I AM Motivated to Connect - Root Chakra & Morning Affirmation

Channeling our #rootchakra energy this morning. 🌞❣️

Take a deep breath; 

relax your tongue; 

roll your shoulders back (sometimes twice); 

wiggle your toes;

stretch your fingers; 

raise your arms wide to the sky and repeat after me: 

“I AM motivated to connect with what is eternally natural” 

Comment "In Divine order" below! Make sure to subscribe to Small Pink Dreams Blog and follow on Pinterest and Instagram @SmallPinkDreamsBlog

Subscribe

Affirmations that Will Change Your Day

Negative thoughts can slip so easily into our minds. When we begin to think negatively, our confidence, mood and perspective of life can become negative, too. The biggest problem with having  negative thoughts is that they can quickly become self-fulfilling prophecies. When you wake up saying "I am not capable of accomplishing my goal", you may find yourself failing at your goal. Rather than succumb to your own negativity, affirmations are a beautiful way of grounding yourself and shift into a more positive mindset.

Affirmations are not to unrealistic "wishful thinking" because they are much more powerful than that. Like exercising and studying, consistently repeating positive prophecies each day, your emotional and mental health will improve. These positive mental repetitions can reprogram our thinking patterns so that, over time, we begin to think – and act – differently. Positive affirmations can calm your nerves, increase your confidence, and improve your chances of a successful outcome. So, why not give it a try?

Be intentional with your affirmations. Only affirm yourself using "I" statements. Try not to use words such as "can't", "won't", "don't". Repeat them multiple times until you feel better. You can even incorporate affirmations into your mindfulness activities such as meditation, yoga, and journaling.

Here are a few affirmations that can change your day:

