Tiny Buddha

Category: change & challenges

  • Sometimes We Are the Ones Who Need to Change

    Sometimes We Are the Ones Who Need to Change

    “Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others, it is the only means.” ~Albert Einstein

    When I was younger, I had a lot of opinions about what other people needed to change.

    “Why can’t people conserve more?” “Why can’t people stop throwing cigarette butts on the ground?” “Why can’t so-and-so stop being so annoying?”

    Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

    I’ve recently realized that as I focused on all of the things that others needed to do, I was avoiding taking a look at my own very real flaws and failures.

    I used single-use plastic containers for smoothies and coffee. I had a car and drove a lot, often when I could have walked, biked, or taken public transit. I used air travel, frequently. I didn’t ever shop at thrift stores or make an effort to reuse things. And I also, um, was very critical of others, and myself.

    In short, I had plenty of issues of my own.

    There is a quote by Jacob M. Braude that reads, “Think about how hard it is to change yourself. Then maybe you will understand why it is impossible to change other people.”

    Not only was it impossible for me to force another person to change, I was also avoiding the impact I could have made by changing myself. 

    This is true in so many areas of life.

    Consider the person who always dates “horrible” or “crazy” people. We always blame the other person and think, “Why do I have such bad luck with men/women?” It’s rare that a person ever looks at themselves and considers that maybe there is something about them that is attracting this type of person—that maybe, in fact, we even subconsciously choose to get involved with screwed-up people so we can point the finger at them instead of confronting our own intimacy issues and asking ourselves why we are avoiding real relationships (or friendships).

    So many people also complain about how “society” needs to change. Yet all of us doing the complaining make up society.

    If we want change, we are the ones that need to change, every one of us.

    This isn’t necessarily pleasant to hear. Because, of course, as long as we complain about what other people need to do, we avoid the discomfort and effort of looking at ourselves and making changes in our own lives. 

    We complain that people are always on their phones. Yet all of us are on our phones, constantly. We complain that the political process is corrupt, yet how many of us run for office, vote regularly, or even dedicate time to really understanding the issues? We complain that we never talk to our friends, but how many of us make the effort to reach out and really listen to what is going on in someone else’s life?

    I’ve realized that for a very long time, I’ve blamed other people for my circumstances; and maybe circumstances did have an impact in some ways. That job that didn’t work out, those traumas that happened in the past. Yes, they are part of who I am.

    But the truth is that as I look back at my past, almost all of the instances in which I’ve had a conflict or something “bad” done to me by someone else, could have been avoided if I had taken responsibility for myself and not given my power away to someone else.

    For example, I’ve recently taken two international backpacking trips. After the first one, I stayed with relatives temporarily to get re-established in the US, and it ended with conflict and hurt feelings because boundaries and expectations were not clearly defined.

    And while my first reaction was to feel sorry for myself and tell myself how “mean” they were, the truth is that I should have been more proactive about either having a discussion to determine a clear agreement or budgeting better and supporting myself.

    I’ve realized that expecting others to care for me or take responsibility for my life can only end in disappointment and disempowerment for me.

    I think in the past, because I was living according to others’ expectations of me and because I was afraid of intimacy and really diving into life, I subconsciously was not taking full responsibility for myself and on a certain level was expecting other people to care for me and support me.

    It’s scary to take full responsibility for ourselves and our lives. In a way, it’s easier not to try, because what if we fail, or what if people don’t like the real “us,” the one we keep hidden? Because hey, if they don’t like us, at least it isn’t the real “us” they’re rejecting, and we can pretend that we “didn’t really care” anyway.

    So many of us live with our dreams and selves tucked away and just float by with what life gives us, and criticize others or the state of the world instead of working on ourselves or taking steps to fix those things we can change.

    The best realization I have had recently, which has helped me avoid despair in the midst of much dark environmental and political news and trying personal times, is that I can restore my own sense of personal power and commit myself to things that I can change.

    That might mean pledging to never use a plastic bag at the grocery store again, bringing a Mason jar instead of using a disposable cup for beverages, or trying to use more kindness and less judgment toward others in my personal life. I can walk through the fire and take ownership of myself and my life.

    Now, I’m not saying that it’s not worthwhile to fight for causes one believes in or speak out against injustice. But it’s important to look at ourselves first and examine what flaws we may be harboring in our own hearts. As spirituality author Marianne Williamson once humorously wrote, “It amuses me how angry I used to get when people wouldn’t sign my peace petitions.”

    Williamson herself is an example of this principle. One assumes she did not find a great deal of success in angrily yelling at people to sign her peace petitions. Yet once she decided to look inward and change herself, and examine her own human failings and weaknesses, she gained spiritual knowledge that has impacted millions and helped them find peace within their own hearts.

    Ultimately, we can try to communicate and share with others, but we can’t change them.

    On the other hand, we always have the option to look inward, claim our power, and take the step of changing ourselves. We can make ourselves into the type of person we keep wishing others would be and do the things we keep wishing others would do. And while it may be scary, it should also be an encouraging thought.

    Because the truth is that the power for change, either for ourselves or the world, is not anywhere “out there”—it has always been inside of us.

  • How Expressing Myself Helped Me Release Chronic Pain

    How Expressing Myself Helped Me Release Chronic Pain

    “Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor.” ~ Rumi

    It can be frightening to experience physical or mental pain. It’s not something anyone wants to deal with; nobody wants to race against the clock hoping that some future experience will take away their pain. Nobody wants to question the purpose of anything, like seeing a friend or even traveling, just because they feel their pain will ruin it.

    During my freshman year at college, I woke up one day with horrific nerve pain in my legs and in my pelvic area. What was this? My instinct told me this would go away in a few days, and when it didn’t, I took to Google to diagnose myself. According to Google, I had hundreds of different diseases and infections. That only kicked up my anxiety.

    I started seeing doctors—neurologists, urologists, and pain management specialists as the time went by. Over the course of few months, the pain not only spread but also got more difficult to deal with. The doctors were stumped. I was stumped. No MRIs or nerve conductive tests had any conclusive results. A spinal tap came out clear. I didn’t have any type of autoimmune disease.

    During the course of all this, I was extremely depressed. It was difficult to leave my bed, go out with friends, and enjoy the simplest things. I loved learning and I was in the midst of very exciting classes, but I identified with my pain—I believed I was pain and I was hopeless—so I cut out anything that interested me or could bring me happiness or joy.

    I was eighteen, young, and adventurous, but my pain caused me to fear the future. What was going to happen in next six months? I was convinced I would never get better. 

    It seemed the only thing I could do to escape the pain was release anger and tears and do different drugs. Though I had this new pain and was now a different person, I could not accept that and let go of the person I’d been before it happened.

    I finally had a breaking point when I was studying in Greece but couldn’t enjoy myself because of all the negative, terrifying thoughts my mind could produce. I kept fantasizing about life in the future, in situations that didn’t exist and situations that could “save me”:

    • I’m going to move to New York one day and then I will be fine, and I will be so happy.
    • This pain won’t stop me from meeting someone and gaining a beautiful partner, and I’ll be saved.
    • One day my writing will be published, I’ll be famous, and I will be so good!

    What I now know is that I was just feeding my ego. None of those scenarios were going to stop my pain or save me.

    The following year I decided not to go back to school. I had to ‘fix’ my broken self. It started off with many psychological TED talks. Many books on Eastern Religion, then meditation books, books on medicine and illness. It wasn’t always easy to find the motivation to research and read, but some part of me knew that it was the only way to free myself.

    After so much reading and many different books, I had to jump to action.

    I started meditating because I’d heard that it could help you tune in and listen to your body. This opened up a new world to me, and after some time, I realized my pain could have purpose and could be managed with meditation and other meaningful activities, including: 

    • Journaling
    • Creative expression

    Creativity has always been a passion of mine, and I had fiddled with meditation in the past, but not in a serious manner. All of these activities not only helped me deal with physical pain, but also helped me discover more about myself and my interests.

    I realized when there isn’t a cure for your chronic pain and the medications prescribed only make you feel worse, you have to take responsibility for yourself. And that’s what I decided to do.

    Journaling freely with no restraints took the focus off the pain and put me in the present moment. It helped me realize I could create my own reality, my own narrative.

    Through journaling, I was able to see how much I had to be grateful for. I was able to develop my intuition, let go of the day’s anxieties, and keep track of how my choices affect my mood.

    I recognized that I kept writing “I am pain,” and “I am depressed and scared” in my journal. It brought me the awareness that I am not pain, nor am I my depression. I was aware that I was in pain and I had feelings of depression, but I would no longer identify with those feelings.

    Journaling unlocked a new world. I physically felt the anger around my heart. I felt the pain in my legs. I felt my migraine. So, I wrote about it. I started writing directly to the areas of my body that hurt. “Dear Legs…” I asked my pain specific questions. I was ready to learn from the pain. It had to have a purpose, and I had to become present with it in order to recognize it.

    Journaling allowed me to see the repetitive patterns in my life. The things I was writing about were the same things I was worrying about two years ago. The same issues that I never took the time to actually acknowledge. Could it be that these issues needed attention so badly that they had to manifest physically within my body? The more I journaled, the more I started to believe that was true.

