Tiny Buddha

Author: Emilie Pelletier

  • How to Live a ‘Good Life’ (Almost Every Single Day)

    How to Live a ‘Good Life’ (Almost Every Single Day)

    “If your vision of your life centers on your highest values, you will be aligned with your dharma far above everyday existence. Whatever the values are—love, creativity, service, spiritual growth, beauty, or whatever you choose—dedicating yourself to the highest values unites purpose and inner growth as nothing else can.” ~Deepak Chopra

    I wasted almost a decade of my life. Don’t make the same mistake as me.

    On my fortieth birthday, I found myself lying in bed, fully awake at 5 a.m., with a tightness in my throat.

    “A new decade,” I thought, without much excitement.

    Staring at the ceiling, I tried to remember what I had accomplished in the past ten years. As I searched in vain for any memorable moments to celebrate, panic began to fill my chest. “I wasted my thirties,” I thought. “One-eighth of a lifetime.”

    Have you ever felt that way, as if life has passed you by? That you’ve wasted some precious years that you’ll never be able to get back?

    Perhaps you got caught in the hamster wheel, being so busy with work and daily chores that you didn’t realize how quickly time was flying by. Maybe you’ve thought of traveling, writing a book, or learning to play the guitar but continually postponed your projects for a ‘someday’ that has never arrived.

    It doesn’t feel good.

    That morning, I realized I had made a mistake. I spent most of my thirties pursuing a single goal: building my business. It became an obsession that consumed all my time and energy to the point that I forgot to nurture my relationships, travel, or do anything else exciting.

    At forty, I had very few friends and no hobbies, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for myself.

    Later on, I discovered that this could have been prevented by doing one thing differently: by adopting a simple habit that ensures we live a good life almost every single day and avoid future regrets.

    That’s what I want to share with you.

    How Can We Live a Good Life Every Day?

    A few months after my fortieth birthday, I listened to a podcast with Hal Elrod, the creator of The Miracle Morning, in which he shared his perspective on how to live our best lives every day.

    His realization came on a specific day after spending time with his daughter, working a bit on his business (his life’s work), connecting with his wife, exercising, and eating healthy meals. As he wound down after dinner, he thought to himself, “Today was the best day of my life.”

    He then wondered why he had just had this thought since nothing truly special had happened that day—his child wasn’t born, he hadn’t gotten married, and he hadn’t booked any elite clients. So what was it that made the day so great?

    The day had been filled with all the most important things to him, his top values: his family, his relationship with his wife, living a healthy lifestyle, and inspiring people (his life’s work). He realized that living a good life, a regret-free life, comes down to living in alignment with our top values every day.

    It hit me. This was my solution to avoid wasting another decade: value-centered living.

    Here’s how we can implement this into our daily lives.

    Step 1: Identify your top five values.

    Your top values are what you consider most important and meaningful in your life. They come from your personal beliefs about what it means to live a good life.

    Below are a few questions to help you identify your top values:

    • What do you need in your life to feel fulfilled? Or, what’s missing in your life that you need to feel fulfilled?
    • How do you like to spend your time, and what would you like to have more time for?
    • What do you enjoy spending money on?
    • If your life ended right now, what would you regret not having done, accomplished, experienced, and become? And if you had one year to live, how would you spend your time? What would you focus on?
    • What would make you say you have lived a good life when you are 100 years old?

    I recommend identifying your top five values because if we center our life on just one main value, we risk feeling dissatisfied and even having regrets in the future because we won’t have nurtured the other things that are important to us.

    That’s what happened to me when I just focused on building my business (which is my value of doing meaningful work) and neglected the other areas of my life.

    Another example is a friend of mine who has two kids and highly values being a good mom. However, after a few years of taking care of everyone and not addressing her own needs and other desires—she stopped doing art, put her career on hold, and wasn’t taking much care of herself—she began feeling resentful toward her family. She was giving-giving-giving but not filling her own cup by honoring her other needs and desires.

    So focusing on just one of our values for a long time can create an imbalance in our life. That’s why step one of the value-centered living habit is to identify our top five values, not just the top one.

    Step 2: List actionable ways to honor your top values.

    Once you have identified your top five values, make them actionable by expressing them as verbs. For example, if one of your values is meaningful connections, you could phrase it as “connecting deeply and authentically.” Start each value statement with a verb.

    Next, specify more precisely how you can put each value into practice. For instance, for the value of connecting deeply and authentically, it could be:

    • Being fully present when interacting with someone—giving them my undivided attention
    • Listening with the intention to understand, not just to reply
    • Sharing my honest thoughts and feelings
    • Being open and vulnerable
    • Staying in touch with my closest friends and family by sending them messages and calling them regularly
    • Scheduling time every week for social activities

    Try writing at least five actions for each value. It’ll be helpful for step 3.

    Step 3: Do something daily to embody your top values.

    The last step is the value-centered living daily habit.