I am BEAUTIFUL, CAPABLE, and ENOUGH 

I am thankful for everything that did not work out for me

I choose happiness in anything and everything I do

I am worthy of living the life that I want to live

I am grateful for every experience in each moment of my life

I am making progress every day

I am attracting positive energy

Subscribe to Small Pink Dreams

The Power of "NO" AND 99 Other Ways to Express It

1. No.

2. Nope.

3. No thanks, I won’t be able to make it.

4. Not this time.

5. No thanks, I have another commitment.

6. Unfortunately, it’s not a good time.

7. Sadly I have something else.

8. Unfortunately not.

9. I have something else.

10. Sorry.

11. Apologies, but I can’t make it.

12. Maybe another time.

13. Sounds great, but I can’t commit.

14. I’m booked into something else.

15. I’m not able to make that time.

16. Thanks, but no thanks.

17. I’m not able to make it this week/ month/ year.

18. I’ve got too much on my plate right now.

19. I’m not talking on anything else right now.

20. Bandwidth is low, so I won’t be able to make it work.

21. I wish I could make it work.

22. Not possible.

23. I wish I were able to.

24. If only I could!

25. I’d love to – but can’t.

26. I’m slammed.

27. Perhaps next season when things clear up.

28. I’m at the end of my rope right now so have to take a raincheck.

29. If only it worked.

30. I’ll need to bow out.

31. I’m going to have to exert my NO muscle on this one.

32. I’m talking some time.

33. Thanks for thinking of me, but I can’t.

34. Nah.

35. No way.

36. Darn! Not able to fit it in.

37. Rats! Would’ve loved to.

38. I’m a season of NO.

39. I’m not the girl for you on this one.

40. I’m learning to limit my commitments.

41. I’m not talking on new things.

42. Another time might work.

43. It doesn’t sound like the right fit.

44. My words of the yeat is REST, so I can’t fit another thing in.

45. I’m not sure I’m the best for it.

46. No thank you, but it sounds lovely.

47. I sounds like you’re looking for something I’m not able to give right now.

48. I believe I wouldn’t fit the bill, sorry.

49. It’s not a good idea for me.

50. Not now.

51. I’m trying to cut back.

52. I won’t be able to help.

53. If only I had a clone!

54. I’m not able to set aside the time needed.

55. I won’t be able to dedicate the time I need to it.

56. I’m head-down right now on a project, so won’t be able to.

57. I wish there were two of me.

58. I’m honored, but can’t.

59. I can’t give you an answer right now, will you check back with me?

60. I’m not able to commit to that right now.

61. I really appreciate you asking me, but I can’t do it.

62. I understand you really need my help, but I’m just not able to say yes to that. I’m so sorry.

63. I’m going to say no for now. I’ll let you know if something changes.

64. I’m honored that you would ask me, but my answer is no.

65. No, I can’t do that, but here’s what I can do.

66. I don’t have that to give right now.

67. Under different circumstances, I’d love to, but right now I can’t.

68. I want to, but I’m unable to.

69. I’m not able to do more than my share.

70. I’d like to, but I know I’ll regret it.

71. I can’t take on any more responsibilities.

72. I can’t do what you’re asking.

73. I can help you out next weekend instead.

74. Let me think about that.

75. Here’s what will work for me.

76. Can I get back to you?

77. That doesn’t work for me.

78. I’m sorry I’m busy.

79. Thanks for thinking of me. I really wish I could.

80. I’d love to, but I’m already over committed.

81. Unfortunately, that’s not something I can do at this time.

82. No thanks.

83. I’m already booked.

84. Maybe next time.

85. I don’t think I’m the right person to help with that.

86. Sorry I can’t help you this time.

87. Sounds fun, but I’m not  available.

88. That’s not going to work for me.

89. Sorry, no can do.

90. How about no?

91. Not in this lifetime.

92. Listen, I have to get going, but thanks for asking.

93. Sounds tempting, but I’ll have to pass.

94. It’s not my thing.

95. My body says yes, but my heart says no.

96. Look! Squirrel!

97. I have other plans tonight.

98. Let me check my calendar.

99. Are you able to better that offer?

100. Yes. With these conditions.

Subscribe to Small Pink Dreams

Make it Make Sense with Emotional Equations

As a sensitive person inside and out, it can sometimes be difficult to process, articulate, and perform emotions in a rational way. To be quite honest, the thought of controlling my emotions seems more of an afterthought than a process. (Un)Fortunately, I am not alone in having difficulties understanding the basis of my emotions. Is it internal or is it provoked by something in my environment? When one does not understand the root or cause of an emotion it becomes almost impossible to find a solution that effectively works long-term.

Luckily we live in the 21st century where the Internet can help lead you to information that will help. I came cross the terminology of "emotional equations" while doing my daily Pinterest scroll. "Emotional Equations" offer a way to identify and rationalize the things that we will. It will can help further assist in practicing self-awareness. Chip Conley is a leading researcher in the study of emotional equations. He has scripted books, presented at conferences and lectures, and even provided simple infographics to help explain how we arrive at our emotions.

How to process your emotions? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts, tips, or ideas that may help another Dreamer!

Subscribe to Small Pink Dreams

10 Ways to Love

LISTEN 

without interrupting

SPEAK 

without accusing

GIVE

without sparing

PRAY

without ceasing

ANSWER

without arguing

SHARE

without pretending

ENJOY 

without complaining

TRUST

without wavering

FORGIVE

without punishing

PROMISE

without forgiving

Subscribe to Small Pink Dreams

How to Create a Wellness Lifestyle

In many magazines sold across the country, you may see the words "health" and "wellness", often phrased together, very frequently in grocery stores, television commercials, etc. galore! But what does it truly meant to create a wellness lifestyle for yourself? 

Living a healthy lifestyle isn’t only about getting regular exercise or eating tons of fruits and vegetables– it’s about maintaining balance in your life that feeds your physical, spiritual and emotional health. A wellness lifestyle has potential to address physical health ailments, mental health conditions, emotional imbalances, stress, sleep insomnia, and more. A wellness lifestyle can be ingrained in your family life, career, and even your spiritual ambitions. Spending less time on any one of these things can lead to an unbalanced life that could likely hurt your health in major way. 

Consider these factors when adapting a more balanced lifestyle!

Spiritual
Grow one’s sense of meaning in life. Explore ways you can define your purpose and destiny in life. Perhaps this is cultivated by journaling or meditating. Try new ways to seek understanding.

