Estimated reading time: 12 minutes — When my kids were young, I often reminded them that they needed to put their “problems” in the proper perspective. What I meant was that they needed to be more appreciative of their lives—and what they had—spirit

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes — [The following essay is an Excerpt from The Fix Your Addiction Handbook, by Faust Ruggiero, M.S., reproduced with permission.] “It is where arrogance and humility trade, and the willingness to embrace the wisdom

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes — One of the most important life skills you can learn is to take charge of your self-sabotaging commentary continuously parading through your mind. This constant running monologue going on inside your head can eithe

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes — At Best Self, we are constently exploring modalities for healing. It was a delight to discover the work of Christina Prokos, an intuitive and healer whose practice is rooted in reconnecting with the inner child. W

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes — This past month I entered into my seventh decade and realized that some of the passions of my youth might be shifting or taking another form. I’m a little burnt out with writing and would love to try something new

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes — It’s hard to imagine, but legend has it that the winter holiday season in America was once celebrated with “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” while Jack Frost nipped at your nose. Gifts and decorations, the lege

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes — I stopped picking up the phone. Stopped calling her back when she slurred ugly messages on my answering machine. Blocked her email. And, when Facebook became a thing a few years later, I blocked her there, too. Th

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes — “Taking a break from my mental health to focus on Tinder,” I read once in someone’s dating bio. There was nothing I related to more for a decade of dating. The worst of it was in 2016 when I could be found with si

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes — Sound baths can be a glorious, transformational experience. You might walk into a room where a sound healer has a wall of gongs, iridescent singing bowls, and an assortment of vibrational accouterments, like cryst

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes — When I was young, I wrote stories constantly—mostly handwriting them, developing strong hand muscles in the process since there were times that I spent six or eight hours in a day writing. (“Isn’t that a little ob

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes — Love, in the three Abrahamic traditions, can seem impossibly demanding. Love insists that we not only act on behalf of others, love insists that we feel the suffering of others, that we place ourselves in the pla

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes — On Aug. 23, 1987, 26-year-old Selonia Reed was found dead in the parking lot of a gas station in Hammond, Louisiana. Nearly 40 years after her death, her husband Reginald Reed was sentenced to life in prison for

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes — Life’s journey often feels like a relentless pursuit of happiness and fulfillment, yet so many of us find ourselves caught in cycles of negativity and self-doubt. Positive psychology offers a different lens—a refr

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes — The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention. Kindness is not only good for others, it’s good for your own wellbeing. When you help others out of genuine concern for them, your levels of

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes — I grew up in a home where at best I was unwanted, at worst, the scapegoat for the family’s woes. The trauma began early, at age four, after being taken from my loving aunt who raised me when my mother, her sister

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes — Anytime I’m on a panel or speaking or in session with my highly ambitious, successful female coaching clients there comes a point when we talk about balance. On panels and in workshops, I’m always asked, how do yo

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes — After stopping to smell my twentieth flower, I took a deep breath and headed to the mossy spot I knew Josh liked. I found him lying with his arm over his eyes, his distressed pose. I sat down next to him, my stom

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes — [This essay includes excerpts from This Fresh Existence: Heart Teachings from Bhikkhuni Dhammananda (Windhorse Publications, April, 2024)] I have always been a spiritual seeker. At age four, I asked my brother, w

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes — I am a two-time breast cancer survivor, but my story is not really about cancer and its trials. It’s about how cancer taught me that humor, nature, exercise and relationships with both family and “found family” h

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes — Allowance is a tool which can quite literally change all aspects of life including relationships, finances, career and more. Although allowance is a powerful and pragmatic way of improving one’s life, it is not so

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes My journey from an average SAT scorer to achieving a perfect score and eventually founding Prep Expert has been both challenging and enlightening. Along this path, one of the most significant hurdles I faced was tes

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes — 1970 in pre-Choice America. The lonely only child of a high-ranking naval officer and a socially ambitious mother, after our eighth move in thirteen years, I longed for a normal adolescence — to have lasting frien

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes — In this Q&A, Bill Miles, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Best Self Magazine, puts forth questions for Dr. Sweta Vikram, inspired by her new book, The Loss that Binds Us: 108 Tips on Coping with Grief and Loss.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes — Many people think of trauma solely as an incident that happened to us or someone else that is intense, violent, or life-threatening; however, trauma can also be a suffering from emotional or psychological pain tha

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes — My grandmother was fourteen when a man in her Southern Italian village asked to marry her. He was twenty-eight, a stranger to Gramma. She said, No! But her mother told her, “Marry him. He’ll take you to America.”

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes — It started with a simple question: “Mommy, can I give you a goal this year?” At the time I was working long stressful hours leading a large client relationship for an advertising agency while balancing having two

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes — It’s an unfortunate reality that our planet’s biodiversity is under threat, with numerous species facing the risk of extinction. The state of endangered species today is a complex tapestry of challenges, opportuni

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes — At Best Self, we’re always questioning: How can we live more fully? Are we living with purpose? Is there meaning to our journey beyond our physical existence? So when we learned of Susan Grau’s work as an intuiti

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes — Most of us strive to be happy loving people. Our tendency to look outside ourselves to find acceptance, safety, love, and completion can misdirect our energies, and have us searching for the pathway to meaning in

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes — In Hyderabad, India, from December 29, 2023 to January 13, 2024, a historic and unprecedented event unfolded. Ten thousand people from across the globe participated in an experiment to create peace in the world th