    I wrote, and hours went by, and eventually, I was writing about my childhood. I was writing about book ideas, TV ideas, I was creating characters. I was writing about how much I love to learn.

    And I didn’t put any pressure on this creative expression. I didn’t tell myself, “This has to be a bestseller!” and “This has to be the next Hamilton!” I just began creating. It made the time fly by, it was productive, and it took the energy away from my pain.

    While writing, my pain and mind transformed. It was as if each word written took a little bit of pain with it and transported it onto the paper. My writings became deeper and more creative, and my pain became less villainous and distracting. The more I journaled about the pain, the more I discovered about myself.

    Meditation was another form of journaling for me. I was able to watch my thoughts, and on days when I experienced heavy pain, I could see how they could change quickly and violently.

    On days where my pain was mild, my thoughts were filled with hope and excitement. I wanted to get out of bed and go out and see the world. However, if five minutes later aches came, my thoughts completely changed. I would glue myself to the television, waste my day, and fantasize about those “one day” experiences I would have: New York, a partner, fame.

    When I noticed this pattern, I stepped back and laughed. It was insane to witness how fast thoughts can change. How much easier it was to identify with a depressed mindset rather than a happy, hopeful one.

    I realized I had a choice: I could feed into the negative thoughts or choose to view the world optimistically. I decided I was not going to follow the negative, depressive narrative my mind provided for me. I was going to choose to identify with a more positive, open, and loving mindset.

    Meditation revealed that I am more than my pain. I was aware that I was in pain; I was seeing my thoughts. How could I be those thoughts if I was aware of them? And more importantly, if I wasn’t my thoughts, I couldn’t be my pain either!

    All of this, in time, helped show me that I didn’t need to be fixed, because I was already perfect. Sure, I was still messed up and my body didn’t feel right, but I was more than my physical body.

    Regardless of what would happen in the future, I had the tools my pain had brought me. I had the awareness to start creating my own reality. I knew I was bigger than whatever pain I would face.

    For a long time, I thought I had to achieve the maximum level of consciousness possible in order to free myself of pain completely. I had to be perfect.

    However, I soon realized that that my pain may never fully be gone, and I may never have complete Buddha nature. But that didn’t and doesn’t matter.

    An extraordinary life is not a pain-free life. An extraordinary life resides in the in the ordinary of the everyday. There is no need for perfection.

    I came to realize that I always was and always will be whole and complete. Regardless of where I live, regardless of my relationship status, regardless of my health.

    Nothing—good or bad—could define my life anymore. The only thing I could be from here was authentic and mindful to what I needed.

    I believe my pain needed expression; my inner child, the neglected being I had shut off for so long needed a way out, so it manifested in pain. All the times I listened to music I wasn’t into to impress others, all the times I spent hiding my sexuality from others and myself, the times spent stuffing my feelings down because of a large ego, I was neglecting my inner child.

    Not getting the right amount of sleep, going on ten mile runs and having a bag of Doritos for dinner, never drinking water but constantly drinking Gatorade and other sugary drinks—I hadn’t even provided the basic necessities for a child to thrive, let alone given that child love and expression.

    So that’s where I had to start. I had to start giving my inner child proper hydration and sleep, and much, much love. As I did with my pain, I had to sit down and talk to my inner child. I also started to spend time with my present self. Taking myself out on a date to a movie I wanted to see, going out to dinner with a nice book, taking long walks without a phone and other distractions. I had to show my inner child and myself unconditional love.

    I realized that previously, I was scared to be unique. I was afraid of expressing myself. What would people think? It was much easier to neglect, suppress, and resist feelings rather than be wrong or be judged.

    Gratefully, I was able to curb my pain and take it down many levels. It seems the more I discover about myself, the more I express my authentic self, the more I free myself.

    Now I make sure I do something every day to connect with my true self. Writing. Meditation. Sitting in nature. Having a cup of hot tea, focusing deeply on the present moment. In the present moment, you are truly saved.

    It’s still hard to wake up in pain and believe the Universe is rigged in my favor, but the experiences my pain gave me, the people I met through it, the maturation I developed from it, confirms that it is the truth.

    Meditation, journaling, and expressing myself awakened me from my pain. It provided more insight and compassion to those around me because we are all in some type of pain. Pain cannot be compared, because pain is a lesson constructed for each of us. The best thing we can do is make friends with our pain so we can understand what it’s trying to teach us. To meditate on the normal anger that arises with pain and sympathize with it.

    Ask your pain questions. Give yourself a hug. When it’s one of those days, be there for yourself. In the end, all you can do is surrender to the Universe and choose to graciously learn from it.

    It’s not always easy, especially when the pain takes control. It’s hard to step back and look at everything through a lens of positivity, but it is possible. All you can do is keep breathing, keep encouraging yourself to focus on the moment—the breath—and like everything in life, the pain will pass.

    Illustration by Kaitlin Roth

  • Why I’ve Decided to Accept Myself Instead of Trying to ‘Fix’ Myself

    Why I’ve Decided to Accept Myself Instead of Trying to ‘Fix’ Myself

    “No amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance.” ~Robert Holden

    In our culture, we are constantly bombarded with the newest and best things to improve ourselves and/or our quality of life. Unfortunately, this leads to the belief that we need to obtain some sort of thing before we could accept ourselves as we are.

    When I was a child, I constantly battled with my weight. By the age of fourteen, I was 225 pounds (mind you, I am 5’2,” on a good day).

    Fortunately for me, a doctor pointed out the concern of childhood obesity. She kindly let me know that I was at the perfect time to lose weight before it began to have significant health complications. I was able to quickly learn how to eat better and engage in physical activity. I dropped about eighty pounds within a year, and the attention I received was overwhelming.

    I quickly developed a conditioned response of self-improvement, attention, and ultimately, love—meaning I began to see that altering myself would gain me recognition. But come on, who doesn’t want to be loved and accepted by others? Well, this attention introduced a whole different concept.

    I realized I was not receiving that positive attention before, as people usually chose to pick me apart for my weight. Therefore, as I grew older, I became addicted to this notion of self-improvement because it brought upon the positive attention and affirmation I had lacked. Furthermore, I had a hard time just being me without trying to change something about myself.

    For me, self-acceptance is hard to conceptualize on a good day. On a bad day, it can be in shards of glass on the floor. Through my trials and errors, I have learned that self-acceptance is a skill we can practice. It is not an innate trait that we either have or don’t. It is something that can be nourished and nurtured.

    With practice, I began feeling at peace with who I am—with all my strengths and my weaknesses. However, this didn’t just happen overnight.

    I had struggled with a lack of self-acceptance for many years. I felt like I needed to be a certain way or look a certain way to be accepted. Immediate access to media and social media fed right into this concept. I fell into the comparison trap, and I fixated on what I didn’t have by putting my attention on what everyone else seemed to have.

    I’d think, “Well, she looks a lot better than me,” “Man, their family seems perfect,” or “My career doesn’t seem to be that successful.” These thoughts would consume me, and have a negative impact on my mood and self-esteem.

    Let me be clear, I have to be mindful of this trap every single day, multiple times a day, as self-acceptance, love, and compassion issues are deeply ingrained.

    When I was a little girl, I consistently received the message that I needed to change parts of who I was to fit the mold of society. Peers would consistently comment on my weight and appearance. Teachers would constantly criticize my work. Coaches would often compare to the “better, more capable” players. I am sure some of these messages came with good intention, but they had a destructive impact on my self-worth and value.

    As I have gotten older, I have learned that having a good relationship with myself is one of the most important things I will achieve in my life. However, because I didn’t want others to see my bad stuff, I tended to project an outward image of having it together, or striving to get it together.

    I was not as open about my consistent struggle with depression, anxiety, and body image. I would deny some of those internal battles, and in doing so was never being who I truly was. More so, I struggled in knowing who I was and I developed a conditional relationship with myself.

    For a long time, I also struggled with self-forgiveness, which was a huge barrier to self-acceptance. I struggled because I was ashamed of my choices and wished I had done things differently. By twenty-six years old, I had a failed marriage, filed for bankruptcy, and was facing some legal consequences due to my irresponsible behaviors.

    I began trying to perfect myself in any way possible. I was constantly looking for a new health fad to follow. I purchased several self-help books, always looking for what was wrong with me and finding a way to fix it. Clearly, I had no concept of self-acceptance. I just believed who I was at my core was bad and I needed to change it. I was never comfortable with just being with me; I needed to be improving something.

    Soon I began to see that true self-acceptance has absolutely nothing to do with self-improvement. I was always trying to achieve things, which may have helped temporarily, but it was a poor substitute for true intimacy with myself, which is what I needed.

    When I set out to improve myself, I attempted to fix something about myself. I couldn’t possibly feel secure or good enough if my worth depended on constantly bettering myself.

    I struggled with what I like to call the “destination happiness” illness. It implies “I’ll be okay when…” or “as soon as I accomplish this one thing, I’ll be happy…” With that mindset, I was never happy because I was always looking forward to the future, missing the present. I was also just checking off the boxes in life, never fully embracing the moment.

