Tiny Buddha

Category: change & challenges

  • How Illness Can Be Lonely and What to Do About It

    How Illness Can Be Lonely and What to Do About It

    “I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.” ~ Hafiz of Shiraz

    When we think of illness, we don’t usually equate it with loneliness; however, there seems to be a huge connection between the two conditions.

    The fact is, when dealing with health challenges, we are most connected to our bodies: we are one with ourselves. Even when we have thoughtful and caring loved ones in our inner circles, these individuals can never truly understand what we’re experiencing on a physical, psychological, and spiritual level.

    Illness is lonely, but loneliness is not just about being alone; it is a state of mind. Being lonely is about feeling disconnected from those around you, whether from an interpersonal or universal standpoint. Those who are lonely feel empty and drained.

    For years, I’ve pondered the connection between loneliness and illness. My musings began in 2001 at the age of forty-seven with my first bout of cancer.

    While raising three teenagers, and after having a routine mammogram, I learned that I had an early-stage form of breast cancer called DCIS. I was given the option to receive radiation, which would result in a severely deformed breast, or to have a mastectomy. I chose the latter. I thought it would be better living without a breast than being grossly deformed.

    The shock of the diagnosis magnified my already complicated feelings about being an only child. My loneliness grew deeper because my surgery was the week of 9/11. While the country was mourning the horrific terrorist events, I mourned the loss of my breast. The presence of both internal and external mourning magnified my already intense feelings of loneliness.

    I chose the best surgeons in the country, and my post-op recovery went extremely well; however, I struggled emotionally. No matter how many hugs my husband gave me, telling me how beautiful I was, I couldn’t shake the idea that part of my womanhood had been removed—the part of me that nourished my three amazing children.

    In spite of all the love around me, I felt a deep sense of loneliness that I was unable to adequately describe or shake. What helped me most was tapping into my lifelong journaling practice. My journal had always been my confidant and best friend, and its role became more vital during this time.

    Fast-forward to the present. I’m thinking about a good friend’s experience with loneliness as she navigates her health challenge (she has stage 3 lung cancer). If you met her, you’d think, I want to be this woman—she has it all: a wonderfully devoted husband; many friends; a successful interior-design business; and what appears to be a full, deeply spiritual life.

    Working primarily in an upscale California community, she brings magic and joy into the homes of some of America’s most beautiful estates. Because she has such a magnetic personality, many people turn to her for love and support, but sometimes when life shifts in ways beyond our control, we can no longer offer that type of support, and we can only try to help ourselves stay afloat.

    We all know how life can shift from one day to the next. What happened to my friend over the course of two years was horrific.

    In the early-morning hours of January 2018, she lost her beautiful home in the Montecito mudslide disaster. The following year, she watched her mother’s slow death from lung cancer. After being knocked down by those two events, she picked herself up and continued with her design projects.

    Just when she thought there could be no more horrible news, she was asked to deal with one more life challenge—a cancer battle.

    It all began at the end of her workday, when she came home and told her husband that she felt weird but couldn’t identify why. They decided to pay a visit to the local emergency room where an EKG was done. The doctors found that the lower part of her heart wasn’t working.

    The end result was that she was told she needed a pacemaker, but in preparation, she had a chest X-ray, which showed a large mass on one of her lungs. The first priority was to manage her heart issue, and then deal with the lung mass, which surgical intervention showed to be malignant. This was followed by chemotherapy and radiation.

    Under normal circumstances, this story is terrifying, but in this particular case, the terror was magnified by her mother’s recent passing from the same disease and being in the midst of a pandemic. My friend’s own health status triggered memories of her mom’s last months of life, and her slow deterioration in hospice care.

    Like myself and others who have navigated a cancer journey, my friend contemplates the fragility of her life—but as she does so, a deep sense of loneliness and sadness often overwhelms her.

    It’s been said that there is a “cancer personality.” Those who are generous, loving, and have a tendency to keep their emotions locked inside are more prone to the disease. My friend asked me if I had been scared when I received my breast-cancer diagnosis. I told her there was fear, but my overwhelming feelings were those of loneliness.

    “Having cancer was the loneliest experience of my life,” I told her.

    “Oh, thank you for telling me that,” she said. “I was feeling that myself, and I wondered if it was normal. It brings me relief to hear that you felt the same way.”

    Learning of my friend’s health challenges, I was once again reminded of how lonely illness can be.

    I thought back to the day of my breast-cancer diagnosis. The news was given to me on a speakerphone in the office my husband and I shared, as we sat side by side. He hugged me close as I glanced at the black-and-white photos of my three children on the wall, wondering how their lives would change if they lost their mother.

    I was glad that my husband listened attentively to the doctor’s words, as I was alone in my thoughts—thoughts that I couldn’t express except in puddles of tears. A deep sense of sadness permeated my being. Knowing that something cancerous is growing inside your body is daunting.

    No matter how many hugs my husband and kids gave me, I was unable to shake my profound sense of being alone. Even as I write this article, I feel alone. I never wanted to join cancer groups, which might have helped dissipate my feelings of loneliness. I felt that absorbing other people’s narratives could be exhausting. As an empath, it would drain me, and I needed space for my own healing.

    The fact is, that even without having to deal with illness, we’re living during very lonely times. Social media and video calls have now taken the place of direct human interaction, and in many ways, loneliness has become an even more prevalent epidemic, even for those not battling cancer.

    Whether dealing with health challenges or the isolation associated with being quarantined as a result of the pandemic, loneliness is a serious mental-health concern. Studies have shown that loneliness can decrease your lifespan by 26%, make you more prone to depression, result in decreased immune-system function, and cause stress to the cardiovascular system.

    According to Mayra Mendez, a psychologist in Santa Monica, California, the most helpful thing to know about loneliness is that it isn’t something that happens to you; it’s something you can control. She says that it’s important to find new and creative ways to deal with loneliness and to connect with others by whatever means available to you.

    Ways to Deal with Loneliness 

    • Video chat with friends or loved ones, who may feel lonely too, but might feel too scared to admit it.
    • Write a letter to someone you care about, opening up about what you’re going through, sharing your feelings, and asking them what’s going in their lives.
    • Take up a new hobby so you can meet likeminded people. It’s much easier to form a deep bond when we connect over shared passions.
    • Take an online course so you can interact with people with similar interests.
    • Learn a new language so you can connect with even more people.
    • Play digital word games with new friends. We don’t always need to have deep conversations to ease our loneliness. Sometimes it helps just to do something fun with someone else.
    • Make friends with a book.

    Let’s never forget: We’re born alone and we die alone. But there’s a lot we can do in between to nurture our souls.

  • What Helped Me the Most When I Thought My Life Was Over

    What Helped Me the Most When I Thought My Life Was Over

    “What I’m looking for is not out there, it is in me.” ~Helen Keller

    I used to think that life should be easy, and if it wasn’t easy, then I was doing it wrong.

    I’m older and wiser now, and I’ve learned that if it is hard, that means I am probably doing something right.

    I had a good childhood. I had a loving family, plenty of opportunity, and I excelled at whatever I put my mind to. But I was a high-anxiety kid, and a relentless perfectionist. As I grew older, that need to have everything flawless impeded my ability to be happy because I didn’t like myself very much.

    When I got married, I felt like I had added a notch to my self-worth belt. As someone who didn’t have a whole lot of self-esteem or love for herself, when someone else loved me, it was just what I needed to feel validated, or so I thought.

    But that wore off too.

    Then, I had kids, which was amazing—I love being a mom. But there was still something missing. I was happy enough, but I didn’t feel alive. There was this little whisper the whole time that said you are not where you’re supposed to be.  

    I felt this urgency to figure out how to be happy, but at the same time, I didn’t. I was happy enough, and there was that guilt. I should be happy. I was so blessed with two beautiful children, a husband, a gorgeous home—you know, the American dream. I’m a terrible, selfish person if I’m not thankful for everything I’ve been blessed with.

    And life was comfortable. It wasn’t what I had dreamed of, or as beautiful as I had thought it would be, but everything was “fine.” And the comfort of “fine” and certainty seemed better than the unknown.

    And then it happened.

    That whisper turned into a very hard and abrupt shove into another lane, as if I didn’t get the hint the first time.

    I could have taken it as a punishment for not being one hundred percent happy with where I was at, and, I suppose I did for a while. But now, I know it was the universe trying to tell me something, and it wasn’t whispering anymore.

    The universe was now yelling at me, loudly.

    The lane-changer happened the day I discovered my husband of seventeen years had been cheating on me with another man.

    The life I knew—the life that I was happy enough with—was gone in an instant on a hot, sweaty July day.

    I did not handle it gracefully. I was an utter hot mess for months and months. The better part of a couple of years, really.

    But I made it through the other side into my “new lane.” and I want to share a little bit about what helped me get here, and what helped me be truly happy here.

    The reason I was so devastated when I was thrust into my new lane is that I had been clinging to this vision of the life I thought that I should be living—the life that was “normal.”

    I was attached to so much—having a husband, having children, having a home, doing married-people-with-kids things. I could have never imagined my life a different way. In fact, it was scary to imagine my life differently.

    As I got older, my world shrunk. My comfort zone got bigger.

    When the crisis with my marriage happened, I tried to hold on tightly to everything that had just crumbled in front of me. But there was nothing left to hold on to –I was experiencing complete groundlessness.

    That attachment to the way things had been was all I had. I didn’t have a ton of self-love, or “I’m okay on my own” mentality. My identity was “we” with my partner for nearly twenty years, and I didn’t know how to function as a “me.”

    I had taken the little things, and the big things for granted.

    So what helped me survive this?

    Someone asked me this after I was feeling like my life was back on track, and after really thinking hard about it, three things came to me.

    Gratitude, mindfulness, and self-love.

    I’m often amazed at how succinctly I was able to boil down these lessons into a few things that were the tipping point for me to find myself, and my happiness again.

    Start with Gratitude

    Focusing on what we are grateful for is a super-simple and powerful tool that is often overlooked. We have access to gratitude at all times, and it is absolutely free. How’s that for a deal?

    Practicing gratitude on the regular has a ton of benefits. Focusing on what you’re grateful for has been shown to increase self-esteem, make us less self-centered, improves health, helps us sleep better, improves our relationships, and… gratitude makes us happier. Boom!

    Remember, gratitude is a practice. The more you cultivate it, the more you will feel it. Stick with it and try these simple ideas:

    1. Make the decision to be grateful. It all starts here.

    2. Keep a gratitude journal. Putting pen to paper (or a gratitude journal app if that’s more your speed) is a great way to get in the habit of focusing on the good things in your life, rather than the not-so-good things. Aim to write down at least 3 things you are grateful for every day.

    There are other neat ways to do this too, such as sharing something you’re grateful for at the dinner table each evening, or keeping a gratitude jar, in which you write what you’re thankful for on slips of paper and drop them in the jar.

    3. Create visual reminders of things you’re grateful for. Maybe a vision board? Or just a journal filled with images you love. If you’re an artist (or even if you’re not!), an art journal can be fun!

    4. Think of ways you can show your gratitude in everyday life, like doing something nice for a homeless person because you are grateful to have a roof over your head

    5. Think about how you can be grateful for the setbacks you’ve had—it’s hard, I know, but I promise you can find a silver lining in anything if you try! Journal about them.

    6. Think about how you’d feel without something. How would you feel if you had ZERO family or friends? Or if you hate your job, how would you feel if you didn’t have a paycheck?

    Next, Practice Mindfulness

    I know, I know. Everyone talks about how mindfulness will help you be happier.

    That’s because it works.

    The benefits of practicing mindfulness are many. Personally, in terms of the quest for happiness, I think the greatest thing that you can learn being mindful is how to observe your thoughts without judging them.

    Have you ever tried meditating, and found thoughts popping in and out of your head like a whack-a-mole game? And, if you’ve been in that space, have you been hard on yourself for not being able to meditate “properly”?

    There is not a right or wrong way to meditate. You will have thoughts that pop into your head and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. The point is to notice the thoughts and let them be there without any judgment (good or bad).

    Starting to pay attention and notice your thoughts is a huge step toward seeing which thoughts and patterns are getting in the way of your happiness. And then, once you begin to notice those thoughts and patterns, you can start to form new ones that will better serve you on your quest for happiness.

    Finally, Treat Yourself Like You’d Treat Someone You Love

    Once you’ve become more mindful of your thoughts, you might notice that your inner critic can be quite nasty sometimes, telling you you’re not _______ enough or not worthy enough.

    Chances are, you’d never speak that way to your children, best friend, or partner. So why on earth do we say such horrible things to ourselves?

    Think about it this way: Your inner critic has a lot of information that it has assimilated over the many years of your life. Some of it is helpful, and some of it just isn’t.

    I used to hate my body. I was not nice to myself at all.

    One day, it occurred to me that I would never say the things I said to myself to my daughter, and as someone who spent much of my adult life struggling with an eating disorder, I certainly did not want to pass that on to her.

    I committed that day to work on talking to myself like I would talk to my daughter. To caring for myself like I would care for my daughter.

    That started with telling myself I was worth self-love and self-care.

    The second step was noticing when my inner critic was telling me that I was not worth that love and care.  Once I was able to notice those thoughts, I was able to start replacing them with more helpful thoughts and words.

    Is any of this going to happen overnight?

    Nope.

    Happiness is something we all spend an awful lot of time looking for, and this feeling of peace and contentment that we all hunger for seems pretty elusive sometimes. But remember, it is in you. You already have everything you need inside of you. These three practices are some pretty simple things that you can do to start your journey toward happiness using what is already inside you.

    Everything is a process. You don’t get from point A to point B overnight. It’s the little things that you take the time to do every day that get you there. If you stare at a blade of grass, you can’t see it growing minute-by-minute, but when your lawn needs to be mowed, you can be pretty sure it grew a lot!

    The end result will come, but you must have patience. You must be grateful for the process to learn and grow. And during the process, you must treat yourself with love, kindness, and respect.

    When you can embrace this truth, you are sure to end up in a beautiful place, and one day, you too, will live from a place of happiness, purpose, and fulfillment.

  • How Marijuana Was Great for My Anxiety and Why I Stopped Using It

    How Marijuana Was Great for My Anxiety and Why I Stopped Using It

    “When solving problems, dig at the root instead of just hacking at the leaves.” ~Anthony J. D’Angelo

    This is an account of my experience using marijuana as a device to help my anxiety, why I’m glad I had it, and why I no longer need it.

    This story isn’t an advocation for or against smoking pot. It’s a story to shed some insight into how and why it helped certain ailments and my journey to lasting change without it.

    How Smoking Pot Helped My Anxiety

    For most of my life I was a closet anxiety sufferer.

    That’s mostly because I didn’t have a label for how I felt until I was thirty.

    My anxiety brought insomnia, tension headaches, stomach problems, and social anxiety in addition to the swirl of bees that lived in my chest.

    One symptom that drove me nuts was incessant queasiness. In my twenties I dated a guy who smoked pot, so I gave it a try to see if it would help my stomach. And it helped. A lot.

    Then I noticed it helped me fall asleep.

    It helped with my ADD by letting me focus on my work when I was coding (nerd alert!) or doing something creative.

    It helped my social anxiety by loosening my worry and fear over other people’s judgments.

    When I felt anxious, upset, sad, or angry, it dulled the negative emotions down and helped take the edge off, which sometimes was enough to give me the space to get some perspective.

    It eased my tension headaches.

    It gave me something to do on boring days.

    It made doing chores less laborious.