    Every morning, look at your list of actions you created in step 2, and decide what you’ll do to honor your top values.

    Personally, I write this in my journal. First, I write down my top five values as reminders, and then I write down what I’ll do to nurture each one that day.

    It doesn’t have to be complicated. For my value of meaningful relationships, I may just write a nice comment on a friend’s post. For self-care, I may go to a yoga class. For purposeful work, I may film a Tik Tok video.

    —

    This simple daily habit makes sure that we give attention to and nurture the most important things in our lives. Every single day, even if the day isn’t perfect, we are more likely to feel satisfied because we’re focusing on what matters to us.

    This simple practice has been a game-changer for me (thanks to Hal Elrod!), and I hope it can serve you too.

  • 7 Self-Reflection Questions to Create Your Own Happiness This Year

    7 Self-Reflection Questions to Create Your Own Happiness This Year

    “Self-reflection is necessary to dig beneath our own layers and visit the inner crevices of our heart and mind to develop an understanding of life.” ~Unknown

    This year, I’ve not set New Year’s resolutions nor planned to completely “reinvent” myself or my life.

    The past three years have brought up many unresolved issues, emotions to release, and wounds to heal. It’s been quite a rollercoaster ride, and I want to be gentle with myself.

    Instead of setting resolutions, I sat down with a simple moleskin journal and pondered a few questions to create my own happiness this year based on what matters most to me.

    I’d like to share bits of this process with you—seven questions—to help you achieve the same in your life. Because, let’s face it, we deserve it!

    You may grab your journal or any notebook and a cup of your favorite beverage (mine was a mocha latte), play a music playlist that inspires you, and take some time to reflect upon your life and how you want it to look and feel like moving forward.

    1. What is meaningful to you?

    Or, put another way, what gives your life meaning right now? I say “right now” because it can change over time.

    My mom and I were reflecting on the past three years the other day, sharing how certain things have lost their importance and meaning while other aspects of our lives have become almost vital.

    Conversation topics, activities, and even certain relationships are not fulfilling anymore. As we talked, we realized we’ve been grieving them quite painfully for the past couple of years.

    For example, I’ve become more sensitive, and shallow relationships don’t satisfy me anymore. I want deep and honest conversations and heartful connections. I seek fewer distractions and spend more time in contemplation.

    Although change can be painful, it always opens doors to new horizons. It’s not that nothing has meaning anymore, but that not the same things do, and it’s to us to find what those are.

    So, what is meaningful to you right now? Nurture it.

    2. What’s your most critical need?

    Last year, I realized the importance of regularly identifying and addressing unmet needs as a form of self-care. So, after experiencing mild to moderate feelings of depression for several months—and finding comfort in neither meditation nor bubble baths (nor red wine)—I dug deeper to discover the source of my unhappiness.

    The search began with a question: “What do I need (really) right now?”

    At that time, I was craving social connections and laughter. Once I became aware of it, I started taking the necessary actions to fulfill those needs and soon felt better.

     What’s your most critical need?

    Once you’ve identified it, you could ask yourself, “What’s preventing me from meeting that need today? And how could I start attending to it?”

    3. How would you like to feel this year?

    In the end, we’re all seeking to feel good. “Good” can come in many flavors, like at peace, alive, or loved. Your favorite flavor may change from day to day, but there’s likely one feeling you crave more than others in this season of your life.

    What is it?

    Mine is playful. I’ve been too serious for too long, and my soul is calling for a good laugh.

    What about you?

    Once you’ve identified your top one to three feelings, you may ask yourself, “When do I tend to feel that way?” Think of the past week, month, and even several years, and identify the moments when you experienced those feelings. Try to replicate those moments (or similar ones) more often.

    4. What are your top three priorities this year?

    Greg McKeown wrote in Essentialism, “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.”

    Essentialism, as described in the book, is to do fewer things—the most important ones—and do them better. Less in quantity, more in quality.

    It’s about being clear on your priorities and designing your life around them. Doing so makes you feel more satisfied and at peace with yourself and your life. You also experience less stress and overwhelm because your life isn’t cluttered with activities that drain your energy.

    So, where do you want to focus most of your attention and energy this year? Think of no more than one to three aspects of your life.

    If you have difficulty identifying your priorities, another question I ask myself every few months is, “If my life came to an end right now, what would I regret not having done, experienced, accomplished, and become?”

    Almost every time I reflect on this question, the first answer to arise is “not having attained a higher level of consciousness.” And every time, it reminds me to make more room in my schedule for my spiritual practice rather than filling it up with work. It helps me get my priorities straight.

    5. What are your top three goals?

    I used to ignore setting clear goals because having measurable targets to attain made me feel more anxious than excited. ‘That’s until I realized I was going in circles.

    Year after year until my mid-thirties, I found myself in the same place I was the previous year, especially with my creative projects. I wasn’t making any progress, and it got frustrating.