    A turning point in my life was when a friend of mine said, “I feel you are always looking for something wrong with you. What would it take to just accept yourself for who you are?” This was a true epiphany for me. I was always finding fault in myself. So, I began to reflect on this statement and started to make some active changes toward self-acceptance.

    I began to celebrate my many strengths.

    I started to make time to honor what I brought to the table.

    I worked hard to take in praise from others without doubting their statements.

    I cultivated a positive support system. I knew I naturally become similar to the people I chose to be around. So, I built a support system that is inspiring and fulfilling, not discouraging and depleting.

    I made a commitment to stop comparing myself to others. I could acknowledge others’ strengths without disregarding or belittling my own.

    I began to understand and quiet the inner-critic. I didn’t shut this voice out completely, but I worked on it being constructive as opposed to hurtful.

    I made a conscious effort to forgive myself. I let go of the regret and began to learn from my past.

    Finally, I began to practice self-compassion and kindness. If I wouldn’t say it to someone I love, I didn’t say it to myself.

    With all of these steps, I began to understand who I am and know what I want, while being comfortable in my own skin. I value myself and have gained respect from others. I am able to face challenges in my life head-on. I embrace all parts of who I am, not just the good stuff. I recognize my limitations and weaknesses.

    I must say, though, that it is possible to accept and love ourselves and still be committed to personal growth. Accepting ourselves as we are does not mean we won’t have the motivation to change or improve. It implies that self-acceptance is not correlated with alterations of who we are at our core.

    Nathaniel Branden stated, “Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with myself.” Many of us live our lives resisting ourselves—comparing ourselves to others, pushing ourselves to be perfect, and trying to fit a certain mold of who we think we are supposed to be. I hope that by shedding some light on the notion of acceptance, I have helped you find courage to let that all go.

    We will never know who we are unless we discard who we pretend to be. And it would be a shame not to find out, because we are beautiful and worth knowing, just as we are.

  • How Going Offline for 10 Days Healed My Anxiety

    How Going Offline for 10 Days Healed My Anxiety

    “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a while, including you.” ~Anne Lamott

    I wake up anxious a little past 4am. My heart is beating faster than usual, and I’m aware of an unsettled feeling, like life-crushing doom is imminent. For a moment, I wonder if I just felt the first waves of a massive earthquake. Or perhaps those were gunshots I just heard in the distance.

    But no, it’s just another night in my bedroom in the Bay Area, and everything is utterly fine. But somehow, my central nervous system isn’t so sure.

    The problem is the thick swirl of news media, social media, and talk among friends I carry with me every day. It’s a toxic milkshake of speculation, fear, and anger that I consume, and it has me deeply rattled. I absorb this stuff like crazy.

    I suspect I’m not alone.

    I know for a fact that my anxiety isn’t just some vague menopause symptom, but the result of my deep immersion in the current zeitgeist. I know this because recently I left the whole thing behind for ten glorious days. I went to Belize, and left my phone and my laptop sitting on my bureau at home.

    For most of that time, my wife and I lived on a small island thirty miles out to sea with only a bit of generator electricity. We avoided the extremely spotty Wifi like the plague. Instead, we woke with the sunrise, and sat on the deck outside our grass hut, watching manta rays swim in the shallow water below us and pelicans perch nearby. The biggest thing that happened every morning was the osprey that left its nest and circled above us.

    It was life in slow-mo all the way. And it was transformative.

    For ten entire days I didn’t think about politics or how America is devolving into an angry, wild place where public figures regularly get death threats, and social media has become the equivalent of High Noon with guns drawn.

    The toxic interplay of who is right or wrong, or the future of our democracy ceased to exist as we sailed toward that island on our big, well-worn catamaran. In fact, by the time we reached our refuge, those tapes had disappeared altogether.

    Instead, we swam and we rested. We snorkeled. We read. We had some adventures involving caves and kayaks, and we hung out with the other guests. The two Belizian women who cooked for us observed us Americans with our expensive toys, and they took it all with a grain of salt. In their presence, I could suddenly see how silly and overwrought all this intensity has become.

    Ironically, when given the opportunity to present a gift to a school in one of Belize’s small seaside towns, I brought along a laptop and an iPad I no longer used. An elementary school teacher received the gifts with gratitude. Yet, as I gave them to her, I noticed I felt wary.

    I could swear she seemed wary as well.

    What new layer of complexity was I bringing onto these shores? And was it even necessary for life to go on happily and productively?

    When we returned to the so-called civilized world, here’s what I immediately noticed:

    1. I was now leery of all my previously trusted news sources.

    Suddenly I could clearly see the anguished bias all around me, going in all sorts of directions left and right. The newsfeeds I’d previously consumed with abandon now seemed more biased than I’d realized. I was left with one option—either drop out and start reading the classics for entertainment, or proceed with caution.

    2. I had more time to sit alone with nothing in particular to do.

    Before my media fast, that was a bad idea. Hey, I had social media to check and emails to catch up on. The day’s events were going by in a high-speed blur, and I had to keep up. But now life had slowed to the pace of my emotions. I could breathe again. And so, for a while at least, I enjoyed spacing out.

    3. My anxiety disappeared. For a while.

    So did my knockdown ambition, and my desire to overwork. Everything had just … chilled. Enormously. For a while I slept easily. I no longer drove myself to do the impossible, and my to-do list now seemed balanced and reasonable. In turn, I no longer woke up with my heart pounding, nor did I have qualms overcome me during the day. Instead, I got ideas. Inspiration landed on me, and I was energized enough to pursue it.

    4. Life became lighter and more fun.

    Now I found my day-to-day routine to be far more delightful. It simply was, and for no particular reason. I laughed more. I found myself singing while I did chores around the house. Since I wasn’t consuming the same fire hose of media, I now had time to have more fun.

    5. I complained less.

    Now that I was unplugged, I found that I didn’t have to share my opinion on every last political matter happening around me. Nor did I need to engage in fights on social media. In turn, I didn’t lie awake as much, gnashing my teeth.

    6. I thought about things I’d long forgotten.

    Like my childhood. I tapped into long buried feelings sitting in that glorious deck chair of mine, like how it felt to be a vulnerable kid at school, and what joy I found in standing in the water, letting the waves rush my legs. I rediscovered the great internal monologue I have going all the time. It had long been forgotten.

    7. I had more time just to hang with people.

    This was, perhaps, the greatest gift of all. To quietly sit at a table, chatting over empty coffee cups with relative strangers, or perhaps my wife. There we all were, on our island for days on end. So we might as well talk, right? I found people to be fascinating once again.

    In fact, I was discovering JOMO—the Joy of Missing Out. Turns out this is a thing. Those exact words were projected on the screen behind Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, at a recent developer’s conference. Apparently even the tech people want to turn off their screens.

    So one must ask the question: did all of this good stuff last?

    In a word, no.

    It’s been several months since this experiment ended, and I am, of course, back online. The pull is simply too great to ignore and avoid. Since I actually make my living online, disappearing off the grid is not even an option. And yet, I’ve learned a lot.

    I no longer subscribe to certain reactionary newsfeeds. While I may be more out of touch, this is alarming material, guaranteed to not make me feel better. So no, I no longer read these emails. And I cherry pick what I read in my newsfeeds with care.

    I no longer reach for my phone as soon as I open my eyes every morning. I also try not to check my email on my phone at all, something I often did while waiting in the Bay Area’s many lines. In fact, I’ve learned to leave my phone at home when I go out.

    Instead, I chat with other people while waiting in the line, or I just look around. Or I zone out and enjoy what brain scientists call the “default mode,” the fertile, random, and enjoyable hopscotch the brain does while at rest. I realized now that I’d been missing that hopscotch. Instead, I enjoy the fertile luxury of a good daydream.

    My late daughter Teal would have understood my need to drop out perfectly. Even at age twenty-two, she refused to have a smart phone. She embraced the world, eyes forward and heart engaged, making friends wherever she went. And she did so until her sudden death from a medically unexplainable cardiac arrest in 2012.

    “Life is now,” she liked to say. Usually she reminded me of this as she headed out the door with her travel guitar and her backpack, on a spontaneous decision to busk her way across the other side of the world.

    At the time, I couldn’t begin to fathom what she was talking about. “Too simplistic” I thought, dismissively, as I wrote it off to my daughter’s relentless free spirit. But as it turns out, Teal was right. So now I am left with this very big lesson.

    Not only is life now, life is rich, random and filled with delight. The trick is to unplug long enough to actually experience it.

    Illustration by Kaitlin Roth

  • 3 Healing Practices to Connect with Yourself and Release Your Pain

    3 Healing Practices to Connect with Yourself and Release Your Pain

    “Our practice rather than being about killing the ego is about simply discovering our true nature.” ~Sharon Salzberg

    One of the symptoms of living in today’s fast-paced world is the underlying feeling of loneliness, overwhelm, and disconnection. Chronically stressed and under financial and familial pressures, we often feel alone in the world, out of touch with others, overwhelmed by our emotions, and disconnected from our own bodies and ourselves.

