Tiny Buddha

Category: change & challenges

  • How to Take Responsibility for Your Life and Change What Isn’t Working

    How to Take Responsibility for Your Life and Change What Isn’t Working

    “The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely to be the one who dropped it.” ~Lou Holtz

    I spent a devastatingly large part of my life trapped, blaming others for my troubles. I felt like I was bumbling around aimlessly and my life was out of my control.

    I was working a soul-sucking job, with a huge amount of student debt. I was surrounded by fake, unsupportive friends, in a toxic relationship, and had extremely low self-esteem.

    All of this was everyone else’s fault. I didn’t take responsibility for anything in my life that was causing me pain.

    I became a victim, and my sorrowful existence felt like too much to handle.

    So I entered a nightmarish tailspin and turned to food, drugs, and alcohol to escape the suffering.

    I rationalized that nothing about my circumstance was my responsibility and spent years playing the blame game. I was the victim.

    But because I blamed everyone else, I never took any steps to improve my circumstances. This mindset got me nowhere. I was stuck.

    I’ve since realized the only person who can change my life is me. Through mindfulness practice, meditation, and coaching I began to understand that I’d gotten myself into my situation and I was the only one who could get myself out.

    Everything in my life, regardless if I am to blame or not, is my responsibility.

    We all have the power to change our situation. The first step is take responsibility for our lives and make conscious decisions to steer ourselves in a new direction.

    Today I present to you three reflections I’ve had when it comes to taking responsibility for my life.

    I hope these reflections can help you take responsibility for creating the life you want to live, and take action to get there.

    1. No one else is responsible for our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions.

    Accept that you are responsible for your own thoughts, feelings, words, and actions, and no one else can make you think, feel, say, or do anything. No matter what they say or do, you are still responsible for how you respond to them.

    Thoughts happen in your mind, which triggers feelings in your body, which leads to words coming out of your mouth and actions coming from your body.

    What part of this process involves anyone else? None.

    When I was in an abusive relationship, I constantly felt like I was the victim—and I was, in the relationship, but I didn’t have to remain a victim in my life.

    I would mope around the house feeling depressed, and I refused to take responsibility for my choice to stay in the relationship. This mindset rendered me powerless to change things for the better.

    Eventually, I came to realize that although I may not be responsible for my boyfriend’s actions, I was responsible for how I responded to them—and I then decided to take action and leave this relationship. I shifted from out-of-control victim to empowered, resilient, and in control of my life.

    I’m in the driver’s seat now!

    2. Blame only keeps us stuck.

    Blame is a glorious defense mechanism. It can seem much easier to blame someone else than accept responsibility for something that has gone wrong.

    The problem is, blaming keeps you in victim mode. When you blame others, you give up your power to change.

    When you stop playing the blame game and accept responsibility for your role, you shift from fearful victim to supreme victor.

    When stuck in blame mode, I ask myself, what role did I play in the situation? Like the time I acquired thousands of dollars in student debt. I spent years blaming my parents for “forcing” me to go to University when I wasn’t sure of my career aspirations.

    The truth is, though they influenced me, it was my choice to go to school and spend that money, and it is my responsibility to pay the money back. I spent many years angry with my parents, blaming them for my financial troubles. Eventually I understood my role in the situation and I was able to let go of the anger and focus my energy on repaying my debts.

    I became empowered to focus on what was in my control and that enabled me to proactively address the problem.

    3. No one else can make us happy.

    I’ve come to see that happiness is something that comes from within, and it’s not dependent on circumstances, people, or possessions. Our situations can change, our relationships may end, and we’ll likely lose things we own. If we pin our happiness to any of these things, we’ll always be at their mercy.

    No one feels happy all the time, and that’s totally normal. However, we can be happy with our lives on the whole if we make a conscience decision to work on happiness every day.

    The biggest gateway to happiness, for me, at least, is gratitude. When I view the world through the lens of gratitude I notice things in my life to be happy about.

    When I’m low I often ask myself, what is there to be grateful about right now in this moment?

    When I was feeling completely shattered and broken after a recent breakup I had lost all hope in the world and myself. At this time the only thing I could find to be grateful for was breathing.

    That’s totally fine. At least it’s something!

    I also make time to do things that make me feel good, like listening to music, dancing around the house, and expressing my creativity.

    Another thing that helps is my morning self-care routine, which gets me energized and in the right headspace. This involves one hour of time dedicated to activities that nourish the mind, soul, and body—things like exercising, listening to informative podcasts, and meditating.

    And I look for opportunities for random acts of kindness throughout the day because giving to others is a joyful experience.

    Lastly, I try to search for a benefit from my suffering. There is always something to be learned from a situation; it’s just a matter of looking for the lesson.

    Take my abusive relationship as an example. I was completely broken with zero self-esteem, and I was a mess. Constantly crying. I sobbed so hard I threw my back out for weeks! It was intense.

    But that situation is what drove me to discover mindfulness and meditation, and it’s allowed me to understand myself in ways I never thought possible.

    Ironically, it forced me to build myself back up to become a confident, resilient person. Had this relationship never happened, I wouldn’t have written this article and I wouldn’t be here connecting with you today!

    —

    I’ve found taking responsibility to be a transformative experience because it enabled me to change what wasn’t working in my life. If you’re stuck in blame, waiting for someone or something else to make you happy, I am confident it will be helpful for you as well.

  • Growing in the Dark: Why “Negative Feelings” Matter

    Growing in the Dark: Why “Negative Feelings” Matter

    “Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.” ~Pema Chodron

    Pop spirituality and our cultural attitude would have you think it best to banish negativity from your life. Give it the quarantine treatment until it gets better and can rejoin our polite, positive, placative society.

    We are encouraged to cleanse negativity, a blanket descriptor of things that don’t feel good. Push it away with an exhale and inhale positivity. Anger, sadness, and critical thinking can all be forms of “bad vibes” that are sought to be avoided.

    This banishment of negativity is so simplistic. We are humans, capable of such a wonderful range of emotion and experience. Who are we to banish some of the low, dark, hollow notes from our octaves of existence? Too much cleansing makes us dry, brittle, and sterile.

    When joy and exuberance are out for too long, they get stale. When you are always bathing in the light, the light bulb begins to wane and eventually will dim and burn out. A life of constant light is not sustainable. It’s also not possible. Life is much more wonderfully and tragically complicated. Some of the richest parts linger in the shadows or even in the deepest, dark corners of our lives.

    It’s quite easy to sleep through happiness. A good, easy-going life does little to keep us awake and alive. The darker feelings bring us right into the present. The physicality of crying, shaking, with quaky breath and a hot face brings us into our bodies. To our emotional life. To our knees like no other. Darkness is what pops our eyes open to your life. It’s the catalyst for change and renewal.

    At this juncture in my life, I am spending a lot of time in grief and anger. I do not wish to get into all of the intimate details of it, but the gist is that I am going through a divorce. An icky, shattering, tearing asunder of the life I once knew and the dreams I had for the life of my family.

    It’s been tempting to push my feelings aside and pretend I’m okay. But a very small part of me recognizes there is this opportunity for something new. Renewal. Rebirth.

    While I haven’t given birth myself, I have been in the room during a birth. Birth isn’t only the beginning of a delicate, new life. It is deep and wrenching pain. Pain that steals your breath and turns your voice into a howl. It is uncertainty and a dark intensity that knocks at your ability to stand on your feet. It is sitting among blood, sweat, and tears and still finding deep, undisturbed joy.

    I can’t begin the process of rebirth by dimming the less favorable facets of the undertaking. If a rebirth is what I seek, then I am in line for one of the most wholly altering, body-shaking processes in our existence.

    So, here is what I am doing: I am leaning in. I am sitting upon the jagged surfaces of grief and anger, and I am not moving. I am listening to what they have to say.

    I am listening to anger proclaim my sense of self-worth. It rises each time I feel my innate human value has been violated. It reminds me to maintain a protective boundary around my sense of self.

    I am watching grief slice into my heart and reveal its contents. The reason I feel loss is because I have loved and still possess a capacity to love. My grief reminds me of just how much I truly value and hold dear.

    I am engulfed by the ravaging, purifying flames of my anger. I am lying in the center of my dark pool of sorrow.

    I am a human. Delicate and strong. Tender and powerful. I am built for this. I am made to stand in the center of howling storms sent by mother nature and witness devastating wreckage. My skin pummeled by rain. My feet lifted by wind.

    I am also made for watching the storm ease up and transform into calm. I am made for sunlight on my face and the joy of birdsong. The storm isn’t the ending. Neither is the birdsong.

    Your pain matters. Your anger, sadness, discomfort, grief, confusion. All of those dark feelings matter. They matter just as much to your growth as your happiness and gratitude journals. Without fully allowing the dark feelings, the lighter feelings will be kept at bay. When you close off pain, you close off to the full dynamism that is human existence.

    Discarding the hard shell that protects your heart can feel threatening and unsafe. I have been shucked open and shredded by life. I put my wholeness at stake and I am now piecemeal, the shards of my heart spread across the landscape of my experience. This allows my permeability. My walls are down which means I can allow the outer world in and allow my inner world out.

    Things strike me. I am easily moved. I get attached. I cleave and for a time I don’t want to let go—of people, places, moments. The interesting thing is that this piecemeal version of me is actually more whole, more fully alive, more human the the version of me that protected and held it together.

    At the moment, I am gutted. All my sensitive parts are outside of me. I have been opened and torn into with love and cruelty. But, if I can stay with this dark, wounded part of myself, watch the wounds bleed, redden, and pus, then I will also witness the end of the oozing. The healing of the infection. The beginning of scar tissue. A slow, soft mending. An offering to my tender history. A testament to my future strength.

  • 5 Steps to Lower Your Financial Stress When You’re Drowning in Debt

    5 Steps to Lower Your Financial Stress When You’re Drowning in Debt

    “You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” ~Timber Hawkeye

    I never anticipated the stress and pressure that come when you are no longer able to pay your bills on time.

    Knowing that you owe money, and that your current income isn’t going to cover it, is a heavy reality to face.

    I found myself starting to envy low-income, salaried employees. Even though they don’t earn a lot, which I’m sure brings its own challenges, they aren’t eligible to receive huge credit. This protects them from ever finding themselves owing millions.

    My husband and I have recently gone through a time when we found ourselves way overextended. Due to a series of bad beats and various twists of fate, we found ourselves in over our heads. And this is not a good space to be in.

    It’s a sickening feeling that has seemed to overshadow all the other areas of our lives. We’ve felt unable to breathe, knowing that debt is hanging over us. When the phone rings from an unknown number, we’re hesitant to answer it. It could be someone wanting to know when we will pay a bill.

    Small Beginnings

    It didn’t start out like this. Let me backtrack. I grew up on a farm in an average-income-earning household. Although we didn’t lack for anything, we weren’t wealthy.

    My husband and I married early on in life and started out with very little. We set up a small business from home soon after we got married. I was halfway through studies at the time and managed to juggle both. Our expenses were minimal, and even though it felt like hard work, we seemed to prosper.

    Friends would comment and say we had the Midas touch. As the business grew and branched out, money always seemed to be plentiful. We didn’t start out intending to reach a massive bank balance. Our aim had been to reach financial independence sooner than later. Words like “budget” or “frugalness” never seemed to enter our thinking though.

    Over the years, we upgraded our living, our home, our cars. We took overseas holidays and bought properties. As our affordability increased, so did our expenses. In a short space of time, we up-leveled our lifestyle requirements.

    The Storm

    The stress and anxiety of knowing you are unable to catch up on financial commitments is scary. We had some business ventures fail, we bought out a partner, there was a notable economic downturn. We had new competitors enter the market that we could no longer match, as our running costs had become so high.

    Then things came to a boiling point; a perfect storm was in the making. A few clients didn’t pay for larger projects. This meant we had to put out money to complete the work, but nothing was coming in. Our rental property didn’t have a tenant in it for a few months, and major maintenance needed doing. Staff went on strike, and several employees had to get retrenched and paid out.

    The strain on our marriage was palpable. The weightiness of the situation was hard to bear. There wasn’t going to be a quick-fix solution. We had to rally, face this storm head on, and ride it out over the next two years.

    Downsizing

    We took massive action to downscale. It’s very easy to upscale and commit to new financial obligations. Downscaling is hard because it feels like you’re taking a step backward. And in a sense, you are, although you’re going back to go forward.

    The new forward for me looks like being out of debt. The new goal is to have a business buffer of funds available to get through unexpected setbacks. We never want to experience the stranglehold of debt again. No fancy dining or luxury goods are worth the stress and worry of financial pressure.

    And so, we downscaled throughout the business. Everything got cut back down to size. All the unnecessary extras we didn’t need got cut away. We opted to move home. We cut our rental amount by a third.

    I swapped my shiny floors and designer fittings for a modest, old-school, rustic duplex. We no longer have to worry about hiring a gardener or keeping the pool clean. We cut up our credit cards and canceled every debit order we could.

    We Have Everything We Need

    To be honest, we still lived well and had everything we needed. But only just. When our new large screen TV stopped working, a month or so out of warranty, we started to use an old spare one we had in the garage. When winter came around, I took my allocated winter clothes budget and put it toward better use. That year I made do with what I had. Priorities dictated there were more pressing things to spend on.

    My motto became “If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.” Look for cheaper alternatives. This may be obvious to people who earn a set income and aren’t in a position to over-spend. But it seemed I had to re-learn it.

    For a year, my children didn’t get any new toys. In fact, I packed all the old ones away, only took out a few at a time, and tried to think of creative ways we could play with them.

    By the time Christmas rolled around, there was a financial improvement, so we spoiled the children with presents. The funny thing is, the novelty of the new toys wore off quickly. They didn’t seem to play with the new ones any more than they did the old ones. It seemed the more they had, the less they appreciated it.

    If you’re going through something similar—if you’re drowning in debt and need to claw your way out—perhaps my lessons may help.

    5 Steps to Lowering Financial Stress

    1. Know exactly where you stand.

    Get all your financials listed on a spreadsheet. Open communication is key between the role-players involved. List all your debt, liabilities, and expenses, and your income, investments, and assets.

    The starting point is to gain clarity on where you stand. You need to know how far you have fallen behind so you can plan to rectify your situation as soon as possible.

    It’s easy to start blaming or regretting or going around in “if only I had done this” circles. We had made one bad judgment call, and that may have changed everything. In hindsight it seems so obvious, but at the time we did what we thought was best.

    We had to stop hypothesizing and going back over bad decisions. We needed to work as a team, and now more than ever, we had to support each other, and not go back to “we should’ve.”

    2. Make a plan.

    After getting a realistic view on where exactly you stand, you can start working on a plan.

    Although we felt like throwing in the towel, we had to get our mindset right.

    There are usually more options than you think to get things back on track. Under stress we tend to go into survival mode, and this isn’t conducive to creative problem solving.

    Try to take the emotion of the situation away when you start to problem solve. Imagine this scenario is happening to someone else, and you’re there to help figure it out with them. You will need to research various options.

    Try to make a plan, even if your initial plan changes along the way. It’s important to gain back your sense of control.

    Communicate with the role-players. If you owe the bank or your credit providers, call them and meet up to discuss options. Ask for extensions. Get advice from people who have gone through similar experiences.

    3. Live within your means.

    Cut everything back to what is manageable. Yes, you will feel like you have lost some of your status. We moved from a prestigious housing estate to a random lower end suburb. It was a major personal downgrade, but I’ve come to learn that we are so much more adaptable than we realize. We actually need very little to live comfortably.

    We cut back on luxury items and learned the art of patience. Instead of buying on demand, if I wanted something, I would wait until I could afford it. I found that by doing this, it also eliminated impulse purchases. After waiting and giving it more thought, often I decided I didn’t need that item anyway.

    We had to get in touch what is most important. When you have only a limited supply to work with, you have to focus on what’s a priority. You need to weigh up the options and decide where you will get the most value for money.

    We implemented a budget, where we allocated amounts for the month, so we could plan to get through.

    4. Get back to your intrinsic values.

    Both my husband and I have never been particularly materialistic. We love quality products, but we’ve never been into flashy status items, although we’ve certainly grown accustomed to the finer things in life.

    During our financial crisis, we had to come back to our core values and to the intrinsic value of things. I got to a point when I realized, it doesn’t matter if we lose everything; our health and well-being are most important. We can start over again if we have to.

    I stopped fearing the worst and worrying and stressing. Instead I became fascinated by how the whole experience unfolded. I tried to learn and glean from this what I could.

    A few key lessons from my experience:

    • I never want to be in this situation again, so I’ll need to maintain these changes.
    • I only need to get through one day at a time.
    • Laughing through tough times is much better than crying through them.
    • To be a strong team, you can’t have internal conflict.
    • We had to accept the situation and make the best of it.

    A few things we did to get back to our values:

    • We started to value every penny again.
    • We focused on all we did have, not on all we didn’t have.
    • We forgave and moved on.
    • We left karma to deal with our wrongdoers.
    • We tried to cultivate a long-term vision, and this was merely a glitch in the road.

    5. Practice gratitude and generosity.

    Not your typical response when the financial pressure is on. But when you have little, it’s easier to be grateful for the small things in life. If you have a lot, it’s more difficult to be mindful of and value the small things. You tend to develop bigger and better expectations when you have much.