    Eventually, I understood and accepted the value of setting goals: it gives our minds a clear direction to move toward. It helps us to stay focused and avoid constantly getting distracted and sidetracked.

    As Yogi Berra famously said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”

    Setting too many goals is rarely effective and can feel overwhelming and stressful. However, I find that having three main ones and perhaps a few smaller objectives is a good number.

    So, what are your top three goals this year?

    6. What are three actions you’ll take to achieve each of these goals?

    That’s the most practical question of the lot, and it invites us to be proactive and think of how we can start tackling those goals.

    I’m very “Vata”—the creative personality type of Ayurveda. Vata is heady, gets easily distracted, and constantly changes its mind. It wants to take all paths and often ends up getting nowhere.

    Defining my priorities, setting goals, and defining three actions to start accomplishing those goals helps me stay focused on what matters and avoid wasting time and energy on what doesn’t. Plus, clarity reduces stress, and it’s a powerful antidote to procrastination. You’re more likely to do something if it’s clear in your mind.

    What three actions will you take to tackle your goals for this year?

    7. What are twelve new things you want to try, learn, or explore?

    Every year, I choose twelve experiments—things I’m curious to try and explore—one for each month. I started doing this a few years ago, at a time when my life felt sort of bland and uninspiring.

    So far, I have attended a cacao ceremony, had a reading with a medium, tried Deepak Chopra’s 21-Day Abundance Meditation challenge, participated in a laughter yoga class, tried ecstatic dancing, had a Quantum Healing Hypnosis session, and experimented with a bunch of other things.

    Doing experiments is a great way to discover new interests that could become passions. It also allows you to meet new people and uncover aspects of yourself—like desires and personality traits—that you didn’t even know existed. Overall, it makes your life richer!

    You just have to pick twelve experiments and assign each to a month of the year. Then, after each experiment, ask yourself, “Did I like it? Do I want to do it again?”

    —

    I hope you’ll find value in some of these ideas and that they’ll inspire you to create your own happiness.

    May this year bring you experiences that make you come alive or give you more of the feelings your soul craves the most in this season of your life.

  • The Best Approach to Self-Care: How to Attend to Your Unmet Needs

    The Best Approach to Self-Care: How to Attend to Your Unmet Needs

    “Caring for your body, mind, and spirit is your greatest and grandest responsibility. It’s about listening to the needs of your soul and then honoring them.” ~Kristi Ling 

    There’s something I haven’t told many people. I kept it to myself because it clashed with my “identity” and the image I hoped to project (hello, ego!).

    I’ve been creating content and working in the spirituality and personal development fields for a number of years. Although I don’t strive to become like Buddha, there’s a part of me (call it my spiritual ego) that expects certain things of me, such as to remain at peace, content, and emotionally well-regulated most of the time. After all, isn’t it what meditating daily is supposed to do?

    Well, last year, I did not feel that content or peaceful. I felt quite depressed, and rarely did meditation make me feel better.

    So I turned to wine. Most evenings, I had a couple of glasses of wine (sometimes three or even four) to forget how bored and unhappy I was.

    “I’m a fraud,” I kept thinking while sipping on the red liquid.

    I tried other things (besides wine) to feel better that helped, like gratitude journaling and spending more time in nature. Although these things did improve my mood, there was still a void within me that even gratitude didn’t manage to fill.

    It was when I read an article about humanistic psychology and the use of Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs in therapy that I became aware of the real cause of my “wine habit”: unmet needs.

    “What do I really need?” I started asking myself every time the impulse to pour a glass of wine arose.

    At first, I’d still give in to the wine, probably out of habit. But eventually, using Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs as a guiding tool, I was able to identify which of my needs weren’t satisfied and what actions I needed to take to fulfill them.

    “That’s true self-care,” I thought.

    I realized that a self-care plan requires more than a checklist downloaded from Pinterest. It demands a life inventory, identifying our unmet needs, and taking the right actions to fulfill them.

    Simply put, a bubble bath isn’t the best solution for everyone or any issue.

    I’d like to share with you my new approach to self-care that aims to satisfy our deepest needs rather than providing short-lived comfort.

    Step 1: Become aware of your unmet needs.

    The first step is awareness. Although it’s not necessary to use Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs to identify what we want, it provides a helpful framework to guide our reflections.

    I recommend going through each level of the pyramid and taking the time to reflect on your life. A good way to do this is through journaling.

    Below are a few reflection questions for each category of needs to help you identify what’s missing in your life and may be preventing you from thriving.

    Physiological Needs

    These include basic physical needs like eating, drinking water, and sleeping. Self-care at this level comprises rest and giving our bodies the proper fuel and nutrients to function optimally. You could ask yourself:

    • Am I eating enough whole and nutritious food to nourish my body?
    • Do I feel rested when I wake up in the morning?
    • On a scale of 0-10, what’s my energy level most of the time?