    I came to rely on it. If we were running low, I would start to get anxious. If I ran out, I would have anxiety attacks. I felt like I needed it to get through the day.

    I went from occasionally smoking to smoking morning, noon, and night (and in the middle of the night when I couldn’t get back to sleep).

    I told myself that this was perfectly acceptable. It was my medicine. I needed it. It was a way of life. That it wasn’t like I was smoking cigarettes, so it was totally fine.

    Pot helped.

    But only in the moment.

    Why Smoking Pot Didn’t Really Help My Anxiety

    What pot didn’t do for me was fix my anxiety. It didn’t make it go away; it just eased it a bit temporarily. It wasn’t helping me get to the root of my problem, and that’s why I needed to keep going back to it.

    It was helping the symptoms of anxiety, not the cause.

    Anxiety caused stomach problems and tension headaches. Pot helped with that.

    Anxiety made my mind jump all over the place when I tried to sleep or focus. Pot helped slow the erratic surge of thoughts.

    Anxiety made me nervous around other people. Pot took the edge off.

    I didn’t like how any negative emotions felt in my body, so I jumped to numb the feeling in the quickest and easiest way I knew how. Smoking pot.

    It became such a habit that the idea of not having this crutch at my immediate disposal caused me stress.

    Day after day, year after year, the anxiety was still there. So I kept needing my crutch.

    That is, until I decided I wanted to walk on my own. I reached the realization that I wanted to solve this problem, not manage it.

    That meant I needed to get to the bottom of it.

    Why Did I Have Anxiety in the First Place?

    I didn’t know I had anxiety for most of my life. It was just how I felt. I figured some people were either lucky that they were happy and carefree, or they were faking it.

    It just didn’t seem like it was in the cards for me. I felt like this was just how I was born.

    I grew up in a “suck it up” kind of family, so we didn’t talk about our emotions. I never really saw my parents showing me a healthy way to share feelings, so I didn’t have something to model after.

    What I did see were people being made fun of for being emotionally vulnerable. I thought it was weak to show people that you are hurting.

    But through a lot of inner work, I was able to start breaking down what was causing my anxiety.

    My social anxiety and fear of being found out as a fraud at work (aka imposter syndrome) stemmed from a long-held belief of not being good enough.

    Doing some reflection on my past, the “suck it up” environment I grew up in led to being made fun of a lot as the youngest kid. I internalized this and turned it into a belief that I held onto for decades.

    This limiting belief came out as fear. Fear of disappointing others. Fear of failure. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making a wrong decision.

    This accounted for a lot of my anxieties.

    The stress response—aka the fight or flight response—has two sides. Flight = fear. Fight = anger. So I held a lot of anger too. I was so quick to anger and judgment. And I held onto it for a long time whether it was being cut off in traffic, or when my mother left when I was fourteen.

    Anger is a defense mechanism. It’s triggered when you feel threatened in some way. And I always felt threatened.

    Years of anxiety will plague the body. Constantly triggering one’s stress response wreaks havoc on the immune system, digestive system, your heart, mind and whole body.

    So that explained all my symptoms.

    Smoking pot helped the symptoms. It didn’t help me overcome my long-held belief that I wasn’t good enough.

    How I Overcame Anxiety Once and for All

    What I really needed was to change my relationship with my thoughts. To do that, I first had to learn the important lesson that you are not your thoughts.

    This is a core concept in meditation, which is one of the biggest tools that helped me relate differently to my thoughts.

    When I first came across this concept, I didn’t get it. “If I’m not my thoughts, then what am I?” I came to learn that thoughts are just ideas, just sentences floating through the brain like clouds in the sky. They come. They go. They change shape.

    I, me, myself—that is who gets to choose which thoughts to hold onto, which ones to believe. There is a me beyond the thoughts.

    Once this idea started to ring true, that’s when change began. When I was fearful of what other people thought of me, I needed to dive into why.

    Instead of allowing these fearful thoughts to run through my head on autopilot, believing the things they said to be true, I was able to stop, step back, and challenge them.

    So instead of catastrophizing every situation, I could take the time to ask and honestly answer questions like “What’s the worst that could happen?” And to that, I could follow up with “How will I cope with that worst-case scenario if it actually happened?”

    I learned I was much more capable of dealing with adversity than I had ever given myself credit for.

    Stopping Wasn’t Easy

    Marijuana may not be chemically addicting like many drugs. But it can be very psychologically and habitually addicting.

    Years of anxiety meant that I’d developed a lot of unconscious triggers to feeling anxious. That meant sometimes the symptoms of anxiety would come up without me knowing exactly why.

    Anytime I felt a little queasy, or even too full. Seeing smoke or even hearing the word. Getting home from work. Feeling any amount of stress or afflictive emotions. Boredom. Going to any social gathering. Celebrations.

    Whenever I was triggered physically—like feeling my heart racing or tightness in my chest—I would freak out and jump to ease the discomfort as quickly as possible.

    Part of my work to overcome anxiety was paradoxically to allow myself to feel it without fighting it.

    Just like the Buddhist story of the two arrows. Getting hit with an arrow hurts, of course. But in life, things happen and sometimes hurt.

    Lamenting it, saying how this should never have happened, wallowing in how much I hate that this happened and how much I want it to end—that’s like getting hit with a second arrow.

    Fighting against reality causes unnecessary suffering. Like trying to pull your fingers out of a Chinese finger trap—you get stuck even more. I found that peacefully recognizing the discomfort, saying hello, allowing it to pass through was all much more effective than taking a hit off my bowl.

    And over time, these feelings of anxiety from unknown sources became less and less, and getting through them became easier and easier.

    I’m glad I had pot as a device to help with my anxiety for the time that I had it. It gave me relief. It let me experience moments of peace. For me it was a stepping-stone on a journey I didn’t realize I was on.

    But once I recognized that my anxiety wasn’t improving, that I needed to put in some work to take my life to the next level, that’s when I knew it was time to take the leap into the unknown without my crutch.

    I stumbled for a hot minute, then got up on my own two feet. I now look back at my life in phases—the “old” me and the “new” me.

    The “old” me would have been a nervous wreck to admit any of this story to the world. She would have written it while high. She would have freaked out when she ran out of her stash.

    The “new” me writes this with the confidence that I know my message will land with some people, while others may not like it or even care to read this far, but I don’t worry about what people think anymore. I’ve tackled my “not good enough” inner bully. She still makes a peep here or there, but I now know how to listen without judgement and then go about my day.

    For full transparency and honesty, I still dabble occasionally from time to time. But not because I need it and not because I’m anxious and running away from my feelings, rather, it’s like enjoying a nice glass of wine.

  • Healing PTSD One Breath and One Day at a Time

    Healing PTSD One Breath and One Day at a Time

    “Recovering from PTSD is being fragile and strong at the same time. It’s a beautiful medley of constantly being broken down and pieced together. I am a painting almost done to completion, beautiful but not quite complete.” ~Kate J. Tate

    I never considered myself as a trauma survivor.

    I didn’t think I had something as severe as PTSD. I reserved that diagnosis to those who suffered from things far worse than me.

    It felt dramatic and attention-seeking to label myself as a “trauma survivor.”

    First of all, what is trauma? The term tends to be loosely thrown around, and the meaning can be hard to identify. Essentially, trauma is an event that overwhelms the central nervous system and exceeds our ability to cope or integrate the emotions involved with that experience. The more frightened and helpless we feel, the more likely we are to be traumatised.

    PTSD is a mental health condition that can develop after a person has been through a traumatic event or has experienced repeated exposure to trauma. But not every traumatic event will result in PTSD.

    It’s natural to feel afraid during and after a traumatic situation. Our inner “fight-or-flight” response is our body’s way of protecting us from harm. While virtually everyone will experience a range of reactions after a traumatic event, it’s those who are unable to integrate the experience properly, and when it starts to interfere with daily life that it develops into PTSD.

    Symptoms like flashbacks, bad dreams, or frightening thoughts that last for more than a month and are severe enough to interfere with relationships or work are considered to be PTSD.

    I know this area very well because I’ve experienced it, but also because I’ve studied it. I’ve recently graduated as an art therapist and have asked myself whether it’s ‘professional’ to write so openly about something as intense and vulnerable as my own journey through PTSD.

    As a student, it was perfectly fine to write about the pain of my past. I was still learning, developing, healing. But as a graduate, it feels like something I’m meant to have already resolved by now. Unfortunately, though, I’ve come to realize that healing from psychological trauma can be a lifelong journey.

    Those who know me well are aware that my sister died of suicide. While I rarely ever speak of the subject, I have written about my grief and pain extensively. It’s been seven years since she died, and I still feel the trauma from those years leading up to and following her death.

    Anyone who has lost someone they love to suicide can understand the guilt, shame, and isolation that pile on top of the unbearable grief of their loss. We are often plagued with guilt. “Wasn’t there more I could have done?” Suicide is still so misunderstood and stigmatized.

    For years I was oblivious to the accumulation of trauma on my body until I moved to the other side of the world, met the man I am with today, and created a life where I finally felt safe and secure in my home environment.

    Without any actual threats anymore, my mind was bewildered by the stability of my life. For over ten years, I was coping with actual life or death situations, and now there was none. It was just calm and quiet.

    It didn’t last before I was pulled up in another type of storm, a toxic workplace. What made matters worse is that I could not quit or go on stress leave unless I was prepared to leave the country. Essentially, my visa to remain in Australia was tied to that job.

    I saw a lawyer and was told that if I wanted to stay in the country then I would have to stick it out for the next two and half years. Only then could I quit. It felt like I’d been sentenced to prison.

    The feeling of being trapped and helpless triggered memories of my past, when I was fighting to save my sister’s life. After having a panic attack at work and being prescribed three different types of medication, I became seriously concerned about my health.

    It scared me because I was doing everything I was ‘supposed’ to do. I was eating well, exercising, seeing a psychotherapist, and meditating almost daily. I was functioning relatively well on the outside. Yet I had terrible stomach aches, regular nightmares, and severe chest pain.

    Eventually those painful two and half years passed, and the day came where I could finally quit. When I walked out of that office for the very last time, I almost kissed the ground in euphoria. I felt so free and alive. Magically, all of my physical symptoms subsided. I could finally breathe and cherished every single unstrained breath.

    Sadly, it didn’t last. Slowly but surely, all the familiar physical symptoms of anxiety slowly came back. This made it clear to me that all this unprocessed pain is still in my body. I finally understood what Eckhart Tolle was referring to when he talked about “the pain body.” I knew I needed heal myself by gaining more of an understanding of my unconscious triggers.

    Of course, I had no idea how to go about that because, well, they are not conscious. This led me to where I am now; undergoing something called Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR).

    The goal of EMDR is to process and integrate traumatic memories into standard, less emotionally charged memories. I expected the first session would ‘cure’ me and I’d leave a new person, just in time for graduating as an art therapist! But of course, life rarely follows the expectations we have for it.

    My psychologist also explained that EMDR tends to work best for a one-time traumatic event like a car accident. For those like me who have complex PTSD, a few more sessions are usually required. In addition to monthly EMDR sessions, my psychologist recommended that I read The Body Keeps the Score and try out trauma-sensitive yoga. I’m also taking a meditation practitioner course where I meditate daily, and am learning from wise teachers like Tara Brach, Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra.

    While the process has been excruciatingly slow, I can feel a bit more space in my heart. The pace of it still infuriates me at times, if I’m being honest. But I know that hurrying and rushing does not help the healing process. In fact, it seems to have the opposite effect. So now I’m doing what I’ve never done: slowing down. Creating time for deliberate quietness through meditation and connecting to my body to learn its language through yoga.

    I have moments now when I feel overwhelmed by my to-do list and feel my whole-body tense. I can usually pinpoint when I have dropped outside of my window of tolerance because I suddenly have the urge to act immediately on every single thing. Not a moment to waste! Get out of my way!

    In those moments, I stop. I relax my shoulders and take a deep breath. If I’m swarmed with fear-inducing thoughts about all the worst-case scenarios, I then reflect on the opposite of those thoughts. This pause might last for less than a second and then the rush of thinking swarms me again. When it does, I try my best to be compassionate and forgiving to myself for falling back into my old ways.

    We are who we are because of years of repetition, which resulted in habits. I can create a new one. Every single day I’m changing. These moments of stillness and peace throughout the day add up. They are the building blocks for a new way of being. They are the daisies and sunflowers on the road to healing.

    There are no shortcuts or accelerator programs to get ‘healed.’ At least none that I’m aware of. It takes time to break through the fog of the past and settle into the stillness of being. To unravel ourselves from the pain we once endured and return to the life that’s in front of us now. It takes continuous daily effort and requires inordinate amounts of self-forgiveness and compassion.

    I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely healed, and maybe that’s not the point. Maybe the point is to expand my tolerance of all that it is to be human. Maybe the path of being a healer of any kind is not show people the way, but to just be with them. We all experience things so differently, anyway. There is no one size fits all.

    In the meantime, I’ll continue doing what I’m doing. Or, continuing what I’m ‘being.’ Taking each day as it comes. One breath at a time.

  • The Dalai Lama Global Vision Summit – A Free Online Event

    The Dalai Lama Global Vision Summit – A Free Online Event

    Since you’re a Tiny Buddha reader, I know you’re someone who understands the importance of fostering wisdom and compassion. And I imagine you’re also interested in learning how you can help create a more peaceful world, with less suffering for all.

    The Dalai Lama has dedicated his life to guiding others, like a beacon of hope, along the path to a more peaceful world. His teachings and example have inspired and warmed the hearts of millions.

    Over six days, Lion’s Roar and Tibet House US are bringing together 22 presenters, including Buddhist teachers, spiritual leaders, scientists, best-selling authors, scholars, and some of the Dalai Lama’s closest students, to celebrate the life and teachings of one of the world’s greatest spiritual leaders and global visionaries.

    Sign up for free and tune into any of the 40+ inspiring talks, teachings, and meditations as the presenters share their insight into six key themes of the Dalai Lama’s message to the world.

    Presenters include:

    Sharon Salzberg | Robert Thurman | Karenna Gore
    Richard Davidson | Lama Tsultrim Allione | Deepak Chopra
    Dan Goleman | Amishi Jha | Richard Gere
    Thubten Jinpa | Jan Willis | Robert Wright
    and many more…

    The summit, personally endorsed by the Dalai Lama himself, will bring together thousands of participants from across the globe, to explore ways to:

    • Cultivate happiness and healing through practicing kindness and generosity
    • Learn Buddhist techniques to develop insight into the nature of mind
    • Explore the intersection of meditation and modern science
    • Find inspiration from Tibet’s message of peace, compassion, and sustainability
    • Discover new ways to create social harmony and inclusivity
    • Envision a future grounded in universal values of compassion and mutual respect

    Sign up now to be part of this historic event, and enjoy free access to all insightful talks, teachings, and meditations.

    Registration is free. Click here to learn more about the presenters and program, and to reserve your spot today!

  • How to Stop Running from, Neglecting, and Betraying Yourself

    How to Stop Running from, Neglecting, and Betraying Yourself

    “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” ~George S. Patton

    Much of the difficulty and struggle that we go through in life comes from our resistance to change. At some point, we get stuck in painful circumstances, yet we fear facing our reality and doing the work required to ignite a positive change. After all, the enemy we know is better than the enemy we don’t know. It’s not that bad, we tell ourselves.

    So we settle, give up on our desires, try to make the best of what we’ve got—and that works for a while. Until staying stuck becomes unbearable. Until we acknowledge that not dealing with our realities is making us sick. Until we realize that resisting change is self-betrayal. Until we say, “Enough!”