    We stopped expecting and taking things for granted. We started for be more thankful for everyday things.

    I tried to remain generous, if not with monetary resources, with what I could be generous with. A smile, a text message of encouragement to someone. A flower picked out the garden and given with a hand-written note. Or a listening ear might be what someone else needs. Too often we are so caught up in our own drama, we fail to consider what others are going through.

    As we give to those less fortunate, we start to appreciate our great wealth. It puts things back into perspective.

    6. Calm yourself while you get through the storm.

    This experience has definitely taught me that we can’t control life. We can plan and set goals, but ultimately a lot of things are out of our hands. Life happens, and it doesn’t always unfold how we imagined it would.

    During these times you have to find your inner grit. Your character gets tested and refined. You start to move way out your comfort zones and you land up somehow expanding but not breaking.

    And just when you think you can’t take withstand the storm anymore, you look back and notice how far you’ve come. You realize how much you’ve grown, and you’re stronger than ever.

    Things that helped me get through:

    • Find my composure daily through meditating, deep breathing, consciously releasing muscle tensions when I notice it, practicing self-compassion, celebrating small wins, and staying focused on the bigger picture
    • Remember “This too shall pass”
    • Don’t give in to self-pity or start whining to others
    • Take responsibility for my part in getting here
    • Remember that there is always more money to be made
    • Don’t give way to scarcity thinking
    • Sell or offload what I don’t need
    • Think out the box how to re-structure
    • Keep my life simple

    —

    I’m glad to report we are well on our way to righting our finances. I honestly wouldn’t trade this experience or go back in time and change things. It hasn’t been pleasant, but I’ve learned so many valuable lessons that I will take with me going forward.

    As we build up again, we are going to keep our expenses under control. We are going to be a lot more cautious, and never over-extend ourselves again. We will never enter into bad debt again.

    This time has made me respect the beauty and harsh reality of life and tread a little lighter as I move through it.

  • 3 Steps I Took to Reinvent Myself When I Felt Stuck and Unfulfilled

    3 Steps I Took to Reinvent Myself When I Felt Stuck and Unfulfilled

    “It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.” ~Patrick Rothfuss

    Who am I?

    I believe this is one of the hardest questions we can ever answer.

    I began to ponder this tough question in my early twenties during what I refer to as my “early-life crisis.”

    Man, I was stuck. Stuck working in an unfulfilling job. Stuck in ever-growing debt because of my bad habits of drinking and smoking. Stuck feeling anxious and unconfident. I woke up each day and felt as if I was just going through the motions. Powerless. I was a puppet, and life was a cruel puppeteer.

    Each night, I’d escape into the world of adventure movies and momentarily distract myself from my struggles. My personal favorites were Forest Gump and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I didn’t realize it at the time, but as I look back, I see that the heroes in these movies taught me an important truth: Our identities are not fixed, and we can, in fact, reinvent ourselves.

    Here are the three steps I took to do just that.

    1. Recognize that I am more than my labels

    My struggles began when I left formal education. After identifying as a student for so many years, I suddenly found myself in the “real world.”

    It felt as if a rug had been pulled from beneath my feet. What now?

    I fell into an office job working as an insurance salesman. My intuition told me the job wasn’t a good fit for me, but I lacked clarity on what my purpose was and who I really was.

    Then one day, I was reminded of a quote I’d heard from Steven Fry. It reads, “We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing—an actor, a writer. I am a person who does things—I write, I act—and I never know what I’m going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.”

    It was strangely liberating, and butterflies fluttered in my stomach as I had the realization that I am not a noun.

    My label of “insurance salesman” didn’t have to define me. Neither did any other labels I’d given myself or had been given.

    My doctor had labeled me as “anxious.” I’d labeled myself as “stuck.” But “anxious” and “stuck” were simply feelings and not who I was. From this moment I changed “I am anxious and stuck” to “I feel anxious and stuck,” and in making this change I transformed from identifying as the experience to the experiencer.

    This is who I believe we truly are. The experiencer. We’re not our labels, our thoughts, our feelings, our past, or our life situation; we are the powerful experiencer of it all.

    By recognizing that I was not my labels, it was as if I’d wiped the slate clean and become a blank canvas. A canvas that had previously been packed full of messily scribbled labeling words written in permanent pen. Now this canvas was blank and pure. Anything was possible, and it was time to write. Not more limiting labels but an exciting personal vision for my next chapter of life.

    2. Define my personal vision for life (for now)

    When defining my personal vision, as well as being mindful to avoid labels, I avoided defining from a place of should.

    I already knew how my vision for life should look based on the plan society had devised.

    Study, study some more, get a job, pay the bills, suck up the feelings of unfulfillment and get on with it, work more, save a bit, and then, when you’re old and tired, retire to try to enjoy whatever time you have left.

    Should felt heavy. Should felt a lot like lying to myself about my desires. So when defining my personal vision, I swapped “I should” to “I want and choose.” This felt exciting. Lighter. I felt like a young boy again stood in a sweet shop with a big, shiny coin in his hand.

    I took a lot of time out to be still and silent, listening to what answers my heart had for me when I thought about what I wanted and would choose.

    Inspired by Steven Fry’s quote, I began to think as a verb, defining my personal vision based on how I most wanted to feel and think and what I most wanted to be doing. I was craving feelings of excitement and freedom, and like Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings, I wanted an adventure. I didn’t want to feel like a powerless puppet anymore; instead, I yearned to feel I was making progress toward what really mattered to me, and moving forward.

    I took pressure off myself by knowing this personal definition wasn’t final. It wasn’t going to define my life forever. This was temporary, the next chapter. I could, if I wanted to, change the vision at any time and reinvent myself again.

    What I loved most about the character Forest Gump is his reinvention of himself. In the movie, he’s a professional football player, a soldier, a runner, table tennis champion, and a shrimp boat captain. Though I don’t want those specific roles, I want that same freedom to evolve.

    3. Take action toward my personal vision now

    Believing I was my labels had kept me in inaction.

    Telling myself I was stuck only kept me stuck.

    Telling myself I was anxious only made me anxious about feeling anxious!

    Having recognized that I was not my labels and defined a vision for the next chapter, I knew the only thing that would take me from where I was to where I wanted to be was action, and lots of it.

    So I began to make changes.

    One daily habit that really served me was taking long walks every evening.

    It helped me on so many levels.

    It burned off a lot of the anxious energy I felt, it helped me lose some excess weight, which boosted my confidence, and it gave me lots of time to reflect and visualize my personal vision, while giving me a sense of adventure as I discovered new and different parts of my hometown. Plus, it was free! Which was just what I needed given my debts.

    My motto was “progress over perfection.”

    Alongside the daily walks, I focused on consistent, small steps rather than big actions.

    That’s not to say I didn’t make some big moves. Once I’d taken back some control over my debts, I booked a one-way flight to New Zealand. Traveling alone, to the other side of the world, was the adventure I longed for and needed. It would force me to face my anxieties, build my confidence even more, and learn the value of money, and it would also give me time and space to decide what I wanted to do from there.

    I climbed mountains, met many amazing people, and worked several jobs to fund my travels, which gave me more clarity around what I wanted to do professionally, which I pursued when my adventure came to an end.

    After a year in New Zealand, I returned home to England a new man. Calm and confident, having reinvented myself from the stuck person I once thought I was.

    I learned the “perfect time” doesn’t exist. No matter where we are in our lives, we can take action toward our personal vision at any time, even if it’s just a small step.

    I know we can’t all up and leave our lives to travel for a year, but we all have the ability to create a plan that makes sense for us and work toward it, even if just one small step at a time.

    It’s been almost six years since I returned from New Zealand, and I continue to reinvent myself personally and professionally. I know I’m not my labels. I know I’m not a noun. I know I’m not a powerless puppet. I am the experiencer.

    We are the experiencer. We are the main characters in the story of our lives, but we are more than that. We are the writers too. Reinventing who we are begins by dropping our labels and picking up the pen. Happy writing.

  • Lessons from Infertility: What’s Helped Me Cope with Disappointment

    Lessons from Infertility: What’s Helped Me Cope with Disappointment

    “When you find no solution to a problem, it’s probably not a problem to be solved, but a truth to be accepted.” ~Unknown

    For the longest time, I swore I’d never get married or have kids.

    Growing up with an alcoholic father, in a domestic violence situation, shattered my young spirit and left me putting the pieces back together for years.

    Since I didn’t see healthy coping skills growing up, it’s no wonder I grappled with my own addictive behaviors. I struggled with self-worth, focusing solely on accomplishments to fill a void inside of myself.

    Externally, people saw a well-adjusted, smart girl who excelled at sports and was a natural leader, with plenty of friends.

    All seemed well.

    It wasn’t.

    Internally, I was dying, and I’d take anything I could get my hands on to escape my reality. I used work, relationships, and substances to make myself feel better for a short while.

    However, self-loathing runs deep and it eventually won the day.

    I wasn’t enough, and there wasn’t anything sustainable that would make me feel okay about myself for any length of time. I didn’t realize it then, but what I really wanted wasn’t to merely the fill the void; I was longing for a connection to my authentic self. But I couldn’t figure out how to create it.

    My emotional suffering was crippling.

    While other people were getting married and having babies, I was surviving the day between emotional highs and lows and barely holding on to any form of functioning.

    Though I had vowed never to get married or have kids, I secretly longed for it. I’d disavowed it only because it didn’t seem possible for me.

    Plus, how would I ever bring a child into this mess of a life?

    I wouldn’t.

    When my self-destruction hit a crossroads of kill myself or live, I chose to heal and get better so that I could be a healthy person for myself right then and perhaps for a partner and child in the future.

    I wanted to be the healthiest version of myself, and thinking about what might be helped me get present to what needed to be healed.

    Part of the journey back to my true self was about learning unconditional self-love. Hearing the paradigm that I’m a spiritual being having a human experience opened up an avenue of self-loving within me that I had never experienced before.

    I focused diligently on having a healthy relationship with myself by engaging a daily self-care practice that included positive affirmations, physical exercise, self-forgiveness, and connecting to something greater than myself.

    By learning to relate to myself in a more positive way, I started to have better relationships with others. And one particular relationship came in that reflected back to me my deep self-love and spiritual growth. This relationship would turn into a life partnership and eventually a marriage.

    Though I never thought I would get married, I did the inner work to transform myself into the partner that I wanted to have in this lifetime.

    My spiritually connected and loving relationship with Richard opened me up to the possibility of having children.

    This was a huge shift from my days as a child and young adult where I vowed never to have significant relationships with anyone.

    But then something I never expected happened. We never got pregnant.

    We tried for many years and mutually decided that if we couldn’t naturally have a child, we wouldn’t have one at all.

    There was tremendous disappointment, anger, and sadness. When something isn’t a possibility for you, it can make you want it more.

    I went from obsessed to defeated.

    Richard and I finally landed on and allowed our grieving.

    It was a process. It still is.

    What’s super special about this journey is that I was able to pull from my recovery toolbox to support myself through this experience.

    I focused on these three powerful steps.

    1. Look for the learning.

    Getting my mind right has been the biggest growth opportunity in my healing process. Before learning about my infertility, I’d studied spiritual psychology at The University of Santa Monica, where I learned the twenty-two principles of spiritual psychology. One of those principles, “life is for learning,” has empowered me to look for my spiritual curriculum instead of staying in victimhood.

    Staying empowered versus going into disempowerment has kept me learning from my life experiences, and helped me avoid growing bitter. Through my infertility, I learned to let go of control. I learned true surrender to the unknown. And I learned to trust something greater than my humanness. I’ve experienced so much grief, resilience, and acceptance. Embracing it all has enriched my life instead of making this a solely painful experience.

    2. Accept what is.

    I found acceptance of what is. I’m not fighting reality, saying it should be different. I don’t know what it should look like, and I accept that this is my spiritual curriculum.

    Ego thinks it knows what the human experience should look like. My spirit knows that this is the experience I’m meant to have. Or at least that’s what I believe—that I was meant to grow through this and love myself no matter what. And I’m doing that!

    I’ve also come to realize that even when life doesn’t turn out how we think it should, it can still be enjoyable if we’re willing to shift our focus and do the best we can with the hand we were dealt. For me, that’s meant committing to being the healthiest human I can be, living a purpose-driven life, and helping other people self-actualize.

    Even if you don’t believe you receive a “spiritual curriculum” for life, or are “meant to have” certain experiences for your growth, it feels incredibly liberating to accept what is and choose to make the best of it. This is how I’ve been able to keep my peace instead of giving it away.

    3. Choose peace.

    I choose peace. It’s an affirmation that has served me well for many years through different life challenges. I can choose to be in resistance and suffer, or I can choose to be in acceptance and have my peace. I choose peace. It doesn’t mean I don’t experience some sadness from time to time, but those moments are few and far between because it’s more valuable to me to accept and have peace than it is to hold onto grievances.

    Life didn’t turn out the way I thought it would. I put expectations on life, and life had its own plans.

    My duty is to be with what is and love myself through it.

    Accepting what is has been one of the most freeing experiences of my lifetime because it’s opened me up to new possibilities I wouldn’t have been able to see had I stayed stuck in resistance. Furthermore, I’ve been able to experience motherhood through mothering myself, our four wonderful dogs (Peanut, Ziggy, Tucson, and Bootie), and those I come into contact through my life’s work.

    I can still be a mother—to myself and others. I get to define what that looks like for me.

    When life seems difficult or unfair, focus on the lessons so you can empower yourself instead of victimizing yourself, accept what is, and remind yourself that this is what it means to choose peace. These strategies have offered me continued spiritual growth, supported me in strengthening my relationship with my husband, and empowered me to carry on with co-creating an enjoyable life.

    And if you’re experiencing infertility, like me, know that it doesn’t have to be something that sidelines you. It can not only be a source of tremendous spiritual growth, it can also be the gateway to a different path that could be equally as fulfilling.

  • Travel Tips for the Anxious Spirit

    Travel Tips for the Anxious Spirit

    “Travel light, live light, spread the light, be the light.” ~Yogi Bhajan

    For years, I avoided travel. Just the thought of leaving home made me anxious. I dreaded the crowds, the confusion, and the sense of disconnection from both my daily routine and my spiritual practice.

    Over time, I came up with some great reasons not to travel, but I always knew those excuses were keeping me from exploring new places, meeting new people, and living my life to the fullest.

    I continued to avoid traveling until family members moved across the country, and then I had no choice. If I wanted to see them, I had to travel. So, I stopped coming up with excuses and started looking for ways to keep a connection to my spirit and sense of well-being, while I traveled through crowded airports, stormy weather, and traffic jams.

    Here are some of the things that work for me. If you don’t like to travel either, I encourage you to try all of them to find the ones that work best for you.

    Before Traveling

    1. Set your intention.

    Begin by reminding yourself why you’re traveling. Are you looking forward to spending time with friends or family? Is this a relaxing vacation, or a journey to explore a new and exciting culture?

    Whatever the reason for your travel, getting clear about why you’re leaving home can add a depth and meaning to your trip and help relieve anxiety about the less pleasant parts of the experience.

    2. Think ahead.

    As you imagine your trip, visualize yourself having a wonderful experience. Picture everything going smoothly for you. See yourself moving safely from place to place, enjoying your surroundings, and feeling confident in your ability to take care of yourself. Imagine all the possibilities for fun and adventure that lie in wait at your destination.

    Of course, this doesn’t guarantee everything will go smoothly, but it will likely ease your mind, which will help you stay calm if anything doesn’t go plan. And let’s face it—things often don’t when we’re traveling!

    3. Change your vocabulary.

    Talking about things differently can change the way you think and feel about them. See what happens when you change:

    “I’m afraid to travel” to “I’m curious to travel.”

    “I hate to travel” to “I’m open to looking at travel differently.”

    “Travel is a nightmare” to “Travel is an adventure.”

    “I’m not a traveler” to “I’m learning how to travel well.”

    “Travel is difficult” to “Travel makes my life richer.”

    4. Take time to learn everything you can about your destination.

    Maybe there’s a local yoga studio or gym that offers a class you might enjoy. Why not call ahead and reserve a spot in that class? Maybe there’s a spa at your hotel where you could book a massage, or a nearby restaurant that offers your favorite seafood. Are there walking trails close by, a museum you’ve always wanted to see?

    I’ve found that looking forward to something fun or relaxing helps me get through the stress of travel.

    5. Get organized.

    For me, getting organized makes everything else about traveling easier because I don’t have to worry about forgetting anything important and can instead just be in the moment. Here are some things that work for me. Try them and see what works for you.

    • Keep all your travel information in one place.
    • Make a checklist of all those last-minute things you need to take care of. Check things off as you get them done.
    • Pack smart. Make a list of all the activities and events you have planned, then pack only the clothes, shoes, and accessories required for each activity. When you can, pack comfortable, wrinkle-proof clothes. List your necessary toiletries and pack them in waterproof pouches or plastic bags.

    6. Make sure you have everything you need to travel in comfort.

    Consider packing some of the following to help you feel cared for and at ease as you travel.