    Our world is ego-driven. We constantly compare ourselves to others, judge our performance (usually harshly), define our worth by our financial and career achievements, and criticize ourselves for failure.

    This ego-based drive for success and happiness is of course ineffective. We keep wanting more, never feeling quite satisfied. And that’s because our definition of happiness as something that can be obtained externally is fundamentally misguided.

    It’s a good thing to achieve external success and take pride in what we’ve accomplished through hard work. However, happiness comes when we feel fulfilled, and in order to feel fulfilled we need more than material possessions and accolades—we need to feel loved and that we belong.

    This feeling was always fleeting for me growing up. A difficult childhood and my highly sensitive personality meant I grew up believing that there was something wrong with me. Feeling deeply insecure, and without an anchor at home, I had a hard time making friends and felt mostly misunderstood, hurt, and alone.

    Eventually, chaos at home and bullies at school led me to disconnect, both from my body and myself. I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere, so I made myself small, almost disappearing behind a veil of hurt, fear, and shame.

    I associated my body with pain, and love with getting hurt. Living in my head was safe, and so I put up big walls around my heart and decided to make the best of what I was given.

    I compensated for internal pain and emptiness with external validation: straight A’s, degrees, a career in high tech, people pleasing, perfecting, performing, putting on a mask to make myself look better than I felt. Eventually, I found love and friends, but the internal angst was still there, unexamined.

    Unbeknownst to me, my ego was in control and the driving force behind my constant search for approval and validation. This perpetual state of searching for contentment kept me feeling empty, unhappy, and alone.

    Running from yourself can only work for so long. Eventually, the walls I built became my prison.

    I had to face my pain, confront my fears, and unleash the chains I’d built around my heart so that I could go on living, not just functioning.

    If I wanted a fulfilled life, I had to look inside and find love there first. I had to undo years of disconnect and pain, and reconnect with my body and my heart. I had to recalibrate my life toward inner peace and joy, and away from self-focus, fear, and my perceived brokenness and separateness.

    Over the years I spent healing and getting back to myself, I discovered that some practices can help us drop the swelled up ego just enough so that we can embrace our life with love. Those practices include…

    Reconnecting with Our Body

    At some point in our lives, most of us went through a traumatic experience that left us feeling disconnected from our body. Childhood abuse, sexual trauma, a car accident—all those experiences can lead to disembodiment.

    Even if we were lucky enough to avoid trauma, we live in a world of chronic stress and overwhelm, which puts a lot of strain on our bodies. We often operate in “survival mode” and experience chronic muscle tension, fatigue, and pain.

    When our body has been the source of pain, we might want to disconnect and numb out in order to protect ourselves from the hurt. We end up living in our head, often completely unaware of what is going on in our body.

    Getting back in touch with our body is the first step in healing our soul, opening our heart, and dropping our ego. And yoga is a perfect tool here.

    Yoga is a gentle practice that can help us reconnect with our body. Yoga means unity, between the body and mind. With breath as an anchor, flowing through poses while holding ourselves gently, we center and reconnect with ourselves in the present moment.

    We get out of our head (and our ego-based identity), and back to our body and our true self. We quiet the mind, softening its grip as we turn to movement, being fully present and aware.

    As we tune into each pose, we begin to feel every part of our body. We start cultivating a close relationship with ourselves, exploring our own feelings, thoughts, and relationships to the poses. Yoga becomes an intimate practice for self-exploration and self-acceptance. And it slowly dissolves the ego as your heart takes center stage.

    Certain poses are particularly good for grounding and centering , like child’s pose, tree pose, and warrior poses. There are also many heart-opening poses—like camel, bow, or bridge poses—most of which focus on rotating our shoulders, opening our ribs, and doing backbends, which release muscle tension and unlock sensation in the heart center (also great for anxiety relief).

    Kundalini yoga is another practice for awakening and healing our energy body and releasing trauma/blocks, whether in our heart center, root center, or elsewhere.

    The important thing is to focus less on the “exercise” component of it and more on the mind-body-heart connection that happens when you slow down and become really present in your practice.

    Befriending and Taming our Mind

    Once we’ve reconnected with our bodies, we need to befriend our mind, which can easily be overwhelmed by fears, worries, doubts, self-criticism, and obsessive thoughts. We can do that through meditation.

    Mindfulness meditation specifically helps us cultivate a sense of awareness and teaches us to look inward, observe our experience, and learn to let go. It brings to our attention the impermanence of life—as our thoughts and sensations change constantly, so does our experience. This means we can let go of our grip and take life as is, moment by moment.

    With the breath anchoring us in the present moment, we gain a sense of freedom from our past troubles and future worries. Our fears fall away and freedom sets in—freedom to choose how we experience life that’s in front of us.

    With practice, we learn to notice feelings, and emotions underneath those feeling, and the thoughts underneath those. There’s a freedom in that too—freedom to choose to not buy into those thoughts, to let go of them and choose differently. We learn to respond wisely to what’s in front of us, choosing love instead of reacting from our unconscious programming and out of learned fear.

    By observing our thoughts and sensations we learn to recognize when we are afraid, hurt, angry, or ashamed, and that awareness is what allows our ego to fall away.

    We begin to understand the meaning behind our experience and surround ourselves with compassion for our pain, holding ourselves with tenderness and care. We learn to drop our fears and our beliefs about ourselves and the world, and begin to live from our heart, our authentic self.

    When we meditate, we start to gain a better understanding of ourselves, and our way of being starts to shift. We come into wholeness, the realization that our lives are both joyful and painful, and no, we are not damaged, we’re simply human. And the best thing we can do is to love ourselves in this moment, to offer ourselves the care and compassion we need in order to feel soothed and safe. And then we can extend that love and care to others as well. We all suffer and have moments of struggle; this simple acknowledgement can open our heart and connect us all.

    In moments of chaos or anxiety, when our mind is restless or overwhelmed, we can do simple practices that will calm our mind and tame our inner dialogue. A particularly nourishing practice is Tara Brach’s RAIN of self-compassion meditation. By observing our thoughts and feelings without judgment—the core of mindfulness meditation—we can shift from pain to compassion in a gentle way.

    Another practice to try is loving-kindness meditation popularized by Sharon Salzberg.

    And if sitting meditation is too hard for us, we can tap into a meditative state through movement. Rhythmic exercises such as walking, swimming, or dancing can help integrate our body-mind and reset the nervous system through the rhythmic flow of movements that will relax and soothe our mind. These will ground us in the present moment so that we can be there for ourselves, and others.

    Accepting and Rewriting our Story

    If we’ve been running from our pain for a long time, as I once did, this pain becomes our story; our ego is entangled in it. It’s time to untangle and release it so that we can make a new ending. It’s time to rewrite our story.

    I’ve found journaling to be particularly helpful because it allows me to explore my thoughts and feelings without worrying about being judged, criticized, or rejected for who I really am.

    Through journaling, we can uncover our inner pain and suffering and bring to the conscious our fears of feeling not good enough, unlovable, and ultimately alone.

    As we explore our deepest thoughts and try to make sense of our experience, we begin to discern our true feelings from adaptations and programming that we’ve accumulated over our lifetime—messages we received from our family, peers, and society as a whole. We tap into our inner wisdom and intuition, and gain a new perspective on ourselves and the events in our lives.

    Writing is like having a deep conversation with ourselves. Faced with our shame, grief, and the sheer depth of our pain, we learn to offer ourselves the compassion and care we’ve been searching for outside of ourselves. Tending to the wounds we’ve been avoiding, we develop empathy for ourselves as a vulnerable and wounded person.

    Journaling is the ultimate release; we can drop our masks and explore our hang-ups and limitations head on. We slowly unpack our deep-seated beliefs, bringing them to light. This deepens our inner knowing, helping us examine and change our beliefs about ourselves and the world. As we release the pain we’ve been holding onto our whole life, our hearts begin to soften, our armor drops, and our story changes.

    There are two main ways you can journal to heal: expressive writing and prompt-based writing.

    To begin expressive writing, relax your body and close your eyes. Look inward and wait for thoughts to arrive. Begin writing them down without censoring yourself. Spill it all out onto paper, letting your unconscious step forward, giving it a voice. Bring up your real feelings about yourself and the world—and not just what you’ve been conditioned to believe.

    Prompt-based writing can help you think about how your family history, your cultural background, and your religion have all played roles in why you are the way you are.

    For example:

    • How did your family of origin show (or withhold) love?
    • What are you most ashamed about regarding your family?
    • What did you not get as a child that you are now seeking as an adult?
    • How was anger expressed or repressed in your family growing up?

    By examining your past and what shaped you, you can shed a light on your unconscious patterns and the beliefs that you accepted as truths. This is the first step in changing them and rewriting your story.

    —

    These three practices—yoga, mindfulness, and journaling—helped me heal, reconnect with myself, and learn to love myself, and self-love is a prerequisite to feeling the love and belonging that leads to happiness.

    Whether you’ve experienced some sort of trauma or you’ve disconnected from yourself as a consequence of living in our stressed out, achievement-focused world, these practices can help you too.