    In retrospect, I heard the call for change my whole life, only I didn’t realize it because of my weak sense of self.

    I was a sensitive child who experienced everything on a deeper level. Growing up in a difficult environment, experiencing trauma at a young age, and feeling unloved and uncared for all contributed to my issues around self-worth.

    Standing up for myself only brought more pain and rejection, so I turned inward and buried myself deep within. I became invisible, quiet, and a good girl on the outside, but inside I felt broken and alone.

    As the years went on, I learned to mask my pain and shame with denial, arrogance, and control. As Brené Brown coins it, please-perfect-perform became my unconscious state of being—and it led me to success by conventional standards. Yet, internally I felt restless and disconnected from myself and the world.

    Eventually, this conflict between my inner turmoil and outer persona started to take a toll. Anxiety, depression, and symptoms of C-PTSD came crashing down on me, and I began to unravel.

    They say that transformation starts when the desire to change overpowers our fears of it. Here I was on the bottom, admitting defeat, sick of living life in pain, ready to finally take responsibility to change it, however difficult the road to recovery might be.

    In my thirties, it became clear that running from the pain wasn’t serving me. Sweeping things under the rug and pretending everything was alright allowed me to stay in control in the moment, but the problems only grew stronger. Eventually, running from, neglecting, and betraying myself was no longer an option. I had to choose myself, show up—I had to find my way back home.

    1. Committing to heal—shifting from self-abandonment to self-ownership

    The pain that built up over the years was starting to come out in all the wrong places. There was a lot of conflict all around me, and I felt enormous shame for failing as a mom, wife, and friend. I blamed myself for everything that was wrong in my life, thinking I should know better, do better—be better.

    This only ramped up my efforts to control everything and everyone around me, which of course led to more conflict. I was stuck in a vicious cycle of trying to fix things but going about it all wrong—until I surrendered control and pulled all the energy back into myself.

    Most of us will seek change in our external circumstances first if we are not happy with our lives. This works well to a degree, but at some point, we hit a wall and realize we must look within and change ourselves too.

    Making an appointment with a therapist was scary, but in retrospect, it was the best decision I’ve ever made for myself. I had to tell my story, and having someone listen empathically—and without judgment—was something I never had growing up. I worked with an EMDR specialist to integrate past trauma. I wrote about my pain. I walked it off. I screamed and I cried.

    It was painful to face my demons. To allow myself to touch the rage I kept bottled up for decades, afraid of what it might do to me if I let it all out. To face the fact that I have been abandoning myself all these years, just like others had abandoned me when I needed them the most. To touch the rawness of my pain. To say things out loud. To hold space for myself as I dared to feel what needed feeling.

    Healing is not for the faint-hearted. That’s why so many choose to never do this work. It is taxing and confronting, and there are no guarantees. You have to be willing to do difficult work, to take action, and to move out of your comfort zone in order to face fears you may have been running from your whole life. You have to be willing to take a punch and risk emotional pain while you move through your fears. Often, you will be tested and tempted to give up.

    Keep going! Show up for yourself and do the work—your future self will thank you!

    2. Radical self-care—shifting from self-neglect to self-worth

    Only after I started putting myself first did I realize how neglectful I had been of my own health—physical, mental, and emotional.

    Being everything for everyone might make us feel productive and valued, but it’s also draining. And it’s unsustainable. This is a recipe for burnout and feeling powerless and neglected.

    Shifting from self-neglect requires that you invest in yourself first and foremost. This starts with establishing healthy boundaries, listening to your body, and owning your mental health. You recognize that, like plants, you too need to be nourished and tended to in order to thrive.

    Self-care starts with creating healthy habits that promote relaxation, grounding, and growth in order to discharge stress. It’s also about eliminating stressors by setting clear boundaries of what you will allow—by saying “no” when you have to and “yes” only when you want to. It’s taking time to recharge before you get overwhelmed and filling yourself up—body, mind, and soul.

    Radical self-care goes one step beyond that. It is recognizing your addictions and the habitual behaviors that are keeping you stuck and shifting to new ways of being and behaving. It’s not chasing people or giving energy to relationships that are toxic to your well-being. It’s dropping the compulsive need to control the outcome. It’s realizing your worth and putting yourself first, recognizing that only then can you be truly present for others.

    If self-care was not modeled for you as a child, this might feel selfish initially. Don’t fall back into neglecting yourself. Do the work of reparenting yourself and give yourself the love and care you need and deserve. You have the power to take control over your well-being and meet your own needs—this is how you shift from chronic overwhelm, anxiety, and depression to a more balanced way of living. It’s how you take your inner power back!

    3. Mindfulness—shifting from autopilot to awareness and compassion

    One of the ways in which I was neglecting myself and blocking change was by keeping myself busy. Work, kids, home, relationships—there was always so much to take care of. This prevented me from addressing the bigger issues—feeling disconnected from myself, overwhelmed by my circumstances, and alone in my struggles.

    Searching for anything to help with my crippling anxiety, I started practicing mindfulness. I learned to breathe through my reactive impulses instead of acting on them, to observe what was happening in my body in times of stress, and to notice the habitual thought patterns and beliefs running through my head when things didn’t go my way.

    I began observing how my thoughts contributed to my stress. I noticed, for example, that when something went wrong, I would judge and criticize myself for every misstep and question my character in shame (self-rejection). If my husband was late from work, I worried he had an accident (catastrophizing). If my friend didn’t check in for a few days, I assumed she didn’t care about me anymore (assuming). I would not let myself rest unless the house was clean and the kids were happy (perfectionism).

    I chronically worried about our future. Stressed and anxious, I’d revert to working overtime, emotionally overeating, snapping at the kids, complaining and worrying, all while neglecting my well-being.

    Bringing these automatic reactions and feeling and thinking patterns to light allowed me to break the cycle. I realized how I’d been sabotaging my healing by allowing my subconscious to control my life. Discovering that to a large extent I was standing in my own way and causing my own suffering was a sobering but liberating experience—it meant I could change it!

    Instead of criticism, I shifted to compassion and positive self-talk. I began taking breaks when I was getting tired instead of frantically pushing through. I learned to let go of worrying thoughts when they showed up and instead took action to soothe my uneasiness—by going out for a walk, watching a comedy, gardening, or calling my mom to distract myself.

    I processed my frustrations by writing instead of taking them out on others. I learned to ask for what I needed and say “no” to what I didn’t want. I tuned into my body and learned to breathe through hard emotions. Instead of resisting and running from them, I let them run through me, knowing everything eventually passes.

    Shifting out of autopilot and habitual thinking patterns was not easy. Sitting in meditation was initially very hard. I could only muster a few minutes of awareness before my mind wandered off and I’d get lost in painful feelings again.

    Little by little, however, I learned to notice getting entangled and bring myself back to the breath. This created a space between thinking and reacting—a space in which I realized I had choices. Taking the practice to real life, I gradually learned to slow down my reactions by breathing through them and then responding consciously instead of habitually.

    Learning to be mindful of your thoughts and feelings and staying in the moment despite the storm you may be feeling inside is very difficult, especially for those of us who experienced trauma. When things get hard—and they will—remember that no one is perfect, and everyone struggles in one way or another.

    Don’t abandon yourself. Do your best to meet your internal experiences with presence and compassion. Remember to love yourself through whatever shows up—all parts of you need to be witnessed, accepted, and integrated.

    4. Healing trauma—shifting from self-betrayal to acceptance

    Healing is an exploration of who we are at a deeper level. As we go through discovering ourselves again, we find what was lost, reconnect with our wounded parts, and remember what we wish to honor, support, and strengthen in ourselves going forward.

    Once you create distance between triggers and your patterns of reacting, you allow space for healing. This is where you discover you have the power to transform your pain into strength.

    Anchored in mindfulness, you stop glossing over your wounds, and, with compassion for your pain, you show up to deal with what hurts and has been hurting, perhaps for decades. You’re no longer willing to betray yourself. Instead, you face your fears, breathe through the pain locked in your body, and slowly dismantle your story around your inherent worth and your place in the world.

    Journaling was instrumental through this process for me. As I poured my thoughts and feelings onto paper, I was able to step back, recognize patterns, and identify how to shift my responses to be more constructive in the future. Dumping my pain allowed me to distance myself from it and let go of the grip negative emotions had on me. I learned to detach and release.

    As I became curious and looked at my experience from a higher perspective, clarity and insight followed. I was able to write about my fears, difficult emotions, and pent-up trauma. I explored my tendencies toward codependence, control, and overfunctioning, shedding a light on what I could change.

    Writing about my pain helped me develop compassion for myself as I slowly released the stories that kept me stuck in the past. As painful as this process was, I kept showing up, seeing how all these years of masking pain, running from fear, and not taking responsibility to heal what needed healing was a form of self-betrayal. I decided to surround it with love instead.

    My pain became the fuel for awakening, my wounds a birthplace of resilience, inner strength, empathy, and wisdom. As I embraced myself—both strengths and weaknesses—I began to show up with the fullest of who I was. I was coming home.

    5. Empowerment—shifting from self-rejection to self-love and wholeness

    Many of us have negative beliefs about ourselves that we’ve been shamed into believing and now accept as truths. Deeply hidden, these stories keep us stuck and feeling “less than.” Unexamined, they sabotage our life and stop us from being who we truly are. Challenging and rewriting those beliefs can get us unstuck and moving forward again.

    Growing up in a largely invalidating and disconnected environment, I believed that I was different from everybody else and that there was something wrong with me. I didn’t feel loved, seen, or heard. I thought I didn’t matter. I wasn’t important to anyone. I believed that no one would ever love me.

    Mindfulness helped me to reconnect with my heart, recognize my true nature, and realize what falsehoods needed to be let go. As I worked through releasing past pain and long-held beliefs about who I thought I was, I began to express myself in a more authentic way. I became better at recognizing where my life wasn’t in alignment and started taking conscious steps toward building a life more attuned with my authentic self.

    It felt empowering to finally stand up and assert my worth, needs, and boundaries.

    As I began to validate my own feelings, fulfill my needs, and give myself the love and care I craved, my confidence and resilience grew as well. I realized that pain was not something I had to overcome. Instead, I integrated it into my self-love equation, realizing it was through my painful experiences that I learned how strong I really was. I began to trust myself and follow my inner guidance, learning to flow with what comes, grounded in self-care and self-love.

    The opposite of self-betrayal is self-love. The journey of transformation is really a journey of self-love and coming into wholeness. It’s the recognition that we are inherently worthy—not flawed, less than, or damaged in some way, as we were led to believe.

    It’s unbecoming—dropping all the programming we’ve accepted as truths about ourselves and our place in the world. It’s showing up even when things aren’t comfortable. No more self-rejection, exile, and making yourself wrong.

    —

    My journey changed me in more ways than I can count. I found inner peace where there was only turmoil and anxiety before. I processed a painful past and turned hurt into resilience. I embraced my vulnerabilities and accepted the complexities of who I am without needing to deny or shame parts of myself.

    I learned to trust myself, knowing that I can draw on my inner strength to handle whatever comes next. I shifted my energy toward building up and supporting myself instead of focusing on what’s wrong or missing in my life. I became my own ally—I learned to love and support myself, no matter what.

    Instead of perpetually abandoning myself, I released the past, awakened to who I truly was, and began living out of that truth, fully, wholeheartedly, and unapologetically.

  • What Helps Me Get Strong When Life Gets Hard

    What Helps Me Get Strong When Life Gets Hard

    “It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.” ~Marcus Aurelius

    In 2016 I was about to graduate with high honors from a top university. I had mastered Mandarin. Eleven months before graduation, I had secured a job from a reputable accounting firm. I was in a stable relationship with one of the most gorgeous girls on campus. Life doesn’t get any better than this for an international student 1o,000 miles away from home.

    Slowly, things began to change. Three months before graduation all three members of my family fell gravely ill. When I wasn’t awake talking on the phone with them, I was awake worrying myself into insomnia, anxiety, and stress.

    Two months before my graduation, the recruiter who’d agreed to hire me wasn’t returning my calls nor replying to my emails. I started to entertain loads of self-deprecating thoughts. Little by little, I was descending into oblivion.

    Finally, the big day had arrived. It was my graduation day. Pretending that everything was fine, I put on a big smile and went to the ceremony. Needless to say, there was a fire of frustration and anxiety raging inside. Soon I wouldn’t be able to conceal it any longer.

    The atmosphere of the auditorium was filled with laughter and excitement from relatives, teachers, and students. Deservedly so. That day marked the end of countless sleepless nights, embarrassments, exams, and reports. To everyone, it was like the end of a forty-hour marathon in the Himalayas.

    Paradoxically, the smile, chatter, and exhilaration of my classmates and their loved ones only added to my woes. I became more and more anxious with each minute that passed.

    Suddenly, I was reminded of all the pains my mom had gone through to get me to where I was. When my dad left her because she didn’t agree to abort me, she took it upon herself to move forward with the pregnancy and raise me.

    Without a proper job nor a stable source of income, she did everything in her power to ensure that I had a solid education. I would have given anything to have her celebrate such a happy moment with me.

    Fearing that I may embarrass myself and spoil my classmates’ happy moments, I left in the middle of the ceremony and rushed back home. I locked myself in my room and cried my eyes out for hours on end.

    I came to a point when I couldn’t eat, sleep, or enjoy any activity. For the first time, I was experiencing what psychologists call “anhedonia.” No beautiful movies, social gatherings, or sports appealed to me. As I isolated myself, I became more and more lonely.

    On November 10, 2016, at 10pm, the only person that was around during those troubling times decided to put an end to our relationship. Normally, that would have been just another breakup. But to me, it was a breaking point!

    Given the grief and pain I was enduring at that time, I had no mental steam to cope with another rejection. The pain that was already eating my soul became even more unbearable. That night and the seventeen days that followed, all I could think of was to simply end it all.

    The Turning Point

    Eighteen days later, on November 28, 2016, I decided to open up to a pastor and her wife. For the first time, I counted all my pain and griefs to this couple who gave me their undivided attention for three hours non-stop.

    That night, I went home with a renewed sense of hope. It felt like a big weight had been lifted off my shoulders. For the first time in eighteen days, life seemed to have more potential for joy than it ever did.

    Back to my room in front of my computer, a video by Nick Vudijic on how to overcome hopelessness made its way through my screen as if by magic.

    Halfway through the video, a feeling of resentment and shame was washing all over me.

    How could someone without limbs have such a positive outlook on life? I understood that there must be more to happiness and peace of mind than the challenges of life.

    I was determined to find out what I needed to do to help me navigate life’s difficulties without losing any sense of pleasure or hope. In the subsequent months, I would discover what it takes to turn disappointment into achievement, desperation into inspiration.

    Focusing on Your Blessings

    I’ve heard it said that counting your blessings is an effective way to deal with challenges of life. It sounded too good to be true to me—and incredibly difficult. How can someone count their blessings when they’re obviously in a total mess?

    Still, I took a piece of paper and challenged myself to write ten things that I was grateful for. Within minutes I was all worked up writing positive aspects of my life that had previously eluded me. I may have been anxious, but I wasn’t hospitalized, I had a roof over my head, I had friends that cared for me. My mom may have been sick, but she was alive.

    It became clear to me that my attitude toward my problems was clouding my judgments and preventing me from seeing the beauty of life. I realized that no matter what you are going through there are always a thousand reasons to be happy.

    I’m not saying that feeling down or frustrated is unnatural, that you shouldn’t feel sad when you are going through hardships. Rather, regardless of how dark a situation is, there is always a silver lining. You simply have to search for it.