    Although most of us have no issue feeding ourselves, a deficiency in rest and nutrients is fairly common. For example, after running a few blood tests, I discovered that my iron levels were too low, which explained my low energy. After supplementing for a few weeks, I started feeling better.

    Security and Safety Needs

    Safety includes income and job security, health, and the environment in which we live. Questions you could ask yourself are:

    • Do I have sufficient financial resources to sustain myself and feel comfortable?
    • Do I often feel stressed and anxious? Do I have tools to help me relax?
    • What’s the state of my physical, mental, and emotional health?
    • Overall, do I feel safe?

    Social Needs

    These are the needs for love, acceptance, and belonging, which include friendships, romantic love and intimacy, and family life.

    The void I felt in the past two or three years mostly came from unmet needs in this category. Several people I knew moved away, and my relationship with a partner ended. Plus, after a year of isolation, I forgot how to connect with people, and the idea of socializing almost gave me anxiety (even though that’s what I needed the most).

    Here are a few questions you could ask yourself to uncover unfulfilled needs in this category:

    • Are there people around me whom I can count on?
    • Do I feel accepted and supported by the people around me?
    • Do I regularly interact and bond with people, or do I often feel lonely?
    • Overall, are my relationships satisfying to me?

    Esteem Needs

    These are the needs for appreciation and respect, which include having a healthy sense of self-worth and feeling valued.

    I worked hard in my twenties and early thirties on improving my self-esteem, but I can still remember the destructive impact of low self-worth on my quality of life when I was younger. Self-esteem needs are foundational for having healthy relationships, taking care of our bodies, and pursuing our goals and dreams.

    Questions you could ask yourself are:

    • Do I feel appreciated at work, at home, and within my group of friends?
    • Is my self-talk mainly positive or negative?
    • Do I believe I have good qualities? Do others appreciate those qualities?
    • Overall, do I feel good about myself at work, at home, and in social circles?

    Self-Actualization Needs

    Maslow defined self-actualization as “fulfilling our potential.” It includes feeling a sense of purpose and growing and evolving as a person.

    For most of my life, I had “purpose anxiety.” Nowadays, living my purpose is one of the most important aspects of my life and what sustains me in difficult times.

    Doing what we love and using our gifts toward a vision that matters to us gives us fuel to move through challenges.

    You could ask yourself:

    • Do I feel like my life is meaningful and has a purpose?
    • Does the work I do fulfill me?
    • Am I using my skills and natural strengths in ways that are enjoyable to me?
    • Am I constantly growing and evolving?

    Self-Transcendence Needs

    Self-transcendence is about feeling connected to others and all life and acting accordingly. At this level, we have a desire for contribution, service, and impact. The need for a spiritual practice and connecting to a higher power are also part of self-transcendence.

    Questions you could ask yourself are:

    • Am I making a positive impact on others and the world?
    • Do I feel connected to others, nature, and perhaps a higher power?
    • Am I satisfied with my spiritual practice and/or the legacy I’m leaving?

    Leisure Needs

    I’ve added this category to the list because I believe play is another important contributing aspect to our well-being.

    A lack of fun and laughter can negatively impact our mental health—at least, that’s been my experience in the past few years. Along with unmet social needs, a lack of play was my biggest source of dissatisfaction. I had become overly serious and forgot how to have fun. I couldn’t even remember that last time I had laughed.

    Questions you could ask yourself are:

    • Do I have fun at work, at home, and in my free time?
    • How often do I laugh?

    Step 2: Identify what requires your immediate attention.

    After going through these questions, I rated each category of needs on a scale of 0 to 10, assigning 10 to the areas that most required my attention. For me, those areas were leisure and social needs.

    This meant that doubling down on my meditation practice or having a daily green smoothie would likely not be enough to break my “wine habit.” Or, better said, they weren’t what I truly needed.

    I needed to have more fun, laugh, and play. I needed to bond with people more, have deep and meaningful conversations, and expand my social circle.

    Once you’ve identified which of your needs aren’t fulfilled, you’re ready to brainstorm solutions.

    Step 3: Brainstorm ways to fulfill unmet needs.

    Once we know what’s “off,” we can think of ways to improve the situation.

    “How can I have more fun?” I asked myself.

    I reflected upon times when I had the most fun in the past and wrote those down. I also wrote any other ideas that came to mind, from watching funny dog videos to going to a comedy show. I made a list of ways to have more fun in my journal and made an effort to do at least a few of them every week.

    Step 4: Choose one small action and schedule it.

    After brainstorming, it’s time to take action. I recommend picking at least one idea on your list and scheduling it.

    A few weeks ago, I decided to attend a Kundalini yoga class followed by a dinner with the teacher and fellow students. It was an opportunity to meet new people.

    I knew that, as an introvert, the risk I would cancel at the last minute was high. Therefore, I immediately purchased the ticket and scheduled the class in my planner. I’m glad I did; I met new people, laughed, and had interesting conversations.

