament Hill, I got to go to a Chapters (yes I was excited over a bookstore, what can I say?), and we soaked up the beautiful weather and scenery. This was on our list of places and the only place that we actually wanted to go to. I love seeing different countries architecture and government, and while we missed our chance to actually go in to Parliament (which turned out to be a blessing in disguise as Parliament wasn’t sitting on that holiday), the pamphlet had a pretty good rundown. 

The second two days we spent at the cabin, just soaking up the lake, relaxing in the sunshine and just spending some uninterrupted time together. The boys got to “stretch their legs” and run wild and do things they hadn’t done before. They went fishing with Daddy, went on a short little canoe trip, got to see a snapping turtle, frogs, geese, and fish up close and personal. They loved their time there, which made the whole trip even better. 

 

 

For us, we got some much much needed time alone together. It is so important to carve out that time to be with your partner and it is not something that we do enough of. It is so easy to let life interrupt anytime that you have and this vacation gave us a chance to connect and talk and spend that uninterrupted time together that we have been needing. We also got a chance to have a little time to ourselves individually. My husband got to get up early and get some good fishing done (seriously the fishing there was incredible!) and I got to sit by the water and do some yoga and reading. 

After 4 blissful days it was time to pack up and head out, this time to Cooperstown NY. My husband is a huge baseball fan, and while he has been to Cooperstown before, he went during Hall of Fame week and wanted to have a chance to enjoy it without the hoards of people. It was “on our way” back, so we figured we would stop for a day or two. 

Let me tell you, Cooperstown is not for the casual baseball fan. It is for the die hard, to the core, true baseball fan. Casual fans will enjoy it, but it may get a little monotonous at times. They are baseball 100% and you better be there for it. I like baseball well enough to watch it, support my husbands love of the sport, and watch my children fall in love with it. I wouldn’t say I know everything about it, or even necessarily care to know every little thing about it (as this was proved throughout the day and a half we were there). I enjoyed walking through the Hall of Fame and seeing all of the history of the sport and teams. I enjoyed seeing the Astros in their rightful place at the top. I loved the feel of the town, the look of all the houses, the little bakeries and shops on Main St, and I suppose all of the baseball wasn’t too bad. 

Our boys both seem to be following daddy’s footsteps with a love of baseball (although it is still early days yet lol) and they really enjoyed just being able to walk around and watch the other kids play baseball around them. 

Overall this trip was an overwhelming success! We came back feeling refreshed, re charged, connected, and relaxed. We loved seeing the new places and sharing some new experiences together. I’ll treasure the memories and moments that we make on these trips forever. 

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Friday Morning Cups: Parenting Edition

***Warning- Language***

Boy oh boy. I haven’t done just a chatty post in a while, and I sure did pick a good day to just start typing away. It’s a Tuesday afternoon. I’ve finished work, and I’m now putting some touches on a couple of blog posts, responding to my own emails, and trying to get things sorted in the 20 minutes I get in between ending my work day and the boys waking up. My music is on and I’ve had a lot on my mind over the day. I figured I would sit down and kind of just word vomit for you. Lovely, huh?

Today was a test for me as a mother. As a person. It’s been a tough day. Not a breaking point one, no where near that, but a tough one none the less. I feel like there are days that you may not hit that breaking point, but are almost harder than if you were just to break. 

Our older son is at 2.5 and for him, it is just a tough age to be in. They have so much that they desperately want to say, so much that they want to express and no understanding or comprehension of how to do that. They are just starting to understand the range of emotion and feelings that they can have and for him, my independent strong willed loving child, he feels those very strongly. A lot of times in our home, and many many others I’m sure, all these feelings get melded together into one of frustration and anger which then leads to tantrums. This can be just as frustrating (and grating) for the parent as it is for the child. Imagine there are two people trying to help each other who are not speaking the same language. It is similar to that and yet much harder. 