    I don’t expect you to agree with me. All I’m asking is that you put this claim to test and prove me wrong. You have nothing to lose but a world of peace and relief to gain the minute you put pen to paper counting your blessings.

    Put Your Problems in Perspective

    As I continued to write my blessings first thing in the morning and before retiring at night, the happiness and peace of mind I experienced became contagious to anyone I came in contact with.

    People from all walks of life became attracted to me in ways I never dreamed of before. They were looking for my advice on how to cope with their own life challenges.

    Gradually, it dawned on me that some of these people were going through troubles that were way bigger in magnitude than my problems.

    I will never forget how much pain one young student felt when she told me the story of her parents. At twenty-four, she found out that her parents had an open marriage and her mother was seeing another man aside from her father. Neither of her parents dared to tell her until she found out herself.

    People in Asia, where I live, are very conventional, and most families would not openly live this type of arrangement because of how it would be perceived by society. The shame and betrayal she felt were so disheartening that it affected her studies, her mood, and her sense of self. She was devastated!

    As she counted the story, I got overtaken by emotions, lost all professional composure, and began to cry right in front of her. After this incident, it became clear to me: No matter what problems you are going through there are people with similarly painful or even bigger problems out there.

    I decided to put my own realization to the test. In addition to counting my blessings, I began to experiment with two additional ways to put my problems in perspective.

    First, whenever I feel overwhelmed by a problem, I put the problem I’m facing at number ten on a piece of paper. I then strive to find nine worse problems that I could be facing right now.

    Similarly, when I’m facing a problem that feels insoluble, I put my problem at number ten on a piece of paper and strive to find nine others who are going through much bigger problems.

    Looking at my problems in this light provided me an excellent and effective way to build a strong sense of humility. Yes, it is absolutely important to see the light that shines through the darkness, but it’s equally important to acknowledge that the darkness may not be as dark as you imagine it to be.

    Putting your problems in perspective and realizing that you are not as unfortunate as your distorted thoughts make you believe, will be a valuable asset in helping you take constructive actions toward solving your problems.

    The Power Question

    As I developed a sense of gratitude and humility, I realized I needed to do more to come out stronger from those challenges. Counting blessings and putting problems in perspective may be effective in the mental plane, but they won’t make problems go away.

    As I continued my journey reading, reflecting, and finding means to solve my problems, I came across a famous quote by Epicurus: “Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest.” The depth of the meaning of this quote made an immediate and profound impact on me.

    I became convinced that everyone must have a set of skills to respond to life’s challenges. I asked myself, “What inner strength do I have, or do I need to develop, in order to face this problem?”

    Oftentimes, when the going gets tough, we ask ourselves blame questions such as: “Why me?” “Why is this happening to me?”

    Or we may simply criticize ourselves by discounting our strengths. “I must be really stupid.” “I’m doomed.” “I’m never gonna make it…”

    By asking yourself this power question, you change your perspective and find what it takes to help you out of the rut. You don’t blame, whine, or criticize—you get going!

    Asking myself this simple question helped me understand that I could use my life stories to empower others, either in writing or through my speeches, workshops, and seminars.

    At the time of this writing, I’m proud to have impacted the life of thousands of young people throughout Asia. I’ve witnessed students, new hires, and even managers develop a positive outlook on life as a result of those stories.

    I never would have done any of this had I asked myself the power question.

    No matter what you may be going through, I challenge you to ask yourself: What inner strength do I have, or do I need to develop, in order to face this problem?

    Does this mean I’m problem-free right now? Absolutely not. Much like the clouds in the sky, problems come and go, but I’m no longer tossed around like a piece of wood on a stormy sea.

    I’ve developed the mental maturity that allows me to bend without cracking, and to adjust my sails with the whirling wind of anxiety, worry, and stress.

    Today, I’m living a life of meaning and boundless joy. I’ve regained my appetite for living. The most meaningful of all my gains is the utmost satisfaction I experience helping others awaken their inborn geniuses. Writing this article is a direct example of this commitment.

    It took me three years of applying these principles before I could see any tangible results. Beware of the get-happy-quick scheme. Anything valuable takes time. Your happiness is no different. A combination of a willing heart, a bias for action, and patience are all you need to live your life of happiness and meaning.

    If you count your blessings, put your problems in perspective, ask yourself the power question, and take consistent daily actions to strengthen your mind you will get results beyond your wildest imagination.

    Who knows? Maybe next time, we will enjoy an article from you!

  • The Art of Self-Soothing: How to Make Resilience More Sustainable

    The Art of Self-Soothing: How to Make Resilience More Sustainable

    “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” ~Micheal Jordan 

    I believe that self-soothing is the key to accessing all happiness and success. All things being equal, when someone is able to self-soothe, they are more resourceful and more powerful than those who haven’t learned that skill yet. Here’s why.  

    Great success (whether professional or personal) comes with a great deal of responsibility. That responsibility can potentially lead to stress and is often accompanied by failures along the way. Most of us are familiar with that famous Michael Jordan quote—it was even in a ’90s commercial.

    Resilience is a great skill. In fact, that path is clearly recognizable to anyone who has achieved a lot. But it’s perspective that shows you that those failures aren’t “this is the end of everything and we’re all going to die” failures. Instead, they’re just medium or even small-sized stumbling blocks. 

    When you’re not yet at the end of your career or life, how do you know? Well, you don’t. So how can you function when things don’t go your way? How do you stay calm and grounded when something unexpected and shocking happens?

    The more “monodimensional” action-oriented side of resilience is to “power through” the hard times, sharpening your blade with your teeth. And while this might work sometimes, it takes a toll on your emotional well-being—can you feel that cortisol going through the roof?

    It’s easy to miss that monodimensional, action-based resilience is actually very weak, and ultimately unsustainable, if it’s not supported by a strong and playful mind. And I believe that Jordan had such a mind and demonstrated it throughout his career. 

    It’s not just persisting despite failures; it’s also how you feel every day, about your failures and in general. It’s about not allowing all the negative experiences to poison your daily well-being. 

    So how do you make resilience more sustainable? There is a softer way to deal with stumbling blocks, one that hopefully doesn’t lead to too much stress or burnout. One that, when mastered, will keep the emotional well-being floodgates open.

    One that you will want to teach to your friends, your kids, your parents, and your enemies too. This second dimension of resilience is self-soothing.

    I was raised in the household of Ms. and Mr. Stress. Growing up, I watched them take deep dives into (probably unnecessary) pools of stress. There was always something that wasn’t okay, something that needed to be fixed, not enough money or not enough time.

    Here’s a classic scene from my youth: When a piece of equipment, like the washing machine, would break, our whole family had to be part of the sorrow, anger, and anxiety associated with such an unfortunate event. But it wouldn’t be fixed right away (because it might… heal by itself, no?) When it would be absolutely clear that there was no hope for the poor washer, the focus would switch to panicking about the money needed to replace it.

    Once the washing machine was replaced, the problem became that perhaps it won’t be as good as the previous one, or it might take up more space, or it’s louder. It was never possible to relax, for fear that everything wasn’t perfect. It was obligatory to look for potential problems, scanning every single detail with “Terminator vision.”

    When we could finally be certain that everything was okay, we could then move onto the next thing that needed to be fixed.

    I was exposed to chronic stress for most of my childhood and teenage years. I didn’t enjoy the environment, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t have words for it, and I didn’t have the concepts to understand it. I didn’t know that I could live differently. Or better yet, I knew other parents were more relaxed, but I just thought they were luckier individuals. 

    When I moved out, aged twenty-two, I left the country and moved to Holland, to a tiny student city whose pretty canals were filled with swans and ducks, and where most family houses had cute and well-groomed front yards. I watched kids on tiny bikes ride with their parents to school, and people of all ages sit for coffee in wooden decorated cafes. It was nothing like the stress-filled metropolis I was used to, and people seemed to me to be so calm. 

    I loved it instantly, and I felt the well-being flood me, but I didn’t know why. Over the course of the following years, I lived in other places too. For some segments of my life, I even went back to my childhood home.

    It wasn’t until ten years after I first moved out that I was able to finally learn the names and the concepts that defined the emotional dichotomy I kept experiencing when I would go back and forth.

    The understanding came in two steps. During my masters, when studying the brain, I learned how the pre-frontal cortex works as a simulator of experiences. We all, as humans, are capable of imagining in great detail something that hasn’t yet happened and make it just as real as something that happened the day before.

    From psychologist Dan Gilbert, I learned that the brain is also capable of synthesizing happiness (or the cocktail of chemicals that we interpret as happiness). And a functioning brain will return you to a state of happiness withinmonths or within a year even after very traumatic events.

    In a fascinating TED talk (The Surprising Science of Happiness), Gilbert presents data from two groups of people: people who won the lottery and people who lost the use of their legs. One year after the event, the level of happiness of the two groups is identical.

    Very often, we hear people (or even our own selves) say how, with hindsight, some terrible event has revealed itself to be a kind of bliss. The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter what the cause of happiness was; if it feels like happiness, it is happiness.

    The brain is capable of synthesizing happiness (or sadness, or stress, or panic, or even anger, for that matter) independently of the external conditions. This is not surprising. If you think about it, what we attempt to achieve through meditation is nothing but a firmer hold on the steadiness of the brain, which will then lead us (or keep us) in homeostasis, a state of physical balance. This is why meditation feels good, and also why it can be so hard to start meditating when your mind is all over the place if you don’t let yourself ease into it.

    Once I grasped these concepts, I made my first leap into understanding emotional well-being. I saw people like my parents constantly training their minds to see faults and problems, rehearsing negative feelings, and therefore leaving completely to chance their effectiveness at reacting to more significant issues.

    The second leap happened a few years later. I was done with my studies and was anxiously juggling the various areas of my life. 

    Over the course of less than a year, I lost my job in academia. I didn’t manage to get a new one (failure one). I got kicked out of a house where I loved to live (failure two) by a person whom I considered a friend (failure three). The man I had a relationship with left to be someone else (failure four), and I injured myself in such a way that was unable to use my right arm for months (failure five). Forget typing—how was I going to apply to new jobs?

    As soon as I could, I packed my stuff, moved back with my parents to be taken care of, and got the final part of the treatment for my arm.

    This setback happened when I was thirty-three to thirty-four. After the first months feeling loss and mourning for my previous life, I realized I wasn’t making it easy for myself. I was lingering in anger, obsessing over every small thing that wasn’t just right, and being devastated by all the big ones that weren’t right at all.

    Then it clicked. My situation was no different than worrying about broken domestic appliances, stressing over taxes, feeling insulted by bad books or movies, getting annoyed by politicians and by lost socks. 

    I had to make it easier for myself. I had to find the irony in everything and spend more time thinking about what was working. 

    I wanted to “detox” from the victim mentality. I started looking at my life as the blankest of slates. And felt exhilarated.

    In fact, my life was even better than a blank slate. I had all my skills, my knowledge, and my health. I had no ties, no debt, no contracts, and no furniture stored somewhere. Ultimately, I had a very supportive family and a place to stay temporarily in Rome, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

    Today, this list of positives is easy to make and I could go on. Now it’s easy for me to see how previously I had made myself more miserable, focusing on all that was going wrong. But I can still vividly remember how overwhelming it all felt and how it seemed impossible to stop that snowball from rolling down and becoming more bitter.

    From my new place of clarity, balance, and bliss, I decided I’d devise tricks to prevent myself from ever tumbling down into deep negativity again. If I took care of how I felt every day and developed practical techniques to deflect my attention from the small daily problems, maybe I’d develop enough of a muscle that I could use if and when big problems occurred.

    So I took a “masterclass in myself.” I learned what it is that makes me laugh, what grabs my attention, what relaxes me. Knowing these things will help anyone to stop that negative snowball before it hijacks your thoughts completely. 

    I have a great passion for comedy, and I figured out that, regardless of my mental state, listening to my favorite comedian will reset my mood 100% of the time. I know that nature documentaries (especially those about Space) will hypnotize me and make me slightly detached from my body, so when I’m sick or in pain, these are my go-to’s. I know that when I feel flustered or my mind feels scattered, walking and listening to certain music will bring me closer to calm.

    Coming up with a list of ready-to-use resources like these ones, but tailored for you, is one of the greatest resources a person can have. And the more these resources are on autopilot, the easier juggling your life will become. For me, today, listening to comedy when I’m annoyed is as natural as drinking water if I’m thirsty. And every day, I’m still adding new practices to my arsenal.

    There are two caveats to all this: Be aware of the cause of what makes you feel bad and watch out for escapism.

    If you’re chronically depressed, I would never recommend watching comedy from morning until bed. If you have recurring anger issues, I wouldn’t recommend pumping them away at the gym. You need to seek professional help. Similarly, finding things that cheer you up is great, yet spending your whole day seeking ways to entertain yourself might not be the most constructive way to go about your life.

    Self-regulation is one of those responsibilities that adults have, and it’s a great one to embrace. A rule of thumb is: If you’re still enjoying whatever it is you are self-soothing with, then great. If you’re neutral about it, it’s time to move on. And if you realize you’re not enjoying other things that you could have been enjoying, then your self-soothing has gotten out of hand. Don’t beat yourself up though; next time you’ll do better.

    Generally, though, all it takes is to distract yourself sufficiently from the negative thought/memory of the event. Some other time you might want to consolidate some positivity to that memory. There are many ways (from NLP techniques to meditation techniques to hypnosis, and more), but for simple daily life, what I found works well for me is this three-step process:

     1) Allowing some time for my immediate reaction to express itself. I don’t want to suppress anything, but I don’t want that state of reaction to be the place where I now reside.

     2) I’ll go ahead with my self-soothing technique of choice and try to reduce the amount of time that my mind broadcasts thoughts about the problem.

     3) After a little time has passed, I’ll pick up the topic and briefly discuss it with a trusted friend. Someone who doesn’t have any stake in it, who won’t be triggered by it, and who can provide both constructive and positive comments.

    If you master a basic self-soothing practice, you’ll notice an immediate improvement in how you can handle the small daily hiccups. And with a little time (really not much time at all), you’ll be able to handle bigger and more complex problems with a lot less effort. 

    What’s wonderful about this skill is that it will continue to grow with you. As you add more pieces from your personal growth journey, they’ll strengthen this new skill as well.

    A strong self-soothing practice will enable you to help and be compassionate with the people around you. It will also trickle down to your kids, providing them with one of the greatest resources they can receive from you.

  • How to Best Comfort Someone Who’s Grieving

    How to Best Comfort Someone Who’s Grieving

    “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” ~Vivian Greene

    Compassion is one of humanity’s greatest gifts. During times of suffering, such as following the death of a loved one, sufferers rely on the empathy of others to survive their ordeal. Yet, too often when someone is grieving, we do little more than offer an “I am sorry for your loss” because we are fearful of accidentally increasing their pain.

    Speaking as someone who lost her husband unexpectedly after just over three years of marriage—and who has counseled many people who have lost loved ones—I understand both personally and professionally how it feels to grieve deeply.

    All grievers appreciate the compassion offered them, but there are some expressions of sympathy that are more helpful than others. Here are five don’ts (and dos) for people wanting to comfort grievers.

    DO talk about the person lost, don’t assume bringing up their name or stories about them will make the sadness worse.

    What hurts me most is when people do not talk about my husband Jim. There were a lot of people who thought bringing him up in conversation would hurt me or intensify my sadness. The opposite was the case.