    By making a little time to reconnect with your body, befriend your mind, and rewrite old stories that no longer serve you, you’ll soon stop being a slave to your ego and start living a freer, happier, more authentic life.

  • We Get to Define Our Experiences and Decide What We Take from Them

    We Get to Define Our Experiences and Decide What We Take from Them

    “When something bad happens you have three choices. You can let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” ~Unknown

    It’s massively important how we define our world and the experiences we have in it. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to learn that early in my life.

    When I was twelve, my stepfather was a homicidal-leaning, violent alcoholic. I believe my mother must have suffered a Stockholm Syndrome kind of relationship with him. They were together for thirteen years even though they separated several times.

    He tried to kill us all on more than one occasion. Car … double-barreled shotgun … with his bare hands.

    Bill died of suicide some years after their divorce. “I’ll show you!” he said to his wife just before he jumped out in front of a speeding car on the highway. I felt sorry for the woman driving the car.

    I learned a specific lesson about defining an experience one fall day. We lived in Florida. It was drizzling rain on this particular Sunday. We were traveling from where we lived near the Atlantic coast in Cocoa, to visit Bill’s mother in Orlando.

    Bill had been drinking as he usually did on weekends. And, of course, when he drank, he often got belligerent and argumentative.

    We had to drive through a long stretch of swampy land, then we came out on open ranch land where Brahman cattle grazed.

    Bill and Mother argued. The four of us children sat quietly, afraid to move or say anything with the tension building in the car. Things could get ugly if he turned his attention to one of us.

    All of a sudden, the car swerved. It started to spin sideways in one direction, then all the way around in the opposite direction. It spun completely around three times, continuing down the highway, before it finally came to a stop.

    But when it stopped, we could feel the car teetering, rocking back and forth. We were precariously balanced on a culvert on the side of the road over a small creek.

    If the balance tipped forward it would flip the car over, putting us upside down in two feet of water.

    I sat there with my heart beating like a hummingbird’s for several seconds. A conglomeration of emotions exploded through my being. I couldn’t keep up with them. Each one was more intense than any feeling I’d ever experienced up until then.

    I knew that I dared not move. None of us could, or it could put us all in grave danger, maybe even drown us.

    Everybody in the car fell silent. All you could hear was the water trickling in the creek.

    The car continued to teeter.

    The emotions welling up inside me built to a crescendo. It was going to be impossible for me to contain them anymore. Something was going to express.

    But I was afraid. If Bill had a hysterical kid screaming behind him, in his present state, he just might literally beat me to death.

    Reason seemed to peel away the hysteria a little here and there until it all came down to two fundamental choices. I had to express something even if it meant flipping into the water.

    My choices were to let it fly and scream out—crying uncontrollably—or to burst out laughing.

    In that moment, I had an epiphany about life in general. I did have a choice. The emotions didn’t dictate my experience of life. I could make my choice deliberately. It had 100% to do with how I defined the experience. The experience itself was neither good nor bad. It just was. What was important was how I defined it. 

    And so, I made my decision. I relinquished all control and burst out laughing! I consciously chose to identify it as an exciting thrill that we’d all survived, rather than identifying it as the sheer horror I could have called it.

    My mom turned around, eyes wide in fear, not sure of how Bill would react. Apparently, I was the only one in the car who identified it as anything but terror.

    Bill turned around and stared for a second, then set about determining how we could all get out safely.

    That afternoon was sixty years ago, but I remember every detail of it. I’ve referred to it many times in my life.

    We have a choice in how we define our experiences. That decision changed the way I saw the rest of my life. I get to choose how I define the events in my life. We all do.

    Years later that experience led me to see other parts of my life from a healthier perspective.

    Growing up, I resented Bill for what he put us through. No kid should have to endure that kind of psychological and physical abuse. It ate at my heart.

    When adult friends discovered some of the things I experienced as a kid, they expressed indignation too. That reinforced my sense of misfortune.

    But I remember telling my wife about the spin-out experience one day and I had another insight. I listened to myself saying that I had a choice of how I defined my experiences. My perspective on my entire childhood changed in that moment. I had been defining it in a way that didn’t serve me. But I could change that, just by changing how I identified it. 

    Had it been scary staring down the wrong end of a double-barreled shotgun at age six?  You bet it was! Had it been hard grabbing my pillow, a change of socks and underwear and sneaking out the window to meet my mother and siblings at the car—on several different occasions—growing up? Only to wake up the next morning four states away where I knew no one? Sure.

    Most people would say I had a terrible childhood. But they don’t get to define it for me. I do.

    I learned how to be flexible, because I had to be. My life changed unpredictably. But I chose not to let that make me bitter and resentful.

    I learned how to keep my thoughts to myself when I need to. It came from a survival need and developed into a skill of diplomacy.

    I learned how to make friends easily, because I never knew when I would have to leave old friends and establish new friendships. So, I just became a friendly person with everybody around me.

    I learned how to adapt and learn new things. It was more productive than trying in vain to hold onto things that may not be possible to keep with me. I learned how to let go. I learned how to embrace new things in life.

    I learned how to appreciate people when they offer me help and appreciate my ability to help other people when I can.

    I learned how to love people and allow them to love me.

    I learned that negatives in life aren’t necessarily negatives.  How we choose to identify them makes things negative or positive.

    I learned that everybody has challenges that are hard for them. We can endure a lot if we choose.

    We get to decide what all that means. Life is simply what it is. We determine what we want it to mean.

    So, I urge you, the next time you’re scared or angry or worried, the next time life seems to be dishing out unpleasantries; the next time you feel like life has treated you unfairly; ask yourself, is there another way I can define this? A way that works better for me? A way that can serve me better in the future?

    It’s always your choice.

  • How to Push Through Phases of Uncertainty

    How to Push Through Phases of Uncertainty

    “I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

    I once trekked on my own along the Salkantay Trail in Peru between the town of Mollepata and the magnificent Machu Picchu. The journey in total was fifty miles, and it took me four days. I had never backpacked before, let alone on my own, let alone in a foreign country, but the opportunity was appealing.

    Along the way, I learned four important lessons that have helped me accept and make sense of phases of uncertainty. But before I share those, a little backstory:

    The year prior, I experienced many internal challenges. In a short time, I transitioned from having clear direction in my life and knowing what was important to me to having no grasp of what I wanted and feeling lost. The feeling was unfamiliar to me. I had spent much of my life plowing forward, knowing exactly what I wanted, why, and how to get there.

    Almost two years before my trip to Peru, I had just finished working breathlessly on a local political campaign for the 2016 election. The candidate lost, and the outcome of the presidential election left me feeling even more defeated.

    Shortly after, I traveled to Thailand for three weeks with a friend. When I returned to the states, I was unsure of where I wanted to place my next step. I was still feeling politically fired up, and with that energy, I decided to start a nonprofit organization in my state to encourage women to run for office.

    I worked day in and day out putting together statistics, a website, a business plan, and coffee dates with important people in the community. It didn’t take long for the organization to gain momentum because it attracted the support of people who were also intensely moved by the election.

    Meanwhile, I entered into a tumultuous and emotionally exhausting relationship, I moved to a different town after living in my parents’ basement, and I was seeking full-time work to pay bills that I barely had the money to cover. I felt split between two worlds: one of chaos and one of professionalism. In my naive mind, I believed those two worlds existed separately, and I couldn’t find my place in either one.

    When I jumped on the opportunity to start an organization in my community, I wasn’t fully aware of how demanding it would be. Just as it started to gain momentum, I secretly knew I didn’t want to be part of it long-term.

    I knew I was capable of building the organization, but I was also young and inexperienced, insecure, and distracted by the ambiguity of being a fresh college graduate. I chased after a shiny object that I, as I got closer, discovered wasn’t something I was as interested in as I initially thought.

    A year after the organization started, I resigned from the Board of Directors. We then decided to dissolve the organization altogether, and I breathed a major sigh of relief.

    Around the same time, my boyfriend and I split for the second or third time. I was left in a state of confusion and felt defeated again, but it was a different type of defeat. It was a feeling of intense vulnerability. I felt exposed and lost—two feelings I’ve always been good at avoiding.

    When I decided to trek fifty miles through the Andes Mountains, it was an attempt to find clarity. I hoped that hiking by myself in nature would bring sudden insight into what I had just experienced and what I needed to do next.

    I instead learned that clarity doesn’t arrive just because we demand it. Rather, clarity comes in its own time, typically after one has endured the uncomfortable but often necessary road of uncertainty.

    If you’re currently facing uncertainty in your career, relationships, or any other area of your life, perhaps some of my other lessons will be helpful to you.

    1. It will be painful—keep going anyway.

    On the third day of my hike, I grew nasty blisters on the heels and toes of my feet. I also felt a throbbing pain on the inside of my calves. Halfway through the day, simply putting weight on my foot became the most painful task.

    I was walking by myself on a dirt road, and I had no idea how much further I had to walk before reaching my campsite. I wasn’t even confident I was headed in the right direction.

    Okay, just walk to that point, I’d tell myself, looking about 100 meters ahead where the road curved or changed in some way. Maybe the view will change once you get there, I thought.

