Creative Self Care with Crystal McLain

If I could go back to my 20 year old self, I’d tell her three truths about self-care.  I misplaced so much of my energy when it came to my wellness. I had a ridiculous idea in my head about what “healthy” looked like. I set unrealistic goals, put loads of pressure on myself, and beat myself up when I found myself in the same old mess I started in. The backfire from this was to avoid any sort of challenging self-care at all, and dove head-first into lots of unhealthily coping devices that made me  temporarily feel "good". But...

As I’m forging through this existence of mine, I’m building the most epic and sustainable self-care practices of my life, and I’m realizing one of the reasons this is possible is because I’ve decided to become a bit of a rebel.  I’ve been a rebel in training for nearly half my life. I’ve always kind of done things my own way, and found challenging the “rules” invigorating. When I was a teenager I’d confront the cops when they tried throwing us out of empty parking lots. I interrogated history teachers when their “facts” that didn’t make sense to me. I...

When we’re working towards a wellness goal sometimes we don’t always notice our progress. Transformation can take time. It can be a slow drip that painstakingly fills the proverbial bucket. And honestly we’re usually so busy being in our daily lives, that sometimes we forget to take notice of the bucket we’re trying to fill. But still, all of those tiny efforts quietly add up, until one day you notice your feet getting wet.  I had a moment the other day when I noticed the volume of my efforts. My tiny drops had filled my bucket, overflowed, and spilled around...

Ever feel like you’re stuck on meh mode?   via GIPHY In today’s blog we’re gonna go through some (fairly) fool-proof mood boosters so you can say sayonara to your shitty feelings. THE REALITY CHECK First off, let’s get real here. If you’re just trying to push past your emotions without confronting them, the rest of these tricks, tips and routines are just going to backfire on you. Sorry, friend.  Instead of sweeping those unsavory feelings under the proverbial carpet, the first thing you ought to do is face them head-on.  Now, I know what you might be thinking…facing my...

Here we are, collectively crawling, physically and emotionally exhausted to the finish line of 2020. And since this is typically the time of year folks start making New Year Resolutions, I thought I’d jump in with my two cents… First off, hats off to you for making it this far. I feel like we’ve been living in real-life Hunger Games between invisible deadly viruses, devastating fires, bouts of limited supplies, and a system that continues to build its infrastructure around exploiting marginalized communities. Folks have lost their jobs lost their homes, and lost their lives. Our education system is teetering...