    I would tell them that I love talking about Jim and I always will because that is how I keep him alive and with me. I enjoy hearing a funny story about him or a memory of him that someone is eager to relive.

    Many people wanted to be there for me—even to reminisce about Jim—but since they did not know what was appropriate, they did nothing. As I suffered through the pain and shock of losing him, the last thing on my mind was who I had not spoken to recently or who might be available for a fifteen-minute talk.

    Grievers are not in a psychological state of mind to reach out to anyone, so please reach out to them. We need all the support we can get.

    DO ask questions, just don’t ask open-ended questions.

    One of the most common things you hear while grieving is “Do you need anything?” Or “How can I help?” These are the most stressful questions you can ask a sufferer. They’re heartfelt and have the best of intentions behind them, but for someone who is already overwhelmed with grief, shock, anxiety, etc., making decisions is very difficult.

    For example, food is one of the most stressful things when you are grieving. Sounds ridiculous, but it is true. Every client I work with who has lost a loved one says that food elicits the same stress with them.

    One of my clients is blessed with a family member who makes peanut butter protein balls so that my client will satisfy her nutritional needs without having to cook herself.

    My life was made so much easier by friends and family who brought me food already prepared. All I needed to do it was put it in the refrigerator until I wanted it. It was one less thing to worry about.

    So if you are going to ask a griever if they need anything, make it a simple choice: “Do you want soup or salad?” Or give them a multiple-choice question—A, B, or C.  They will still need to make a choice, but it will not be based on open-ended options.

    DO offer to get together, but don’t assume the person suffering will want to do the same things they have done in the past.

    Meet the sufferer where they are and not where they once were.

    Jim and I loved road trips to football games and live band performances. Today I can only enjoy those things with people whom I feel very safe.

    Many people just assumed that because I enjoyed it previously that I would naturally fall back into it again. It doesn’t work that way. Joy is a difficult emotion after grieving because you almost feel guilty to be happy. Maybe some people cope with their grieving that way, but the vast majority I have encountered do not.

    I would much rather spend the day outdoors in nature quietly, or have friends phone me and say, “How about we come over and watch a movie? You don’t have to entertain us or get dressed. Stay in your pajamas.” 

    DO leave the small things out of conversations, don’t bother the griever with trivialities.

    Grieving or not, if a friend or family member is facing a major problem in life, you want to help them, regardless of whether you are suffering. Life is about helping one another whenever it is needed. That is, when it is a legitimate problem.

    For example, I no longer have any patience for pettiness. I do not care about the traffic or the weather, or about the rude checkout lady at the supermarket.  Jim died two and a half years ago, and it is still a struggle climbing out of bed and getting through the day. With that kind of daily battle, I have no tolerance for those mundane conversations anymore. And I guarantee you I am not alone.

    Do yourself and the griever a favor—if your problem is nothing more than an irritant, speak to someone else about it.

    DO be open and patient with outbursts and breakdowns and don’t judge.

    Just because a griever looks better after a few weeks or months does not mean he or she is no longer suffering. It simply means they are getting better at improving their appearance. The suffering on the inside continues, and the daily struggles remain even though they are unseen by the public.

    Little stresses can derail us. For example, due to a rain delay, the Michigan-Michigan State game was running late, and living in Colorado, the local channel switched to the Colorado game. You would have thought I lost my dog. I called my brother (hysterically) and he took care of the issue in five minutes.

    You feel as if you have overcome so many challenges already that the frustration at not understanding what is going on around you sends you spiraling. It’s why you can only approach life one day at a time.  So resist the urge to judge another’s progress or choices. Sufferers really are doing the best we can.

    —

    In closing, it is so important that you remain who you are. Don’t try to change how you act or interact in fear of how you will make the person grieving feel. Just be who you are for them and remember that normalcy is not a goal let alone a destination. Their lives will never be the same again, but your consistent presence and authentic support will make the grieving process just a little less overwhelming for them.

  • 3 Ways My Anxiety Has Helped Me Love Better

    3 Ways My Anxiety Has Helped Me Love Better

    “Quiet people have the loudest minds.” ~Dr. Stephen Hawking

    I have wonderful family and friends and have always hoped that I would pass along a helpful legacy. Lessons for them to remember, memories to smile about, and love to lean into during hard times. For years, though, it seemed like the biggest thing I was passing down to my exhausted wife, flustered and at times terrified kids, and friends was my struggles with anxiety.

    As my anxiety grew and the panic attacks came, I grew apart from those I needed the most. Hard for a son and wife to connect to a dad that acts like a bear coming out of hibernation. Grumpy and pissed off. Looking for a fight. Friends being ignored because the alcohol was effortless and it made no demands.

    My home was not what it should have been, but unfortunately it was what I made it. Expecting the teen to be an adult just like my parents expected of me. Home to a wife who feels she can barely hold the family together and walks on eggshells when she really needs comfort. Friends cut out because they refused to be an on-call counselor.

    But things changed. As I healed myself through intense counseling and self-care practices, I started to close that gap in family relationships and build a bridge. A bridge built on self-care and self-love. I started to reconnect with friends and be a better listener. I learned that I could give love only after I loved myself.

    The struggles with alcohol and bullying that I once cursed became a blessing. I discovered they gave me plenty to share and a potentially wonderful legacy of strength and love. My struggles made me a better dad, a better husband, and ultimately a better friend and person.

    These three reasons are why I am grateful for my anxiety.

    More coping skills to share

    Like a master carpenter passes along his woodworking tools, I now have lots of self-care skills to pass along to my son for his anxious times or my wife for her high-stress job. I can teach them how to meditate or suggest daily journaling. I can instill a love of Mother Nature.

    Perhaps the biggest thing I can now show those I care about is how to ask for help. I was terrible at this and often used alcohol to try and avoid the feelings of being totally overwhelmed and dull the anger. Through my journey, I have learned to ask for help, with the first step being going to a counselor.

    Share your skills and experiences with your family and friends. You did not go through this anxiety-driven hell to not make a difference.

    Greater awareness of stressful triggers

    Many of my youngest son’s triggers are like mine. Neither one of us are big on schedule changes and get overwhelmed when things get extremely busy. Because I see these triggers in me, I can now see them in him.

    I can offer my wife a proactive hug or a warm “love you” before the tears and dig into the self-care toolbox that we have created. I am there for her more than ever because I am now more aware. Growing up, no one saw my struggles and I wish they had.

    My anxiety brought me in greater attunement with the emotions of my family and friends. Pay attention and be there when they need you and the triggers are there.

    Greater compassion

    Growing up my parents constantly told me to “just relax.” This advice makes me sick to my stomach because it simplified something they did not understand. A token phrase unattainable in the midst of the emotional storm.

    I know my wife and kids and just about everyone would love to be stress-free. But “just relax” is a meaningless phrase when our bodies are trembling. Understanding anxiety is a runaway locomotive, I can be more compassionate and understanding.

    I learned to just listen instead of freaking out hell bent on firing off nasty emails. I don’t have the answers to fix everything that goes wrong for those I love, but I have the love to support them in everything they do. I discovered I may not be able to solve the issue, but I can stop myself from adding to the emotional turmoil with threats and gaslighting moments.

    —

    I never wished to be nearly incapable of functioning at times because of anxiety, but it happened. I always wanted to be the best husband and family man possible. The one who didn’t make the angry Grinch seem like Mother Theresa on the holidays. I ruined many a festive occasion with my lashing out.

    Now I believe my legacy is of change. Change not in the ability to love but to show love. Thankfully, my family and friends never stopped showing theirs.

  • How to Befriend Our Unhealthy Survival Mechanisms

    How to Befriend Our Unhealthy Survival Mechanisms

    “Wounded children have a rage, a sense of failed justice that burns in their souls. What do they do with that rage? Since they would never harm another, they turn that rage inward. They become the target of their own rage.” ~Woody Haiken

    Survival mechanisms are ways of being that we picked up along the way to help us cope with what was happening in our reality.

    Getting mad at ourselves for doing what we do only promotes self-hate. We’re not bad or wrong; in fact, we’re pretty damn intelligent. We found ways to help us soothe our traumas, hurt, and pain and perhaps get love and attention. That’s pretty intelligent, wouldn’t you say?

    I should just stop eating so much, drinking alcohol, smoking, exhausting myself through compulsive exercise, being busy, procrastinating, people-pleasing, etc. Easy peasy—just stop, right? Not when we have an “internal fight.”

    What do I mean? Part of us believes it needs to do these things in order to feel safe or be loved and accepted by others. That’s why they’re called “survival mechanisms.” That part of us doesn’t understand logic and reason; it understands emotions and feelings.

    It has a need to be loved and feel protected and safe, and it uses these things to get these needs met. Letting go is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. Pretty damn scary, eh?

    That’s what happens internally: the fear of letting go consumes us, and most often appears as an anxious feeling; then we pick up our survival mechanism again to soothe that feeling. It’s like running on a hamster wheel but not really getting anywhere.

    When I was little, I used food to cope with the environment I was living in. I was constantly told I was bad and wrong, and food helped soothe my feelings of insecurity. It actually became an obsession and the only thing I cared about.

    My whole focus in life became how I could get food to comfort me. I was teased for being fat from the popular girls, and I heard it at home from my father calling me “fatty, fatty two by four.”

    I didn’t know what was going on at the time; all I knew was that eating was all I wanted to do. Then, when I was thirteen, my doctor told me to go on a diet, and at age fifteen I entered my first hospital for anorexia.

    For the next twenty-three years of my life, anorexia, my coping mechanism, became the only thing I cared about, and I also had sub-symptoms like anxiety, cutting, and depression.

    I was existing but not living. My days and nights were consumed by trying to cope with life through eating and exercise. What a life, eh?

    I thought I was protecting myself, but really, I was living in a prison; I was the prison guard and the prisoner of my own creation. But I couldn’t stop; it was like this ‘thing’ had a hold on me.

    I cried and cried for it to go away, but it took control of my life every day. I wanted someone to save me from this thing, but the more I tried to let go, the more it had a hold.

    Even after twenty-three years of therapy and hospitals and treatment centers, it was still my savior.

    So, how did it finally let go? I took my healing into my own hands. I was determined to experience happiness, love, and inner peace.

    This was a process, not an overnight fix, but I started healing the unresolved issues that caused me to not feel safe, understanding my survival mechanisms’ purpose for me, and loving and accepting myself unconditionally. By doing so, the anorexia, anxiety, cutting, and depression no longer needed my attention, and I released those symptoms. 

    You see, that thing that had a hold on me, it was really my friend; it was my protector, and it worked until it no longer did. So instead of trying to get rid of it, I integrated it. Now it didn’t need to pick up another survival mechanism; instead, we became loving friends.

    Unhealthy coping mechanisms don’t free us; they’re just a way to numb our trauma, hurt, and pain, but they also keep us from truly living.

    By understanding what we’re trying to cope with instead of running or numbing, we’re able to see what we really need, get those needs met, and experience inner peace. This is called loving re-parenting. Because that’s what loving parenting looks like: offering kindness, understanding, compassion, and caring instead of judgment, criticism, and abandonment.

    Trying to get rid of a symptom—like overeating, cutting, or smoking—is fighting against our own biology. By making peace with it, by listening with compassion and understanding, we can help that part of ourselves get its needs met, and most often the symptom naturally goes away.

    This is how I’ve been able to free myself from the symptoms that had a hold on me, and here’s a way for you to get started today, if this resonates.

    1. Move into acceptance of who you are and what you’re experiencing. Replace judgment with compassion, knowing that you’re doing the best you can with what you know today, and you’re learning and growing as you go.

    2. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and imagine you’re talking with your unhealthy survival mechanism.

    3. Ask it, “Why are you here? What’s your purpose?”

    4. Ask it what it needs so it no longer has to get your attention through the symptoms you’re having.

    For example, the part of you that’s binge eating may let you know it needs a safe place to process and express your feelings, somewhere that you’re seen, heard, loved, and accepted unconditionally. It may also let you know that it’s time to learn how to set healthy boundaries.

    Or the part of you that’s experiencing depression may let you know that it’s tired of trying so hard to meet other people‘s expectations of how you should be, and it’s time for you to honor yourself and find ways to get your needs met so you don’t feel so powerless.

    For any “symptom,” it may also be helpful to understand secondary gain. Ask yourself, “How is being this way getting me love, attention, and someone to take care of me so I don’t have to take personal responsibility or fail as a human being?”

    5. Find ways to get your needs met. Tell yourself, “I give myself permission to take loving care of myself and do good things for my body and health. I am loved. I am safe.”

    6. Practice consciousness, which is becoming aware of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. This allows us to see what’s really going on internally that may be asking for compassion, love, healing, and a new understanding.

    When we ask ourselves, “Why am I thinking, feeling, and acting this way?” we may become aware of core beliefs like “I’m unlovable” or “I’m unworthy.” It’s because of these core beliefs that we’re feeling, thinking, acting, and perceiving the ways we are. Of course we’d treat ourselves badly if we believe we’re fundamentally bad.

    When we understand what the driver really is, we can start healing the childhood wounds that created those beliefs and then shift how we see ourselves. By doing so, we naturally start to think, feel, and act differently.

    —

    This is a process, and it’s different for everybody. The key is to be compassionate and loving with whatever you’re experiencing and to remember that there’s nothing wrong with you. Even if you’re experiencing “symptoms” that seem unacceptable to society, the truth is you’re a beautiful, valuable, lovable being who deserves to heal and is worthy of a wonderful and fulfilling life journey.

  • Free Online Collective Trauma Summit (Starts 9/22)

    Free Online Collective Trauma Summit (Starts 9/22)

    When I started Tiny Buddha, one of my main goals was to help us all heal the traumas that haunt us and hold us back in life. In much the same way that our personal traumas hinder us each individually, our collective trauma adversely affects the whole world. And healing that trauma is critical for the future of humanity and the planet.

    If, like me, you want to do your part to help us all heal the wounds that are passed down through generations, I highly recommend checking out the Collective Trauma Summit, a free, 10-day online event starting on Tuesday, September 22nd.

    This powerful summit will bring together over 45 experts on the topic of collective healing including leading psychotherapists, visionaries, researchers, performers, poets, and peacemakers in the world.

    With panel discussions, guided meditations, and performances by acclaimed poets and musicians, the Collective Trauma Summit will surely help us find strength and healing through this intense period of massive upheaval and change.

    Click here to register for free and watch a short video about the summit

    During this free event, which you can access from any internet-enabled device, there will 4-5 daily talks, each available for a 48-hour period. The summit will cover a range of collective trauma topics, including:

    • How personal and collective trauma are intimately linked
    • How intergenerational and ancestral trauma operates in individuals and family lineages
    • The triggering of racial and cultural trauma and what we can do to shift and transform it for real change
    • Why healing collective trauma is critical for the future of our planet
    • What we can do to address and resolve war and long-standing conflicts
    • What we can learn from the recent health care and pandemic crisis

    Some of the featured experts include:

    • Gabor Maté – Bestselling Author, Speaker
    • Valarie Kaur – Seasoned Civil Rights Activist & Bestselling Author
    • Daniel J. Siegel, MD – Bestselling Author, Founder of the Mindsight Institute
    • Joy Harjo – Poet Laureate of the United States
    • Rick Hanson, Ph.D. – Psychologist, Senior Fellow of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, & New York Times Best-Selling Author
    • Priya Parker – Master Facilitator, Strategic Advisor, Acclaimed Author & Host of the New York Times Podcast, “Together Apart”
    • Mark Wolynn – Director of the Family Constellation Institute
    • Sharon Salzberg – Meditation Teacher, Co-Founder of the Insight Meditation Society, Bestselling Author
    • Angel Acosta – Principal, Acosta Consulting; a leader in bridging the gaps between leadership, social justice, and mindfulness.
    • Margaret Wheatley – Bestselling Author of 10 Books, President of The Berkana Institute
    • Stephen W. Porges – Founding Director of the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium, Indiana University
    • Charles Eisenstein – Speaker and Author
    • Ruth King – Founder of Mindful of Race Institute

    Collective trauma affects every one of us, but not everyone will acknowledge and address it—which is why people like us need to come together with open hearts and minds to explore how we can end needless suffering and heal the wounds that carry through generations.