    Self-care activities are more likely to happen when we schedule them.

    . . .

    I could summarize this article with one question: “What do you really need?”

    Taking the time to make a life inventory, identify our unfulfilled needs, and then take action to satisfy them—that’s proper self-care.

    The difficulty is that, sometimes, we don’t even know what we need! I find Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs a helpful tool to guide our self-reflection.

    I hope it can help you too.

  • How to Live Your Dharma (True Purpose): The Path to Soul-Level Fulfillment

    How to Live Your Dharma (True Purpose): The Path to Soul-Level Fulfillment

    “Dharma actually means the life you should be living—in other words, an ideal life awaits you if you are aligned with your Dharma. What is the ideal life? It consists of living as your true self.” ~Deepak Chopra

    From the moment I finished high school until my late twenties, I had “purpose anxiety.”

    I wasn’t just confused and missing a sense of direction in life; my lack of purpose also made me feel inadequate, uninteresting, and lesser than other people.

    I secretly envied those who had cool hobbies, worked jobs they loved, and talked passionately about topics I often didn’t know much about.

    I even resented them for living “the good life” and kept wondering, “Why not me?”

    Until it was my turn.

    What it took to begin embracing my purpose—or dharma, as I prefer to call it—was one thing: love.

    Let me explain.

    The 4 Keys to Living Our Dharma (Purpose)

    The Sanskrit word “dharma” has many meanings and most commonly translates to “life purpose” and “the life we’re meant to live.” I believe there are four main keys to living our dharma.

    1. Cultivating self-worth: the essential first step.

    I was bullied in high school, and as a result, I had very low self-esteem for many years. Looking back, I realize that feeling that low self-worth prevented me from embracing my dharma.

    Why?

    It was because I was too focused on trying to be liked and too worried about what other people thought of me to be in touch with my authentic self. I put all my energy into doing everything I could to look “cool” and be accepted by others rather than what my soul wanted to do, explore, and experience.

    The essential idea is that embracing our dharma requires living authentically. As Deepak Chopra says, “[dharma] consists of living as your true self.”

    The issue is that it can be difficult to express and live your truth when you feel inadequate, unworthy, and perhaps even unlovable. The risk of being rejected seems too high, and it feels unsafe.

    So the first step to living our purpose, I believe, is cultivating radical self-love. It’s a bit of a “chicken and the egg” situation because having a strong sense of purpose increases self-esteem, but low self-esteem makes it hard to embrace our purpose. It’s best to develop both simultaneously.

    Here are a few ideas to cultivate self-love that have helped me:

    The first one is meditation.

    Part of meditation is about allowing ourselves to become aware of and observe our own thinking. When we meditate, we disidentify from our thoughts and get to experience glimpses of who we truly are—of our essence—which is loving and infinitely worthy. As a result, we naturally start loving and accepting ourselves more. Meditation has undoubtedly been the number one thing that has improved my self-esteem.

    Another thing that has helped me is self-care.

    As I said, I didn’t have many friends in high school and spent much of my time alone. So I started going to the gym after school to do something with my time and be around people (even if I didn’t talk to them). Exercising regularly led to eating healthier and taking better care of myself in several other ways.

    I find that self-care is a practical way to cultivate self-love. When you take care of yourself, you show that you care about yourself. Over time, you start genuinely feeling the self-love you are showing yourself and believing it.

    The last (effective but cringy) thing that helped improve my self-esteem is an exercise that a therapist recommended.

    Here’s how it goes: In the evening, stand in front of the mirror and—looking at yourself in the eyes—say, “I love you, [say your name]. I love [say three things you like about yourself], and you deserve all the good things life has to offer.” Try it for thirty days; it may change your life.

    2. Being in touch with and following your inner compass.

    Jack Canfield says, “We are all born with an inner compass that tells us whether or not we’re on the right path to finding our true purpose. That compass is our joy.”

    Often, we seek purpose outside of ourselves, as if it’s some hidden treasure we need to find. But, as Mel Robbins puts it, “You don’t ‘find’ your purpose; you feel it.” What feels good—expansive, joyful, intriguing, exciting, or inspiring—to you?

    That’s an important question because, according to numerous spiritual books I’ve read, those things we enjoy are clues guiding us to our dharma.

    The main difficulty is usually differentiating our true desires from the ego’s “wants” and the desires that come from conditioning. The ego wants to feel important. It’s afraid of not being “good enough,” so it feels the need to prove its worth.

    The “wants” that come from conditioning consist of what our parents and society have told us we “should” do. If we follow those “shoulds,” even though they don’t align with our authentic selves, we risk waking up one day and realizing that we’ve climbed the wrong ladder and lived our life for others instead of ourselves.

    Here’s something that helps me differentiate those desires.

    Make a list of all the things you want to have, do, experience, and become in the next few years.