    • A pillow or neck support can help you relax on a long plane ride or car trip.
    • A small blanket or warm shawl will come in handy any time you feel a chill.
    • Tea: I always make sure to pack my own tea. Ginger and mint for digestion, chamomile for relaxation. You can get a cup of hot water in almost any restaurant, hotel room, or on any flight, so you can brew yourself a cup of soothing tea any time you like.
    • Snacks: I travel with nuts and dried fruit. They’re my favorite snack, easy to tuck in my purse, and they keep me from getting the “hangrys.” You can also pack energy bars, pretzels, crackers, cheese, or fruit.
    • A meditation app, or a great playlist to help you feel calm, especially if you’re anxious about flying or riding long distances.
    • Something fun to read. In my case I always have a book with me. I find reading is a wonderful distraction and helps pass the time more quickly.
    • A deck of cards or a game app: Playing is a wonderful way to keep you occupied on the way to your destination.
    • Workout clothes: You may not be able to do your usual yoga practice, or fit in a long morning run, but having the right clothes may encourage you to sneak in a couple of poses or take a quick jog in your new surroundings.
    • An energy token. Bringing a crystal, necklace, or other talisman with you can help keep you grounded.
    • An empty thermos: It’s important to drink enough water. If you don’t want to pay for bottled water (or harm the environment with plastic), why not travel with an empty thermos? You can fill it with water at the airport or any stop along your way.

    While Traveling

     1. Travel with an open heart.

    This is a hard one for me, but when I remember to do it, I find it makes an amazing difference in my experience. When I unplug from technology and engage with the people around me, I get to hear their stories and see the world from a different point of view.

    Over the years I’ve met some incredible people: a doctor on the cutting edge of cancer research, an artist, a woman in the middle of a difficult divorce, the manager of a country club, a mother traveling with two children from Scotland to Texas to start a new life, a woman who’d overcome incredible hardships to get her PhD and run a successful, youth program in an inner city. Not only did we all get to share our stories, the connection made my journey a richer experience.

    2. Reach beyond your own experience to help others.

    Could you help that young woman heft her bag into the overhead bin? Could you share your snack with your seatmate, or buy a cup of coffee for the tired-looking person behind you in line? Maybe you could offer to take a picture of the family posing on the beach, or pay a compliment to your server.

    Sometimes just a smile, sympathetic ear, or kind word is enough to make a real difference in someone else’s life, and in your own.

    3. Breathe and relax.

    When you get anxious, take a deep breath. Put your hand over your heart and let the warmth of your palm sink deep into your chest. Let that warmth bring a sense of peace and ease into your heart, and remind yourself that you’re able and willing to take care of yourself no matter what happens. Feel the inner light of your heart expand until it radiates out of your body and reaches the people around you.

    4. Move.

    It’s important to keep moving throughout your trip, both for your physical health and to release anxious energy. Walk whenever you get a chance. If you have to sit for any length of time, make a commitment to get up and move around at least once an hour. Stretch, wiggle your fingers and toes. Raise and lower your shoulders. Rotate your ankles. Have fun finding as many ways as possible to move in your seat.

    5. Try Qigong.

    I use this powerful Qigong pose on long flights or rides. It comes from The Qigong Workbook for Anxiety by Master Chuen Lam.

    This pose is called “Bubbling Spring,” and increases the circulation of both blood and qi throughout your body.

    Begin by sitting with your back as straight as possible, both feet flat on the floor. As you inhale raise the heel of your right foot, keeping the ball of that foot on the ground. As you exhale, press down firmly onto the ball of your foot. Inhale, and release pressure on the ball of your foot. Then as you exhale lower your foot.

    Repeat with the left foot, and alternate the process eight times. Relax a few seconds, then repeat the sequence twice.

    Once You Reach Your Destination

    Slow down and look around you. Allow yourself to savor every moment of this new experience. Drink in the differences of a new location. Be open to trying new things.

    Treasure your experience. Be grateful for a new perspective on the world and your ability to engage fully in this amazing life.

  • 5 Things to Stop Doing When You’re Struggling and Feeling Drained

    5 Things to Stop Doing When You’re Struggling and Feeling Drained

    “There is nothing in nature that blooms all year long, so don’t expect yourself to do so either.” ~Unknown

    Recently I’ve been spread incredibly thin, and, at times, I’ve felt stressed to the max.

    In addition to being at the tail end of a high-risk pregnancy, with complications, I’ve been working toward various new projects—not just for fulfillment but also because I’ve allowed the business side of running this site to slide for years. And I have a baby coming soon. It’s crucial that I revive what I’ve allowed to deflate because I’ll have a whole new life to provide for.

    There’s a lot I need to do over the next six weeks, before my scheduled C-section, and a lot I’ve failed to do over the previous weeks, largely because I’ve had many days when I’ve felt physically and emotionally incapable of rising to the challenge.

    To be fair, there’s also been a lot to enjoy and appreciate, and I know I am incredibly fortunate to be pregnant at all, and to have the opportunity to do so much professionally. But life has felt somewhat pressure-filled as of late, and along with many small wins have come many hours and days when I’ve felt drained and defeated.

    I recently realized that my best days all have certain things in common—little things I choose to do for my well-being, and a number of unhelpful habits I resist the urge to indulge. If you’re also struggling, personally or professionally, and feeling drained, perhaps my lessons will be helpful to you too.

    5 Things to Stop Doing When You’re Struggling and Feeling Drained

    1. Stop comparing your struggle to anyone else’s.

    Over a year ago an old friend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer. She’s the same age as I am, and she’s someone I’ve long admired, even though we’ve fallen out of touch beyond occasional interactions on social media.

    She’s left unfulfilling jobs, despite the financial risk involved; walked away from relationships that weren’t right for her, even while engaged, when it would have been easier to stay; and jumped out of more than 100 planes, each leap representative of the courage that guides her every inspiring, bold life choice.

    She’s faced cancer with the type of bravery I’ve come to expect from her, coupled with an honesty and vulnerability about her fears that, to me, displays even more strength. But still, I know it’s been grueling.

    As I sit here in my own very fortunate circumstances—at the same as age as her—I often tell myself I have no reason to be struggling. My current experience couldn’t even be termed a struggle compared to what she’s been through. I should just suck it up when I’m having a hard day and push myself through any tiredness or discomfort. Because I’m lucky.

    But the reality is, I still have hard days. I am still going through a high-risk pregnancy, juggling a lot, and dealing with a host of fears and physical symptoms that require my compassion.

    I wouldn’t compare my hard days to her devastating year—there’s clearly no comparison—but the point is, I don’t have to.

    I’m allowed to experience the feelings and struggles associated with my current life circumstances even if someone else’s are far more tragic. And so are you.

    Many may have it “worse,” but why compare and judge? If it helps alleviate self-pity so you can find the perspective and strength you need to keep going, then by all means, make comparisons. But if it only serves to minimize your feelings and needs, try to remember that two people can have completely different situations, and both can need and deserve compassion equally.

    2. Stop focusing on things that aren’t priorities.

    When we’re going through a tough time, we need to get extra-discriminating about what truly matters and what doesn’t. If we exhaust ourselves with the non-essential, we’ll have little energy for the things that can actually move the dial in the areas of our life that most need our attention.

    I remember when I had surgery to remove uterine fibroids seven years back. I knew I needed to take it easy or else I’d prolong my healing, but I also felt the overwhelming urge to maintain order in my environment. I’m a control freak. It’s what I do.

    I remember there was a pair of shoes next to the door, where shoes didn’t usually go, and not only that, they were askew. The horror!

    I was one day out of surgery, my lower stomach stitched together after being sliced across the middle, yet I still felt the need to slowly lower myself so I could put those shoes in the closet—even though it was painful to do so. My mother, who was visiting to help me, pointed out the insanity, and I knew she was right.

    I now think of those shoes whenever I am struggling physically or emotionally, and I ask myself, what else really doesn’t need to be immediately done, or do I not actually have to do myself?

    Can the dishes wait till the morning? Or can I get someone else to do them? Does every email in my inbox need a response—and immediately? Can I say no to some requests? Can I simplify my daily routine? What do I really need to do for myself, physically, emotionally, and professionally? And what do I just want to do because I think I should, to feel ahead of the curve, or on top of things, or good about how much I’m checking off my to-do list?

    Scaling back can feel like failure, especially if you’re Type A, like me, but sometimes we have to prioritize so we can use the limited energy we have wisely. If we don’t, we risk busting open our “stitches,” whether that means physical burnout or an emotional breakdown, and then we set ourselves back even further.

    3. Stop expecting yourself to do what you could do before.

    Maybe you were far more physically active or productive before (I know I was). Or you were the person anyone could call any time, any day, whenever they needed an ear or a hand. Or you were everyone’s go-to person for a night out when they needed to blow off some steam.

    It’s easy to cling to our sense of identity when we feel it slipping away. Not only do we mourn who we used to be, fearing this change may be permanent, we worry other people may not like this new version of ourselves—this person who’s far less fun or far more needy.

    But the thing is, we’re not who we were before. We’re in a new chapter, facing new circumstances and challenges, and our evolving needs won’t go away just because we ignore or neglect them.

    I’m not going to sugar coat this: It just plain sucks when you can’t do the things you once enjoyed. My boyfriend has had multiple knee surgeries and ongoing knee problems, and my heart breaks for him knowing he may never be able to do certain things he loves again, like playing basketball.

    But he’s accepted his limitations and found new things to do that check off some of the same boxes. He works out on an elliptical to stay in shape and rehab his knee. He throws himself into fantasy football to scratch his competitive itch. And he sweats it out in the sauna to help blow off some steam.

    As for me, I’m not going to yoga classes at the moment because I don’t have the time or energy, and I’m also not getting as much done as I once did on a daily basis. But I count my lucky stars that I’ll someday be able to do these things again, even if not for a while after the baby comes.

    It’s natural to grieve losses, temporary or permanent, big or small, but eventually we need to accept reality and then ask ourselves, “How can I work with the way things are instead of resisting them?” Otherwise, we cause ourselves a lot of unnecessary stress—and it doesn’t help or change anything.

    4. Stop pushing yourself when you need to take it easy.

    We all do it, or at least I suspect we do: We minimize our physical and emotional needs because we judge ourselves for having them. We think we should be able to do more. Maybe because other people in similar situations are doing more. Or because we just plain expect a lot from ourselves.

    But the thing is, telling yourself you shouldn’t be exhausted doesn’t make you better able to function through your tiredness. Demeaning yourself for needing a break doesn’t make you any more productive or effective. And belittling yourself for feeling whatever you feel doesn’t immediately transform your emotions.

    If you’re tired, you need rest. If you’re drained, you need a break. If you’re hurting, you need your own compassion. And nothing will change for the better until you give yourself what you need.

    I get that we can’t always instantly drop everything to take good care of ourselves, especially when other people are depending on us. But we can usually create small pockets of time for self-care by alleviating our self-imposed pressure and prioritizing our needs.

    Recently I’ve been embracing the idea of mini-self-care practices. It’s not easy for me, because I have a tendency to be very all-or-nothing. But sometimes, small things can make a big difference.

    I might not have time for an hour nap, but I can rest my eyes for fifteen minutes. I might not be able to clock in 10,000 steps, but I can take a walk around the block. I may not have the time to journal about my feelings for an hour, but I can jot down three worries and three potential solutions to help calm my mind.

    And sometimes, I just need to find a way to do more for my own well-being, whether that means cancelling a commitment or asking someone for help.

    It’s tempting to push ourselves, especially if this has been our pattern. But some days aren’t for moving forward. They’re just for honoring where we are.

    5. Stop reminding yourself of how you’re “falling behind.”

    I think it all boils down to this. When we minimize our struggle, try to do too much, and push ourselves despite our desperate need for self-care, it’s generally because we’re afraid we’re somehow falling behind.

    We think about everything we want to accomplish, everything we believe we need to do in order to become who we think we should be, and we panic at the thought of losing momentum.

    Most of us are accustomed to living life like a race to some point in the future when we imagine we’ll be good enough—and our lives will be good enough. Any threat to our sense of progress can feel like a threat to our self-esteem and hope.

    We also live in this constant bubble of comparison, as if we need to keep up with everyone else in order to make the most of our lives.

    But none of this is true. While we may want growth and change, we don’t need it in order to be worthy or happy, and certainly not on a pre-determined timeline. We also don’t need to keep up with anyone else because we’re never behind; we’re simply on our own path.

    What’s more, wherever we are right now, this is a valid piece of our life experience, and perhaps even a valuable part. We don’t need to rush through it to catch up to everyone else or to where we thought we’d be.

    Most people would agree that some of their most immense growth came from their greatest challenges, and in some cases, even their sense of purpose.

    I would never have guessed, during the ten-plus years I struggled with depression and bulimia, that that period of my life would be the catalyst for this site.

    I could never have imagined how profoundly my pain would shape the trajectory of my life, and how this chapter would lead to new chapters that were equally as exciting and fulfilling.

    Wherever you are right now, be there fully. Accept it. Open up to it. It’s only when we accept the lows that we’re able to grow through them and rise to the highs.

    —

    Yesterday was a tough day for me. I was tired. I hurt. I did little, got down on myself, and cried. But today was better. Today I was kind to myself, I did what I could, and I gave myself what I needed.

    Whatever you’re going through, I wish the same for you: self-compassion to help alleviate your pain, permission to do only what you reasonably can, and space to take good care of yourself.

  • How to Embrace Your Sensitive Superpower and Stop Feeling Overwhelmed

    How to Embrace Your Sensitive Superpower and Stop Feeling Overwhelmed

    “With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.” – Dalai Lama

    Sensitivity can feel like a gift or a burden, depending on our relationship to it.

    If you often feel completely overwhelmed by an overload of stimulation, then your sensitivity probably doesn’t feel like an asset. Maybe more like a liability. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

    As an introvert and sensitive person, I’ve navigated these waters my whole life, and I’ve come to realize that sensitivity is more than a gift—it’s a superpower! But first we need to understand what sensitivity is and what it’s not.

    What is Sensitivity (the Superpower)?

    To keep it fairly simple, sensitivity is essentially the ability to feel. The more sensitive we are, the more we feel.

    Sensitivity allows us to be more aware of what’s happening around us—people, conversations, traffic, nature, how a place feels. It also makes us more aware of and in touch with what’s happening inside us—our thoughts, emotions, sensations, and how we react to external things.

    I see sensitivity as a foundation for self-awareness. Without the ability to feel, we could never discern what’s really happening and break through the limits of our personality and fears.

    Sensitivity is also an aspect of empathy. Because we can feel what others are feeling, it allows us to understand them and connect with them more deeply. Without some degree of sensitivity, we’d be disconnected from people.

    On the other side, it can be extremely overwhelming. Too much sensory information coming in all at once can leave us feeling agitated, overwhelmed, and drained. When sensitivity becomes overwhelming, we often pull away from people and retreat to time on our own—a typical trait of an introvert or HSP.

    When I was young, wherever my parents took me, I’d be very aware of the spaces around me and how they made me feel. I either liked a place because I felt good there, or I didn’t like it because I felt uncomfortable.

    At that time, I didn’t comprehend much more than that—I didn’t know how to—and it’s very clear to me now that I didn’t have a context for it back then. There was too much sensory information passing through me, so when a place felt unpleasant it was just an overwhelming sense of feeling unsettled and unsafe.

    I was also very sensitive to people. I would instantly have a sense of the state, or mood, of them as soon as I met them, or even just saw them. When I was young, I didn’t understand what they were feeling, but whatever it was, I’d feel it in myself. Depending on their emotion, this could be very uncomfortable.

    I’d find myself feeling frustrated and emotional for no reason when around certain people, but it wasn’t my emotion. Again, at that time, I couldn’t tell the difference because I’d feel it in me and assume it was me, but I didn’t understand why I felt like that. Very confusing.

    Later I learned to know the difference between my own emotions and someone else’s, as I was much clearer on what was happening inside me.

    This is when I started recognizing the gift, or superpower, that sensitivity brought into my life. In sensing what others were feeling, I experienced a sense of connection to them, which helped me understand them.

    This awakened a sense of caring in me. I could feel when people were upset, sad, or hurt, and I found myself wanting to help. If someone was angry, I started to feel beyond the anger and to understand why they felt that way. Diffusing an argument or conflict was easy because I could feel where they were coming from.

    It’s so easy to judge people, retaliate, or disconnect when we don’t understand them. The moment we understand, there is opening, heart, and compassion.

    Sensitivity, our ability to feel, is a superpower that allows us to understand, connect, and have deep insights about ourselves and the nature of humanity. And the world needs more of this.

    What’s Not a Superpower

    If we say someone is emotionally sensitive, it could mean they’re sensitive to their own emotions, or it could mean they react emotionally to others’ words, actions, and emotions.

    Being sensitive to what’s happening inside ourselves is the basis for self-awareness, and an essential ingredient if we want to grow. A superpower.

    If someone says something and we’re hurt by it, we might call it being sensitive, but it’s more an emotional reaction than a superpower. Yes, we may feel the intention behind their words, but feeling it and being hurt by it are not the same thing. If their words have triggered something in us, then it’s more about the stability of our sense of self.

    Another example: You’re in a crowded room and you become overwhelmed and drained by the noise and stimulation.

    Here your sensitivity gives you the ability to feel everything that’s happening around you. I think this is an amazing gift. It may be a lot of stimulation, but I’d still call this a superpower.