All this to say that I struggle with the parent that I want to be and the parent that I am currently being today. I want to be the calm and collected parent who always sits down and talks through problems with her children. Who has that peaceful approach and can de escalate a situation without time outs, yelling, or a swift “go to your room”. Most days I am fairly good at being that parent. At being able to provide a combination of calm talking through problems and let’s go take a time out for a minute and calm down (without the anger of “go to your room”), but not today. Today I let myself down as a parent. 

Not an hour into the day, our older son had his first meltdown. They continued all throughout the day and I don’t think we hit a “good” stride until after nap time. He really just threw me for a loop today and I found my self just wondering what to do. I yelled a couple of times. He went into time out a couple of times. I don’t like feeling frazzled, or like I am just continually losing my shit, and yet here I am looking back at how the day went and realizing that I just did lose my shit, over and over again. 

Now let me be real about something, I know these days are going to come. Life is not sunshine and daisies, and parenting is not all the unicorns and rainbows in the world. It is hard, worth it, but hard. I know my son is probably not going to remember these moments, as they are few and far between. That doesn’t stop me from feeling like a turd nugget for yelling at him. I know that 2 is just a really hard age for children and parents alike. That doesn’t stop me from feeling like I’ve failed my children today. I say children because I feel as if I failed both of them. I was so thrown by my older son that it wore off on my parenting of my younger son, which I think I might even hate more than anything else. 

So basically, today was a shit day, with shit feelings, and I am over it. I am ready for tomorrow to be better. For it to just be a new day, with a new start. To let go of today and the problems, take the lessons I’ve learned and go in with a fresh outlook for tomorrow. I can’t change today, but I can try for a better tomorrow. 

(I know I wrote this on a Tuesday and it is being posted on a Friday. I can say that my Wednesday was much better and the rest of the week has gone swimmingly in the parenting realm 🙂 ).

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Real Talk: “Fall”-ing Into a Routine

We are nearing the end of that Summer Bliss and heading in to the reality of schedules and routines. Whether you have children that are going to back to school, you yourself are going back to school or your own Summer holiday from work has come to an end, Fall always comes around with a need to get back into “the swing of things”. I am going to be doing different posts in the coming weeks all about routines, schedules, prioritizing and what not, but I wanted to have a real talk post starting this all off. 

Let’s be honest, having a schedule can always help, no matter what stage of life you are in. Not only does it give you a chance to be more productive, it can also help you feel a little more organized. More organized, less frazzled is always a good thing. Life has a habit of creeping in and even the most organized of people can become really busy and then a little frazzled. Instead of letting that busy-ness get to you in a way where you start dropping the ball, it’s better to have some sort of system, routine, planner, something to help you so when it seems like life is too busy, you still have what you need to keep things together. It won’t stop life from being busy, but it will help you from feeling off kilter when things become busy. 

With all of that being said, having a schedule or a routine can be really hard and it can be really hard to stick to. Life gets busy (have I mentioned that yet?!) and when it gets busy, we tend to just let go, free fall, and just go for a ride. It is really important that when things get busy, we still try to maintain some semblance of a schedule. It will help keep your mind straight when you are too busy to think and it will help you not drop the ball on any important things coming up. It’s definitely the harder choice, so much easier to just let go and ride the busy wave, but it is so much more worth it. 

For me personally, having a schedule or routine helps me not only accomplish everything that I want to accomplish, but also helps me prioritize and really look at what I can and cannot do everyday. I can clearly see where my time is going and what I am regularly able to accomplish, along with what I can’t or maybe need help with. This has allowed me to be much calmer and more willing to ask for help or let something slide off the list for the week. Most days I don’t end the day wondering what I’ve even done (although there are still some of those), I end them saying I’ve done xy&z and still need to do a&b. 

Do you have a routine or a schedule? How about a to-do list? How do you plan on tackling coming back from vacation or back into the school routine? 