    To help support and accelerate a much-needed global shift, click the link below to register for free:

    Register for the Collective Trauma Summit

    When you register, you’ll get free access to the first chapter of host Thomas Hübl’s upcoming book, Healing Collective Trauma, that will be published in the fall. 

    I hope you find this event both inspiring and illuminating!

  • What You Need to Know About Motherhood If You Feel Lost

    What You Need to Know About Motherhood If You Feel Lost

    “Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had and dealing with fears you never knew existed.” ~Linda Wooten

    It was October of 2016 and there I was staring at the wall after yet another sleepless night, nursing my one-year-old, and feeling like a total failure because this motherhood thing still didn’t feel at all natural to me. Why couldn’t I tap easily into my motherly instinct? Why did I feel that, instead of completing me, becoming a mom was actually making me fall apart?

    I always knew I wanted to be a mother. It was a given in my case. And, like many little girls, I grew up romanticizing the idea. I couldn’t wait to be one.

    Even when I began to understand that things could get hard (because babies don’t sleep right?), I was still confident that with my love, strength, and sheer drive I could surmount it all. Like many of us, I believed being a mom comes naturally to women, that we’re born to be mothers, so even when we struggle, our instinct eventually kicks in and we’re able to figure it out.

    Fast forward to a year later and I can honestly tell you that my love, strength, and drive were simply not enough. The truth was that becoming a mom ripped my identity apart. It made me question everything. I didn’t recognize myself anymore and my self-confidence was in the dump. I felt I had broken into a million pieces and I didn’t know how to put them back together.

    It took eighteen months of total overwhelm and endless questions without answers for me to finally understand that the old me was never coming back. Everything had shifted.

    For the longest time it felt like I was drowning, desperately looking for a lifeline. What I was really looking for was my own permission to want more than being a mother and the courage and self-love to go for it. I realized my identity had been lost to mothering and it was time to take it back.

    I reached out for help, went to therapy, and hired a coach. I gave myself the space to mourn the loss of my old self and began to slowly redefine myself as a mom and a woman. Throughout my journey I’ve worked endlessly to boost my strength, courage, and self-confidence and to build my self-worth and step into the world as a new me.

    Here are five things I learned about motherhood in that journey that I wish someone had told me back then when I was feeling so lost:

    1. It’s not you. You’re not the problem. It’s not in your head.

    As I struggled to understand what was happening to me when I became a mom, I sincerely thought that I was the only one feeling this way. That I would never be able to measure up and be both the old and the new me. That it was only me who was always feeling less than regardless of what I did. But as I dug deeper into how other mothers felt, I realized that there are actual terms for what we mothers experience. I never felt so relieved and validated than when I first learned about them.

    The academic study of the transformation of woman to mother is referred to as matrescence, a term first coined back in 1973 by medical anthropologist Dana Raphael. Matrescence is the complete transformation (physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual) a woman experiences when she becomes a mother.

    Think of it like adolescence. Remember being a teenager when hormones were all over the place, you were questioning everything, and you didn’t feel like yourself anymore? Pretty much the same thing is happening when you become a mom, only this time around you’re expected to be cool and happy about it, not awkward and lost.

    And the inner split in matrescence refers to the feeling of being divided between the person we used to be and the mother we are becoming. It’s not just us or in our heads. It’s a REAL identity shift and the reason why we constantly feel pulled in every direction except the one we want to go in.

    2. The expectations the world places on mothers and women are at odds.

    On top of our individual struggles in becoming a mom, we also have an added layer of the expectations and beliefs society as a whole has placed on us as women and mothers that don’t support us in this journey.

    There’s a huge pressure for us to strive to have it all: to lean into a successful career and at the same time be a great and dedicated mother and partner at home—not to mention an endless array of other shoulds. But if you look at them closely, the expectations we all have of what a good mother should be versus what a successful woman must do are at complete odds.

    For me, this was my biggest source of guilt. Always trying to be loving, dedicated, and almost martyr-like for my kids, while simultaneously trying to have a successful career that I needed to be equally dedicated to. Needless to say, I felt like I was falling short on all fronts.

    It wasn’t until I understood that I was using external definitions of success to measure myself that I began to look at what being a good mother and successful woman really meant to me. And when I started giving myself the permission to only do what felt right for me, I started feeling more at peace with my daily decisions.

    3. Motherhood is hard. You’re not alone. It’s a shared experience yet few speak of it that way.

    Motherhood is full of contradictions. There’s no right or wrong. Joy, love, guilt, sadness, and anger coexist side by side. The daily shuffle can feel like a grind or a blessing. Yet none of us feel safe expressing this. Nobody has told us that what we’re feeling is not only normal but also expected given the massive identity shift that we’re experiencing when becoming moms. And since nobody talks about this, we don’t realize it’s actually a shared experience by all mothers around the world.

    We need to allow women to express the full spectrum of emotions when it comes to motherhood. No mother should feel alone in this journey. I’ve learned that this is why sharing our stories is so important. And why reaching out, speaking up, and building a community of other mom friends that can help and lift each other up is vital to our journey.

    4. Feeling guilty for wanting more may be a good sign.

    Oh, mom guilt. All moms know that’s one ugly sucker to be stuck in. You feel guilty for not wanting to be a mom all the time. For not being present with your kids when you are with them. For not being the perfect partner. For needing to mentally check out of your daily life every once in a while. For craving space. For taking space! And the list goes on and on.

    My guilt used to eat me up. It would paralyze me and prevent me from taking action. My days were flying by without me enjoying anything for me, for my own sake, because I felt so guilty not doing what I thought I was supposed to do. As I began my healing journey, I realized that if I continued this way, my guilt would turn into resentment and to move out of resentment is much harder to do than from guilt.

    Nowadays, I view my guilt differently. I take it as a sign that I’m not in alignment with what I really want or need. It’s just one more way my soul is calling me out and telling me I’m ready to start moving forward with what I actually want in life.

    When I feel my guilt creeping up, I take a pause and remind myself that I’m more than just a mom, than a partner, than my job. That there’s nothing wrong with wanting more than what I’ve got. And after a deep breath I ask myself, “What do I really need?” and I go do it.

    5. This is your chance to completely redefine yourself.

    Probably the most important thing I’ve learned is that motherhood can be a catalyst for change. The loss of identity I felt when I became a mother embarked me on a journey of self-discovery.

    I’ve had to shatter old beliefs and expectations on what I should be and do. Step by step, I’ve rebuilt my self-confidence and redefined who I am now. I work daily on ensuring that I’m aligned with what I really need and want to feel vibrant, balanced, and free.

    Motherhood is a journey of unraveling, redefining, and rebuilding, and no mom should feel alone, unseen, and unheard in what probably is her greatest challenge to date: the discovery of who she’s really meant to be.

  • Pain is Not Purposeless: How to See the Meaning

    Pain is Not Purposeless: How to See the Meaning

    “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Have you ever felt a general dissatisfaction with where you are in life? Ever felt like you can do something better than what you’re doing, but you’re not sure exactly what or how?

    I have. In fact, I still feel this way, although I am slowly working my way toward creating a more purposeful life for myself. This can feel distressing. Painful. I feel your pain. But take heart that your pain is not purposeless.

    If these feelings are familiar, this piece is for you.

    Over the course of a few years, my naïve sense that I was one of those people who would just sail through relatively easily and find my way to fulfilled life, without much effort, was shattered. It left me exposed and vulnerable. Feeling weak and pathetic. It brought the realities of life into sharp focus, and I had to work hard to find peace with the long game of life.

    For several years I worked with a great bunch of people in a field I was passionate about. But the job itself became monotonous and stale. I felt I was stagnating and needed to cultivate my passion elsewhere and use my talents more fully. I applied to train as a secondary school teacher and took a place later that year.

    I was under no illusion that it would be easy, but my naivety led me to believe that I would be the exception to the rule and would take it all in stride.

    The first belief to break. And break me, it did.

    After three months I felt the reality that I was no stand-out person anymore. I could feel a mountain of expectation threatening to take over my life and leave me with nothing but work, work, work.

    For the first time in my life, I didn’t finish. I quit the course. And I was left soul searching for months.

    Eventually I got a temporary job in a country park, working outdoors and engaging with the public doing fun things like pond dipping. The summer was beautiful that year and it healed my soul a little.

    But that came to an end after a few months and I had to find another job very quickly. I didn’t want to be left with nothing again. Partly out of desperation and partly because it was a convenient fit to previous experience, I took a job at a waste treatment plant.

    It was a stark contrast to the country park.

    It was grey. It was ugly. It smelled. The people weren’t unfriendly but weren’t exactly welcoming either. I felt trapped and began to despair about what life was all about. The daily grind ground me down. Was this all there was?

    I was walking an emotional knife edge nearly all the time, and I couldn’t see through the fog. I felt like I was being punished for my relatively straightforward, stress-free life so far.

    Fulfillment was not my destiny after all. I had failed. Or so it felt. This all began when I was twenty-seven and the worst of it between twenty-eight and twenty-nine. Hardly the end of my life.

    So, if pain is not purposeless, then what is its purpose? How can there be opportunity in feeling so unhappy?

    If I had known how to deal with the feelings evoked in me from the start, then I wouldn’t have felt the pain so intensely. The fact that I had to learn how to cope was the very purpose of it all.

    Looking back now, this was all necessary because I have learned so much during this process (in fact, I’m always learning).

    Even though I’m still not sure exactly where I want to be, I’ve learned to be more present and intentional in the everyday process of life. In fact, because I don’t have a definitive idea, I have learned these things. Because I realized I needed to learn to appreciate the moment or I’d live my whole life waiting for the future.

    So, if you’re reading this in the midst of something similar to what I have described, realize that what you’re going through is part of a greater process.

    Make dealing with the pain the reason for the pain.

    Whatever you’re going through, choose to see this as an opportunity to learn about yourself and hone your coping skills. And consider that maybe you need this exact experience to heal, grow, and thrive.

    If you’re dealing with a breakup, this could be an opportunity to heal your relationship patterns and learn to be alone.

    If you’ve just lost your job, this could be a chance to reflect on what you really want and what might make you more fulfilled.

    If everything is falling apart all at once, this could be a challenge to find peace and strength within yourself so you’re able to better weather any storms that come your way.

    To adopt this kind of perspective, we must accept life in its entirety. We all want to feel “good” about life, but there is opportunity in all sadness.

    Accepting this and discovering the opportunity in your challenge will help to improve not just your short-term mental health, but your outlook on life overall.

    And when you embrace this shift in perspective, it will improve your patience with life. A patience to allow life to unfold without having to know exactly how or what or when. Particularly when we’re young we are impatient to get to where we feel we ought to be or to feel how we want to feel. This leads us to feel resentful and entitled to better.

    You do deserve better, but it won’t happen in an instant.

    Be grateful that you are aware of your desire for greater fulfilment. That’s the first step. The next is to wield it effectively to make it a reality.

    But we need to learn to deal with the pain along the way. Seeing the opportunity in painful experiences starts with the small things.

    Take the next daily irritation and turn it on its head—being stuck in traffic on the way to work, for example. What is the positive side? Can’t find one? Keep thinking. Maybe it’s a chance to practice patience. Or an opportunity to practice not sweating the small stuff.

    Our natural tendency is to gravitate to the negative (evolution’s fault). Keep at it and you will train your mind to focus more on the light than the dark. If we allow ourselves to be consumed with the negative, we are not seeing the whole.

    You can also hone this empowered mindset by being grateful for the little things in your life. Have you ever been consumed with frustration from work at the end of an otherwise beautifully sunny day? Or rushed through your coffee in the morning thinking about the rest of the day? Or missed the sounds of nature or the fresh air on your skin because you’re in a rush?

    Make an effort to notice these things and appreciate them. Write them down at the end of the day and you may surprise yourself at the length of the list of simple pleasures that dotted a day that you perceived as a “bad.”

    Then, when whatever you are going through resolves (and it will, in time), you will have appreciated the good amidst the not-so-good.

    We will resolve our problems one way or another. We can either resolve them and choose misery through the pain or resolve them and choose positivity through the pain. The choice is ours to make.

  • If You Feel Stuck and Tired of Waiting for Things to Get Better

    If You Feel Stuck and Tired of Waiting for Things to Get Better

    “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” ~Stephen Covey

    In August 2019, I was sitting in my therapist’s office with my head in my hands. I was heartbroken over a recently ended relationship, stuck working a job I wasn’t excited about, and I was living across the country from my closest friends and family. I felt like I couldn’t do much to change my situation because I was about to enter my final year of university, and I needed to stay put.

    “Sometimes, life is a logjam,” my therapist said. I visualized giant, sliced-up oak trees floating on a river, stacked up on top of each other.

    “You’ll be done university by April next year, then you’ll be free to do what you like,” she said. I don’t think my therapist intended for me to interpret her message this way, but at that moment, I dubbed my life the “logjam.” I accepted that life would be hard for me until graduation in April 2020.

    It was easy for me to feel sorry for myself. First thing in the morning, I would roll over to my phone and scroll mindlessly. I started each day by looking at people online: people in happy relationships, traveling freely, eating fancy food at fancy places. I started to notice that this action was causing me to suffer.

    One morning, I decided I wouldn’t start my day like that. Instead, I’d leave the phone where it was and go for a walk. I began my days by heading out for a thirty-minute walk, rain or shine. The boost of exercise endorphins paired with distance from my smartphone felt great.

    As I walked, I fantasized about April 2020—the month when I’d be able to take a trip somewhere to celebrate my graduation, I’d find a new job, I could move to a new city, and without being in school… I’d have time for dating again! The countdown was on. In April, I’d finally be able to enjoy my life again.

    When my university closed down in March due to COVID-19, I thought for sure it would reopen by graduation in April.

    We all know where this is going.

    April 2020 came and went, and the pandemic spread across North America. As Canada implemented more and more restrictions, I realized that I had spent the better part of a year counting down the days until my circumstance would change. I thought that if I could make it to April, all my freedom and happiness would be restored. But April came, I lost my job, I moved back into my mom’s house, and activities like travel and dating were off the table.

    The pandemic has thrown a lot of our lives into a logjam. A lot of us feel stuck. A lot of us have our eyes set on the future, when the logs will begin rolling again. Maybe you’re thinking, “Everything will be back to normal by the winter.” Of course, it might be, and I hope so. But it also very well might not be back to normal by then.

    Take this advice from someone who spent the better part of last year counting down the days until I could enjoy my life: the logjam is in our mind, and it will last as long as we believe it’s there.

    My morning walks are different now. Instead of thinking about all the things I’m going to do in the future, I think about what’s happening right now. How can I be a better daughter, sister, friend? What will I do to take care of myself today? What am I grateful for at this moment?

