Tiny Buddha

Author: Lisa Garber

  • How I Found My “Why” in Life After Struggling for Years

    How I Found My “Why” in Life After Struggling for Years

    “Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it.” ~Gautama Buddha

    Each time I start a new course, training, or venture, the teacher or leader asks me “why?” “Why are you here?” “Why are you taking this course?” “What’s your ‘why’?” “What’s your purpose?”

    And I’m never prepared.

    You’d think by now, after all the years of working on myself and studying, I would have an answer on the tip of my tongue.

    Yet, I find “why” to be a difficult question to answer.

    I have wondered, “Do I really not know? What’s the block?”

    Then it dawned on me.

    The reason I find it difficult to answer the “why” question is because I don’t have just one.

    I have so many whys and I’m motivated by so many things that my head just gets overwhelmed and rolls up into a ball when I think I have to come up with just one.

    So I get stuck, draw a blank, and can’t answer the question.

    This was an enlightening insight for me because previously I thought I was only allowed to have one purpose.

    Yes, allowed.

    I would take what the authors, teachers, and books told me about purpose very seriously. I thought they really meant I could only have one all-encompassing purpose, and that’s that!

    So I spent a great deal of time trying to figure that big purpose out, to find, as one teacher guided me, the “why that could make me cry.” To no success.

    It was a relief when I realized and accepted how multi-faceted my purpose actually is.

    It doesn’t make it wrong, bad, or insufficient. It makes me smile and relax and allows me to enjoy the many aspects of my being.

    It has brought me a stronger sense of inner peace also, by letting go of trying to fit myself into a mold that someone else made.

    That’s right. I am breaking the mold and creating my own one.

    Here’s what I mean by a multifaceted purpose.

    Purpose #1: Personal Growth

    Without a doubt, I am driven by my relentless interest in growing as a person in all aspects of my life.

    For example, I read a lot about health and fitness. I’ve been doing CrossFit for over four years. I’m always adjusting my diet to find one that works even better for me. I love growing into the best health and fitness version of myself.

    The vision of myself at a CrossFit class when I am ninety is a huge motivator for me. I don’t ever want to be a burden on my loved ones. That’s wrapped up in this “why” also.

    I have studied psychology, trained as a therapist, and been in different forms of therapy my whole life. There are amazing emotional teachers and healers who I follow.

    I am always striving to grow into the happiest, most well-balanced person I can be who is kind, supportive, and loving to myself and others.

    My spirituality is my rock. I have meditated for over forty years. I have read spiritual books and studied ancient texts in school. I listen, I learn, I try. I hope to keep raising my consciousness forever.

    And I learn about my craft, my work, my business. I never stop learning.

    Yes, indeed, personal growth is one of my “whys” in life.

    Purpose #2: Fulfilling My Potential

    I have always had the idea that I was capable of much more.

    I was an athlete as a child. I played and watched a lot of sports.

    I was uplifted and excited when I saw people breaking records and pushing themselves beyond what anyone thought was possible.

    And I loved the arts. I was mesmerized by ballet dancers doing extraordinary things on stage. And musicians performing at their best. Even paintings by remarkable painters took my breath away.

    It’s genius that I was seeing. People pushing themselves to be the very best they were capable of.

    The idea that humans, meaning me too, could excel in that way fascinated and captivated me.

    I want to do that too. Fulfilling my potential is a huge “why” in my life.

    Purpose #3: Making a Difference

    I want to alleviate suffering in the world.

    Perhaps seeing my parents suffering with sadness and depression and not being able to help them fuels this purpose.

    Even so, my drive to alleviate suffering has evolved into something very satisfying and motivating.

    It is the cornerstone of my work; it colors all my relationships. It gives me a reason that is beyond myself.

    Being of service is another way of looking at this particular “why.”

    I’ve noticed that if I’m not careful, my first two “whys,” personal growth and fulfilling my potential, will keep my focus a little too self-centered.

    I really do want to be a catalyst for positive change in people. It’s also pretty clear that I’m not driven to go out there to actually change the whole world.

    At times, I have felt some guilt for not being more active for social change.

    But over the years, I have come to understand that the change I help facilitate in the world is very personal, individual, and intimate. And that’s okay.

    Whether it’s friends, family, or clients, nothing feels more meaningful to me than seeing someone’s whole energy shift, burdens lift, and excitement return to their faces.

    Pretty sure my love of alleviating suffering counts as part of my life purpose.

    So let’s try this again.

    “What’s your why?” you ask?

    “It’s personal growth, fulfilling my potential, and alleviating suffering in others.”

    That just makes me so happy. There is such a life lesson here in my awareness of my multifaceted purpose.

    We are so influenced by others’ teachings that sometimes we forget to look deep inside ourselves for the answers we seek.

    Yes, we can learn wonderful things from the stories and studies of people, yet our truest and most profound learnings must come from within.

    Rather than taking lessons at face value, we must explore them, put them on like a new piece of clothing to see how it fits, how we look, if it suits us, and if we really like it.

    We want guidance to resonate with us. That means it’s in alignment with our nature.

    Having one purpose just didn’t fit me. I’m not a one-size-fits-all kind of person.