    For each item on your list, ask yourself why you want it. Is it because you feel the need to prove something or want to feel important or perhaps even superior to others? That’s the ego. Is it because you think that’s what you “should” do? That’s likely conditioning. Is it because it makes you feel alive? That’s your heart.

    To live our dharma, we must follow our heart’s desires—the things we genuinely love. This requires authenticity and courage.

    3. Savoring the experience of being alive.

    Another aspect of dharma is loving life—living with presence and appreciating the experience of being alive. There are a few things I find helpful here:

    The first idea is to keep a “Book of Appreciation,” as Esther Hicks calls it. Every day, take five minutes to journal about what you appreciate about someone, a situation, or something else in your life.

    To savor life, we must also be present. In A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle states that true enjoyment does not depend on the nature of the task but on our state of being—we must aim for a state of deep presence.

    He recommends being mindful when attending to even our most mundane tasks. I also like to go on long walks and observe (with presence) the natural elements around me—like the clouds passing in the sky, the smell of trees after the rain, and the sensation of the sun’s rays on my face.

    And, of course, having a daily gratitude practice is always a winner!

    4. Extending love through joyful service.

    Dharma is also about sharing—extending love. One of the best ways to contribute to the collective is to share our gifts in a way that’s enjoyable to us.

    We all have natural gifts—things that come easier to us than to others. Some people are good at writing, while others are great leaders or excel at analyzing data. Perhaps you like to create, manage, nurture, delight, support, empower, listen, guide, or organize.

    There’s also another, more profound aspect of contribution that comes from being rather than doing. I remember a passage from a book I read many years ago (I can’t remember what book it was) that went something like this:

    “Your contribution [to the collective] is your level of consciousness.”

    A higher consciousness radiates greater love, and one of the best ways to uplift others is by being a loving presence.

    Dharma: The Bottom Line

    Bob Schwartz, the author of Your Soul’s Plan and Your Soul’s Gift, says, “We are here to learn to receive and give love. That’s the bottom line.”

    This involves loving ourselves, others, and life in general, and also following our heart—doing things we genuinely love.

    I don’t know about you, but this perspective on dharma feels good to me. It has freed me from my “purpose anxiety.”

    I hope it can serve you too.

  • How to Wake Up Smiling: 5 Daily Habits That Made Me a More Positive Person

    How to Wake Up Smiling: 5 Daily Habits That Made Me a More Positive Person

    “You create your future based on your energy in the present.” ~Unknown

    I’m usually a pretty happy person, but about a year ago—perhaps due to a lack of social connections and laughter—I experienced a few dark months. During those months, I spent most of my waking hours (and probably nights as well) consumed with negative thoughts.

    I woke up feeling angry in the morning, continued having negative thoughts most of the day, and went to bed in that same state of mind.

    Luckily, I didn’t have many opportunities to spread my negativity to others because we were in confinement.

    On one of those moody mornings, I played a video of a spiritual teacher that a friend had recommended listening to while getting ready for the day.

    Halfway through the video, he said, “Humanity is ascending into more loving and conscious states of being. You are becoming more of who you truly are, which is love.”

    At that moment, I caught my eyes in the mirror and stared at my unhappy face.

    “I’m not ascending. I’m descending further and further into the ‘hell’ in my own mind.”

    My negativity was eating me alive, but, strangely, it was so addictive.

    Since it had been escalating for some time (a few months by then) and had acquired a good bit of momentum, I really didn’t know if I’d be able to shift all that negativity into a more positive state of being. I knew that the longer I waited, though, the harder it would be.

    Still looking at my face in the mirror, I noticed the corners of my mouth pointing slightly downward.

    “If I continue like that, I’m going to get grumpy face wrinkles.”

    I made my bed and then went to the kitchen. As the coffee was brewing, I grabbed my laptop and Googled “how to be a more positive person,” and I scribbled down a few ideas that resonated with me.

    Later that day, after mixing and matching advice from different articles, I created what I called my “emotional hygiene routine.”

    It’s a series of simple habits that I committed to doing most days of the week for an entire month (and still continue to do today on most days) and that, over that month, took me out of my depressive state and made me wake up smiling in the morning again.

    I’d like to share them with you.

    1. Fall asleep in the “vortex.”

    One idea I came across in my research on being more positive came from Abraham Hicks:

    “If you go to sleep in the vortex, you wake up in the vortex. If you go to sleep not in the vortex, you wake up not in the vortex.”

    Being in the “vortex” refers to a state of pure positive energy. The idea in that quote is pretty straightforward: go to bed thinking positive thoughts and feeling happy feelings, and you’re more likely to wake up thinking and feeling positive in the morning.

    I knew this had to be true. I knew it because when I went to bed thinking angry thoughts, I usually dreamed that I was unhappy and then woke up grumpy (and exhausted) in the morning.

