THE ATTITUDE IS GRATITUDE By Sara Stepa

Hey Party People,  What a beautiful week we are having here in YYC!! I have had my windows wide open every night to let the crisp Spring air in. Oh the small things :) I'm curious if some of you are like me. Have you ever had a dream or a goal you wanted to pursue but never did? Something like going back to school, trying out for the track team, writing a book, starting a business, etc. Do you ever wonder why you didn’t go for it? I’ve had many dreams or aspirations that never came to fruition that I let float away into the abyss. But why do we let our dreams drift away so easily? My theory, it's those darn little gremlins. Let me explain with a little story. I set upon a more ambitious path for 2020 setting specific goals and intentions. And they scared me. I set the goal of running a marathon. I completed a half marathon a few years ago but running really fell off my workout regime until about Spring last year. My average distance over the past year has been approximat...

Hey Party people, Another Monday is here. Hooray! Haha ok some of you may not share my enthusiasm but I do enjoy Mondays. As we navigate our days and our emotions I wanted to highlight the importance of kindness and humility. This is important not only in our daily interactions - our socially distant and virtual interactions - but also in the media we share and post on our timelines. Try to take an extra moment to see how your actions or words might make someone else feel.  There is an incredible quote  by Maya Angelou, an influential writer, and civil rights activist who sums this up beautifully. “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou Today I want to share a special story. Have you ever received a gift from someone that made you cry with thoughtfulness, or made you feel like the most special human on the planet? For me, this gift was my eagle feather. Many years a...

How is week 6 of social distancing feeling? If you started practicing our mandated social distancing practices the same week I did, on March 16 th , this is week 6.   I think it's important to acknowledge that… 6 WEEKS you guys!!! We’ve made it through 6 weeks, doesn’t that seem like a big deal?! We have rallied as a community, city, and nation to choose social distancing to protect our health care workers, our loved ones and most vulnerable, and to flatten the curve. I think that deserves a bit of a celebration. Early post jam… because its needed - Kool & The Gang - Celebration . Welcome back from the celebration. Ok so let’s be real these past 6 weeks have been…. Different. Challenging. Crazy. New. Uncertain. Boring. Nerve Wracking. Confusing. Scary. Empowering. Strange. And so many other things. It was last weekend after I went home to see my family and my dad said, "welcome to week 6," that I was like whoa, has it been that long ? So, I started to think abou...

Hey Party People, We’re going to dive into a heavier topic today… the idea of numbing. So to start this post I ask you, How have you faced your situation? What choices are you making every day to live your life (or run away from life) during COVI-19? For many of us we avoiding our reality and numbing our emotions. I get it I’ve been there, done that. Numbing is a behaviour or habit we practice to avoid a feeling or emotion that is uncomfortable or unpleasant. These emotions could be anxiety, sadness, vulnerability, shame, fear, uncertainty, unworthiness, and so on. These are hard emotions to feel, and even harder emotions to show other people. So, to hide our true feelings, or to avoid feeling weak, we often revert to coping mechanisms to push these feelings down and avoid dealing with them. What do you think many of us are doing right now? How many of us are ignoring or numbing our experience with food, alcohol, sleep, video games, work, social media, prescription drugs,...

Hey Party People, Ok, today, we’re just going to be ok with being ok. That is the only goal. I know there are a lot of messages out there encouraging people to get motivated, learn new skills, be positive, and make the best of our uncertain times. (And Yes I am very aware my messaging falls in this category). I also know and want to acknowledge that this isn’t for everyone, and that’s ok. As a globe, society, and community we are experiencing a collective impact, or as I’ve heard it referred to “a collective trauma” of COVID-19. This experience can’t be ignored or swept under the rug. It's bringing up past experiences and old triggers while also creating grief, new struggles, and for many, major mental health challenges. There are fears about our children’s education, our economy, keeping our loved ones safe, and about what to do next. I get it, it's HARD right now you guys. 100%. But what if for a minute, just one minute, we gave ourselves permission to just be....

Today we’re going to talk about having control over our lives, or more accurately, the illusion of control. I think many of us, myself included, have felt like corona has taken away our ability to plan or to choose, or have control over what we do. The truth is though, we’ve never really had control over what comes next. Nothing in life is ever guaranteed or certain. Anyone who has been confronted with an unplanned pregnancy, whose lost their partner to an unexpected heart attack, who has lost a friend in a car crash, they will all tell you that life and the plans we put in it are not guaranteed. Corona has just brought this reality to the forefront and slapped us in the face. And now we don’t know what to do with it. This concept may be hard to wrap our heads around because we all know things can change or things can happen, but we just don’t believe that it will happen to us. Now, this is happening to all of us and we feel at a loss of what to do. As we grapple with our loss of ...

Hey Party People, Who else is hearing or maybe even thinking these questions? “When do I get my life back?” “When are things going to go back to normal?” Well friends, I hate to tell you…this is now your life. Normal as we know it, isn’t coming back. I know that is hard to read but our lives are no longer and will never be what we once knew. The world has changed, our communities have changed, and we as individuals have been changed. I ’ll give you a couple examples. How many of you now think twice before touching your face or a door handle? Do you picture a “green goo” on every public surface? Who else has noticed that when you’re in the grocery store we not only physically distance but we stopped even looking people in the eye?! Like c’mon eye contact doesn’t transfer the virus! And let’s just talk about TP for a second… who else thought 2 months ago that TP would give you anxiety. Toilet paper you guys! The point is… we have ALREADY been changed. I heard a...

Today I wanted to dive in a little bit on connection and how important that is in our current realities. Thank god for technology Ammi right? I mean who else has 72 new video chat apps on their phones?? We are all learning and downloading new ways to stay connected with friends, coworkers and our communities. Its been a learning process for ALL of us, yes even us millennials 😉 I thought I was up on the times… until I had to set up my first Zoom call. Ha! It took me about an hour. We know we’ve lost, temporarily, the gift of seeing each other physically but we have not given up on our social ties – and thank goodness because we are social beings and require connection to be fulfilled. A thought occurred to me the other day about the difference between being alone and being lonely. Being alone is about the physical absence of others, whereas being lonely is the feeling and absence of others to share your experience with   - either positive or negative. I live alone in an ap...

Hey Party People, If you follow me on social media, you know that yesterday was a hard day. Emotions I had been ignoring or not fully acknowledging bubbled to the surface something fierce. They were rooted in deep feelings of unworthiness, and self-doubt, and the real impacts COVID is having on my life. I was slapped right in the face with it all. I won’t go on about that, but I wanted to share 10 Things I’m Doing to Stay Positive. I wrote these for my work team after the first week of us all working remotely and I’m sharing these now for you and as a reminder for myself. 1.  KEEPING MY ROUTINE. We as humans like and need routine and certainty. In a time of UNcertainty I’m doing my best to keep some of my routines to help me feel “normal.” I still set my alarm, I make myself breakfast, read my personal growth books, put on my make-up and straighten my hair, etc. … EACH MORNING. If I didn’t follow these steps there are days I KNOW I would just stay in bed. The snooze has go...