Emotional
Ability to understand and manage one’s feelings. No one can control your emotions better than YOU. Wellness matters because everything we do and every emotion we feel relates to our well-being.  Consider the way that you respond and react to different circumstances.

Intellectual

Expanding one’s skills, creativity, and knowledge. This can be in the form of reading books, joining an active Facebook group that inspires your habits and hobbies, or even picking up a course at your local community college. Discover new ways to open your mind.

Social 

Create positive interactions and relationship with your community. As humans, we need connections with our family, friends, and romantic relationships. Connection and belonging are essential for a healthy and happy life. Attempt to step outside of your comfort zone to learn from others.

Career

Finding purpose and meaning in one’s passionate work. If your job is not bringing you peace and you are in a secure place to change your workplace, I encourage the thought. However, if you are not, try to lively your work space by bringing fresh flowers or place a pick of your favorite family vacation memory on your desk. This will inspire you to blossom in your work place.

Physical

Establish proper eating habits, mental health routines, and exercise. Appreciate your body by implementing a clean diet that is nutritious for your body. Wellness is an active process of becoming aware of and making choices toward a healthy and fulfilling life.

Do you have more tips to share? Share your thoughts below in the comments and send the link to a friend!

Subscribe to Small Pink Dreams

How to Establish a Habit

It seems as though life is always changing and moving fast. Everything and everyone is telling us to get started ASAP! Everywhere you turn, you may see many people talk about their routine. Ever wonder where does that motivation come from? I know that I sure have! 

Whether you are planning to start something new in the New Year or just getting your life back on track, developing a new habit can be difficult. What does it truly take to get started on your dreams? I have some thoughts on How to Establish a Habit. Check it out below!

PLAN 
Think of the habit that you would like to acquire. Declare this habit by writing in a journal, adding it to a vision board, or posting it somewhere that you may re-visit frequently. Develop a schedule that will allow you to ease into your routine.

COMMIT
Commit to your plan by re-visiting your plan. Perhaps you may join a local support group or gather friends that are accustomed to the habit you would like to acquire.


ACT
Identify what will get you motivated to perform your habit every day. For example, someone who wants to learn the habit of writing everyday. Maybe it is developing a morning or nightly routine that provides cues to the next event? Or maybe it is listening to an enlightening podcast that will motivate you to write about particular topics? Again, you want to make sure that this is identified in your early plan.

GAIN
Determine what are some possible rewards for completing your habit every time. Do you reward yourself with a hot shower or bath? Or perhaps your reward is that accomplished feeling you have each time. Don't be afraid to incentivize your goal until you can mindlessly complete the task.

MONITOR & FLOURISH
Track your progress of your habit by reflecting. On average, it takes at least 66 days to develop a habit. Use a journal or vision board to see how far you've come from the beginning. Monitor how long it takes for you to complete the task automatically without a schedule.

Do you have any advice that may be helpful when developing a habit? Leave a comment below on how you do it!

Subscribe to Small Pink Dreams

"sEnd MoNeY": 4 Tips to Hustling For What You Are Worth

What is your value? Lately my fingers have been itching to find means of income by using the skills and dreams I have been scheming on. It's time to move forward with all of the ideas brewing in my head. So with a little research--which is really just hours of scrolling on Pinterest and Instagram using hashtags like 'how to wake up and grind' or 'how to get your sh*t together quick'-- I found some extremely helpful tips that I have been trying to implement in my life to start making money moves.

1. Expanding Your Network

Word on the streets is that you must know someone who knows someone to be someone. By expanding your network, I believe that it has potential to unlock a part of your personal character that will aid in your success. You can expand your network through random conversations with strangers about their work or reaching out to a company to pitch an idea. You never know the type of bridges that you can create with someone and it is a good way to get your foot in the door of your dreams. Besides, all sorts of successful people have lit circles that invest in their projects, motivate their best work, and hype the end product by endorsements. Just look at Cardi B--she was able to make substantial amount of progress in her work by connecting with New York producers, promoters, and DJs by capitalizing on the relationships she made out of the strip club, Instagram and eventually Love & Hip-Hop: New York. Get out there, say hello, and make business partners in your hustles.