    Incredible growth comes from learning how to adjust and survive in undesirable conditions. Sometimes life requires us to keep our head down and focus on one foot in front of the other. Life can’t always be pure joy and lots of fun. Life can’t always be a happy relationship, vacations to amazing destinations, or fancy foods at fancy restaurants. Sometimes life is harder than that.

    Many people in the world right now are experiencing much worse than a mental logjam—loss, illness, financial hardship, violence, and discrimination have been the reality for many in 2020. A lot of people are struggling to pay their bills, overwhelmed by work or unemployment, unpredictability of childcare and healthcare, dealing with sick relatives, etc. Maybe you’re one of them.

    But if, like me, you’re blessed enough to have most of your needs met right now, keeping things in perspective can make this slow and sticky time a little more bearable. And it can also help prepare you for times when things are far harder. The better we can cope with moments when we feel stuck, the better equipped we’ll be to deal with life’s most heartbreaking challenges.

    It’s a skill to be able to feel content when things around us look bleak. I’m not going to pretend that living with a parent and losing my job is where I pictured myself this summer. And I won’t pretend that every day has been really easy simply because of a morning walk. But the mindfulness I’ve practiced over the last year has helped me to see the glass as half-full.

    This summer I’ve spent every single day swimming in a lake. I’ve reconnected with childhood friends. I’ve been able to help my mom raise a new puppy. I’ve been able to write articles like this one, without the stress of grades and a timeline. While it isn’t what I imagined my summer looking like after finishing university, it’s wonderful in its own way.

    Instead of criticizing ourselves, our lives, or each other during these unprecedented times, try to take a full-bodied breath, put your feet on the ground, and feel the life that’s still happening all around you. You may have a lot of responsibilities and be facing major challenges, but if your circumstances allow it… I challenge you to start making the best of this unpredictable year.

    Choose to see the logs rolling down the river, untethered by each other, moving forward toward everything that’s coming next.

  • When Life Gets Hard: How to Find Peace Within the Chaos

    When Life Gets Hard: How to Find Peace Within the Chaos

    “The more in harmony you are with the flow of your own existence, the more magical life becomes.” ~Adyashanti

    Have you turned on the news lately only to want to shut it off after a few minutes?

    It seems that chaos has enveloped this planet. Every corner of every street has been impacted by the current situation; I have never seen anything quite like it in my time.

    It may be incredibly difficult to find some breathing room between all of this. On one hand, you want to be up to date with the world, and on the other hand, it can seem like it’s all too much for one person to take in.

    What can we do amidst all of this chaos?

    When will it end?

    We constantly ask ourselves these questions while it seems the chaos is building, not a break in between. And we find ourselves feeling stressed, tense, and anxious, which impacts our work, our relationships, and every other aspect of our lives.

    This is where going with the flow of life becomes imperative.

    In your life, in your darkest moment, there are two options: You can fight reality and harbor negative feelings, or you can accept whatever has come into your life and work toward finding a solution.

    The faster we accept our reality, the faster we can move with the flow of life.

    We usually have opinions and judgments about what’s going on or what has happened to us—that life isn’t fair, that things shouldn’t be happening, that we should be in a different place by now—and this is what leads to our suffering. Rather than arguing with reality, we must accept whatever comes.

    A while back I lived in Budapest for almost a year. I loved my life there and had built up a foundation of friends and a steady routine as an expat. Unfortunately, my mother fell ill, and I decided to go visit my family in a different country.

    I packed my bags and left my stuff at my friend’s house, fully expecting to later come back and retrieve all my belongings. But when I got to the airport the guard stopped me, then looked at me strangely while eyeing my passport.

    “How long you in Hungary?” he asked in broken English.

    I looked around a bit, hesitantly muttering, “Almost a year.”

    “A YEAR?” he shouted.

    You see, I had knowingly overstayed my visa by about six months. I knew it was my mistake. It was also my mistake to believe my expat friends who told me they wouldn’t really mind once I left the airport.

    The man took my passports and came back a few moments later.

    “No Europe two years,” he said as he stamped my passports and let me through to my flight.

    That was that. My mom was ill, I was going to a country where I didn’t know anyone and didn’t know the language. I had just lost all my belongings; my clothes, my computer, anything that didn’t fit in a small suitcase was left behind.

    At first, I was pretty annoyed. I knew it was my fault, but there was nothing left to do.

    I had two choices in this situation: fight or accept. I could dwell in anger, sadness, and confusion, or I could just accept the circumstances and focus on what I was going to do from there.

    Sure, this didn’t go my way. That’s how life is, we don’t get our way 100% of the time. I had to come into full acceptance of this situation, no matter how difficult it was, in order to move forward with my life and make the best of my circumstances.

    I had my friend sell off everything that I owned leaving me with just a small amount of clothes and my laptop. I lost all my friends, lost my life, and on top of it all, I had to deal with an ill mother. But I was fortunate to still have a mother, and a friend to sell my stuff.

    Of course, I didn’t focus on these things at first. The entire situation was one of the hardest periods of my life. It took me months of time and reflection to finally accept my situation.

    It’s never easy at first; our first instinct is to put up a fight.  But I believe these kinds of challenges are brought to us so that we can grow from them. Without these times, we would never learn how to find the flow of life. 

    The world is far too powerful for us to fight it. The faster we realize we aren’t in control of everything, the faster we can flow with whatever comes our way.

    When you bring your focus within rather than trying to find an external source of happiness, it makes life a whole lot easier.

    This is how you find peace amidst all this chaos of your darkest times—by creating it from within.

    The world may seem toxic and destructive, but it is still possible to find the beauty within it all. Without yin, there is no yang.

    If you can find peace within this chaos that the entire world is experiencing, imagine what kind of peace you can feel when it is all over. That’s why it’s imperative that you find this flow and flow with it.

    Without this flow, we are left to suffer. Everything seems unjust and we start victimizing ourselves.

    If you are having difficulty I would advise you to try to accept whatever problems you may be facing. The more acceptance you bring into your life, the faster you can deal with whatever you’re facing.

    If you can’t do anything about your problem, then it’s time to let it go. If you can’t seem to let it go, allow everything to just be as it is.

    Bear with me here, as I know this just sounds like another shallow platitude. This is a deceptively simple statement that has much more to it than it initially lets off.

    When I had everything going against me and what felt like the whole world on my shoulders, I felt as if I wanted everything to be different. I felt like I lost control of everything and the world felt unfair.

    When you are in a state of suffering, you are in a state of either pushing or pulling against something.  Whatever it may be, you just have to stop.

    That’s where you have a decision to make. You only have one life. You can spend the next few years wondering what if, why me, when will it change, or you can just stop it all, even if you have to make this choice repeatedly.

    In the initial moments where you are truly suffering, it only takes just a brief moment of acceptance for you to feel relief. This is your window back to your flow. As brief as it may be, even for a millisecond, it’s a reminder that there is still peace to be found no matter what your state may be.

    I could have spent the next few years wondering, why did all of this happen to me, and why aren’t things different? Instead, I chose to stop fighting with myself. I chose to stop fighting with something that I would never win against.

    Life is good at throwing curveballs. There will be painful moments and suffering, but there will be times of intense joy as well. Keep reminding yourself that you can’t fight yourself forever. The faster you come into acceptance, the faster you can go back into a state of flow, which is the key to feeling at peace.

    Take a moment and really reflect on what it means to “allow everything to just be as it is.”

    Try to dig deep into it. Try to just be still. Let the flow of life back into you as you stop pushing and pulling. Everything will be okay if you give life a chance to show you that it will be.

  • Sorry If I “Trigger” You, But I Will Never Move On

    Sorry If I “Trigger” You, But I Will Never Move On

    “It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.” ~John Steinbeck

    When you lose someone close to you, there are a plethora of duties you must first complete.

    When my boyfriend passed away from cancer at the age of twenty-nine, I was just twenty-three. We lived together in a claustrophobic, studio apartment in lower Manhattan. I recall many people telling me to physically move from the apartment, as that’s where he passed away, but moving in Manhattan is never an ideal situation to be in, especially when you are traumatized.

    Many of the duties that need to be completed after a death are material. The other person’s belongings need to be sorted through, their finances need to be evaluated, services need to be arranged, and then family and friends of the deceased must be contacted.

    To make matters worse for me, we were never married—so my right to taking care of some of these things was non-existent.

    It took me three years to open my boyfriend’s closet. I called a friend of his when I was ready. Though she was living on the opposite coast, she booked a flight for the next month and came to my rescue.

    As we were going through his clothes and reminiscing on his favorite shirts and the ones that he made (he was a fashion designer), we smiled and silently began to look at separate pieces. I was attempting to get a photo of his out of a picture frame, and I was working on it for quite awhile. My friend was looking at more of his shirts. A momentary twinkle of music began to play.

    “That’s cool, does that picture frame play music?” she asked.

    I looked up and saw a music box of mine, nearby but completely isolated from another object’s touch, playing for a few more beats and then abruptly stop.

    I knew it was him.

    Just as I never expected myself to completely move on from this loss, I had also hoped that he wouldn’t as well. I get subtle hints of his presence through dreams, and sometimes they are more tangible like the music box.

    I had much help from friends and family members in the following months after his death. It was when it hit almost the year mark that people started to forget the reality of the pain I was feeling every day. I had been told to “move on” or stop writing about the loss, as it could be triggering for other people. Well, I’m sorry if this “triggers” you, but I will never move on.

    I will continue to bask in the memories from a life that was cut too soon.

    I will still talk about him, write about him, and I will not force myself to forget him.

    I will still recognize the signs of him trying to reach out to me from another plain of existence.

    I will remember the dreams of him that brought me closer to my own spirituality.

    This is something that is and always will be a part of me, for it is a love that was real and unique, and nothing can ever replace it or diminish that memory.

    If you are told to move on, I challenge you to acknowledge the same.

    Never forget the essence of the human being you have lost.

    Continue to write down the adventures that you had, and continue to share them with others even though the body of the one you have lost no longer exists.

    Know that your pain and heartbreak is a symptom of your love, and you should never be forced to move on from that one of a kind feeling you experienced.

    Do not force yourself to smile. But encourage yourself to smile when you are faced with the past—or cry. (I once cried looking at a Naked Green Machine juice, because that was my boyfriend’s favorite drink.)

    If someone is uncomfortable with you speaking about your loss, recognize that you are uncomfortable and own it.

    One day, when you don’t move on, you will be at peace. You will be at peace with your memories and your very existence, and you will never forget how much of an impact the person you lost has had on you.

    The beautiful thing about them is that you will never move on from them.

  • Why We Feel Like a Fraud (and How to Stop)

    Why We Feel Like a Fraud (and How to Stop)

    “I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.’” ~ Maya Angelou

    Any minute now they would find out.

    I scanned the large conference room. The twenty-six project team members around the table discussed data analysis. Their voices were muffled by the thick fog of my anxiety.

    My own throat tried to choke me, and my chest refused to expand. Sweat trickled down my side.

    Breathe, just breathe. It’s going to be okay.

    My eyes met my boss’s and he smiled at me across the room. I quickly looked down at my notes. My cheeks were burning.

    I knew what was coming.

    It would be my turn next to showcase my part of the project. I had been working on it for months. Starting early, staying late, slaving away every waking hour, perfecting every detail.

    But I couldn’t hide any longer. Couldn’t pretend any more. I would be exposed.

    In a few minutes they would discover that my efforts weren’t up to scratch. That I wasn’t good enough.

    They would listen to my presentation and their faces would darken with disappointment. They would whisper to each other in dismay and ask me questions I couldn’t answer.

    And then, someone would stand up, point at me and say, “You have no clue what you are talking about, do you? You are nothing but a fraud. A pathetic excuse for a scientist. You know nothing.”

    Any minute now.

    I clutched the edge of the table. Tears stung in my eyes and I swallowed hard. My intestines were churning.

    I had to get away.

    Leaping to my feet, I mumbled an excuse. I stumbled out of the room, heart racing, and made it to the bathroom.

    And then I cried.

    Why I Was an Imposter by Name but Not by Nature

    I eventually managed to pull myself together. I washed my face, blew my nose, took several deep breaths.

    And I returned to the fateful meeting, red-eyed and swollen. Feigning an allergic reaction to conceal my mortifying episode.

    I presented my work.

    And nothing happened. Nobody objected, interrogated, exposed. No fingers were pointed at me.

    All I saw was friendly faces and approving nods. Some people even praised the huge amount of work I put in and the high quality of my results.

    And yet, as I shuffled home that night, drained and numb, I didn’t feel like celebrating a success. Because all I could think was, “You were lucky this time. Next time they will realize that you are a fraud for sure. Then game over.”

    And right there, on a gloomy November evening of 2007, it hit me. I had a problem. It was ruining my life, destroying my confidence, and sabotaging my career.

    I had to do something about it.

    As I arrived home, I googled “feeling like a fraud at work” and discovered that I wasn’t alone. The problem seemed to be so common, there was even a name for it: imposter syndrome.

    And I displayed all the symptoms.

    I doubted myself and my abilities, believing my skills and expertise always fell short of expectations. No matter how hard I tried, my successes seemed negligible, laughable compared to others. And I could never believe anybody who told me I did a good job.

    Imposter syndrome was clearly the problem I faced. But the word “imposter” didn’t match up with what I experienced every day at the office.

    I wasn’t maliciously trying to deceive other people, tricking them into believing I was more knowledgeable, competent, and successful than I was for my own fraudulent gain.

    In fact, the opposite was true.

    I didn’t pretend to be more than I was to further my career and take advantage of innocent people. No, I was hiding my weaknesses and shortcomings as well as I could. So others wouldn’t discover my devastating secret.

    I just didn’t know it yet.

    The Reveal of the True Reason Behind My Imposter Syndrome

    For the next couple of years, I searched for a way to eradicate my imposter syndrome. I read self-help books, took personal growth courses, meditated, visualised.

    And things improved.

    After a while, the all-consuming panic of being exposed as a fraud receded. I managed to better compose myself in meetings and presentations. And I even started to accept praise here and there with an awkward smile and only a slight cringe.

    But still, the stubborn, anxious voiceover kept playing in the background of my mind, every day of my life: “You are a fraud. And, one day soon, they will find you out.”

    Frustration about being stuck in an endless self-degrading loop turned to anger about my inability to overcome my imposter syndrome. Why was I so horrified of being exposed?

    My conscious mind knew that I was doing quite well. That I was good at my work. And that, even if my failings were to be uncovered, it wouldn’t be the end of my career.

    Or my life.

    Yet, I remained terrified of that one question that would hit my blind-spot. And I anticipated the accusing finger whenever my work came under scrutiny. Because my subconscious mind believed that being exposed as my flawed self was, in fact, the end.

    I just didn’t know why.

    Until, some months later in May 2010, I participated in a group hypnotherapy session. We were asked to retrieve memories of a scene in our past where our most damaging belief originated. And while I couldn’t conjure up the past, a limiting belief shot into my brain and made me gasp.

    Because it explained all of my struggles with imposter syndrome.

    The Heartbreaking Belief That Destroyed My Life and Sabotaged My Career

    “I don’t have the right to exist.”

    The brutality of the thought broke my heart and filled my eyes with tears. Why would I believe something like this?

    But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it made sense. I constantly felt the necessity to work harder, be better, achieve more to justify my existence. To prove to myself and others that it was okay for me to stick around as long as I was useful.

    Even though I was an illegal immigrant to life.

    As long as I showed no weakness, made no mistake, and contributed more than my fair share to society, I would be tolerated. Others would overlook the fact that I shouldn’t actually exist. That I was some kind of accident, a glitch in the universal plan.