    So, I decided to try something. As I closed my eyes to sleep at night, I scanned the day from the moment I woke up until the present moment when I was lying in bed, and I tried to recall all the positive things (even tiny things) that had happened that day.

    I could have thought about the delicious mocha latte that I drank that morning, the fact there wasn’t snow on the ground and that I was able to run outside in the afternoon, or a nice comment someone left on one of my videos.

    I spent a few seconds remembering a happy moment before moving on to the next one. After scanning the entire day, I would do it again, trying to find even more subtle positive things, and I did this until I fell asleep.

    This exercise is probably the number one thing that helped me (and still continues to help me) wake up happier in the morning.

    2. Have something to look forward to on the following day.

    Something else that has helped me wake up happier is having something to look forward to every day, even if I have a busy day ahead and have minimal free time available.

    Still to this day, every evening, I schedule at least one activity that brings me joy for the following day. It can be going for a walk with a friend, baking cookies, or watching the sunset. It can also be as simple as wearing my favorite outfit.

    Scheduling one activity that brings me joy for the following day gives my mind something fun to anticipate and puts me in a good mood in the evening.

    And again, how the day ends is a good indicator of how the following day begins.

    3. Absorb uplifting ideas in the evening.

    We all know that what we feed our minds affects our mood. I don’t have a TV and don’t follow the news, but my Facebook feed is often enough to get me irritated. So, I decided to stop scrolling mindlessly on Facebook (or at least do so less often) and consume positive-only content instead.

    For the past few months, first thing in the morning and before going to bed, I’ve been reading a few pages of an inspiring book—usually something spiritual. I just finished reading the entire Earth Life book series by Sanaya Roman, and right now, I’m reading Wishes Fulfilled by Wayne Dyer.

    Reading those kinds of books brings me peace. I can notice a significant difference in my mood and stress level if I just take even fifteen minutes to consume uplifting content in the morning and evening.

    (If you have any book recommendations, you can share them in the comments.)

    4. Make a gratitude list—with a twist.

    After reading in the morning, I write down three to five things I’m grateful for—and why I appreciate each thing.

    I used to write gratitude lists of fifteen-plus items and do it very quickly—almost mindlessly—just to “get it done.” It made the practice sort of mechanical and not very effective.

    I’ve found that writing fewer items on my list and taking the time to dive into the reasons each thing makes me happy intensifies the feelings of gratitude and makes the exercise more profound. I try to do this daily, although I do forget sometimes. When I forget several days in a row, I can feel the difference in my general mood.

    Gratitude is perhaps the lowest-hanging fruit for cultivating a more positive attitude.

    5. Choose your state of being as you open your eyes.

    The last thing that has helped me is a piece of advice from Dr. Daniel Amen, one of the leading brain health experts. In an interview on The School of Greatness Podcast, he talked about the importance of setting a positive intention from the very start of the day to cultivate what he calls “a positivity bias.”

    An affirmation he uses himself and recommends using is: “Today is going to be a great day.”

    When we tell ourselves this in the morning, our unconscious mind then looks for things that are going right to prove that this is true. This isn’t toxic positivity—ignoring or denying the negative. It’s training our brains to see what’s positive instead of focusing on the negative by default.

    I’ve taken the habit of saying this affirmation (or a similar one) just after waking up and before opening my eyes in the morning. It’s a bit like choosing and declaring from the very start of the day what attitude you’ll adopt that day. It’s easy to do, and it sets the tone for the day.

    In the beginning, I didn’t always remember to declare my intention until later in the morning, but it didn’t take long before it became automatic. Now, just remembering to think about my intention (and then mentally saying it) makes me smile as I wake up.

    . . .

    Our lives don’t need to be perfect to wake up smiling in the morning; they just require a conscious effort to develop a positive attitude, which is what the five habits in this article have helped me accomplish.

    I hope they serve you well, too, if you choose to implement them.

  • How to Reclaim Your Joy After the Pandemic: 3 Things That Helped Me

    How to Reclaim Your Joy After the Pandemic: 3 Things That Helped Me

    DISCLAIMER: Though vaccines have allowed many of us to return to more normal activities, the pandemic isn’t over, and it’s still crucial that we all follow the evolving CDC guidelines to keep both ourselves and others safe.

    “Perfect happiness is a beautiful sunset, the giggle of a grandchild, the first snowfall. It’s the little things that make happy moments, not the grand events. Joy comes in sips, not gulps.” ~Sharon Draper

    It was a rainy, late Sunday afternoon. The sun was already going down, and it was getting dark outside.

    “How are you?”

    “Oh, good. Nothing special. It’s quiet,” my mom responded when I called her a couple of months ago.

    “It’s quiet” had been her response for the past two years, possibly before that. My mom is retired. Since the pandemic, her life became even more “quiet” than before—fewer friends, fewer activities, less fun.

    I’m not retired, but I work from home, and the same happened to me. To some degree, I let it happen.