2. Writing It Down

Tracking your goals, progress, and contacts down are by far the best way to visualize your hustle. There are plenty of ways to accomplish this: vision boards, journals, blogs, etc. How else will you know what you need and how to get there? Unless you have the necessary brain space to store, compartmentalize, and reflect on your business goals, I recommend recording your hustles. I store my ideas in so many places (which I think in light of this post I will need to put in one place), like my iPhone notes, Google Docs, and my journals. I write pretty much every idea I have and what I envision they would be like. When I think of things to write down and record I think of: 

• what the projects are, what are the projects' mission
• why do I want do pursue this project
• what steps would I need to be successful
• are there other people doing this/ who am I inspired by
• what do I need to do to find my end goal successful

3. Start Working on It
Everyday do something towards your goal. Whether it is spending hours researching and asking Google and blogger boards question (with no spectrum of a good or bad question), anything helps. Chicago mayoral candidate and formal 2016 presidential candidate Dr. Willie Wilson once told me "when you are sitting down to rest, there will always be someone getting up, in front of you." In other words, never stop the grind. I love endlessly scrolling on Pinterest researching ideas that I have and how other people are doing it. When I began My Dream Stitch Crochet Boutique, I googled new projects all the time for basic patterns. I made the new creations then I put my original touch on the patterns by implementing the ideas I draw in my journal. There's no more time to wait around, start right now!

4.. Invest
-"It takes money to make money" -me (and if someone else, that's cool, too, send me their name). Even if it may not be your money in every circumstance (I'm learning that wise business people almost always have external investors), every dollar should be invested towards your plan. As frightening as it may seems, people receive loans everyday that are for their future. With all pride aside, putting aside money for your dreams are apart of the hustle. The money is the hustle and it must always constantly flow. Some ways you can begin to invest:

• setting aside money weekly/bi-weekly/monthly/yearly
• create a business/hustle budget
• open a business account *not necessary for small ventures/ projects for obvious reasons
• track your purchases and sales using booking keeping, receipts, and accounting templates
• create business cards *necessary for anything and everything for everybody!

I personally know that entrepreneurship may seem confusing and even difficult to begin. I encourage that if you are looking for a hustle, hustling takes sacrifice, a little wits, and a lot of action.  However, I believe we all have that hustle spirit within us that allows us to make smart business and financial decisions. Until then,

sEnd MoNeY, pls.. 


Subscribe to Small Pink Dreams

Finding Security from Insecurities

Blac Chyna and Rob (Robert) Kardashian has broke the internet again. This time, Rob has made headlines after "exposing" his relationship with Blac Chyna on Instagram. We know this isn't anything new because Rob has had a history of blowing up publicly on social media--we've seen it with his two past relationships to Adrienne Bailon and Rita Ora. I'm not choosing sides or making a personal political stance on this issue, but one thing that is unmistakable is Rob's inability to heal from his insecurities.

Insecurities are the worst. We all have them. We all deal with them. We all know someone who has them. They aren't the problem because they are natural--but here's where it can take a turn. Insecurities spoil relationships because it creates an anticipatory anxiety--where a person experiences increased levels of anxiety by thinking about an event or situation in the future. Anticipatory anxiety is a negative projection about an unknown outcome. It can drive people to be needy, suspicious, confrontational, aggressive, and if it gets worse, emotionally and verbally abusive. When we become anxious about situations, we start seeing problems where none exist. When it comes to insecurities, it's not just about you--it affects your relationship with your friends, your family, and your partners. We become disillusioned from the truth and are unable to perform therapeutically in the present. Our constant monitoring of other's actions, behaviors and words become draining and arduous--it literally becomes a horrible chore and bad habit to regularly inspect (might as well call you Inspector Gadget!)

The best part is that we aren't doomed. Insecurities aren't the end of the world, but there must be constant and intentional healing that must take place in order to overcome them.