    But being exposed as anything less than perfect would result in my temporary residency in life to be revoked.

    And I knew, deep in my heart, that I wasn’t faultless, that I struggled. I only faked the perfect version of myself that fulfilled all the qualifying criteria stipulated in my provisional residence permit.

    I didn’t have the required knowledge, expertise or success to permanently occupy a space in this life.

    I was a fraud. Pretending to belong in this life when I did not. Every day, I desperately clung to the hope that I could blind everyone around me just one more day. But I lived with the constant terror that my devastating secret would be exposed.

    Sure, my conscious mind understood that my fear was irrational.

    What did I think would happen if I was exposed as a fraud with no permission to exist? Would I just cease to be? Vanish in a purple puff of smoke?

    I knew it made no sense. Yet, the believe was lodged deep inside of me. And I was about to find out why.

    The Disastrous Reason I Believed I Didn’t Have the Right to Exist

    In September 2010, I consulted an energy healer to help with my, at the time, severe anxiety. I mentioned that I struggled with imposter syndrome and the belief that I didn’t have the right to exist.

    And she looked at me and said, “Of course you do. Because you have no self-worth.”

    It was the piece of the puzzle I needed. Suddenly, it all made sense.

    I believed that I was inherently worthless. And that I didn’t have the right to exist as long as I had no worth.

    So, my entire life was a relentless pursuit of more worth. All the long hours, the hard work, all the perfecting happened in the name of worth generation. To earn the right to exist.

    But I was stuck in a vicious cycle.

    I needed to gain wealth, love, abundance to have enough worth to receive a permanent right to exist. But I wasn’t worthy enough to deserve them.

    I had to be a success, but I was terrified that achieving greatness would draw too much attention on myself. And the fact that I was alive without the proper permissions.

    So, my inherent worthlessness made it impossible to claim the right to exist. And without the right to exist, I could never achieve what I needed to earn enough worth.

    It was a hopeless, futile quest. Without prospect of a solution. And it left me only one option: to pretend, to be a fraud.

    And hope nobody would ever find out.

    The Impossible Conundrum of a Worthless Existence

    I had no clue how to dig myself out of this rut. How could I accumulate enough worth to earn the right to exist so I wouldn’t have to feel like a fraud ever again?

    I had hit a wall in my quest. There seemed to be no solution, only pointless rumination that spiralled in endless circles. Was I doomed to hide in the shadows, unable to ever rightfully claim my place in life?

    I was about to surrender to my fate as an unwanted pretender, a slave to my imposter syndrome and worthlessness. But then my daughter was born.

    And one realization changed everything.

    The Key to Unlocking Your Worth

    About three weeks after her birth, I looked at my little girl sleeping peacefully. Her chest moved in a healthy rhythm and a tiny smile played around her lips.

    My heart filled with adoration for this wonderful creation, and I knew that she was valuable. That she had every right to exist in this world and deserved all the love, happiness, and abundance this life has to offer.

    Yet, she had no achievements, no wealth or success to pay for her right to exist. She had never earned any worth. And she didn’t have to.

    Because worth was the essence of her being, the core of her true Self. She was worth personified.

    And so was I, and everybody else. Because true, inner worth cannot be destroyed. It is as constant as our cell structure, it doesn’t change when we fail, are criticized or make a mistake.

    The realization was life-changing. The sudden relief felt as if I medium-sized mountain range fell of my chest. I didn’t have to prove my worth!

    Society had taught me all my life that I needed high-flying achievements, perfection, wealth to deserve the right to exist. But they were wrong. My entire belief system that caused my struggles was flawed.

    Because the truth was that, like my little daughter, I was worth.

    As such I could never be worthless. I had the right to exist, to claim my rightful place in life and my happiness right here and now. Simply because I was alive.

    And I finally had the cure for my imposter syndrome.

    How to Stop Feeling Like a Fraud Once and for All

    So, I started to affirm: “I have the right to exist. I am worth” several times a day. Every time I felt insecure, worthless, or like a fraud, I reminded myself of my infinite, inherent worth.

    At first, my mind resisted the change. Worthlessness thinking had become a disastrous habit that my mind wasn’t willing to abandon without a fight. But I persevered.

    And eventually, over a few months, I retrained my mind. I created a new, healthier habit.

    I noticed that I didn’t feel inferior so often, that my confidence in meetings improved. I no longer felt apologetic for taking up space or bothering people. And I became less demanding of myself, lovingly accepting and respecting my limits because I knew perfection, or its absence, wouldn’t change my worth.

    And one day, I realized that the fear of being exposed if I drew too much attention to myself was gone. And without that fear, I found it easier to stand up to others and defend my opinions. I even started to acknowledge and celebrate my successes.

    Now, I am no longer terrified of the accusing finger pointing me out as an imposter. I no longer need to pretend to be more than I am. Because I know I am not a fraud.

    I am enough. From the day I was born to the day I will die, and beyond, I will have the right to exist.

    Because I am worth.

    Just like you.

  • When Self-Help Hurts: How My Obsession Kept Me Stuck

    When Self-Help Hurts: How My Obsession Kept Me Stuck

    “Quiet the voice telling you to do more and be more, and trust that in this moment, who you are, where you are at, and what you are doing is enough. You will get to where you need to be in your own time. Until then, breathe. Breathe and be patient with yourself and your process. You are doing the best you can to cope and survive amid your struggles, and that’s all you can ask of yourself. It’s enough. You are enough.” ~Daniell Koepke

    I feel a bit like Frodo Baggins. I’m on this tireless, seemingly never-ending journey just like he was. Only I don’t have a ring that needs destroying. I’ve been searching for the elusive answer to slay my inner demons and become the best version of myself. And I’m tired.

    The best way to describe this insatiable desire for improvement is an itch I can’t quite scratch. I can’t recall how many times I’ve gone down the Google rabbit hole, spending hours reading blogs and articles, Instagram posts, you name it. Just one more and I’ll stop. Okay, just one more!

    I’ve realized that the reason I have become so utterly obsessed with the idea of working on myself is because of my past. It always traces back to the past.

    In school I was bullied. At home I was abused. As I got older, I beat myself up over every mistake. I told myself it was my fault I was unlovable. All of these experiences taught me that who I was as a human being was somehow wrong. 

    It took years for me to discover self-help. As I recall, it started with mental health blogs. I’d find as many as I could and binge read them, even though they all contained essentially the same information.

    I joined Facebook groups about OCD, depression, anxiety, childhood abuse, and compulsive skin-picking. I thought, “Cool, now I’ll have so many new tips to try!” until I eventually left each group because of the overwhelming number of posts.

    When I was still using Instagram, I only followed mental health accounts. I was bombarded with influencers and therapists sharing their expertise on how to change your life. I ate it up, but I was also scared that I would miss some life-changing piece of advice that could heal my trauma if I didn’t refresh my feed every five seconds.

    I’ve read self-help books. I’ve listened to podcasts. I’ve watched YouTube videos. But it wasn’t until I started counseling that I realized I had a problem.

    It dawned on me that the all-consuming need to “fix” myself was making me feel like garbage, which is ironic if you ask me. Self-help books are supposed to help us, but those books, along with the blogs and Instagram posts, made me feel like I needed to change who I was in order to be good enough. 

    Even though I still sometimes slide into that old comfortable habit that is the self-help rabbit hole, I am becoming increasingly more aware of how negatively this habit affects me. I continue to discover new things along this journey.

    The self-help industry preys on us—or some people in the industry I should say. (Clearly, I enjoy some self-help sites still, or I wouldn’t be sharing this post here!)

    I feel like reading so many self-help books created problems I didn’t even know I had and made me feel worse. This is how it has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. The more problems we have, the more info and help we need. I recommend creating a little balance with consuming self-help materials. Focus on reading just for enjoyment sometimes. It feels really good.

    And try to be mindful about your intentions with self-help. If you’re looking to heal old wounds and work on the issues that hold you back, self-help can help. If you believe you are fundamentally flawed, it won’t.

    We must realize that we are enough as we are and that we don’t have to prove our worth by doing more things or becoming this or that. 

    Trauma can create distrust in ourselves and our ability to decide what’s best for us. We often look to others to have all the answers to make us feel better. It can be really hard to trust ourselves, but think about this. Why would anyone else know what’s best for us when they haven’t walked in our shoes? We have to learn to be your own guide.

    Self-help can make us feel like failures. There are so many products that claim to have the secrets to learn how to live our best lives, lose fifty pounds, fall in love, get rich, stop being depressed, and finally get over the past. That’s a lot of pressure to put on ourselves in order to live someone else’s ideal version of life.

    The most important thing I’ve learned is that it’s okay to stop the constant striving for more. That it’s okay to stop searching for the answers to all our problems and just live.

    For so long I’ve been looking for the path that will heal me, that will make me feel worthy and whole, and this is the root of my obsession with self-improvement. I can learn to just breathe and relax in the moment. I can just be without all the noise of others telling me how I should be. And you can too.

  • How to Get Through Hard Times Without Hurting People We Love

    How to Get Through Hard Times Without Hurting People We Love

    “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” ~Buddha

    Just the other day, I had one of those moments with my husband, and not the kind of moment they write about in romance novels.

    The world has been so different these last several months, and so many are feeling the effects of months of struggle, uncertainty, frustration, and limitations.

    I consider myself to be someone who works to see the positive, finds the silver living in situations, and believes in the best of people, and that things can and will always get better. But lately, that has been more of a struggle.

    My husband is amazing, and incredible in so many ways, but he is always the more likely to see the bottom falling out, expect bad things, and struggle with restrictions and limitations being placed on him.

    So, after trying really hard, and I mean really, really hard to stay positive, my better half kept dipping into the dumps, and I finally hit my wall.

    After sitting at lunch and realizing, I really don’t want to spend the rest of this day like this, I gave him an out from this tension and clear animosity growing with each passing minute. I told him to go see his friends, take time away from me, and try and let go of his frustration at least a little, even for a moment (in the hopes that it would also let me release some of mine).

    And then I walked out, somewhat dramatically, like they do in the movies, when you don’t even bother to look back. More like a huff.

    My first thought was that he is driving me crazy, which he has done consistently for almost thirty years, all while acknowledging that the last few months have been awful.

    I felt like I was fuming, and then came back to the question of “Why is it so hard right now? Why is he being like this? Why am I so bothered by him being like this? Why can’t we just figure it out and be gracious?”

    The plain and simple answer is, right now, things just kind of suck. Sugarcoating it seems to downplay the effects of what so many are experiencing, and it minimizes the struggle, which is quite real.

    Right now, we are experiencing a pandemic, which has shifted the entire world and its way of being, in a way few of us have ever known. We have seen economies struggling to keep up. Lives are being lost.  Quarantines have been put in place.

    There is no normal for so many, but somehow, we are still supposed to “act normal.”

    It’s a struggle and coping well can feel like a nearly impossible task, leaving people feeling like they are failing personally, during a time when they are already hurting in other ways. Family members are feeling impatient with one another. Couples are bickering more. People are quick to lose their temper and even quicker to feel anxious, sad, or angry at their lack of control right now.

    People are frustrated, they are scared. Times are uncertain, and there is a sense of gloom and doom that continues to hang over so many.

    There is a sense of powerlessness, and so many people continue to describe the feeling of being “stuck.”  Plans can’t really be made. Vacations can’t be had. Life as normal still ceases to exist, and no one can really say if, or when, things will gain some sense of consistency.

    We need to recognize how stressful that can be, not only for our mental well-being but also in our daily lives, as we interact with the ones we love most.

    So, for myself, after the dramatic exit and a few minutes of driving in the car, the more logical part of myself gained control for a moment.

    I realized that amid situations that feel chaotic, we all need a little “chaos coping checklist,” or maybe now it could be a “COVID coping checklist,” to help endure these stressful times that we are all working hard to get through, day by day. Here is mine.

    1. Stop. And breathe.

    Never underestimate the power you give yourself when you just stop and breathe. Allow yourself to pause and be deliberate with your breath. Take a few slow breaths to reconnect to yourself rather than just the heat of the moment. Let your breath fill you, guide you, and calm you.

    2. Acknowledge your emotions.

    Don’t deny yourself the right to feel angry, sad, or frustrated. And don’t deny your partner, friend, family, or colleague that right either. And definitely do not judge your emotion as not being worthy or valid. Our emotions are understandable given the current state of affairs, and they often clue us in to what we need, so listen to them, and honor them.

    3. Just because you love them, you don’t always have to like them.

    Remember you can love someone unconditionally and still feel angry with them, hurt by them, or want time or space apart from them.

    Couples together forever still have disagreements. Parents get frustrated by their children. Friends can rub each other the wrong way.

    We are human beings, prone to error and able to become easily overwhelmed at times. It is okay to not like the ones you love every moment of the day. Allowing yourself to remember that may help you focus on the love more, and the dislike less.

    4. Give yourself (and others) a break.

    Physically and mentally. Take a moment (or as many as you can and need) to remove yourself from a situation.

    Maybe you need to take a walk by yourself or go into another room and get lost in some music. Let yourself find a quiet spot and read something calming or inspiring, or go have that glass of wine and watch the rom-com or action movie you wanted to watch. Just take a break, you deserve it.

    5. Accept that it is okay to not be okay right now.

    Even if you are that person who always sees the rainbow after the storm, or the bright side to a situation, you may not feel able to do that right now. And that’s okay.

    Naturally, if even the cheerful ones in the room are feeling gloomy, the ones who are more likely to see the storm may feel they are drowning in it. Remind them too that it’s okay, and offer any support you can, if you are able. Someday, hopefully soon enough, we will all find our way back to okay.

    6. Give yourself and those you love the gift of compassion.

    No one out there is perfect, and we should never strive for perfection. Instead, strive to be better than you were before. If yesterday was hard, see what you can learn from it. Remind yourself that you are doing the best you can. If you need to forgive someone for snapping at you, or forgive yourself for being harsh, give that gift.

    Lighten the load you are carrying by replacing it with more compassion. Maybe right now isn’t the time for high unreachable expectations, but rather gentle exercises in kindness and consideration, for others, but especially for yourself.

    These are tough times. Maybe the best thing we can do for ourselves and the people we love is be understand that these “moments” will happen.

    Having these difficult moments with our loved ones, like I had myself, doesn’t mean you are somehow not the amazing person you are striving to be, or for that matter, that they aren’t either. It doesn’t mean you are somehow failing right now if you feel angry, scared, or worried. It means you’re human.

    7. Even in the midst of chaos, seek to find gratitude.

    During adversity and times when you feel unable to find your balance, gratitude can be a tool for comfort. It can remind you that even when you feel frustrated, doubtful, and stressed, you will find your blessings if you look for them.

    Maybe it’s that you have a family, even if they get on your nerves. Maybe you are grateful for that roof over your head that you so desperately long to escape from for a while. Maybe you are blessed to have a job where you can work from home, even if you would rather be at work.

    Gratitude can help ease your anxiety, and when the anxious feelings leave you feeling adrift in a storm, your ability to find blessings and feel grateful can ground you, and leave you feeling abundant, even during adversity.

    —

    The truth is, everyone is doing the best they can right now. Using a mental checklist for the times that leave us overwhelmed gives us a chance for structure amidst chaos. And using a checklist like this, shared and read by many, can remind everyone that the struggle is real, but we are all in this together.

    As for me, the very next day—after going through this whole checklist—the frustration lessened, the fuming went away, and I started looking for my silver lining again.

    I will try and follow this checklist as often as needed and be as gentle with my loved ones as I can, but also with myself so that my compassion is complete.