    A different view meant that I might suddenly see my campsite in the near distance. Not knowing kept me going because there was always the possibility that I was meters away from resting.

    Breaking the hike down into smaller chunks also helped me to stay motivated. If I imagined the total distance I had left to go, it was overwhelming.

    A journey of uncertainty guarantees pain. It’s uncomfortable. It’s vulnerable. It’s frustrating. Sometimes we want to lie down in the middle of the road and give up. It feels easier to stay in the same place than to walk toward something that’s unknown.

    But with uncertainty, there is no way out but through. Try to break it down into more manageable parts—can you make it through the day? The week? The next month?

    With uncertainty, you never know when you might turn the corner and suddenly see answers in sight. Tomorrow might offer insight, so why stop now?

    2. Distractions don’t solve uncertainty.

    The beauties of traveling alone are many, but they always come with a degree of loneliness. In Peru, it was difficult to wake up cold and alone in a tent, knowing I only had myself to talk with. I would’ve much rather reached my arm across to pull a warm body close.

    I was jealous of the couples I had encountered on the same trail who were hiking together. I was frustrated with my loneliness and annoyed with myself for being alone.

    Really, what I wanted was love to distract me from the uncertainty I was facing in my life. But I knew that if I wallowed in what I wanted instead of what I had to do, which was to pack my tent and all my other belongings into my backpack and move forward, I would stay stuck in the same place and wouldn’t get any closer to my destination.

    When we’re caught in a phase of uncertainty, it’s tempting to attach to distractions that’ll keep us from focusing on the discomfort we feel. The most appealing distraction when confused about life is to chase after opportunities that aren’t necessarily best for us. The panic we feel when we lack direction is so strong that we would rather seek mediocre, senseless options than stay in the uneasiness as we wait for clearer direction.

    Ultimately, waiting for direction leads us to our greater purpose. But we can’t follow the direction if we’ve already made a decision based on fear.

    3. Trust that there will be guides.

    The first time I went the wrong way along the trail was on day one. I had just walked through some sort of political event. Interested citizens sat along a ledge while they listened to a well-dressed man speak in a confident tone.

    After I passed, I took a left turn at a crossroads. I heard a voice behind me and turned around. It was one of the men from the group, pointing in the opposite direction. He had followed me a few steps up the trail, making an effort to redirect me. “Salkantay?” I said. He nodded.

    On the third day, I arrived at a small village where a family of three lived. After hiking a steep hill, I sat on a wooden stump by their home to rest. I bought and devoured two passion fruits from their garden.

    On my way out, I turned right on a dirt road. A boy about two years old saw me and pointed left. “Salkantay?” I said. He cocked his head. “La Playa?” I said the town where I was headed. He nodded and pointed left again. I turned around and continued to hike along the dirt road.

    On the last day, I passed a turn I needed to take. My senses stopped me. I had just passed a few hikers, and they weren’t behind me any longer. I pulled out a book of directions (which I’m never good at understanding), walked back, and found the small path that led me into the mountains.

    Without unfamiliar faces along the way to guide me, I would’ve easily wound up lost in the Andes Mountains. Maps and written directions aren’t always helpful when standing in a specific place.

    Sometimes, finding the way requires trust. If you haven’t found a sign to help guide you on your path of uncertainty, have faith that it’ll arrive in the right moment. The only way to find the signs is to keep walking—keep taking action and trying new things. The signs and guides are waiting for you to arrive.

    4. Take good care of yourself.

    Near the end of the trek, when my feet were blistered and my legs swollen, it was important that I had enough time to rest before the next day. I knew that in order to push forward, I had to take care of my body.

    I spent the evenings stretching, massaging my muscles, and wrapping tape around my blisters. Though the pain would still be there the next morning, it was a little more manageable than the night before. The pain had subdued just enough that I knew I could continue hiking.

    Since we’re never sure when a phase of uncertainty will end, it’s critical that we take care of ourselves throughout it. Creating time to rest and take care of ourselves—which for me is getting enough sleep, exercising, and journaling—ensures that we will have enough energy to push through the discomfort we feel.

    It’s when we lose our energy that we cling to distractions, miss important signs along the way, or give up. Trust that no matter how difficult a single day is, there is always space to pause and take a deep breath. Sometimes that’s all you might have energy for, and that’s okay. Without rest, there is no journey.

    —

    On my flight out of Peru, I peered out the window at the many trails that marked the earth’s skin like scars. I thought about the trek I had just experienced. I wondered, what did the trail look like from the sky?

    I imagine a life’s journey looks similar. It curves and zigzags through different terrain, some parts uphill, some downhill. It’s never a straight line.

    Uncertainty is a natural and guaranteed part of life. A journey isn’t intended to be seen from a bird’s-eye view. It’s rather meant to be lived in the moment through our own experiences. We don’t need to know what lies beyond what’s right in front of us. We’ll reach it eventually, in the right time.

    There are moments when we reach a lookout point and can make sense of the larger picture of our lives. From that perspective, we can look back at the journey we just accomplished. We can understand the connection between the series of events that have created our lives up to that point.

    But more often than not, we don’t have the ability to see our journeys from the lookout point. We instead see what it looks like right in front of us: a steep hill, thick trees blocking the view, and no signs in sight. We have doubts about what lies ahead.

    When we trust that there’s a grander view of the trail we see directly in front of us, we can muster the energy we need to carry us to a day when, finally, we reach a lookout point. From that view, everything makes sense. Trust that, regardless of what it looks like now, the lookout points are waiting for you along your path.

  • How to Break Free from the Past and Start Feeling Good Enough

    How to Break Free from the Past and Start Feeling Good Enough

    “My biggest fear is that I’m not good enough. I have this voice in my head that I’ve been battling for years that says, ‘You’re not really talented enough. You don’t really deserve this.’ ” ~Rachel Platten

    When we’re continually surrounded by unrealistic beauty standards in the media and highlight reels of others’ success on social media, it’s no surprise that many of us feel like we don’t measure up or fit the ideals of perfection.

    At some point in our lives maybe we were rejected for the color of our skin, the shape of our bodies, or for the way we looked, and we decided that we were somehow separate from the world.

    These events can be detrimental to the beliefs we hold about ourselves and turn into thought patterns that continually chip away at our self-esteem.

    For me, the feeling of not being good enough started in my early childhood. My older sister looked like she’d stepped off the catwalk, and she was extremely academic. I, on the other hand, consistently got low grades at school and was rarely complimented for my chubby appearance.

    My feelings of low self-worth continued when I started high school. I was the only Indian girl at my school and was constantly bullied for my skin color, my religion, and being ‘different.’ Kids would throw things at me on the bus and push me around in the hallway. I started to hate who I was and the color of my skin and felt even less attractive than I did to begin with.

    As I reached my teens, I would jump from one relationship to the next, hoping that validation from a boyfriend would somehow make me feel better about myself, but it didn’t. The highs were short-lived, and those relationships soon spiralled into a cycle of rejection, which made me feel even more unworthy.

    Like me, maybe you too experienced a string of events while growing up that made you feel like you weren’t good enough. Whatever the experience was, no matter how trivial, when we have low self-worth, our internal dialogue keeps it alive, like an echo that continually reverts to unresolved traumas long after they have passed.

    Most of us don’t enjoy digging to the root of our beliefs and delving into why we think, feel, and act the way we do; instead, we’re wired to sweep things under the carpet and use alcohol, food, drugs, or sex as crutches to help us to mask our emotions and maintain our sanity.

    It can feel unnerving to unearth years of buried emotions and take a trip down memory lane to explore painful events, but to break free from low self-worth it’s vital for us to understand what parts of us require healing. Otherwise, it’s like going to a doctor with a pain in our tummy and asking them not to take a scan to determine its cause.

    The way we feel about ourselves on the inside directly influences what we will create for ourselves on the outside. If we don’t feel good enough when we’re in the privacy of our own thoughts, it often impacts the quality of our relationships, the level of our financial success, and the amount of love, health, and joy we allow ourselves to experience in our day-to-day lives.

    Many of us trap ourselves by looking at our lives through a lens of low self-esteem and telling ourselves stories based on outdated perceptions of past events.

    For a long time, I clung to the story of how I’d been a victim. I believed I had no control over what had happened to me—the abuse, the bullying, the heartbreaks, and the rejection. I would pity myself for having to endure all the events that had played out in my life.

    Instead of believing I had the power to take responsibility, I allowed past events to define who I was and how I saw myself, because I didn’t have the knowledge, awareness, or tools to know any differently.

    I was taught the importance of focusing on my education, finding someone to marry, and how to build a home, but I wasn’t taught resilience, I wasn’t taught about unconditional love or self-acceptance, and I wasn’t taught how to deal with life’s challenges.

    I wanted more from my life, but the story I told myself made me believe I wasn’t worthy of having it and that it just wasn’t going to be my fate. I would replay events in my mind and continuously felt like things were happening to me. I couldn’t see that the events were happening for me.

    If I hadn’t been bullied, I wouldn’t have built resilience. If I hadn’t been abused, I wouldn’t have developed compassion and empathy. If I hadn’t have been abandoned, I wouldn’t have the drive and ambition to be independent.