1. “Everyone suffers at least one bad betrayal in their lifetime. It’s what unites us. The trick is not to let it destroy your trust in others when that happens. Don’t let them take that from you.” 

― Sherrilyn Kenyon

The first thing I had to learn in order to trust someone and feel beyond my insecuities was forgiving my past. I get it--they hurt you worse than ever before. I know-- they shouldn't have done it or said it. But look my friend, they did it and I'm sorry but it's time we think about ourselves. How can we better heal in order to forgive the past? If your insecurities have been shaped by a relative, a friend, a ex-partner, an authority figure, recognize this. Then start to forgive them. Understand that people are driven by their own insecurities and often project those onto people who don't need them. Let the past go, one step at a time.

2. “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” 

― Ernest Hemingway

Just like people can project their insecurities onto us, we can do that to others. Once you've forgiven the past, it's time to accept all of yourself. Accepting yourself fully and authentically is hard as hell. Ask anyone and they will most likely tell you it's a non-stop, ongoing, daily practice. I noticed that I would be hard on myself when I made a mistake and was overwhelmed by a need to always look a certain way to others. Perhaps the intention was to cover up my own insecurities, but I know for a fact I started to expect others to do what, ultimately, I wasn't ready to do for myself. Developing a more secure sense of self allows us to accept others without judgement or criticism. By allowing yourself the space to feel and heal, it helps create and sustain relationships free of judgment.

3.“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.” 

― Maya Angelou

In order to heal from my insecurities I HAD to become vulnerable. It was the only way my relationships could survive. When I wasn't vulnerable, I was more receptive to coping an attitude, arguments, withdrawing from emotional situations, and sadness. When we enter intimate relationships, we expose ourselves to being emotionally vulnerable. So concerned about being hurt by someone that you may be hurting them. You must open the door for you to become comfortable with people.  Break those walls down and create perspective. Handing uncertainty can be stressful, especially when you've spent much time and effort to have control over your life. We must be bold enough to open ourselves to others. 

4.“We always see our worst selves. Our most vulnerable selves. We need someone else to get close enough to tell us we’re wrong. Someone we trust.” 

― David Levithan 

I found many angels in my healing circle. Whether with my friends or family, they became the vehicle to love. The provided the strong security that I was unable to afford for myself. They immersed me in healthy positivity that helped with my self-esteem. Most importantly they helped me get our my head and stop cursing myself to perpetual sadness due to my insecurities. Lean on your circle for healing! Find your love language that others are able to guide to find. Through affirmations, lots of hugs, and fresh air, they helped me heal on the road to security.


We all have them but we can grow beyond this. Let's work to become the lovers and friends that God intended. We can do this together one step at a time!

“To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.” 

― George MacDonald

Subscribe to Small Pink Dreams

Temple of Dreams

In a video I saw on Facebook of Taraji P. Henson speaking to a crowd at a Women in Film event about accomplishing goals despite negativity. She says "If you listen to people and allow them to project their fears onto you, you won't live. What if I believed those people who told me that when I became pregnant in college, I won't finish? I didn't hear the naysayers... It all starts with you. You are the temple. You can't give the responsibility to another human being for your happiness" Of course she's talking about her career goals, but I saw the video in another light. 

Don't let others stop you from dreaming! 

There are so many people that project their fears of love, joy, and success that they do whatever they can to stop you from living the life God planned for you. They judge what you wear; how you do certain things; how you feel things. They want to judge you for being a human with humanly emotions. Don't let others stop you from dreaming! I've learned that the erotic pushes those boundaries to embrace these innate behaviors and feelings despite what others say. They will judge you. They will criticize you. They will talk down on you and your situation. All because they don't know and won't attempt to learn. It is my job to remember that no one is to blame. Even Jesus while nailed to the cross told God these fools don't know their own ignorance. 

We can't hold people accountable for things they have yet to learn. We're perfectly imperfect human beings that deserve the space and time to feel, do, and live the way we want to. Like Taraji said, we are the temple to our dreams, our happiness, and our success.

If they don't want to allow that space for you to flourish... honey, they can keep it pushing!

Subscribe to Small Pink Dreams