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Friday Morning Cups

Screen Shot 2018-05-08 at 12.04.43 PM.jpg“I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can tell” It’ll be quite silent around here as I am going to take a little break away from everything and really focus on family and our special little alone time together. We take about a week or so every year to just re connect, be away from everything, and just get back in tune with each other, with ourselves, and with the outdoors. I also don’t know if we will have wireless or not, which I’m very excited about. To be completely disconnected from the phone and technology is quite a thrilling concept for me. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon and better than ever!

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Disconnecting Myself

I’ve never been one that is constantly on Social Media and as I’ve grown in myself and older, I’ve realized that I’m not really one that likes to constantly be on the phone at all. It’s been something I’ve been noticing as I go through the different phases of enjoying the phone and Social Media and then the times when I seemingly just shut everything off/down. And actually, I really just long for the time before everyone had smart phones and Social Media was THE thing to be doing ALL THE TIME.

Lately I’ve been noticing that I have starting to be on my phone a little TOO much. Spending a little too much time paying attention to everything, being connected to everything and in this day and age, it can get to be…well a bit much. It all really came to a head a couple weeks ago when, at the end of a day, I sat back and realized I didn’t really do much. Most of my day had been spent scrolling through my phone. That may not be what my everyday is like, I had noticed that it was starting to become more and more prominent in my day.

So, I’m going to start disconnecting. Making a purposeful decision to not mindlessly scroll through Social Media or just mess around on the internet. Making a decision to put my phone down and not to just pick it back up a little bit later. To take a step back from the constant-ness of being connected all the time. To not ALWAYS be available right at the moment. 

There are things happening right now, happening in the present moment that I will never get back. I love being present with my family in every moment that I can and I’ve been realizing lately that even those times when I am multi tasking on my phone, I am missing out on these little moments. 

So, what does this mean, really? Nothing much of a change outwardly. I’ll be posting my regular amount on Social Media, but what I won’t be doing is just sitting around, mindlessly scrolling. It means that my phone will not be going everywhere with me and that I’m looking forward to that! 

I want to challenge myself to get back to where I was just a few short months ago, where I didn’t really feel the need to pull out my phone. I was not only more present, but I also had a clarity about my day. 

Between work and the bits that I do on the computer for my business and blog, I am on technology as much as it is. It’s time to disconnect. To get away from Social Media and Technology and get back into the real moments that make up life. 

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One Small Act

There used to be a commercial on TV (it may still be on- I’m not really sure) that had a whole sequence of people doing kind acts for each other. It went through and said so and so did this for so and so who then did this for so and so and on and on. It cycled through about 7 instances and after each, the person would smile and do an act of kindness for the next person who needed it. Seems like a common occurrence (or common decency) in our everyday, right?

Wrong.

I have to say, somewhere along the way of the past few years we’ve really lost our sense of kindness towards others. Our sense of compassion. 

Maybe it’s the state of the world we live in. Maybe it’s sensationalized news stories. Maybe we are all just too wrapped in ourselves, our lives, our things and our technology. I don’t know. All I know is I don’t see many of those little acts of kindness anymore. 

I’m tired of making excuses for this lack of kindness. It’s not something we do intentionally, but the rationalization that we give for poor behavior is insane. The whole “maybe they are just having a bad day” or “Well there is obviously more than meets the eye” is unacceptable. Maybe you are having a rotten day or something else is going on, but it doesn’t give an automatic get out of being kind card. 

I want to bring kindness and compassion back. I want to start seeing people pull away from their own lives and be drawn into the world. Stop and say hello to someone. Offer a seat. Come out of your own little bubble, your own life and look around you. Is someone in need of help? It could be as simple as holding a door, or offering directions. It may be more complex. Whatever it may be, that person will remember and thank you for the kindness you showed. That may have been all they needed to put a smile on their face. Or, they may not appreciate it at all. They may grumble and just move on. Honestly it shouldn’t matter what their reaction will be. In the end, you will feel better and more connected to what is going on around you.

I want to challenge you to find a couple ways to show kindness (and compassion) in your everyday. I know I will be. 

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