    When I recognized all I’d gained from my past, I was able to shift my perception and start seeing myself not as a victim but as someone who was strong and empowered. I began to re-frame my experiences.

    Knowing I’d been through hardship helped me to recognize that I had an inner strength to overcome challenges, and my strong sense of compassion and empathy toward others allowed me to recognize my ability to be emotionally intelligent. Seeing the gifts in my challenges allowed me to view myself in a more empowered way, and as a result, I started showing up in the world differently.

    It’s easy for me to see this now that I’ve moved through my story, but when I was in a war with myself I found it difficult to embrace the lessons.

    It’s hard to appreciate the painful events that have plagued your life and destroyed any ounce of self-esteem you had. It’s easier to blame the world than accept that although you may not have deserved what happened to you, it happened, and that the only choice you now have is to pick up the pieces and move beyond it.

    Most of us struggle to move beyond our stories and continue replaying them repeatedly in our minds, which only reinforces our beliefs into our reality. The more we replay our negative story in our minds, the more we continue to manifest the same events—until eventually we get fed up of living life on a loop and are desperate to break free.

    We may believe we don’t have the power to reshape our stories because they are so deeply ingrained into who we are and how we respond to situations, but we do. And when we rewrite our stories, we break free from our past and transform our lives.

    If you would like to release your feelings of low self-worth and shift the energy you put into the world, this powerful exercise can help.

    Story Time

    Take a journal and write down the story of your life.

    How do you define yourself?

    Is your story full of your greatest achievements and happiest moments? Or are you listing down all the bad things that have happened to you and how unhappy you are?

    When you pen down your thoughts you’ll instantly get insights into how you currently view yourself.

    Are you able to spot any common patterns? Is there a recurring theme of rejection, shame, or resentment? Are you blaming specific people or events for how your life has panned out?

    You’ll soon get valuable clues on what beliefs or experiences are dictating your story, and how you choose to view your life.

    Now, journal your answers to the following questions:

    • What did those experiences help you to learn?
    • What skills have you gained because of those experiences?
    • How can you apply those lessons and skills to your current life?
    • If you could go back in time, what would you change about those events? Or do differently?
    • Are you ready to let those experiences go? And if not, how does it serve you to hold onto those experiences or feelings?

    With this newfound awareness, I’d like you to re-write your past story, and see if the language you are using to describe your past has shifted.

    Often, when we look back on our past with a newfound perspective, we’re able to re-frame our negative experiences into positive lessons that have shaped the person we are today. Without our experiences, we wouldn’t be blessed with the wisdom we’ve gained because of them.

    When we allow ourselves to move into a space of gratitude for all that we’ve learned, we automatically shift away from feeling like a victim and reclaim our power.

    Remember, you, as much as anybody in this universe, have the power to change the direction of your future. You just need to be willing to let go of what no longer serves you.

  • The Healing Power of Nature: How Walking in the Rain Saved My Life

    The Healing Power of Nature: How Walking in the Rain Saved My Life

    “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” ~Nietzsche

    A recent study by the National Academy of Sciences found that a ninety-minute walk in nature slows our worried, troublesome thoughts about ourselves and our lives. Even better, it reduces the neural activity in parts of the brain linked to mental illness.

    On the other hand, if you spend your time walking down city sidewalks, don’t expect much. The science says you’ll have no change whatsoever in your neural activity. Or even in your thoughts about yourself.

    This means that if you’re inclined to be anxious, depressed, grieving, or harried, go find the nearest nature trail.

    But I could have told you that.

    I road tested this concept at the very worst moment in my life, in the year following the sudden death of my daughter. At the time my life had fallen apart completely. Not only had my daughter just dropped dead from a medically unexplainable cardiac arrest, but a few months earlier I lost my relationship and the home that came with it.

    I’d also recently closed a successful business that had pushed me to the point of burnout. So not only did I need to grieve, I needed everything to grind to a halt. Then I needed to do a radical reboot of my entire life.

    Unable to fathom how to even begin, I found my way north to the country. Once there, I moved in with a friend.

    A nearby park with rambling blackberry lined paths beckoned to me—even in the rain soaked northern California winter. Unable to even keep two thoughts in my head at the time, the only thing I could do was to walk.

    Every day, I would pull on my rain gear and my big rubber rain boots and walk along the park’s muddy trails for hours. It was a rough and tumble place, but it was beautiful, as well. More importantly, I was alone out there as I slowly memorized every dormant blackberry bush, every rain puddle rut, and every sweeping field of grizzled grape vines.

    Sometimes I sobbed as I walked. Sometimes I smiled at the pileup of bittersweet memories that poured through my body. Sometimes unexpected ideas would pop up for things I wanted to write, or places I wanted to go. Sometimes I’d remember lost wisps of memory from my childhood, things once said to me or stories I’d been told.

    These walks became nothing less than a time of reckoning.

    Most of the time, I just needed the active motion of my legs pumping and my feet moving through the mud. I needed to feel my feet on the ground in order to somehow get a grip—and to be reminded, perhaps, that everything would eventually be okay.

    By the time summer came, I knew every path, every rock, and every tree. Gradually, my grief began to lift as my walks in nature gradually worked their magic.

    I felt held out there by something bigger than myself. More importantly, I reveled in the sheer predictability of my surroundings. It was important that I walked in this park, at this time, down these paths every day. In the absence of a job, walking these trails and letting my thoughts and feelings pour through me became my work.

    Turns out there is science behind my random decision to hike in the rain.

    Stanford University researchers have found that walking of any kind—outdoors or on a treadmill—increases our ability to hatch creative ideas. Yet, they’ve also found walking in nature actually produces the most high-quality, unique ideas. Not only that, the effect lasts when you sit down to do your work afterwards.

    I happened to have proof for this as well. Because as I walked, ideas would descend on me. I’d stew over things that bothered me. But then I found myself plumbing those experiences for some sort of meaning or lesson learned. As I uncovered these insights, I realized I needed to share them. So I began to unravel the mystery of what was to come next.

    Each day as I came back to our house, renewed and rain-soaked, I would I sit down at my computer. Then I’d write through what I’d discovered. By the following fall, I was working again in earnest. The ideas that had drifted into my consciousness as I walked now fomented into something real and tangible. So, slowly, I began again.

    These days I live in a city, though I still walk several times a week. But researchers say that’s okay, too.

    Just a stroll in a nearby park will help to clear your head. Yet, if you can’t get to the park, views of green space can also help. Simply gazing out a window at nature has been proven to yield better memory,

    This could be why the first thing I did every morning during that bleak period was to spend several moments just looking at the meadow behind my friend’s house. In the winter, a natural pond would pop up, becoming home to all manner of visiting birds.

    The scene was simple and serene, and it was so beautiful to see a white snow goose come flying in and land to take a drink. Little did I know my neurons were appreciating this as well.

    The NAS study suggests that having access to nature may become increasingly critical to our mental health as the years go on. All I know is that I now rely on a regular walk to carry me through my day. And not just any walk.

    I walk where there is natural beauty, even if it’s the small lake in the middle of my city. I’ve found it to be nothing short of a healing miracle. This truly is one that anyone can enjoy.

  • It’s Not Either/Or: The Power of Opening Your Mind and Seeing Both Sides

    It’s Not Either/Or: The Power of Opening Your Mind and Seeing Both Sides

    “Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    In late 2017 my husband and I were both getting ready for work one morning when I casually said, “Hey, I think I’m going to start teaching yoga in the jail.”

    Without missing a beat my husband said, “Well, that’s a terrible idea. Why would you do that?”

    He gave this comment as a statement, flat and decisive. I had suspected I would get this type of response, so I tried to play it cool, like it didn’t bother me. But it still stung a bit, since I had hoped for his support.

    As a long-time yoga teacher, I was excited about the opportunity to serve those who could potentially receive the practice’s mind-body benefits and who also might not have access to or have experienced yoga before.

    I knew I wasn’t going to fix them with a single yoga class, but I hoped by connecting with someone who saw them as whole and unbroken, they’d know they don’t have to be defined by their current situation.  

    My husband, on the other hand, saw it through the eyes of a police detective who specializes in crimes against children. He has seen the worst in human behavior on levels you and I can’t even begin to imagine. Additionally, he had worked in the very jail I was going to. He knew much better than I, with my dialed-up altruism, what could go wrong.

    He is an outstanding human being, as is almost every single police officer I’ve met. His misgivings were based in a reality I had never experienced but one he had the first-hand experience of.

    I understood his concerns, but my pride and ego were still hurt because he didn’t support the work I wanted to do.

    I went ahead and pursued teaching with the support of the Prison Yoga Project and ended up teaching the female inmates at the county jail.

    In the early weeks, my husband and I continued our unofficial cold war and didn’t talk much about what I did. But that didn’t affect my enthusiasm.

    I love my work at the jail. My students are as diverse as an exclusive studio’s clientele. I’ve had pregnant women, a mother-daughter duo, young, old, and a few who’ve gotten out only to come back a few weeks later.

