Cratejoy is the first ever Subscription Box marketplace—meaning a website that offers many, many subscription ox options. Its also a resource for people who create their own subscription boxes. So, I was really looking forward to this Cratejoy unboxing! Click here to check it out! This week I reviewed my first box ever from Cratejoy called the “Hopebox”. I was looking for boxes that dealt with self care or self improvement ad this one seemed to fit the bill. Watch the video below to get the full scoop! So here are some of my thoughts about the box. Cratejoy Unboxing – Packaging I have to say that the…
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Fruit, Religion and Cult Mentality | An Unusual Personal Story
By: Alison Reeves As many of you know, last year I ate almost completely raw for a full month, and then 2 raw meals a day for the next 2 months after that. All in all, for about 18 months, I ate two or more raw meals a day on weekdays. I was vegan for a bit, and the rest of the time I was pescatarian (I ate no animal products except occasional fish). Why And How I Became Involved in Raw Food Let me provide some more background as to why I did this. For a few months before meeting Chris, I worked with a personal trainer and did the…
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Sustainable Self-Esteem and A Few “Quick Fixes”
By Courtney Howell While researching ways to increase confidence and self-esteem I ran across a few different articles that at first really blew me away. They suggested ways to increase self-esteem that seemed really ultimately counterproductive if done individually for people who really need an overhaul in this area. I’ll give some background here before jumping into everything. Being raised in a dysfunctional family heavily affected by alcoholism, I didn’t have much of a shot to initially develop self-esteem. Quite the opposite really- I tried to survive and face many negative statements constantly being thrown at me. Consequently I developed a very low sense of self-esteem and once I reached…
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Lessons From Fantasies and How to Grieve Them
Written By: Anonymous When I was a little girl, I spent a lot of time in my head. I was a master at creating elaborate fantasies, especially for my Barbie doll. I had a very vivid imagination. It’s easy to blame Disney or Hollywood, but what it came down to is I was looking for an escape from my current reality. I was a scared little girl. I grew up in a home where no one really knew how to communicate with one another, effectively, healthily, or appropriately. We knew how to yell. We knew how to criticize. We knew how to bend the truth (aka lie). We practiced for…
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The Essence of Winter
By: Vanessa Cassani Everywhere I look, I can see the beauty of winter. The Autumn leaves have changed into a bouquet of colors and soon the once stuffed trees will lay empty and dormant until the first signs of Spring start to appear. Even if mother nature doesn’t deliver snow, the beauty of Winter still shines through. I love this time of year for it brings so many things to appreciate like cuddling with my children and warm winter fires. The days have become shorter and the nights are filled with refreshing, cool, crisp air. But, there is much more to Winter than just family gatherings and holiday celebrations. Many…
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How I Learned That I’m Kind of a Big Deal
Unconditional love corresponds to one of the deepest longings, not only of the child, but of every human being. –Erich Fromm I would rarely, if ever, say this outloud: “I am not worthy of real love. I do not deserve the best for me. I am going to settle for this person, or for this thing in life because I can’t get what I really want.” I would be embarrassed to say those things outloud, but it is what some of my actions reflect. I don’t know where this idea came from, the idea that I don’t deserve good things, but I DO know that part of my own low…
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A New Friend in Me: Finding Comfort in Being Alone
For most people, watching a beta fish swim around in its tank is peaceful and relaxing. Apparently, this fish prefers to be alone in its own tank. For me, watching that scene is like torture. It seriously stresses me out. Mostly because it exemplifies one of my greatest fears in life. I’ve experienced a variety of fears in my life from clowns to spiders to, at one point, death. However, one of the most threatening fears with which I have struggled is that of being alone. That one word carried such a negative connotation for me for so many years of my life. And, when I say “alone,” I’m not…
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How to Love Your Body
By: Chantal Partridge I had a history of trying all sorts of diets, hoping to find the one that would save me. That same pattern was found in my relationships with men. The funny thing is: No matter which way I turned, I ended up at the same place in the end: with God. Turns out, I did need to be saved. I needed to be rescued from danger. Ironically, it was I who was responsible for the harm caused unto me and in the end, I would need to be saved from myself. I remember a friend telling me her relationship with food was the last wall that stood…
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Learn To Be Your Own Hero: Dysfunction, Struggle and Conquest
Learning To Be My Own Hero: Dysfunction, Struggle and Conquest By: Kelly Elias This is an old picture of me in what one of my dear friends and I used to call our “glory days.” Back then, to me, this was the picture of me as the hero… That is, the hero that I wanted to be, to everyone else but myself. I had just completed my first ever triathlon, and I was a “perfect” (ha!) wife and mother. I was “in control” and ready to be a hero to all – convinced I could save anyone and everyone. Little did I know, the one who most needed saving, was…
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Being More Than I Do: How I Learned to Lovingly Detatch
By: Loni Chambers Capshew “Ma, please call me when you get a chance,” was all the cryptic message had to say. Frankly, the brevity was pretty typical of most of the missives I receive from my 32-year-old son. He’s pretty much a chip off his Dad’s old block when it comes to non-spoken conversation or phone messaging; he cuts straight to the chase. If this had been simply a casual hello, he’d have either left no message or have said, “Hi, Ma. Just wanted to say I love you,” and hung up. This message read “urgent” to me. Despite knowing it was the middle of the day and I might…
