Happy Love Week you guys! I hope you all had a fun, sweet filled, candy covered Valentine's Day!! I started my day with a brand new head cold that's still lingering, but managed to salvage it by having brunch with Will, getting the boys some new books (thanks WORD Brooklyn), balloons and heart shaped sprinkle donuts. It was a good day. And now it's Friday - already - again!! I swear, I will never get over the speed in which time flies. I've been thinking about my pay it forward this week, I was tossing around a few ideas in my head but after doing the #WhyAmIYelling? LIVE! yesterday with my guest, Emily Hooks, I cannot get the topic of forgiveness out of my mind. We had a powerful conversation about the art of forgiveness that I think just about everyone in the world could learn something from. It's a funny thing, forgiveness. It's empowering and emotional. But one thing's for sure, it's necessary - every day. Emily and I talked about learning how to utilize forgiveness in our daily lives. By incorporating it into your daily gratitude or affirmation practice (you do that right?), it can really help you release any kind of negative energy around a person or situation. The key is that you have to learn how to forgive yourself first, then you can forgive the rest of it.

You might be reading this right now thinking to yourself "Krista, you're nuts, I don't have enough stuff to forgive to acknowledge it every day" and my response to that is, yes, you probably do and if not, then good, take a day off. But if you really think about it, even the smallest thing that hurt you today requires forgiveness. For example, my good friend was in her car after picking up her son from school today. While sitting at a stop sign, a group of teenage boys were crossing the street in front of her car and one of the boys decided to do a WWF wrestling move and slam himself onto the hood - FOR FUN - um, what? Leaving a human teenage size body dent on the hood of her (very nice) car. It scared the shit out of her and her son.She called the police and filed a report and is beyond mad at the whole thing. I would be the same way!! But, in order to let it go and not allow it to consume her, she needs to forgive the situation and send some love into the universe for those boys. Easier said than done sometimes, but after my discussion with Emily, necessary to be completely at peace within yourself.

I could go on and on with examples of reasons to add a forgiveness practice into your daily life, but I think you get the idea. By now, you probably know I'm a big advocate for doing mindset work every day. Positivity is something I try to project to the world consistently - yes, of course I have crappy days, that's life, but for the most part, I try to find the silver lining. Forgiveness is an essential part of that, and after my enlightening chat today I am making it a point to use it in my daily routine.

So this week, instead of paying it forward with good deeds, (you should still do that), pay it forward to yourself and forgive. Forgive yourself for anything your harboring and forgive the people or situations that show up from time to time in the back of your mind from years ago, from days ago, from this morning. Forgive your kids for not listening and making you feel like the bad guy for yelling at them. Forgive the nail tech who cut your cuticle and made it bleed. Forgive the guy who cut you off on the highway. That stuff sinks in, even if it seems surface and like it should roll off our backs, a lot of the time those small incidents snowball into larger problems. Forgive them all.

If you want to check out my interview with Emily Hooks, founder of The Forgiveness Academy, click here: https://youtu.be/UbEypwnjU2U

Happy Friday!