    However, when we feel overwhelmed or drained, it’s not solely because we’re sensitive. It’s because we don’t feel grounded or stable internally, as I mentioned in my previous post about how I preserve my energy in groups as an introvert. The good news is, we can proactively foster internal stability.

    When we feel overwhelmed and drained in crowds, we often just want to remove ourselves from the situation and be alone. There’s no right or wrong, what we should or shouldn’t do, but when we acknowledge what’s happening inside us, then we have a choice.

    Learning Not to Let Sensitivity Control Us

    When I was young my sensitivity was too much for me. I would feel the good, the bad, and everything in between. It felt like the world around me was not around me but passing through me; and because I didn’t have a context for what was happening, the world felt unsafe, so the only way for me to function was to shut down.

    It wasn’t something I did consciously, as I didn’t understand what was happening. It was something I did on a subconscious level.

    It wasn’t until many years later, after doing a lot of work on myself, that I was able to realize what I’d done. I’m now able to reconnect with my sensitivity and wield it while feeling safe.

    Sensitivity is a gift, but if we don’t have a stable center within us, then our ability to feel becomes stressful and overwhelming, and ultimately begins to control us. In a sense, we become a victim to the power of our own sensitivity, as if it’s wielding us.

    To embrace our superpower—to be able to feel for and connect with others deeply without feeling overwhelmed or easily hurt and reacting emotionally—we need to find stillness inside ourselves. A stable center.

    If we can’t find stillness and quiet amidst the noise of our own mind, we’ll never be able to find peace and quiet amidst the noise of the world.

    Our thoughts amplify how we react to the overstimulation of our sensitivity. We pick up on what’s happening around us, it creates a space inside us—a landscape of emotions and feelings—and this triggers thoughts. The thoughts then reinforce the emotions, anchoring them further. The emotions continue triggering more thoughts, in a vicious cycle that goes on and on.

    For example, if we’re in a loud, crowded room we may feel anxious as a result of all the sensory input—the noise, people’s energy, and the energy of the place. We may start thinking thoughts like “Why did I come here? I knew this would be a bad idea.” Then we start feeling trapped and overwhelmed, triggering more thoughts of perhaps how you blame your friend for inviting you, or “How am I going to just disappear?” This all amplifies the anxiety.

    Or, if someone says something that triggers us emotionally, we may feel insecure, then start thinking about how we always say the wrong things, and then feel more insecure.

    After starting a meditation practice, I realized that when I’m more still and quiet inside myself, I react less and less to external stimulation. I’m no longer at the mercy of my superpower. In fact, the stiller I become, the more I feel, but without it becoming chaotic or overwhelming.

    The Problem Isn’t Our Sensitivity; It’s Our Lack of Stability

    I still value time on my own. I always have and always will. But I now have a more stable center, so I’m able to use my sensitivity as a superpower.

    You can do the same by prioritizing activities that help you create a sense of internal stability, such as:

    After meditation, I particularly like spending time in nature. We can walk outside and let our mind run, and there will still be a calming effect. But when we consciously tune into our surroundings as we walk—using the superpower of our sensitivity to feel nature’s stillness—our own stillness becomes more tangible and stable.

    When we feel stable inside ourselves, we have a solid foundation to feel deeply, so the outside world has less power to control us. The stillness inside is unwavering, regardless of what’s happening outside of us.

    —

    Our sensitivity is a gift in that it opens the door to a more connected world, but we need to proactively foster internal stability so we’re not at the mercy of the chaos around us. The more we embrace our superpower and live in it from a space of stillness and stability, the more at peace we will be inside ourselves—creating a greater capacity to help others, and in turn creating a more connected humanity.

    Find stillness. Find your superpower.

  • How Embracing and Loving My “Negative” Emotions Helped Heal My Pain

    How Embracing and Loving My “Negative” Emotions Helped Heal My Pain

    “Do not fight against pain; do not fight against irritation or jealousy. Embrace them with great tenderness, as though you were embracing a little baby. Your anger is yourself, and you should not be violent toward it. The same thing goes for all your emotions.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    For a long time, heaviness and dark feelings were very familiar to me. In a strange way they were comforting; I felt safe in darkness. The light felt more painful to me, but I also wanted to change because I wanted to free myself from the limitations of staying in the dark.

    I first started struggling with depression when I was young. From an early age my mother told me there was something wrong with me, particularly when I dared to express “negative” feelings, like anger. It became a mantra that filled my mind all the time. This one statement pervaded my entire life and dramatically affected the choices I made and didn’t make, well into adulthood.

    In my early forties, after much searching, I hit rock bottom. I was lying in bed, wanting to die, my thoughts telling me how wrong I was as a human being, when another thought popped into my mind: “What if depression is a gift?”

    Depression had felt like this never-ending darkness that clouded everything in my life. Even at times that I should have seen as positive, the depression prevented me from enjoying them. Depression was an old friend, one I not only tolerated but believed was the whole of who I was.

    I found my identity in feeling like a failure, and not moving forward meant that my identity was correct; I was confirming that this was who I was—until I understood that I was meant to be so much more than this depressed woman, sad, sorrowful, constantly grieving and frustrated. There had to be more to life.

    Instead of looking at what was wrong with myself, I started looking at the feelings that came up, noticing that my aversion to them was not only perpetuating them, but was affirming that I was not worthy of love, acceptance, or even acknowledgement.

    I could no longer fight who I was. I had to start looking at myself as a whole, including the pain and trauma, so I started to imagine that my repressed emotions were small children—and not just any small children, but orphans.

    They lived in a large orphanage, where nobody cared for them and the only adults that came in to see them were mean, critical ones who would beat them if they showed anger or leave them to cry if they were sad.

    There were many children in there, cowering in their cribs, with no one to hold them or reassure them that they were safe.

    Some of my “orphaned children” were shame and embarrassment. I’d felt these feelings many times in my life, and they’d prevented me from sharing my skills or even recognizing that I had any at all.

    I also had angry orphaned children who had been made to believe that anger was negative and bad, not positive fuel for creativity and healthy boundaries.

    And then there were my sad orphaned children, who had not properly grieved the loss of their father, who’d passed in my late twenties.

    These parts of me didn’t need to be alienated; they needed my love, care, and attention.

    I’d orphaned these feelings because I didn’t want them to be part of me, but because of this, I lived a half-life for a long time. Rejecting my feelings, ironically, fueled my depression, because you can’t selectively numb your emotions. When you numb any, you numb all.

    Instead of embracing these suffering children, I’d created diversions to avoid them.

    As a child, I used food to avoid feeling lonely, rejected, and broken. In my teens and early twenties, I was a binge drinker, consuming huge amounts of alcohol four days a week to repress my emotions. As an adult, this meant too much coffee and sugar, or I overworked to avoid feeling anything.

    At one point I used “positive thinking” to distract myself from these neglected aspects of myself. This was probably the most powerful distraction, because by thinking I needed to be grateful and happy all of the time, I was automatically rejecting all other emotions.

    It was easier to pretend than to make friends with these aspects of myself.

    I eventually realized that I couldn’t do this to myself anymore. I no longer wanted to lie or consider a huge part of my nature, my shadow, wrong.

    Self-compassion and self-acceptance are so important if we are to be balanced human beings. If we are unable to acknowledge and accept the pain inside of ourselves, how can we ever expect that things will change? How can we be less judgmental of other people if we judge ourselves harshly most of the time?

    Embracing pain isn’t easy. It takes courage and commitment to take this transformative path, to begin to reframe depression and other mental health issues as a gift, as an awakening, to help us return to who we really are, which is loving, kind, compassionate, and accepting.

    Though the darkness had felt safe, I eventually realized that I was afraid of the light because it illuminated those dark corners where my orphaned emotions live.

    It was time to stop fighting my feelings and give them a new home in my heart. Here’s how I did just that.

    Embracing My “Orphaned” Emotions

    1. Acknowledge.

    The first thing I had to do was to acknowledge that I had been avoiding my pain, and to accept that it was okay that I did this. If I beat myself up for deserting parts of myself for so long I’d just be putting further shame or blame into that orphanage.

    I had to accept that sadness, fear, anger, and rage were healthy emotional experiences, sometimes necessary, and that I’d previously rejected these feelings as a way to protect myself until I was ready to face who I truly am.

    If you’ve also abandoned your most wounded, fragile parts, decide to break the cycle now. Acknowledge what you did but also why, and have compassion for yourself.

    2. Get to know your feelings.

    Take the time to get to know these pain feelings, but do so as an unconditional mother would, without judgment, without needing to fix or make the feelings anything other than what they are. When sadness or sorrow comes up, take a quiet moment to witness this child within with loving attention.

    3. Accept them as gifts.

    Our feelings are not there to make our lives miserable; they’re there to show us what may not be working in our lives, or what needs to change.

    When I accepted that depression was a gift, I began judging myself less harshly and embracing the feelings I’d repressed for so long. Essentially, I started accepting all of myself.

    I’d gotten comfortable viewing myself as a failure, and I thought my unconventional life confirmed that’s what I was. I was living with my best friend who was in his seventies. I was single, poor in my eyes, and unattractive. I believed that because I didn’t have my life together in my forties—I didn’t have a home of my own, a partner, or a successful career—I wasn’t acceptable or enough as I was.

    My depression was a sign that I needed to change how I viewed myself. This enabled me to see not only that I am enough as I am, but others are enough, exactly as they are right now.

    Instead of stuffing down your depression, anxiety, shame, loneliness—or whatever emotion you’re tempted to resist—ask yourself: What message is it trying to send to me? What would I do differently in my life if I listened to this emotion instead of suppressing it?

    4. Remember it’s not a race.

    When I first started owning my shadow I found it challenging to stop my avoidance practices, but I initially tried to rush through this process. I thought I could immediately accept all feelings, whenever they arose, without ever giving in to my old habits.

    I eventually realized I had to be kind to myself and to take each new step as mindfully as possible. I also had to understand that I would probably fall back into old habits at times and accept this was all part of the healing process.

    It takes regular practice and persistence to welcome those unwanted emotions time and time again. It takes time to internalize that it’s not about getting rid of any feelings, but about welcoming them as part of self-love and personal growth.

    5. It’s all about trust.

    Becoming aware of our painful emotions is only one step. Until we are able to fully welcome and embrace them, life will trigger us to love them further. Things will happen that evoke all the feelings we want to avoid—challenges in our work, relationships, and other aspects of our lives.

    We can turn back and ignore the triggers, or we can trust that whatever shows up is meant to teach us unconditional love. It takes faith and trust to love shame, anger, and fear. We need to trust that this is worthwhile and that we’re capable of re-parenting ourselves in a more wholesome way.

    —

    I know that my old ways of avoiding and distracting myself from the pain never worked—that I had to go through it to go beyond it, and that going beyond it does not mean I will never feel sad or despairing again. I will, but I can do so from a place of trust, knowing I will be okay, because I now understand that all of me is lovable, and I am enough exactly as I am right now.

  • Accepting My Autistic Self: Why I’m Done Trying to Fit In

    Accepting My Autistic Self: Why I’m Done Trying to Fit In

    “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.” ~Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

    A common misconception about autistic people is that we don’t care if we’re alone. Of course this varies with each person, but on the whole, it’s untrue. We want to feel included, it’s just not easy for us to fit in. There are other days when I feel autism has separated me so fully from other people that I am functioning on a different plane of existence, not just with a different brain structure.

    I attended a child’s birthday party recently, and it was a sensory nightmare. Children screaming, rain pouring, karaoke, a pinata, one incredibly friendly, one-ish looking, adorable baby boy who used me as a jungle gym. Before all of this was simultaneously happening, my family had arrived a few minutes early to secure a good parking spot.

    The five of us unloaded from our van and went inside. There was mostly family there, no one unknown yet, only a half dozen people, still pretty quiet and cozy. My sister-in-laws were doing rounds with the multiple sets of in-laws and close friends everyone knows.

    Recently diagnosed, I’ve been making more of an effort to put aside my discomforts and reach out in different ways to form stronger family bonds for my children. I usually retreat to my phone during children’s parties that are not my own children’s, but this time I attempted to mimic my sisters-in-law. I put my purse away and went in turns attempting to make conversation with my family.

    The same experience happened with five different people. They would say something and I would reply with something in return. After each time I spoke it was as if I’d said nothing; they would speak after my comments as if I had interrupted them, despite me answering direct questions or comments.

    I gave up on conversation when things started getting busy, and switched to attempting to give my niece the blanket I’d been crocheting for eighteen months. My niece is only almost one, so I gave it to her mom to open. She did not take it from my outstretched hand, nor did she show interest in it while I was there.

    When all our kids were settled in the car and my husband was driving home, it began. Anxiety, guilt, self-doubt. What do I do wrong? Why can I not think of things to say that spur conversation? I’ve spent a large amount of time trying to understand facial expressions I was not built to read. Did I not read them well? And how could I still be failing at talking about the weather?

    I asked my husband, what am I doing so wrong? I did all the same things that my neurotypical sisters-in-law did. Why did they not chat with me for fifteen minutes like they all did with everyone else? I showed interest in their lives, taking care to avoid my special interests.

    I stewed over it, I cried and called myself a failure because I can’t seem to connect with people and can’t pass for normal, even though I now know why, after thirty years.

    I was crushed that knowing why I was different made no impact when it came to bridging the difference. As I continued to think about this I eventually concluded that not knowing my diagnosis, or if I even had one, gave no one an excuse to treat me poorly.

    Then I realized there was nothing wrong with how I attempted to connect. The problem wasn’t me; it was the people I was trying to interact with. I asked myself, who and what was I failing? People who wouldn’t even talk to me.

    I then remembered that I get to choose how I react. I get to choose to feel bad or move on, and I needed to ask myself what I wanted to feel—and what I deserved to feel. So I decided right then I don’t want to be affected by people who simply don’t care for me.

    I will probably never connect with my sister-in-laws, not one of the four. I’ve put in a lot of effort trying and failing. The way I choose to see it now, I was born with the ability to weed out shallow relationships.

    I didn’t do anything wrong besides not be my true self. The traits I was born with should not determine other people’s treatment of me, just as my treatment of others is not dependent on them, just myself.

    I will never pass for your typical wife or mother. I didn’t for the first thirty years of my life when I didn’t know I was autistic. I doubt I will in the next thirty years with an explanation for my traits and behavior. I am learning that is not just okay, but great.

    I choose now to live like it’s not my job to sacrifice my comfort because I socialize differently. I don’t owe anyone “normalcy.” I don’t need to try to mask my autism by copying a seemingly normal routine. By attempting this I stole the joy out of my own experience. I felt anxious and frustrated and ultimately like a failure.

    I still crave company, but good company will come on its own. They won’t expect me to fake anything, mimic anyone, or wonder or ask why I seem different. They will just be with me and accept me as I am.

    Being autistic has impacted my entire life, and for most of my life I never understood what was happening. I got blessed with an extra set of challenges I had no choice over. But I do get to choose how strong those challenges make me.

    I choose to get stronger every day. I choose to be my own hero. Every day, I choose to let go of my self-doubt and hold on to my true self.

  • How Getting Hit by a Bus Taught Me to Stop Worrying and Start Living

    How Getting Hit by a Bus Taught Me to Stop Worrying and Start Living

    “Sometimes it takes a good fall to really know where you stand.” – Hayley Williams

    How often do you appreciate the pleasure of taking a deep breath? Have you stopped worrying about what the world can do to you, and instead focused on what you can do in the world? Do you actively appreciate your life, as a part of your daily routine?

    Odds are you do not. I know I certainly didn’t, until it was nearly taken from me.

    I’ve been riding bicycles around New York City since I was a child. While cycling in the city used to be considered something of an extreme sport, in the last couple of years the city built bike paths on many streets and avenues, making it safer.

    It was during this expansion that I was hit by a bus.

    In 2009 I would ride my bicycle to and from work every day, using bike lanes whenever possible.

    Nights were a different story. I avoided certain roads because the prevalence of bicyclists who would travel the wrong way without using any lights raised the spectre of a crash, and falling out of the bike lane and into traffic.

    When I feared Central Park West would be a dangerous way north, I would use Amsterdam Avenue instead.

    While the law says that cyclists must use bike lanes when they are marked, it is also the law that cyclists must be accorded eighteen inches of roadway on all roads in the state. Thus riding on roads without bike lanes is not illegal by any stretch of the imagination, only dangerous.

    I figured that, on balance, it was less dangerous than hitting an invisible cyclist coming straight at me out of the darkness.

    It was sunny at 4:30 pm on November 22, 2011. Sunset was an hour away, but I was worried that it would get dark during my commute, so I took Amsterdam home.

    The temperature was comfortable, and the traffic was not too heavy. I was riding my Bike Friday custom folding bicycle, past where I used to play billiards as a boy, past some high-end bars, and past a parked police cruiser. That’s where I was hit.

    A Peter Pan bus was headed to New England on Amsterdam Avenue. Like most private bus drivers, the driver was hurried.

    He was hustling to beat the evening rush. Getting stuck in traffic before the interstate would mean arriving late to his destination. Once on 10th/Amsterdam Avenue, he put the pedal down, weaving through traffic to get north as quickly as possible.

