Strength Archives - Strength and Sunshine

To Be An Empowered Woman

May 12, 2015 by Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine 62 Comments

Empower: To give power or influence, to promote self-actualization. To make strong and confident in one’s life and in claiming their rights.

Do you know how much I love this word? Well I do, a lot! Its definition includes 3 of my absolute favorite words and ones I live by and say every day. Power. Strength. Confidence. Empowerment puts the strength in Strength and Sunshine. Empowerment is something we all hold within us, but sometimes it lies hidden until we realize just how to claim our empowerment and let it guide us in our every day lives.

To women, empowerment may not feel as innate and accessible at first. Women have been seen as weak, timid, submissive, and easily taken advantage of. Women are portrayed all to often as powerless and without the confidence to stand up for themselves or even independent enough to take care and provide for themselves. To me, that’s just unacceptable and needs to change. Women can and ARE empowered, they just need to discover it within themselves and encourage their fellow females to do the same.

Today I’m excited to be partnering with Swoob to promote their empowered women campaign with SABRE and how an active lifestyle can help empower women and increase their safety. You already know that I am a huge advocate for women’s fitness and not being scared to lift heavy, find release, or go the distance. To be empowered you need the confidence that you can take care of yourself and be safe. Fitness can give you all of that and more. In the form of strengthening the muscles, stretching the body, preventing injury, learning how to fuel and nourish yourself, how to establish mental toughness, break barriers, and give the greatest most everlasting confidence possible.Read More

My Beauty Routine For Strength And Confidence

May 5, 2015 by Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine

When it comes to a beauty routine, I’m pretty minimalist. Just a little good skincare and touching up. I feel strong and confident when I’m not weighed down by make-up and my natural beauty can shine. Maybe it’s my young age, but I’m comfortable in my own skin and natural state. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved make-up and was introduced to it at a very young age due to my dance career. Of course “stage” and “competition” make-up is a whole other story. But now-a-days, I like the natural look best. I think the human body is beautiful, and for me personally, I feel most strong and confident being a minimalist.

To feel strong and confident, as an empowered young women, I have to have a strong “base layer” so to speak. That starts with my skin. My sensitive allergic skin. Since my body is also so important to me, my vessel for fitness and image of youthful beauty, I want my skin to be smooth, to glow and radiate. That all starts right in the shower. That intimate time when It’s just you and the water on your skin. It’s also the time for prepping and pampering the skin. Since water can’t work alone in taking care of sensitive skin, using St. Ives Oatmeal & Shea Butter Body Wash or their Fresh Apricot Scrub on my face does the trick.Read More

The Struggle Of Forgiveness

April 28, 2015 by Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine 67 Comments

One of the hardest things in life is forgiveness. The act all humans have encountered and struggled with the most. The internal conflict of forgiving or letting anger brew. The difficulty of accepting the wrongs, the hurt. Giving forgiveness to others or ourselves, truly is a hard-won predicament. It will never be easy, but it is necessary if we want to find peace once again.

When we’re hurt by someone or someone wrongs us, we not only feel it emotionally, by physically. The pain seeps through our veins, our hearts and souls. We literally feel it spread through our body. When it’s someone we aren’t particularly close with, it brings more anger and hate. We feel rage and want to “get back” at them, hurt them and make them feel as we do. But when it’s someone much closer to us, someone we love or have a close relationship with, it brings more emotional pain and sadness.

No matter who hurt us though, it’s our job to forgive. Forgiving is not for the other person. Forgiving is not making what they did “okay” or acceptable. Forgiving is for you and you alone. To forgive is to acknowledge the wrong and pain, but having enough strength and respect for yourself to move on from the past and to have the courage to allow yourself to thrive in your future without wasting your energy holding onto resentment.Read More

A Passion For Power And Strength

February 17, 2015 by Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine 60 Comments

I talk so much about yoga and now running, but I don’t give anywhere near the amount of written love as I should (and owe), to strength training. So today, I wanted to talk about my love for weights, plates, barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, and everything in between. I owe strength training my life. May sound dramatic, but it’s not. I’ve spoken about it before when I started this blog, but I’ll talk about why it holds such a special place in my life (just look at my blog’s name!).

I was always that little girl who wanted to be older and do all the cool things. I would dream about things like playing hockey like my older brother, football, and of course lifting weights in the “big-bad” gym. I didn’t have time for trying many sports as a child. My life consisted of school and the world of competitive dance. Meaning, when I wasn’t at school, I was at dance…everyday. I can’t (and won’t for now), even begin to hash out my feelings and thoughts about those 13 years as a dancer. At times it was fulfilling and others that was the furthest thing from the truth.

Once I stopped in high school, I had nothing. I had no other “sport” to do and I was to “old” to try taking up something new. But my body craved fitness. Being active had been my way of life since before I could even say the word fitness. So what’s a girl to do? Finally follow that passion of wanting to do a “non-girly” grown-up sport. Thus, my mom signed me up at the local YMCA where I could try some group classes first and maybe even meander to the open gym.Read More

The Stains On My Yoga Mat

January 5, 2015 by Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine 83 Comments

As I was resting between Series B salutations in downward dog, I noticed the grey stains on my yellow yoga mat which I received a year ago. A large grey stain at the top where my hands were and one at the bottom where my feet were. You’d think I’d be a little sad that my favorite mellow yellow yoga mat had these two large stains, but I’m not. No, not at all. Instead these stains made me think back and reflect. An entire year of practice happened on this very yoga mat.

Those stains are more than dirt and sweat. They are symbols of dedication, tears, release, and strength. That mat and those stains have a story to tell. The story of its owner that came to the mat everyday. The comfy cushion and support it gave both physically and mentally. There is not a day that goes by where my body does not connect with my yoga mat. Every time it does, it imparts more stains, more imprints of the story of my life to be absorbed.

My yoga mat comes with me everywhere. On quick trips, to flights on a plane. It has been that one piece of soft comfort in a place far from home. The stains it has accumulated over the year tell a story not only of a yoga practice, but of a journey. Each day more of that journey gets pressed into the mat. The first thing my body touches as I get out of bed is my unrolled yellow yoga mat. Of course it becomes stained. It has seen it all. From my yoga practice and at-home lifting, to simply lying down flat on my back, relishing its safe rectangle.Read More

To Be An Empowered Woman

My Beauty Routine For Strength And Confidence

The Struggle Of Forgiveness

The Stains On My Yoga Mat

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