    I got used to not seeing people, not laughing, and not dancing. I got used to being alone, and it became more comfortable to stay home on Saturdays than going out for social activities. Was I developing a mild form of social anxiety? Maybe.

    Two things were for certain: my social skills had atrophied, and I had forgotten how to have fun. What was joy like?

    “I feel like this must be what it’s like for the elderly; when no one visits them and they don’t have many friends and activities, they sort of start dying inside.”

    “That’s how I feel right now,” my mom responded.

    Have you experienced that too at some point? Not feeling like doing anything and seeing people because you forgot how to connect with them and what you even enjoy doing?

    “I think it’s a slippery slope. We should do something about it. We should make an effort to break the pattern and start socializing and doing activities again before we die inside,” I told my mom.

    After hanging up the phone, I reflected upon what I had just said. I knew that “shoulds” wouldn’t make the situation better; I had to be proactive and do something about it. I took out a pen and a notebook and started writing an action plan.

    Here are the three things I wrote down that day that have most helped me to reclaim a sense of joy in my life.

    1. Do one thing on your list of “joys.”

    A piece of advice that was very helpful came from a friend who lost his partner to cancer a couple of years ago, just a few months after she was diagnosed.

    It was a shock to him. They had projects together, like buying a campervan, traveling around North America, and building a house off-grid. Suddenly, those plans were gone, and my friend had to learn to live alone again while coping with grief.

    One thing that helped him get out of depression and slowly regain his spark for life was to make a list of things that made him happy (even just a little). Every day for the next three months, he did as many things on his list as he could.

    I took that advice and created my list of fifteen “little joys.”

    They’re not complicated. They include things like watching the sunset, reading a book while drinking a mocha latte in the morning, walking in nature, wearing my favorite outfit, dancing to progressive trance music in my living room, and watching funny dog videos.

    Every day, I picked at least three things on my list to do that day; if I could do more, great! But I did at least three. Over a few days, this simple practice started making me feel happier.

    Of course, you’ll first have to create your own list of “joys,” but once you have it, it’s a wonderful tool to bring more joy into your daily life.

    2. Do one thing to trigger the “helper’s high.”

    Another thing that significantly impacted my mood and energy was to do one act of kindness every day.

    I had read articles about the science of altruism and happiness, and I knew that helping or being kind to others makes us happy. There’s even a specific term for it: the “helper’s high.”

    I began asking myself every morning, “What’s one act of kindness I will do today?”

    Since I don’t always feel creative first thing in the morning, I made a list of fifteen acts of kindness ideas that I could choose from. Like my list of “joys,” they aren’t complicated. They include writing a nice comment on someone’s Tik Tok video, posting an uplifting quote on Facebook, and complimenting someone.

    Just doing this one thing, intentionally, every day made me feel more alive. But in case you don’t feel inspired to do one act of kindness a day, here’s another idea.

    Another thing I started doing recently, which I learned from Tim Ferriss’s book Tools of Titans, is a ten-second loving-kindness exercise created by Chade-Meng Tan, the man behind the popular mindfulness-based emotional intelligence course for employees at Google called Search Inside Yourself.

    The exercise is very simple: A few times a day, randomly choose two people you see and secretly wish for each of them to be happy. You don’t have to do or say anything—just think, “I wish you to be happy,” with a sincere intention from your heart.

    I find both the ten-second loving-kindness exercise and doing one act of kindness a day therapeutic. They take our focus away from our problems and increase our sense of connection to others, even when the act of kindness is anonymous, and we don’t physically interact with the person.

    3. Do one thing every day to nurture your social circle.

    It took me some time to realize that my mental health was being affected by a sense of isolation. I’m an introvert and enjoy my own company. It wasn’t obvious that my desire to eat more ice cream than usual and my lack of motivation to get out of bed in the morning had something to do with spending too much time alone.

    Some weeks during the height of the pandemic, I talked to no one except my clients on Zoom and the cashier at the grocery store. And the more time I spent alone, the less I wanted to see people. The idea of socializing began to feel daunting, and I chose to stay home (alone) more and more often.

    But it was killing me inside. I had to break the solitude pattern before the hole I was digging and putting myself in became too deep.

    I started small but did something every day to revive my social life.

    One day, I commented on an acquaintance’s Facebook post. Another day, I messaged a friend on Messenger. The following week, that friend suggested we go for lunch, and I went.

    Friendships must be nurtured to grow stronger and thrive; otherwise, they atrophy.

    So, perhaps you can ask yourself every day, “What’s one thing I can do today to nurture and expand my social circle?”

    Start small.

    —

    I did a few other things to bring more joy into my life in the past few months as well, like taking on a new hobby (learning to play the djembe) and attending social events every other week. But the three actions I mentioned in this article are the ones that made the most significant difference in my well-being in the long run.

    What do you do to feel alive and inspired? Share with us in the comments so we can all benefit from each other’s wisdom.