    When the bus undertook a car, weaving into the rightmost lane, the side of the bus struck my shoulder, then the left handlebar of my bicycle.

    I wobbled to the right, and the bike, its wheel turning ninety degrees as a result of the handlebars being struck, spun out from under me, sending me flying.

    As I catapulted through the air, my instincts took over. Years spent studying Japanese martial arts taught me how to take a break-fall, and to tuck my chin so my neck would not snap on impact.

    I did what I could.

    When I landed on my left side, I injured my spine in ways that would only reveal themselves shortly after the lawsuit was over. I tore the labrum in my left shoulder. I was, however, not dead.

    When I tucked my chin and turned my body away from the bus, I ensured that while the wheels of the bus ran over my backpack, they missed my head and spine, coming nowhere near my extremities.

    I can still recall the feeling and sound of the air whipping past my neck as the rear wheels of the bus passed within inches of my head, pulling my backpack under so hard that the shoulder straps tore completely.

    The bus driver just kept going.

    The police car immediately chased the bus as soon as I was hit, catching up to it several blocks later. When the cops returned, they were shocked that I was not dead, since they had seen this sort of thing before, and it “always” ended in death.

    After I staggered out of the roadway, I texted my wife, who collected me and took me to the hospital. I was in total shock, and my thoughts were a mess.

    At the hospital, I told the nurse at reception what happened. “How do you feel?” she asked.

    “Like I’ve been hit by a bus,” I said.

    It took a while to process what happened. There’s a reason they call the state you’re in after an accident “shock” after all. The night after the accident, I felt okay, and went to bed. The next morning, I was in so much pain, I couldn’t move.

    There was a lawsuit. There was physical therapy. It wasn’t fun. At the same time, I went through the accident, lawsuit, and recovery, I was questioning my choice of career, and there were massive layoffs at my company, of which I was eventually a statistic.

    Newly unemployed and physically damaged, I was forced to take stock of things. Was I happy? Should I keep chasing a career that made me miserable? How would I feel if I had to look down the barrel of a gun one more time?

    Looking Death In The Eye Is Transformative

    Coming face to face with death helped clarify things. Death puts life in high relief. You take stock of the elements of your life and see them objectively because you aren’t thinking about the experience of them so much as the existential question of “Is there a point to this?”

    Trust me, the question becomes easier to answer after a near-death experience.

    For a start, I knew I truly loved my wife and she loved me. Our relationship became stronger from enduring my injuries. I appreciate her even more with each passing day. She is one of the puzzle pieces that fits perfectly.

    After all, what are the odds of meeting one specific person, then dating them, then marrying them, in a city as big as New York, especially considering that she isn’t from the USA?

    I savor every day with her, because I know how unlikely our meeting was, and how it was nearly all undone under the wheels of the Peter Pan bus.

    How about my career, the one I thought defined me as a person? I realized how much I really hated my job—the one I’d recently lost.

    I started to explore other applications of my skills. I found not one, but several. I use this as a platform to elevate and better myself each day. I was immediately happier, and all of my long-term professional dreams came closer.

    Most of all, I learned to live deliberately.

    I make it a point to keep in touch with my parents regularly. When I am not working, I make sure to disengage so that I can devote my full attention toward my children.

    I spend more time appreciating the beauty of Mother Nature, even if it means just a quick stroll in the park with my family.

    And even though life keeps me busy and it’s harder to maintain friendships as an adult, I’ll try to check in with a few of my close friends to let them know that I appreciate them in my life.

    I also spend less time worrying about who I’m supposed to be and more time focusing on who I want to be.

    Growing up in a typical Asian family, my parents taught me that success in life means getting into high-paying professional careers. Jobs like accountants, doctors, lawyers, and engineers are the preferred ones. So, you can imagine how devastated they were when they discovered I became a graphic designer instead. At that point in life, I felt as if I’d let them down.

    Life hands us scripts all the time. The people around us make superficial assessments of who we are and tell us, in words or actions, who we can and cannot be. Sometimes they underestimate us because of how we look, or discount us because of how we sound.

    And most of the time, we take these scripts and use them as guides to our path, afraid of diverging from the set plots.

    We believe that we are expected to look a certain way, live a certain way, in order to be deemed as worthy by the society. But what happens when life throws us a curveball—like being hit by a bus and being let go from your job?

    Those are not part of the script. Without any guidance, we let ourselves believe that the script ends there.

    Allowing all the scenes in your script to come from the world is letting your life be up to a roll of the dice. The truth is, we are the authors of our script. It is up to us to write the script we want to follow, because no one else is going to.

    We may face a disaster because that’s part of the meta-plot of our scripts, but how we respond to it is up to us. We may not get to decide which cards we’re dealt, but we get to decide how we respond to each of the cards.

    In the face of disaster, we can either let that moment become the defining source of lifelong disability or grievance, or we can use it as motivation to realign our priorities with the things that make us happy.

    There’s this myth that one day the world will discover you while you’re going about your mundane life. This just doesn’t happen. The world isn’t going to discover you, it’s going to hit you with a bus. The world isn’t an author you want to put in charge of your life’s story.

    So where did my script lead? All the changes I’ve mentioned were adjustments made in a moment redirecting the vectors of my life, but they were only moments; turning points now years in the past. Most of the time I live with a single effect of the accident: I feel alive.

    Living isn’t just a state of being anymore, it is an active experience. Even when my body reminds me of the many ways it is dinged up, I’m reminded that I am alive, and I savor those feelings, because as bad as I feel some mornings, feeling anything at all is a pleasure, because it means I survived something horrifying, and get to laugh in the face of death.

    My life’s script now also involves less worrying. We usually worry about the things we cannot control, and how they will potentially affect us. Most of the time, the things we worry about don’t materialize, and if they do, they aren’t as bad as we think.

    Years ago, I worried so much about the possibility of being laid off by my company that it kept me awake with cold sweats on many nights. Unfortunately, my worry turned into a premonition. But I also realize that worrying didn’t prevent anything from happening, and in the end, getting laid off was for the best.

    So, why spend any life’s precious moments worrying?

    Life’s too short for that.

  • How to Find Your Fighting Spirit When Life Gets Tough

    How to Find Your Fighting Spirit When Life Gets Tough

    “Sometimes, life will kick you around, but sooner or later, you realize you’re not just a survivor. You’re a warrior, and you’re stronger than anything life throws your way.” ~Brooke Davis

    No matter how positive we are, how healthily we live, or how much kindness, generosity, or fairness we practice, shit happens. To all of us. And suddenly, we find ourselves juggling more balls than it seems humanly possible to juggle.

    I’ve had my share of this…

    When my father died suddenly when I was in my twenties. When I was lost in a bottomless depression for two years in my thirties. When I had to undergo neurosurgery to remove a brain tumor in my forties.

    It seems that I got one ‘biggie’ like that in every decade of my adult life!

    They knocked the wind out of me, plunged me into unspeakable darkness and despair, and brought me face to face with my worst fears.

    I know what not knowing how to go on feels like.

    Yet somehow, I went on and came through.

    I used to see myself as a survivor—able to bear great pain and live through the suffering until things got better. That’s a quality and a strength, for sure. It’s an acceptance of what’s happening to you. An inner, maybe quiet, determination to still want to live, despite it all. That’s one way of not giving up and making it through.

    But more recently, I’ve been inspired to cultivate another quality I’ve discovered in myself, in addition to that: my fighting spirit.

    It was a revelation to me that, instead of bearing what life throws at me, I can consciously choose not to let it beat me. That I can be a warrior, as well as a survivor!

    Fighting is a way of standing up to your inner voice of discouragement and resignation: a decision to show up and do what you can even when it’s tough and you want to give up.

    And I’m finding that…

    My fighting spirit is a great resource to have in my life toolbox.

    I can call upon it when I need it. It adds to my resilience and self-reliance when life gets tough. And I also find that it comes in handy when I want to make changes for the better in my life, but struggle with the unforeseen complexities of, or resistance to, what I want to do.

    Now, don’t get me wrong: Fight is not always called for when life gets tough.

    Sometimes we need to let ourselves be sad, down, or angry before we can find an appropriate response to what happened to us.

    When we’ve pushed ourselves too hard, we might need to give ourselves the space to rest or even be ill for a while, before finding our way to heal.

    Sometimes all we can do is indeed hang in there and survive as best we can.

    And sometimes we need to let go of the fight, allowing things to happen as they will and going with the flow.

    But fighting is called for when something important is at stake.

    When you need to speak up for yourself (or someone or something that really matters to you). When you want to save a significant relationship that you’re on the verge of losing. When you’re facing a critical illness. Or when you need to stand up to the voices inside you that make you want to shrink away and disappear when it’s important to stay and be seen or heard.

    Recently, I’ve fought more than ever before—and consciously so.

    I’ve fought for living the creative and passionate life I am called to live. For my professional practice to continue to evolve. For my writing to find a place in the world. For my mother, who got diagnosed with Motoneuron Disease in her eighties, to have a dignified last phase of her life. For keeping my gallbladder when I developed a gallstone. The examples are many.

    So, if you’d like some inspiration to discover and cultivate your own fighting spirit, I offer you…

    6 Ways to Find the Fight in Yourself

    These strategies help me when I don’t want to give in to the temptation to throw in the towel too soon. When I need to keep going even though it’s tough. When I need to stand up for what really matters to me. I hope you’ll find them helpful too!

    1. You can do this!

    Make “You can do this!” your mantra, repeating it to yourself, even aloud, when you feel discouraged. Strengthen yourself in every way possible—by exercising, meditating, or arming yourself with knowledge and support—to help you believe you really can handle whatever is coming.

    I remember the time when it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to avoid brain surgery. This is a radical operation, and I was terrified of its risks and what it might do to me. The fact that the surgeons were going to cut into my brain—the center of my consciousness, my thoughts and my reasoning, my story and my memories—made my fears a thousand times worse!

    Yet my fighting spirit kicked in: I got physically fit and strong. I learned what I could about my tumor and my surgery. I did the inner psychological work to oust the demons that had perhaps contributed to bring the tumor on. And I got alternative health support from hypnotherapy, homeopathy, Ayurveda, and even angelic healing!

    As I responded to my challenge in this way, I discovered a voice within me that spoke “I can do this!” into the storm of my fears, growing increasingly loud, strong, and determined.

    2. Don’t let it beat you.

    When adversity strikes, we are faced with a stark choice: We can either let it beat us or not.

    My mother always says to herself, when facing a difficulty, “Who’s the boss here—me or this challenge?” She’s experienced hiding under her desk as a schoolgirl when the bombs fell during the war. She suffered frostbite on her feet in the winter because she didn’t own sturdy shoes. She lived through leaving her homeland to start a new life in a foreign country. Yet none of this destroyed her.

    Perhaps it is true that hardship builds character. If you never have it tough and you never need to fight, you never learn how. You never build that fighting muscle.

    We all have to face fear, pain, and harshness in life. But we can make a conscious choice to respond in ways that affirm our spirit. We can choose not to be discouraged, not to give in, not to despair—at least not for too long. We can call upon our inner strength, fight back, and rebuild ourselves.

    My mother found her way back to her happy nature after the heaviest blows—the early death of her husband and facing Motoneuron Disease in her eighties. She knows that adversity can only really beat her if she lets it. And I watch in awe as, time after time, she makes a conscious inner decision that she won’t. ‘Cause she’s the boss.

    3. Why do we fall?

    This is from the film Batman Begins. It’s how Batman’s father consoles his son when he’s had a setback. “Why do we fall?” he asks him. When the boy doesn’t have an answer, the father says: “So we can learn how to stand up again.”

    Whether you’re a Batman fan or not, remind yourself of this when you’re down and feel like giving up. Then find your fight and stand up again.

    4. Keep trying—intelligently.

    They say that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Equally, you might not resolve a complex and challenging situation in one day. It may take several attempts to find your way through. Even if one attempt fails, it’s important to keep trying, but keep trying intelligently.

    Ask yourself what you can learn from your previous attempt. What worked, what didn’t, and what you need to do differently this time. Then try again, using those insights. The story goes that Thomas Edison tried and rejected ten thousand combinations of material before he came up with a workable light bulb. Know that your ‘failed’ attempts are the stepping stones that will ultimately lead you to where you want to be.

    5. Keep showing up.

    I have a friend who has had a most debilitating, not clearly diagnosed illness for years. Yet she makes a point, always, to show up whenever possible, in whatever way she can: to work, to choir practice, to family activities…

    She dresses up and puts her make up on. And when she’s too weak to be there in the real world, she’s there online, writing and sharing her beautiful reflections about life. If that’s not fighting spirit, and truly inspiring, I don’t know what is.

    So if you’re struggling too, ask yourself: In what ways, however small, can I keep showing up?

    6. Insist and persist.

    This was one of my methods for getting stuff done when I worked in the challenging and fast-paced world of management consulting. I’d be friendly, charming, great to work with—but I wouldn’t go away until the work that needed doing was done and people had made the contribution that was necessary. My colleagues used to joke that I could be like a dog with a bone.

    Insisting and persisting serves me well when life gets challenging for myself, too: I use it to understand what’s going on, find the help I need, and try different ways of responding to what’s happening. And I won’t stop until I am through.

    Perhaps that’s one kind of stubbornness worth cultivating!

    —

    My fighting spirit is a useful string to my bow of life skills, and I shall be forever grateful for the experiences that helped me discover and hone it.

    Over to you now…

    When life piles on the challenges, and you’re pushed to the edge, where and how do you find your fighting spirit? How do you go on?

  • It’s Not All Love and Light: Why We Can’t Ignore the Dark and Just “Be Positive”

    It’s Not All Love and Light: Why We Can’t Ignore the Dark and Just “Be Positive”

    “The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation.” ~Joseph Campbell

    If you frequent Instagram or any other social media platform these days, you may notice countless posts about positivity, self-help, yoga, and green juice. And gluten-free everything.

    Most of us equate these messages with spirituality and good vibes. I won’t disagree. These messages do promote good vibes. But, the problem is these posts don’t tell the whole story, and once we log off, many of us still feel incomplete, fearful, and insecure because all of these “influencers” and gurus seem to have it all figured out.

    I’m going to let you in on a little secret: None of us has it all figured out. We cannot possibly summarize the complexity and fluidity of our lives in one post or yoga pose. And from experience, I can tell you that before you get to the love and light part, there’s a lot to muddle through. As they say, Instagram posts are oftentimes just someone’s highlight reel.

    It’s easy to get enticed by gurus because they seem to have all the answers and to always be positive no matter what. When I followed a few well-known, self-proclaimed spiritual teachers, I put them on a pedestal and ignored my own inner guru. I also constantly compared myself to them because I wasn’t blissful 24/7, as they seemed to be.

    Thankfully, that was short-lived. While I honor and respect everyone’s journey, I now realize that I resonate with a vibe of authenticity, not one that only allows others to see the positive without ever discussing the dark side of life.

    I’m inspired by the teachers who share their struggles and transmute them in the name of love and healing, not the ones who claim to always be happy and positive, or who claim they have all the answers.

    The spiritual journey is extremely personal. It leads you to connect to your true essence so you can start making choices from your highest self. The self that’s rich with love, joy, and wisdom. The self that knows which course is best for you. The self that wants you to learn self-love and self-fulfillment and to experience joy and overcome challenges with grace.

    You cannot capture all of this on Instagram, I promise you.

    On this journey, every day is a new discovery and adventure, and yes, there will be days where you feel completely off and perfectly human. So, don’t stress; you are still on a spiritual journey even if there are times when you seem “negative” or swear off positive practices like yoga.

    You are still precious.

    You are still loved.

    You are still so incredibly worthy.

    The beauty of the spiritual journey is that while you discover the infinite love inside of you and tap into your beauty and uniqueness, you also fall in love with your humanness. You start to accept that you are meant to feel all emotions, while also finding ways to be in alignment with what feels good to you.

    In my experience, the work—returning home to yourself—begins by simply acknowledging that something is missing and that you feel disconnected, off, or incomplete. From there, you need to lean into the darkness instead of denying it with positivity (what’s known as a “spiritual bypass”).

    The journey will involve facing your beliefs head on and learning to release and reshape the ones that don’t serve you.

    It will ask you to visit parts of your life and mind that you are ashamed of and would rather ignore or kill off.

    It will ask you to release old wounds and drop the revenge-like mentality against people and circumstances that have hurt you.

    It will require you to visit painful memories and comfort that inner child in you who needs to be nurtured.

    It will require you to be honest with yourself about how committed you are to change.

    These are just some of the questions that I have had to answer thus far:

    Am I truly willing to forgive and move on? Am I willing to see a past hurt as a messenger or a lesson?

    Am I willing to make new mistakes with the understanding that no one is perfect?

    Am I willing to question the beliefs that keep me stuck and feeling depleted?

    Am I willing to let go of relationships that drain me?

    Am I willing to change my lifestyle in the name of healing?

    Am I willing to trust life, accept what needs to go, and embrace what needs to stay?

    The answers came with many tears, and there were many days that I didn’t want to get out of bed because all I could do was relive my mistakes. I was cleansing my soul and at times reliving some painful moments.

    I embarked on this journey to connect with myself again, to connect with my divine essence and the joy that had previously eluded me.