    And now, allowing myself to be myself, to recognize and embrace my multifaceted purpose, has given me much more inner peace.

    The internal struggle with myself has subsided.

    I get to be who I am, regardless of what the experts may teach.

    Uh oh, I think I may have landed on another “why.” What’s my purpose in life?

    Purpose #4: To be myself

    I love it.

  • How To Make Peace with Regrets: 4 Steps That Help Me Let Go

    How To Make Peace with Regrets: 4 Steps That Help Me Let Go

    “Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.” ~Don Miguel Ruiz

    The other day, I told my adult niece that I regretted selling my downtown condo several years ago.

    “On no,” she said. “You told me back then that you were finding the lack of light was getting to you. You weren’t happy there.”

    I had no memory of that until she reminded me. And surprisingly, it lifted a great deal of my painful regret around it. It helped me change from regret to recognition that I’d made the right decision.

    That got me thinking about other things I regretted. Am I remembering them correctly, or am I revising history? In other words, am I suffering needlessly?

    Memory is a funny thing. We don’t usually remember all the details of a situation. We pick and choose.

    For example, my regret around selling my condo focused on missing its cool location, being aware of how the value had increased, and reflecting on the many fun times I had with friends and family there.

    My memory did not include how much construction has been going on in that location these past years, how my two favorite restaurants closed, and how the best neighborhood coffee shop in the world went out of business.

    My regret, my emotional pain, was based on very limited data, some that isn’t even relevant anymore.

    Isn’t that interesting?

    Is it possible that all our regrets don’t take into account enough information to help us feel more at peace with these painful situations?

    I decided to sit and reflect on some of my other regrets. Would it be possible to alleviate some of my suffering by broadening my perspective on them?

    Here’s how I made peace with my regrets:

    Step One: I reviewed the regret and thought about all the things that were going on at the time of the disappointment.

    For example, let’s take my early career as a singer/songwriter. When I looked back on it, I felt regret, deep emotional pain over never recording an album of my songs.

    There was a lot going on in those years surrounding my career. Specifically, I was never totally happy. I spent more time reading self-help and spiritual books than practicing my craft.

    I had a hard time relating to other musicians. And I really had a terrible time with the record company executives and producers. I didn’t like how they treated me.

    I even had my manager ghost me. And that was way before we even knew what ghosting was.

    In addition, I was on the road a lot, playing in smokey bars, which was really challenging given that I neither smoked nor drank.

    And because I spent a lot of time as a solo performer with just me and my guitar, I spent way too many days, nights, and weeks alone in strange communities, eating in bad restaurants, because that was all I could afford.

    Hah! You see how remembering the details around the regret can be so eye-opening? Until I did this exercise, I honestly had forgotten about all of that.

    Step Two: I reflected on how this bigger picture influenced the outcome that I was currently regretting.

    There was nothing very inspiring or exciting about the day-to-day grind of being a musician on the road for me.

    Everything seemed very hard. Finding places to play, driving long distances, meeting with executives who were judging me and my music, dealing with agents and other musicians, and missing my family.

    It was all hard. And I didn’t like it.

    I dreamed of finding colleagues who would help me to fulfill my potential as an artist. Except for a small handful, the ones I worked with seemed much more interested in furthering themselves.

    I felt used.

    Ugh!

    And although I enjoyed the time I spent living and working in New York City and Los Angeles, I was a Canadian citizen and unable to obtain a proper work visa.

    That meant I would go back and forth across the border often, keeping my fingers crossed that I wouldn’t get caught!

    Step Three: I explored another way to look at the situation, often called “reframing.”

    Reframing is exactly what it sounds like. If you had a frame, maybe 24” x 24”, and you placed it on a very large painting, you would be focused on the section of the painting within the frame.

    But what about the huge picture all around it? If you moved the frame, you’d see another piece of the picture.

    And if you expanded the frame to be the full size of the entire canvas? Now you’d see a very different picture.

    We can reframe situations in our life this way. By moving the frame around, and especially by expanding it, we simply see a different picture of reality.

    As I reflected on all the things that were going on with my early musical career, I began to see the bigger picture. And guess what? I felt the pain of regret lift from my heart.

    Of course I quit that career!

    Of course I was unhappy!

    Of course I didn’t get to fulfill my goal of creating an album. The situation was not going to support that, no matter how hard I tried.

    Step Four: I made peace with what was once a regret.

    Certainly, sitting here now with an MP3 of my songs in album form seems like a great thing.

    But there was always a good chance that it was not going to be something I was proud of. I didn’t have the support structure to make that happen.

    And what happened instead of sticking with my music career?

    I came back home to my family, went back to school, and had the best time learning, writing, and studying topics that I found inspiring and fascinating.

    Coming back to school gave me the chance, as an adult, to explore who I really was, find my true passions, and commit to how I might share those passions with the world.

    University was the best time of my life.

    Conclusion

    This exercise has helped me heal. I no longer have emotional pain around what I used to see as a disappointment for my life.

    I have insight now that leads me to believe that the music business was not my passion, not my purpose, and would never have made me happy.

    This great insight provides me with great relief. I have found peace where once there was the emotional pain of regret.

    I hope you try these steps for yourself and learn how to make peace with your regrets.