    This connection didn’t magically appear. I had some homework to do. I started to slowly change my diet, although I still struggle with that, I had uncomfortable conversations when I needed to speak my truth, and I found new routines that helped me stay connected with my body, including qigong.

    I found peaceful ways to be creative and have fun, like painting. I also showed up to every coaching session with an open heart, an eagerness to learn something new about myself, and a willingness to release old patterns, habits, and thoughts that were keeping me trapped.

    Though I will continuously evolve every day that I am alive, I feel much closer to my personal truth. And I feel more comfortable expressing it. That’s the true journey.

    Many realizations came to me when I slowed down enough to connect with myself. For example, I realized I’d lived my entire life as an extrovert when in fact my deep essence is stillness and introversion. I recharge in the quiet spaces and I nourish myself when I disconnect for a bit.

    This was not an overnight revelation, but a long journey with many layers. I got to my truth (just the tip of it for now) by releasing emotions and beliefs that were just plain heavy and rooted in fear and doubt.

    This took time.

    So, the truth is that no matter how much green juice you drink or how many yoga poses keep you in shape, if the emotional release is not part of the routine, it will be challenging to maintain lasting change. The emotional healing is the hardest part. It’s the part that I resisted for a long time until I became comfortable facing my shortcomings, my past traumas, and my conditioning.

    Change only occurred when I developed a genuine curiosity about my life and how I live it. I was eager to meet my traumas and brave enough to understand my triggers.

    While I have not magically eradicated all of my fears, I have a new perspective and I maintain a daily routine that keeps me feeling loved and protected so that when challenges arise—because they will—I have a foundation of self-love and self-compassion, knowing that we all struggle.

    I try to eat well to balance my moods. I stay creative every day. I pick one tool daily—mantras, my own customized prayers, salt baths, sitting and breathing, walking in nature—to help me with any challenges. And I try to move my body daily. These little efforts keep me centered.

    It’s easy to recite positive mantras and flash the peace sign, but the real transformation begins inside. Once you expose the darkness, love and light can then enter. And when darkness comes to visit again, the light within you will give you strength to face any challenge.

    The light in you will always guide you home. Keep moving—you’re doing great!

  • We Keep Going, One Tiny Step at a Time, and We Should Be Proud

    We Keep Going, One Tiny Step at a Time, and We Should Be Proud

    “Don’t wait until you reach your goal to be proud of yourself. Be proud of every step you take.” ~Karen Salmansohn

    One of the greatest ironies of being human is that we’re often hardest on ourselves right when we should be most proud.

    Let’s say you finally find the courage to start a dream project you’ve fantasized about for as long as you can remember. You push through years of built-up fears, overcome massive internal resistance, and take the leap despite feeling like you’re jumping through a ring of fire, above a pit filled with burning acid.

    It’s one of the most terrifying things you’ve ever done. It dredges up all your deepest insecurities, triggers feelings you’d rather stuff down and ignore, and brings you face to face with the most fragile, vulnerable parts of yourself.

    The fact that you’re even willing to take this risk is huge. Monumental, really. Just getting on this long, winding path is an accomplishment worth acknowledging and celebrating. Most people avoid it. They do what they’ve always done and remain stuck in discontent, wishing they could know a life less limited.

    But you? You’re trying. You’re taking a chance at being who you could be, knowing full well there are no guarantees. You’re a f*cking rockstar. A total badass for giving this a go. But you likely don’t see it that way.

    You likely think you’re not doing enough, or doing it fast enough, or doing it well enough for it to count. You might get down on yourself for not learning more quickly, or having a perfectly honed vision and plan from the start.

    Instead of giving yourself credit for every inch you move forward, you might beat yourself up for not leaping a mile.

    Or maybe you’re not pursuing a dream for the future. Maybe you’re facing a pain from the past.

    Let’s say you’re finally leaning into your anxiety or depression instead of numbing your feelings with booze, food, or any other distraction. Perhaps you’re in therapy, even, trying to get to the root of your complex feelings and heal wounds that have festered, untended, for years.

    It’s intense, draining work that few can understand because there’s no visible representation of just how deep your pain goes. No way to fully explain how tough it is to face it. No way to show how hard you’re trying, every day, to fight a darkness that seems determined to consume you. So on top of being emotionally exhausted, you quite frequently feel alone.

    Just acknowledging the pain beneath the mental and emotional symptoms is an act of immense bravery. And allowing yourself to face it, however and whenever you can—well let’s just say they should give out medals for this kind of thing. You’re a f*cking hero. A total badass for doing the work to save yourself. But you probably don’t see it that way.

    You might think you aren’t making progress fast enough. Or you’re weak for having these struggles to begin with. Or you suck at life because sometimes you fall back into old patterns, even though on many other occasions, you don’t.

    Instead of giving yourself credit for every small win, you might beat yourself up for being a failure. As if nothing you do is good enough, and you’ll never be good enough, because you’re not perfect right now.

    Because if it’s not all happening right now—the healing, the growth, the progress—it’s easy to fear it never will. And it will be all your fault.

    If it seems like I’m speaking from personal experience, that’s because I am.

    I followed a decade of depression and bulimia with years of self-flagellation for not healing overnight and magically morphing into someone less fragile.

    I responded to childhood trauma by abusing myself for acting insecure and emotionally unstable, even when I was actively trying to learn better ways to live and cope.

    And I crucified myself for every cigarette and shot when I was trying to quit smoking and binge drinking, even though I quite frequently went long stretches of time without doing anything self-destructive.

    Through all this internal whip cracking, I consistently reinforced to myself that I was weak for not changing overnight when really I should have acknowledged I was strong for making any progress at all.

    It was like I was watching myself treading water, with broken limbs, while screaming at myself to hurry up and get stronger instead of throwing myself the rope of my own self-encouragement.

    In retrospect, this makes sense. This is how most of us learn growing up—not through validation but punishment. We far more often hear about what we’re doing wrong than what we’re doing right. So instead of supporting ourselves through our deepest struggles, we berate ourselves for even having them.

    Though I’ve made tremendous progress with this over the years, and I’m no longer in crisis, I still find myself expecting instant perfection at times.

    I’m currently pushing myself far beyond the edge of my comfort zone—so far I can’t even see it from where I’m precariously floating.

    I’m writing more here on the site after years of working through an identity crisis I’ve never publicly discussed.

    I’m trying to get funding for a feature film I wrote, with themes that are deeply personal to me, knowing the “low budget” is still no easy amount to raise, and I might fail spectacularly.

    I’m working on multiple new projects with third party companies—something I’ve avoided in the past because I’m a control freak who doesn’t easily trust others to take the reins.

    And I’m doing it all while pregnant—six and a half months to be exact—at almost forty years old. So on top of all the usual fears that accompany big risks and changes, I’m juggling your garden-variety new parent concerns, with a few geriatric-pregnancy-related worries for good measure. (Yes, geriatric. My uterus could be a grandmother!)

    I’m pushing myself into a new league, far outside my little work-from-home introvert bubble, while frequently feeling both physically and emotionally exhausted. And I’m finally giving myself the leeway to evolve after years of saying I wanted to grow but refusing to let go of my comfort to enable it. Really, I should be proud.

    Every time I take a meeting when I’d rather do only what I can accomplish myself, every time I send an email for a new opportunity when it would be easier to passively wait for whatever comes to me, every time I push myself to be the brave, fulfilled person I want to be for both myself and my son, I should throw myself an internal parade. A festival complete with a float in my own image and endless flutes of the best champagne. (I know, I’m pregnant, but it’s internal, remember? Keep the bubbly flowing!)

    But do I do this? To be fair, yes. Sometimes I do. And I’m proud of myself for that. I’ve come a long way from the self-abusive girl who only knew to motivate with intimidation and fear.

    But other times I can be pretty hard on myself. It’s like I have this vision of how this all should work, and when, and I blame myself if I can’t meet my rigid expectations on my ideal timeline.

    I don’t always step back and see the big picture: That there are many external factors I can’t control, and I need to be adaptable to deal with them. That it’s hard to learn new things, and no amount of willpower or dedication can make the process instant. That some things simply take time, and this isn’t a reflection of my worth or my effort.

    I get impatient. I get frustrated. I get anxious and resistant.

    And really it all comes down to attachment. I resist this slow, uncertain process, and bully myself into making things happen more quickly, because I want these things so bad I can taste them, and I fear they may never happen at all.

    I want the freedom these new opportunities could provide. I want the fulfillment of bringing my creative vision to life. I want the things I tell myself I should have made happen years ago, and I want them now so I can focus on the joy of attainment instead of beating myself up for having “wasted time.”

    But none of this internal drama is useful or productive, and it certainly does nothing for my motivation or focus. It’s nearly impossible to create from your heart when it’s totally eclipsed by anxiety and fear.

    The only way to do anything effectively is to accept where you are, let go of the outcome, and throw yourself into the process.

    So going forward, when my mind tries to bully me into doing more than I reasonably can or shame me for my pace or my progress, I’m going to remind myself I’m doing better than I think. We all are. And we all deserve more credit than we likely give ourselves.

    We all deserve credit for facing our demons, chasing our dreams, and showing up every day when it would be easier to hide.

    We all deserve acknowledgment for every tiny step forward, no matter how slow or timid, because creating change is hard.

    We all deserve recognition for the many internal hurdles we overcome, even though they’re not visibly apparent to anyone else, because often they’re harder to tackle than even the most challenging external obstacles.

    And we all deserve the peace of knowing that who we are right now is enough. Even if we have room to grow, even if there are things we’d like to achieve, we are good enough just as we are. And it’s okay to be right where we are.

    It’s okay to be messy, inconsistent, and not always at our best. It’s okay to feel insecure, unsure, lost, confused, and scared. It’s okay to make massive advances on some days and just get by on others.

    Would it be nice if we could instantly transport ourselves to the idealized future we see in our heads? Sure. But that’s not really what it means to “live our best life”—despite what our YOLO-promoting culture would have us believe.

    Living our best life is embracing what is, while working to create what can be. It’s doing the best we can with what’s in front of us, and accepting that nothing else is guaranteed. Because this is the only moment we know for sure we have.

    I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get to the end of my life and realize I missed most of it because I always felt it needed to be more—and that I needed to be more—to fully appreciate and enjoy what I had while I had it.

    So today, I’ve decided to be proud. Of my strength, my efforts, my progress, and the fact that I keep going. Whether I’m wounded, weary, or worried, I keep getting back up. I keep moving forward. I keep evolving. I am doing the best I can. So are you. And that’s something worth celebrating.

  • What to Ask Yourself When You Feel Lost, Unsure, or Confused

    What to Ask Yourself When You Feel Lost, Unsure, or Confused

    “The quality of your life is a direct reflection of the quality of the questions you are asking yourself.” ~Tony Robbins

    I am naturally inclined to do—to go, to move, to take action. Slowing down takes a lot of patience for me. But I often find that moving too quickly actually causes me more confusion.

    One day, my head felt overwhelmed with questions. What had started with a simple idea of little ole me living in a tiny house on wheels (one of those under 200 square feet homes built on a trailer) had turned into a big undertaking of building a tiny house community.

    I had just driven across the country towing a twenty-nine-foot Airstream trailer. It was my first ever purchase on eBay. I had another tiny house in the process of being built and yet another I was about to pick up.

    Things were moving. But I felt like inside I was battling with a doubt that wanted me to come to a screeching halt.

    The predominant question that kept pounding in my mind was: Is this going to work?

    Then I just gave in, sat down, and started to write.

    I wrote down this question and all of the related and unrelated questions that were circulating in the cloud of doubt in my mind.

    In that moment, I discovered a personal practice that I’ve used many times since when I feel lost, doubtful, or unsure of which way to go. It helps me take intentional action toward my goals, and it’s really quite simple:

    I evaluate the questions I’m asking about my work and life and change them to questions that empower me instead of stressing me out.

    We all want something in common, and that is clarity. We want to move forward with integrity and purpose.

    No matter if your life feels like a roller coaster or it’s running as smoothly as ever, there is one thing that never changes: You will always ask yourself questions.

    I personally believe that when you are stretching yourself to grow and pursue a dream, you will have more than one question floating around your mind. They may even bombard you most of the day.

    Questions aren’t inherently bad; they can help us go deeper to understand what we need to do to move forward—if, that is, we ask ourselves the right questions.

    A lot of times, we ask ourselves questions that undermine our confidence in our ability to do the things we know we need to do.

    Some undermining questions include:

    • Is this going to work?
    • Why can’t I figure this out?
    • What’s wrong with me?
    • Why does it seem easier for everyone else?
    • How do I get this person/these people to think/do xyz?

    The problem with the above questions is that they place you in a victim or scarcity mindset instead of giving you a sense of control and empowering you to take responsibility.

    You know a question is undermining if it meets the following criteria:

    1. It makes you feel bad.

    Although empowering questions can be challenging, they won’t make you feel like crap about yourself. An undermining question makes you find fault with yourself, others, or your situation. An empowering question prompts you to focus on patterns that are causing or contributing to your challenges, and it also helps you find a solution.

    One way to convert an undermining question is to flip it to the opposite.

    For example, change “What is wrong with me?” to “What is right with me?” or “What behavior can I improve?” This helps you focus on your strengths, what’s working, and how you can learn and grow.

    2. You can answer it simply “yes” or “no.”

    This might seem counterintuitive, because we ask ourselves questions to find clarity, and what can be clearer than “yes” or “no”? But the reason you are asking the question in the first place is because there’s more to it than that.

    Often we just want a quick answer because it feels uncomfortable being in uncertainty. But there’s something more to explore, and there is greater power in a deeper answer.

    Another way you can convert an undermining question to an empowering one is to change it to something that requires a thoughtful answer.

    For example, like the undermining question I was asking myself about my tiny house community, change “Is this going to work?” to “How is this going to work?” By changing the question, you are presupposing that it will work—you simply need to figure out how.

    3. It defers the power to someone else rather than yourself.

    We all fall into potholes where we defer power, blame, and control to someone else, even those of us far down the path of personal development. When we ask questions to figure out what other people will think about us or how to get someone or a group of people to do something, we are placing our problem-solving energy outside of ourselves, where we have little leverage.

    A way to convert this kind of undermining question to an empowering one is to change the focus to yourself.

    For example, change “How do I get this group of people to do what I want them to do?” to “What actions do I need to take to achieve what I want to accomplish?” This allows you to lead by example, putting all of the power back in your court.

    Changing your undermining questions to empowering ones can help create a lot more peace, expansion, and clarity. And when you answer those empowering questions for yourself, you may feel like you just unloaded a bag of bricks from your head.

    Try this Exercise…

    Here is a simple process for unloading, examining, and finding answers to your own questions:

    Step 1: Unload

    Grab your journal and write down every question you are asking yourself about your business, work, relationships, and life right now. Write until you cannot think of any more questions and you start repeating yourself.

    Step 2: Examine

    Look through your questions. Are any of them undermining? If so, convert them to empowering questions, using the tools above.

    Step 3: Answer

    For the questions you have remaining, take time to journal your own answer to each one. Don’t think, just write and see what comes out.

    You can do this process as often as you like. I find when I do it, I feel clear for a substantial amount of time, and confident, because I know I have a process I can use whenever I feel lost.

  • Overcoming Intergenerational Trauma: We Can Break the Cycle of Abuse

    Overcoming Intergenerational Trauma: We Can Break the Cycle of Abuse

    “Our ancestors knew that healing comes in cycles and circles. One generation carries the pain so that the next can live and heal. One cannot live without the other, each is the other’s hope, meaning and strength.” ~Gemma B. Benton

    I thought I had no value, my opinion meaningless. My sense of self was decimated. Finally, I got angry and attacked.

    “You can’t imagine the pain you’ve put me through!” I yelled. “You don’t even know who I am. You can’t see it. You’re refusing to take responsibility for the way you raised me! Not thinking is not an excuse! You don’t even care to try to understand what you’ve done to me!”

    This was me to my retirement-age parents about a year ago. Those yelling sessions happened several times. They called the police on me once.

    None of it did an ounce of good. They can’t see it.

    The more I have experienced with depression, anxiety, and recovery, the more I am convinced that the events and circumstances of my past—and my parents’ past—have shaped me much more than my brain chemistry.

    I’m pretty confident that the problems I’ve suffered from are derived from generations of unhealthy behavior. I believe the effects of intergenerational trauma shape us much more than we might realize.

    I’m not a researcher, so I only have my own experiences to base this on; it very well could be different for someone else. But from what I’ve seen from my grandparents through my kids, this succession of trauma is difficult to break. It takes different forms, but it always rears its ugly head. In my grandparents, it was alcoholism; in my parents, physical abuse; me, emotional abuse.

    I don’t consider any of us to be bad people, but we have each passed horrible things on to our children.

    My mom’s dad was an alcoholic and very strict. Her mom didn’t actively do anything wrong, but she turned a blind eye to what her husband was doing. Mom won’t talk directly about it, but reading between the lines, I believe her brother abused her as well.

    My dad’s dad was killed in a car accident when my dad was five. That left my dad as the man of the house, with no father figure. His mom never remarried and worked full time to support the family, meaning my dad was mostly on his own.

    So then, this is how it all added up for me: Because of the abuse she suffered, my mom became a narcissist with no empathy. My dad became an absentee father who always blindly agreed with my mom. I was raised so that every good thing I did reflected well on my mother, and every mistake I made was my own fault.

    It took me forty-four years to unravel all this. I’m still trying to figure out who I really am. I know I crave attention and approval from women. I’m insecure and selfish. At times, sometimes for long stretches, I distance myself from my wife and kids. But I’m working on it.

    I’m also working on forgiving my parents. It’s not easy, but I know it’s necessary for me to keep progressing. They’re just flawed people, like me, after all. I’m mainly having trouble with my mom, a selfish, self-centered, and ignorant woman.

    If I forgive my parents, it will be for my own peace of mind. I will know then that I did everything in my power to make peace with them. That doesn’t mean, though, I want to keep them or my extended family in my life.

    Some people aren’t going to change, and we each have the right to decide whether we want that kind of person around us. I feel that most of my family is dysfunctional. It’s a really tough decision.

    My mom’s favorite excuses for her behavior, which she refuses to acknowledge, are “That’s the way I was raised” and “I never thought about it.” Must’ve been glorious to live a life and raise a child without responsibility.

    I know I need to do better. I need to take responsibility for creating change and break free from the intergenerational beliefs and behaviors I see as unhealthy. My family sees this as a rebuke.

    To find my hope, meaning, and strength, I may have to leave my entire family behind. That’s a heavy decision, but it’s one I will probably need to make.

    It will mean that I’ve learned the lessons of my parents and used them to bring power and strength to myself and my children. I can only hope that happiness and peace come along for the ride. That would be the greatest gift I could give to my kids.

    I can’t sit around waiting for the negativity and condescension to go away, or for them to make an effort to understand my problems. In order for me to get better and start living my own life, I need to be the one making the rules. I need to be positive and I need to take care of myself.

    In being raised as children and in raising our own children, we receive many messages. Some are helpful, some are hurtful. We need to be aware of those messages as adults, discarding the harmful ones and emphasizing the healthy ones. We need to be honest with ourselves and others, and willing to admit when we’re wrong. We need to constantly question everything.

    Some of the messages I received growing up were “You’re not as good as you should be,” “Conformity is good, being different is bad,” and “You don’t matter enough,” sprinkled in with healthy doses of guilt.

    My wife and I have tried to instill the opposite in our kids. Everyone matters. Your opinions and feelings are valid and important. Be yourself and follow your dreams.

    None of this is easy. It takes awareness, courage, and the determination to live a better life.

    Some will have bigger hills to climb. Some will look around and find the support they need has been around them all along. Others will be alone and will have to dig deep inside themselves to find the strength to live better.

    No matter our situation, we all deserve the happiness that comes with living our best lives. And the secret isn’t money or success; it’s filling our lives with love. This requires us to heal any childhood wounds that prevent us from giving and receiving love.

    Your present may be built on your past, but it doesn’t have to be controlled by it. In order to break the chains of intergenerational trauma, you will most certainly face some serious challenges. Here are some recommendations from my experiences that may help you.

    Have courage.

    If you look at your past with clear eyes, you’re likely to see a fair bit of unpleasantness. Pain, abuse, manipulation, deceit could all be there. And they could be coming from people you love.

    Facing all of that will take courage and energy. It’s difficult and emotionally exhausting to look at your life objectively. You have to keep reminding yourself to see what’s really there rather than what you’ve always thought or what you want to see.

    Going against the tide of several generations of family is a daunting prospect. You might alienate or offend people you love, but you are worthy of living your life your way.

    Things don’t have to be the way they’ve always been. You don’t need to suffer just because your family chose to suffer in the past. But, understand this is difficult work.

    Have confidence that doing this healthy work for yourself is worthwhile. Stay focused on self-care and keep your eyes on the bigger picture.

    Have a support group.

    A support group can be built of any mixture of people. Friends, relatives, co-workers, or even strangers. It can be formal or informal. The best support groups possess various experiences, perspectives, and personalities.

    What you are doing is huge, and it’s going to be a significant help to have at least one or two people you can lean on while you do this. If you have more, great. But don’t try to do this alone; find yourself a support system before you start.

    My support group is patched together from people who have read my articles and responded to them, people I know from online interest groups, and a few people from real life, too.

    My group has layers, an inner circle I hear from often, a group that checks in every couple of weeks, and a group that is just more encouraging when they hear what I’m up to.

    I’ve had the gift of actually growing my support group while I’m going through this. I’ve opened up to some people and found that we’ve been through similar circumstances. This can give you new ideas and solutions to your problems.

    And don’t forget, a doctor, clergy member, or a therapist can be part of this group for you. You can also consider trying organized local support groups if that appeals to you.

    The more love and support you can gather around yourself, the more strength and conviction you will find you have. This love and support feeds off itself. The more you give, the more you get back.

    Have motivation.

    Remember why you’re doing this. You’re setting out to build a better life for you and your children. The thought of overcoming this pain can be a liberating and positive force.

    Being aware of what put us where we are today will not only give us the motivation but also the direction we need to create positive change for ourselves and our children.

    Not all the changes we make will be successful, but if we keep going and correct our mistakes, we can still help ourselves and our kids learn healthier behaviors. We can stop perpetuating a lineage of abuse, domination, neglect, hurt, and unhealthy coping mechanisms.

    There’s no finish line in overcoming intergenerational trauma. Keep being aware. Keep moving forward, and be the force that is constantly pushing toward healthy change in your family.

  • How to Get Past Doubt and Do What You Really Want to Do

    How to Get Past Doubt and Do What You Really Want to Do

    “Doubt everything. Find your own light.” ~The Buddha

    As far back as I can remember, I’ve allowed my life to be shaped by external forces.

    On the outside, it appeared like I was just another carefree soul, living in the moment and going through life like a leaf on the wind. But on closer inspection, I was actually running away from having to make any real commitments and avoiding getting into a position where I had to make difficult or important decisions.

    It wasn’t until recently, when I realized it was four years to the date since I’d fallen into the job that I’d despised for what seemed like forever, that I even stopped to realize this.

    But on this day, as I stood looking around and contemplating where I’d ended up, I suddenly—and surprisingly—decided that was all going to change.

    Before I knew it, I was acting on something that, until then, had been just a vague, albeit persistent idea floating around in the back of my mind.

    I was applying to go back to university.

    There was little doubt about the decision; it was something I’d be thinking about for a while but had been putting off for as long as possible.

    But sure enough, the doubt soon crept in. I loathed formal education the first time around, and this time I was going to study something that was sure to stop any conversation dead with 99% of people I knew and make me the best friend of my one quirky aunt who’s deep into crystals and horoscopes:

    Mindfulness.

    I knew it was what I wanted. And I was pleased that for once I’d actually stood on my own two feet and made a decision. Not to mention, I was secretly relieved that I wouldn’t have to make another big one for at least a few years.

    But little did I know that was far from how it was going to be.

    In making such a big life choice, I’d made a complete about-turn from my familiar and reliable strategy of avoidance and chosen to stare life directly in the face.

    And I’d forgotten just how scary-looking life can be.

    My instinct to run was immediately triggered. Maybe this isn’t what I really want. Maybe I’ve changed my mind; people change their minds all the time, don’t they? Life would be simple if I just stayed where I am and found another job. It’s not too late to drop out…

    Instead of fleeing like usual, this time I froze. You could say I’d made progress, but it felt like I’d gone backward—despite being unable to move backward, forward, or in any direction whatsoever.

    I was well and truly paralyzed by doubt.

    And I was going to study mindfulness.

    Just perfect.

    My paralysis came from a long-held belief that I needed to be free from all trace of doubt before I could make any major decisions and move forward in life. But as I quickly came to see, if this was the case, then no one would ever do anything they really wanted to do.

    It’s in the nature of the mind to doubt. And whereas I thought the problem was that I’d rushed the decision or hadn’t considered the other options thoroughly enough, it was that I was, in fact, stirring up the murky waters of doubt with my constant questioning, making it all but impossible to see things clearly.

    Nearly six months into once again being a fresher, I’ve made more decisions than during the rest of my life combined. I rarely experience doubt anymore, but when it does appear, I know why it’s there, and rather than indulge it or push it away, I can simply let the water settle before getting on with what I want to do.

    Below is what I learned about doubt broken down into three steps or rules. If you doubt they’ll stop you from putting off big decisions and second-guessing yourself, put that aside for a moment while you read on and discover for yourself.

    1. There will always be a reason not to do something.

    If you try hard enough, you can always find a persuasive enough reason not to do anything.

    You can’t go to the party because you haven’t gotten as much work done as you planned to.

    You can’t start a family because you need to make at least ten grand a year more first.

    You can’t run your own business because you’re already tired and it’s only going to become more demanding.

    When we’re faced with making a choice, our mind often fishes for reasons not to take action, automatically accepting the ones that seem to fit into our fear-driven stories and justify how we feel.

    In this way, we come to relate to our experience according to the ongoing internal narrative about what’s going on, rather than what is actually happening in the new and ever changing here and now.

    It’s easy enough to understand this when you’re reading it in an article. The tricky thing is that when it happens to you, the stories can appear so real that debunking them feels like an impossible task.

    This is even more true with doubt as all the while it will be telling you things like: There’s no point even trying, there’s a reason you can’t but you just haven’t found it yet, and, you’ll always be this way, so you might as well just succumb to your fate.

    But no matter how sophisticated and convincing the story, if it’s going against what you really want or know deep down to be true, then you can be sure it is the doubting mind.

    As a function of the mind’s problem-solving mode, doubt is an incredibly useful tool that can alert us to impending danger, help us think more critically, and enable us to make better decisions. As we spend most our time in this problem-solving mode, though, this vulnerability-seeking mechanism can become chronically switched on and quickly become debilitating.

    Either way, the doubting mind is not you. But how do you know the difference between you and this part of your brain? Well, you don’t—at least not when you’re stuck in this mode, as by definition that’s what the doubting mind will tell you.

    It will tell you that certainty is possible. It will tell you there will always be a better time. It will tell you that you’ll be able to see the future and know how things will turn out if only you consider things a bit longer…

    First things first, then, to break free from doubt, we need to recognize that when we go fishing, we are going to catch some fish. In other words, when you believe that thoughts will give you an answer and will relieve you of uncertainty, you’re only going to create more and more doubt.

    It’s only by letting the water clear that we can start seeing what it reflects more clearly. And to do this, we don’t suppress the doubt—that only stir things up more. But nor do we passively accept it.

    2. Instead of accepting, learn to doubt the doubt.

    In Buddhist theory, overcoming doubt is not a matter of letting it be and having blind faith in something greater, it’s about exploring it through a process of active investigation.

    And what are we most likely to find when we inquire into this kind of doubt?

    Fear.

    For a long time, I believed that in order to be truly ready for something, I’d need to be without fear. That was, after all, what it meant to be fearless, to be a man, a Buddha, a superhero, or whatever other ideal I was guiding my life by.

    Without knowing it, I had thus long been avoiding fear, shielding myself from it, and denying that I was or could ever be scared of anything.

    In this way, I lost the resilience to be able to do anything that was even the slightest bit meaningful to me, and built a life that was safe, limited, and void of the things I really cared about.

    But fearlessness does not mean being free from all fear. It’s the opposite: it’s learning to be so intimate with fear that it no longer controls you. It’s making such a close friend of it that you can use it to propel you forward instead of treating fear as the enemy and allowing it to hold you back.

    You can uncover fear with the sneaky and perspective-shifting act of doubting the doubt. This is essentially the role of meditation and learning to notice thoughts as phenomena that are separate from yourself.

    Through practice, meditation gives us a welcome alternative to pushing away, passively accepting, or being completely swept away by thoughts, allowing us to relate to our own fear in an entirely new and previously unseen way.

    3. If there’s fear, you’re on the right track.

    Because I failed to recognize fear and denied its existence, my doubting mind stepped in to try to solve the problem.

    As opposed to filling me with angst and making my hands pour with sweat, the doubt appeared as a friend trying to protect me. And that makes sense—our doubts and fears are always trying to keep us safe. But a true friend doesn’t hold us back; instead, he or she propels us forward. And fear can do that for us if we let it. As Ram Dass explains, when “you no longer allow fear to step blatantly before you and shout of cataclysm, it will creep behind you and whisper something reasonable in your ear.”

    If we acknowledge fear as a sensation, before the conditioned responses and makeshift interpretations, we see that it is a bubbling energy of potential that isn’t shouting or whispering to us about what we can’t and shouldn’t do, but signaling to us what we can and could do.

    By trying to push it away and remove it from my experience, then, I was mixing up my own recipe for a life of limited potential and of achieving only what happened to fall into my lap. If I learned to be aware of it and recognize it for what it is, however, I could take the same ingredients and use them to cook up a life of unlimited potential and growth.

    You can’t have change, innovation, creativity, and originality—in other words, life—without insecurity, uncertainty, and fear. And so by embracing these fundamental states and changing how you see fear, you can begin to use them to your advantage and live a full life.

    This isn’t about, say, giving in to the fact that leaving your job is terrifying and so getting it over with as quickly as possible. That would mean still categorizing fear as an unwanted foe and trying to conquer it through blind action.

    This is about welcoming fear as a valuable and even desirable part of your experience. It’s about noticing that when you feel terrified about leaving your job, the feeling is saying wow, you must be doing something really challenging and/or meaningful. It’s learning to see fear as a guide that’s there to help you. It might also suggest that you want to prepare yourself, and wait until after your next paycheck, but if deep down, you want to do something different, the fear is telling you “keep going in this direction, you’re on the right track.”

    It’s only by bringing fear, with all its demons, into the light that we can begin to unravel the excuses we have piled upon them—many of which we don’t know are even there until we look. We can then see fear without any pretense, without any doubt, and only then embrace it as the true ally and source of life it really is.

    And if you immediately think you can’t do it, are overcome by your poor track record, or just immediately zone out or want to run and hide, notice this as the doubting mind. Beat it at its own game and doubt it. And then ask yourself, what sort of life do you choose to lead: one of comfort, dissatisfaction, and surety, or one of adventure, fulfillment, and the thrill of diving into the unknown?

  • One of Those Days? How to Deal When Everything Irritates You

    One of Those Days? How to Deal When Everything Irritates You

    “Be proactive not reactive, for an apparently insignificant issue ignored today can spawn tomorrow’s catastrophe.” ~Ken Poirot 

    Do you ever have one of those mornings where the battle against annoying minutiae begins before you’re even truly awake?

    One of those days where you feel the illusion of control fully slipping away. You try to grasp and pull it back, but you really have no control over this day or its outcome, at all.

    We dread these types of days, don’t we? The control freak in me gets uncomfortable thinking about it. Even the Meet The Parents movies make me unsettled, because as more and more things go wrong, I just want to cry out, “Stop it already! Stop making bad choices!”

    I can’t guarantee that I can help you stop making bad choices, but I can give you tips for handling those days when everything minor breaks, stalls, or gets in your way.

    I had a day like this when I was pregnant with my youngest. I never regained my energy back like they say you will in the second trimester. I was tired, achy, and feeling uncomfortably large one morning last spring. Still, being pregnant, with all its discomforts, was the highlight of my day.

    It started with an alarm that didn’t go off—well, we didn’t set alarms anymore. My daughter always wakes early, so no need. That day, she took the morning off. No wakeup call from the toddler.

    We woke up running late in a panic. Then, as our cats had been doing lately, just for fun, they threw up their breakfast on the kitchen floor.

    I looked at the stream of cat vomit and told my husband, “Your turn, I cleaned it up last time.”

    He gaped at the floor, and then looked as if he was considering adding his own vomit to the pile. “No. Can’t do it.”

    “UHHH!!” I fumed, and thus began a morning squabble, the bane of my existence. I hate fighting in the morning more than cleaning up cat vomit, but I was rattled from waking up quickly, so I just went for it and dove headfirst into a fight.

    Fight over, we went our separate ways—he went to work and I stayed at home with our kid.

    Later, my first new phone in four years showed up in the mail. Now, if you have ever tried to set up anything with a toddler in tow, you know it’s like trying to build Ikea furniture in a tornado. But I was excited and needed to reset the vibe of the day, so I called to set it up.

    A new phone shouldn’t have problems from the start, right? Seems reasonable, but I had to keep explaining to the representative that I was setting up a new phone.

    We lost phone connection three times. My toddler needed helping five times. Suddenly both my old phone (that I was talking to the rep on) and my new one wouldn’t work. Confused, I was interrupted by a loud hissing.

    I was making split pea soup in the cooker, which I had forgotten. The neglected pot was spewing hot soup goo all over. Meanwhile my sink, countertop, and the stove were full of dishes.

    Old-fashioned pressure cookers are unpopular because if you move them quickly, you get burning steam shooting out at you. Most people don’t use old-fashioned pressure cookers because of this—smart people.

    There was nowhere to move the pot.

    So I had to move the pressure cooker pot in slow motion. I watched in horror as more and more hot goo spilled over the stove, counter, and flowed like a green boiling waterfall onto the floor.

    I huffed with frustration and started cleaning up—phone temporarily a backseat issue—while trying to keep my kid away from the literal hot mess.

    But I was also proud of myself. I hadn’t taken my frustrations out on anyone. I had carried myself with calm, even though I was boiling over, like the soup pot.

    Smiling, I went to place the cleanup towels in the hamper. There, one entire corner of the floor was covered with broken picture frames and glass. I was shocked. And now broken glass? I hadn’t heard anything fall?? What?!

    Suddenly, it was all too much. I felt anger and frustration rising inside of me. I had enough! I walked into the room away from my daughter and dad, and gave a little scream—not loud enough to scare anyone, but it was enough to release my steam valve.

    I’m guessing you’ve had a day like this before. When one irritating thing after another happened, building major annoyance and frustration, making it hard to keep your cool.

    How can we stop getting riled up by everything that goes wrong in a day?

    Most of us in the Western world have become very busy and, by default, very reactive. This does not set us up well to handle unexpected annoyances. But there are a few things we can do to prepare for these days in advance, and a number of ways we can cope better so we don’t get epically annoyed with all the irritations happening around us.

    A Preventative Plan for Managing Murphy’s-Law-Kinda Days

    1. Be mindful of the influences around you.

    The people we surround ourselves with and the information we consume affect our overall mood. If you’re constantly bombarded with criticism, judgment, or negativity, you’ll likely be primed to snap at little things.

    Are your interactions with others positive and supportive? Is your partner or best friend kind to you? Do you have people around you who have your best interests at heart? Or is getting through every day like walking through a minefield of aggressive, explosive people?

    I don’t have expertise in the area of extricating yourself from abusive or trying relationships, but there are plenty of people who do, so if you find yourself being mistreated and traumatized, take action to help yourself today.

    If you aren’t surrounded by intentionally harmful people, yet you listen to news that drags you down and spend a lot of time with complainers and energy drainers, you are not protecting your sweet soul from the tarnishing effects of others.

    I’m not suggesting that you insulate yourself from every negative thing, but can you minimize that which is optional?

    Can you make an effort to consciously choose to surround yourself with people and media who lift you up and make you a better version of yourself?

    2. Take good care of yourself so you’re balanced going in.

    To thrive even with adversity, you need to take care of the animal that is your human body. This body needs fresh air, water, exercise, rest, and quality food. If you are depriving your body of any of these on a regular basis, it is simply a matter of time until you’re an angry, reactive mess.

    Keeping up your good habits of exercising and eating well is essential. The food you put into your body affects your mood. Sugar can give us an energy high, but after it wears off then there’s an energy low, which can leave you feeling worse than before.

    An unhealthy diet high in sugar and processed food can contribute to depression. And living a sedentary life is a risk factor is well. Exercise releases endorphins, the feel-good hormone, which can help you keep calm when things go wrong.

    If you don’t currently eat well and exercise regularly, a reactive, frustrating day can be a wake up call to start supporting a good foundation of health. Then you can weather these storms better.

    3. Find some time during the day to be quiet, meditate, and get calm.

    Meditation is like training for your mind. It literally rewires your brain to be calmer and less reactive, and it can significantly reduce stress and anxiety. By taking time on a regular basis to be quiet and contemplate, you can sometimes identify nagging small concerns before they become large concerns.

    Spending time in nature can have a similar relaxing effect. Being in nature helps you center yourself and recharge—and there’s even some research to show that a certain bacteria in soil can act as a natural antidepressant.

    If you can get out to nature, please do so as soon as possible. It always helps me immensely to get outside.

    How to Handle Trying Days When They Happen

     1. Ask yourself: Is it the day that is a problem, or is it me?

    This is a tough love type of question, but I think it’s essential to pause and ask yourself what’s really going on. When you have a day in which everything and anything annoys you, take time to reflect. Ask yourself if it’s just a rough day, or if your reaction is a sign that something in your life is out of whack.

    It might just be a fluke of a day where things are going funky right and left. Or maybe you’ve been letting little things build up, and things are boiling over because there’s something big you need to address that you’re ignoring—dissatisfaction with your work, or a compatibility issue in your relationship, for example.

    If there is something big that you’re avoiding, can you face it? Can you find someone who will help you find the courage to address what you need to do—to face what you are afraid of?

     2. Release your pent up emotions.

    Modern living and working close with others means there are lots of times where we have to filter our words and our reactions to act like a responsible adult. All too often we stuff our feelings down until we’re ready to explode—and often on some innocent bystander who doesn’t deserve our rage.

    A healthier approach is to feel and work through our feelings as they arise, and sometimes the best approach is to physically release them from our bodies.

    The relief that a good primal scream or pillow punching episode can provide is so incredible (though these things are best done in solitude, so we don’t offload our emotions onto the people around us).

    Elevated stress levels can be stored in the body and create muscle tension, and cause many other physical/emotional strain. But if we release the stress, we can fluidly move forward. Exercise can also help with this, since it gets our muscles moving, and our heart pumping—another good reason to get active!

    3. Take the pressure off.

    On some of my worst bad days, I give myself permission to check out and chill out. I take time to watch funny videos on YouTube or do a calming visualization meditation. It can feel tempting to plow through our to-do list, especially since we often tie our worth to our busyness and productivity. But sometimes you just need a break to regroup.

    For example, can you find a few moments when you can sit or lie down? Then you can either relax or fill yourself with something silly and lighthearted. Animal videos, anyone?

    4. Lastly, remember that it is okay to have a low day.

    Life will ebb and flow. It’s all right for us to feel low, defeated, or sad some days. If you can cultivate a sense of non-attachment and tell yourself, “Well, that was one bad day. Tomorrow will be different,” you can release your feelings about what happened. You can acknowledge that one low day might just be a dip in a life that is largely good overall.

    If it’s just one annoying day that is bothering you, you’ve likely got a lot still that you can be grateful for. When you can see that you are doing okay, that you have so many things going for you, even in the midst of challenging situations, then you know things are actually going quite well in your life!

    Here’s to rolling with the tricky days and relishing in the good ones.

  • The Key to Acceptance: Understand That Everything Changes With Time

    The Key to Acceptance: Understand That Everything Changes With Time

    “If you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time.” ~Byron Katie

    I love this quote. Ironic, really, because when I first read it, I was furious—furious with my reality and anyone who encouraged me to accept it. In my mind, to accept chronic illness was to accept defeat.

    I had just been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, an incredibly painful condition that had me bedridden most days and unable to care for my then two-year-old daughter, never mind myself. My home became filled with carers and aides and adaptations.

    Rather than starting a new career as a newly qualified occupational therapist, I was struggling with the fear of lifelong pain, the shame of unemployment, and the guilt of not being the active mother I desperately wanted to be. I was in no mood to accept such circumstances in life.

    So how did I move from a position of resistance to one of restoration? How can we find some wiggle room in situations that may feel utterly immobilizing? Well, chocolate and cake help, but what really started creating space for growth was the Buddhist notion of impermanence and the insight, acceptance, and mindfulness that flowed from that.

    Impermanence is a universal law; every single thing is in flux. Take the British weather, for example. We know it’s unpredictable and always changing, so when we go on holiday here, we often take boots and raincoats as well as sunscreen and hats!

    We see this same principle mirrored in ourselves as we change with age. I remember a time when I was washing dishes and, in looking down at my hands, was taken aback at how much they resembled my mother’s. Soft lines and delicate wrinkles that had found a home on my skin stared back at me.

    The profound realization that not a single person or thing is fixed and all is ultimately impermanent can cause some sadness and anxiety, but within this there is a freedom and hope.

    The Glass Is Already Broken

    Someone once asked a well-known meditation master, Ajahn Chah, in a world where everything changes, how can there be happiness?

    The teacher held up a drinking glass and, with much compassion, explained, “You see this goblet? For me, this glass is already broken. I enjoy it. I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on a shelf and the wind knocks it over, or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that this glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”

    When I read this and really let it sink into my bones, slowly, gently, something shifted. I realized then all human life is fragile—sickness doesn’t discriminate.

    Though my ill health had initially caused so much loss and sadness, I was able then to move from a place of “Why me?” to a “Why not me?” It cooled my rage, and the first shoots of acceptance began to show.

    We will all experience pain at some point in our lives. It is part of the package of being human. Accepting this can help ease the suffering enmeshed in pain and encourage us to truly embrace and appreciate life’s pain-free moments, the pockets of joy.

    Saying Hello to the Here of Our Circumstances

    There is a wonderful story in Pádraig Ó Tuama’s book, In the Shelter, about a photojournalist who was returning to a tribe in Papua New Guinea where she had lived as a child. Within this tribe, there was no word for hello. Instead, upon seeing someone, you simply said, “You are here,” and the response, being equally clear, was “Yes, I am.”

    Isn’t that wonderful? No judgment—just acknowledgement of what’s here. When we say hello to the here of our circumstances, no matter how dire or unfair they seem, we’re better able to accept them.

    Acceptance is not defeat. It is an acknowledgment of the truth. Once we accept where we are, we can move forward with greater clarity, courage, and strength. It’s an opportunity to become unstuck, to experience well-being in the midst of our symptoms and beyond our symptoms.

    The Power of Mindfulness

    One thing that helped me get unstuck was mindfulness, which means conscious awareness of our moment-to-moment experience, without judgment.

    When I began to tentatively practice mindfulness each day, I soon realized that my experience of pain was never static. It changed in its intensity and location, and ultimately had many flavors. Sometimes it was a stabbing or burning sensation, at other times a dull ache. I could observe how it felt in different parts of my body and how, like waves, it had a tendency to rise and fall. I was shown how my experience of chronic pain was, like the weather, ever-changing.

    This helped me shift my focus from one of resistance to flexibility. It removed the sting of emotional suffering from my pain, creating a much less devastating and more manageable illness experience.

    I was finally able to whisper a faint hello to the pain and the emotions around it, and the practice of listening became a sort of self-hospitality. I could welcome what is just as I would welcome a friend.

    Within this I also saw the flip side of impermanence, the gift that nothing is set in stone. I was told I would always be in constant pain, but I knew my pain experience was fluid. I had occasional respite from it, even if it was just one hour a day, and with new pain knowledge and Buddhist principles, I was learning to emotionally disengage from it.

    Seven years after my devastating diagnosis, I actually recovered from the pain of fibromyalgia. That was over three years ago, and I have never had to take pain medication for it since, but that’s another story.

    As it stands I’m currently learning to navigate life with another painful chronic illness—hello, broken glass—but I’m much better able to manage it now that I understand the universal truth of impermanence and have nurtured the willingness to say hello to the here (albeit at times begrudgingly).

    If a black mood does settle on me, I try to take myself out for a mindful meander in nature.

    When I can be still and behold a whirling turn of birds, twisting and twirling like leaves caught in a breeze, it cuts through the chatter and noise, my frets and fears. It’s a sweet balm for life’s concerns.

    Mindful moments like these, when there is peace in every breath and joy in every view, are sacred to me. They remind me that there is so much beauty in the world to balance the pain. In nature I feel truly hushed, seen, found, and grounded, enabling me to appreciate the present moment and helping to create the chance of a promising future.

    Happiness is, after all, an inside job. It’s not about having perfect circumstances; it’s about making peace with what is and making the best of the hand we were dealt.

    Practicing mindfulness, appreciating nature, and understanding impermanence are some of the things that have helped me—and could help you too. When we embrace what is, enjoy what we can, and accept that all things inevitably change, peace becomes possible.

  • What Your “Negative” Emotions Are Trying to Tell You

    What Your “Negative” Emotions Are Trying to Tell You

    “Life will only change when you become more committed to your dreams than you are to your comfort zone.” ~Billy Cox

    It might sound like a senseless paradox to say that the “bad” or “dark” things about you are actually your “light” or “positive” qualities. However, this isn’t just a feel-good platitude; it’s literally true. The things we struggle with the most are our greatest sources of empowerment.

    Because this process is not exactly front and center of modern mental health and wellness movements, committing to your own healing can seem daunting and hopeless. Few people have truly learned how to welcome their painful, suppressed emotions, listen to what they have to say, and come out the other side stronger.

    But in today’s world, it’s become increasingly difficult to avoid, suppress, and force ourselves into fake states of positivity. Clearly, our “negative” emotions are bubbling to the surface where they cannot be ignored any longer.

    We see anger and pain overflowing into the social and political sphere, in schools where violence occurs, and all over the news. According to ScienceDaily, “121 million people worldwide are impacted by depression, and 850,000 commit suicide every year.”

    It’s no wonder so many of us get stuck in apathy, pessimism, and distractions. Life is challenging us right now, and the first necessary step is to actually acknowledge that we are in pain. This sounds incredibly simple, yet so many people choose to fight their symptoms rather than committing to understanding them.

    On social media I see a lot of hashtags exemplifying our resistance to pain, like #depressionwarrior and #fightanxiety. And while it’s totally understandable to want to conquer the pain you’ve felt for so long, mental illness is not something to be battled and conquered. It doesn’t need to be fought, but rather, listened to and respected.

    Just as the physical body has innate intelligence, so does the emotional system. We don’t want to wage war against the very emotions that are trying to alert us of a problem and walk us through the solution. From a basic state of resistance, no healing can occur.

    In 2018, I gave up on a painful relationship, moved to a new apartment, started a new job, and finished writing my first real book. I grew up in so many ways, and processed more trauma and healed more aspects of myself than I ever thought possible. For the first time, my growth and progress were unmistakable—I didn’t need to squint to see that I had become wiser, stronger, and more capable in the real world.

    But my radical transformation was not exciting or easy. It wasn’t a fight, and it sure wasn’t the kind of glamorous story of triumph that goes viral nowadays. My life circumstances pushed me into a sort of hibernation—a state where I spent most of my time reading, meditating, resting, crying, and just doing whatever I had to do.

    This is the thing: True healing doesn’t look cool. It’s not a fighting and a conquering, but a softer, more intuitive process. This is why society resists it so much.

    True healing requires us to be counter-cultural. It requires us to be awkward, to stay in on Friday nights, to take strange trips or buy strange things that we can’t quite explain to other people.

    Healing requires vulnerability and radical allegiance to yourself.

    This is why much of my healing took so long. Prior to 2018, I wasn’t ready to commit to myself no matter what. I was too impressionable and willing to change for other people.

    The biggest lesson I learned is that my mental “illness” was not really illness or dysfunction at all. In truth, my emotions were messengers I had been ignoring, judging harshly, and trying to get rid of. My negative emotions were on my side, not against me.

    Negative emotions are not something you need to fight or fix any more than you’d need to fight or fix your immune system as it tries to ward off an infection. This is the great misunderstanding of our time.

    Many people never heal from mental illness because they mistake the symptoms for the problem. The symptoms are your obvious negative emotions, but the root problems are hidden. For example, you may be depressed because you don’t express yourself freely. On top of this, you may have a deep-seated fear that if you express yourself, you’ll be scolded.

    There are often several layers of negative beliefs and fears in our subconscious (or “shadow”), but all we ever see are the symptoms (e.g. depression, anxiety, etc.). I lived much of my life trying to solve my emotions until I learned a much more effective approach: listening to my emotions.

    So how do we actually heal?

    1. Listen to your mental “illness.”

    This is the simplest first step you can take. Every time you feel unpleasant symptoms arise, no matter what they are, make time that day to stop and listen. You can do this through a simple meditation in which you quiet your mind and let the emotions have space to express themselves.

    If it suits you better, you can also write all your current negative emotions on a page. There’s no need to worry about any emotion besides what is activated in the moment. What are you currently struggling with? Oftentimes, it will be connected to your other issues any way. Let that particular emotion speak.

    2. Ask your mental “illness” questions.

    Another thing I learned is how surprisingly easy it is to get answers from your subconscious mind. As soon as these emotions are given time, space, attention, and unconditional love, they waste no time revealing what you need to know.

    Maybe the message is simply that you need more time in your day to rest, or that you need to leave a serious relationship. Whether big or small, the guidance you receive will help you shift your life in a way that soothes your symptoms. This is the beginning of true healing.

    3. Practice gratitude for your symptoms.

    This is probably the most challenging thing on the list. Your symptoms really are guiding you and alerting you to what is out of alignment in your life. However, we’ve spent so much time suppressing and denying them that they’ve caused us significant pain.

    Our symptoms are like children throwing tantrums. If we don’t listen, they get louder and angrier. This is why we need to “make up” with our symptoms just as we would with a friend with whom we had a fight.

    Once you literally start to notice how your symptoms are subtly guiding you toward solutions, it becomes much easier to feel grateful for them (and trust them!). This step took me a bit of practice, but over time I found that I could have gratitude for my symptoms without any effort or forcing.

    4. Commit to the long haul.

    At first this may seem discouraging. But when I look back, I see that most of my wasted time was spent desperately trying to rush to the “perfect” life. I wanted to magically arrive at a place where I had no emotional or physical issues, and everything looked pristine on the surface. It was during these periods that I felt the most dissatisfaction and pain.

    Committing to the long haul means you have decided that no matter what, you will not abandon yourself. You will not try to skip out on true progress and growth for a quick and easy “fix.” You will not try to appear perfect from the outside.

    Once you make this commitment, your healing can occur faster and with more joy and ease throughout the process.

    So if you are at your wits end, pause. Stop resisting your circumstances and try a new approach. What if your emotions weren’t out to get you? What if they honestly wanted to help move you forward?