    I never ask what they’re in for, but their tattoos tell more about their lives than I could read in their record—the deep grief for all they’ve lost engraved in black and smeared faded colors on their skin.

    The most common tattoos are in memory of people who’ve died. I wonder if there is something temporarily soothing to literally feel the pain of grief being etched into their skin and buried under the surface. I only have to look at the tattoo on my own wrist in memory of my son to know the answer.

    In the months that followed that initial conversation, my husband and both began to soften our stance. I found him to be a good resource for some questions I had about legal procedures or other things that came up, and he was curious about the women and their yoga experience.

    Then one day a few months back he came home and shared that a long, emotionally difficult case he’d been working on had wrapped up. The woman was sentenced to one year in the jail where I was working.

    He admitted he felt a moment anger that she would be able to take yoga classes after what she’d done. But then, he took a breath, sighed, and said that he would rather see her have the chance to come out better than to hurt any other children. We both softened.

    Within a week I too had a moment of questioning my decision to work with inmates. In an altercation with a man who was strung out on drugs and unhinged with violence, one of my husband’s co-workers was injured so badly he needed to be hospitalized. The perpetrator was arrested and taken to the jail where I teach.

    It was my turn to be angry and imagine that this man (or someone like him) could’ve hurt or killed my husband. Did I really want to support someone who could threaten one of the most valuable things in my life?

    I felt so deeply conflicted. Then I wondered if my husband felt betrayed by me because I was teaching at the jail. Did he feel I was either with him or against him? And did I expect him to be with me in my altruism or else he was against me?

    Either/Or and Both/And Mindsets

    Life is too often defined as either this or that. And, it seems, when we choose our side we must also choose all the things that are aligned with that side. For example, if I’m a woo-woo yoga teacher then I must be against the police. Our culture increasingly demands that we stake our claim, unwaveringly.

    When we fall into the trap of an either/or mindset we shut ourselves off from opportunities, connections, and relationships that could alleviate suffering for people on both sides of the issue.

    Either/or thinking is divisive at best. It places us firmly in our own silos, cloistering us in an imaginary us versus them utopia, whereas “both/and” thinking creates community and connection. It allows us to begin to build webs of supports that extend beyond our own ability to impact change.

    Perhaps you’ve found yourself in the either/or conflict when you discover that your favorite co-worker supports the opposite political party. You feel your stomach tighten and then extrapolate what else they must believe that you find offensive. These mental games likely result in feeling that you’re at war with this person, resulting in your work relationship suffering.

    A great place to start to transition to both/and thinking is to use the Zen Buddhist tenant of “not knowing.” When we open to the fact we don’t know everything about the situation it softens us.

    In the example of your coworker, perhaps they’ve been influenced by different life experiences that have shaped their beliefs and opinions about what’s best for our country and the people in it. And perhaps you even share similar values but hold different perspectives about the best approach to honoring them.

    When you consider that people who seem against you may also have good intentions, it’s easier to find common ground and work together instead of against each other.

    When my husband and I began to see our situation as both/and not either/or it was much easier to see how each of us could positively impact the individual systems we work in and, even in a small way, create healing for those involved.

    Recently in my Buddhist Chaplain studies, we looked at systems using Donella Meadows’ model. In her book, Thinking in Systems, she says, “You think that because you understand ‘one’ that you must, therefore, understand ‘two’ because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand ‘and.’”

    Seeing that my husband’s work is necessary and my work is necessary, even within the same situation, is a powerful force that creates change.

    It would be easy to put me in my woo-woo yogi silo and my husband in the cop silo. Instead, we agreed to focus on both our work and how the overlap can be an opportunity to dissolve the hard lines of either/or thinking and look for the places where “and” exists. Then we lean deeply into those places, because these are the tender places of real change.

    We need to learn to make our silos more permeable.

    One of the other things I’ve learned in my Buddhist Chaplain program is that when we consider the best way to positively impact how a system is functioning, we can start by focusing close in, then zooming out.

    If I am standing in the middle of a river I can feel the power of the flowing water, but when I stand on a mountaintop and look down at the same river it can look calm and peaceful. Both of those perceptions of the river are correct, but I’ve changed my vantage point.

    When we feel ourselves being asked to take an either/or position we can take a moment to zoom out and in to find balance in our perspective taking. We need to do both, get wet and get distance!

    Another negative outcome of the either/or mindset is that it forces us to find blame. When I assume the either/or mindset in a situation, then by default the person who is opposing me must be incorrect and therefore is also to blame when things go wrong. When we are looking for someone to blame it takes us out of accountability for our own actions and it removes us from being empathetic to another person.

    Without empathy, it is very hard to come from a place of compassion. And without compassion, we de-humanize the other person. The result of dehumanization is believing that the other person is less than us and therefore deserving of whatever bad things come their way.

    In the case of my husband and the woman he sent to jail, rather than dehumanize her with an either/or mindset, he saw her as both human and deserving of something good, while she took responsibility for her action.

    Each time we choose a both/and mindset over an either/or mindset we release ourselves from having to find someone to blame and we stay connected to our human experience without dehumanizing another person.

    A both/and mindset doesn’t mean we have to let go of being change-makers in the world. The world needs change-makers now more than ever. But there will never be peace and compassion in the world if we can’t do both—get in the river to feel the power and climb the mountain to see the calm. As one of my teachers at the Upaya Institute said, “A nudge of calm can shift a storm.” Be the nudge, not the storm.

  • Adapting to Feeling Unseen: How I’m Navigating a World That Overlooks the Aging

    Adapting to Feeling Unseen: How I’m Navigating a World That Overlooks the Aging

    Older
    Beautiful inside and out—
    Invisible

    I gave a little start when those words flashed onto the screen during a presentation by the poet Elizabeth Bradfield. Liz was in the process of describing six-word memoirs, modeled on Hemingway’s heartbreaking story For sale: Baby shoes. Never used.

    The photograph showed a wall from the 6 Words Minneapolis project, in which city residents were asked to briefly describe themselves. This entry spoke directly to an experience I’d been having of late but hadn’t quite been able to name.

    Consider: I smile at a young couple who are walking with their baby out of the grocery store as I enter. Their eyes flit briefly over my face and body without expression.

    Waiting in a loose group of people for service at a food truck—there doesn’t seem to be a line—the fellow taking orders looks straight at me and then asks the guy in back of me what he’d like.

    In a park a young couple finishes a photo shoot for their engagement pictures and walk toward me on a narrow gravel path. I smile and say, “Beautiful day.” They squint and pass by as if they’ve heard a noise but can’t place what it might be.

    Every time this happens, it shocks me. I’m not that old! A little wrinkled, yes, but not even close to elderly.

    True, I can’t know exactly what was going on in each of these instances. Maybe the couple with the baby were in the middle of an argument. Maybe the man behind me at the food truck had somehow gotten there first. The couple in the park—that one’s hard to explain away. I was right in front of them. But maybe they didn’t hear me.

    Still, this kind of thing happens to me a lot now, and I’ve got to think it’s because, as a somewhat older woman, people routinely overlook me.

    I guess I have no right to be surprised, because at a younger age I behaved exactly the same way. Working for newspapers in my twenties, I counted myself among the young reporters who were (we flattered ourselves) the only ones doing cutting-edge journalism.

    We paid scant attention to articles by our colleagues older than forty—who, I realize now, had a great deal they could have taught us. The same was true in my thirties and even forties when I was a freelance writer. Like many of my contemporaries, I wished the old fogeys would get out of the way and give us youngsters room to forge new ground.

    I should have seen this coming.

    Still, my new membership in society’s invisible masses comes as a shock. While I don’t have any studies to back this up, I suspect that older women are overlooked more frequently than older men. No surprise there. But am I overreacting?

    On a subway one day Jeff, my guy, nudges me and nods toward two gray-haired women who stand hanging onto a pole, deep in conversation. There’s something about them—their stances, their passion as they talk—that exudes strength.

    “Are they invisible?” he asks. He’s been skeptical of my complaints and insistent that lots of women older than me are anything but unseen. I have to admit: he’s got a point with these two. I can’t hear their conversation, but I’d bet they’re talking about something important, maybe a social issue that they feel passionately about. I wonder how I can get some of what they’ve got. Whatever it is, I want it.

    Or maybe I already have it. While aging has made me a little less sure of myself in some ways, I trust my instincts more, and I’m much more grounded in my beliefs. I’m more aware of what’s going on around me. I wouldn’t make the same dumb mistakes I might have made at the height of my sex appeal—say, walking into a dark alley with a man I didn’t know well because I was too polite to object.

    I can take solace in the fact that older women have a more vibrant role in society than ever before. Look at the number of women in Congress who are over seventy. Many writers, artists, and actresses continue to work into their seventies and eighties, even their nineties. I don’t have to quietly fade away unless I choose to. And something tells me I won’t.

    I wish I could meet the woman who penned that six-word story. There’s a lot more to it than the word “invisible,” and I find myself nodding my head each time I reread it.

    Yes, I’m beautiful now inside and out, in a way I’ve never been before. I’m calmer and more forgiving of those around me, and of myself. I’m better at not getting dragged into the drama of others’ lives. I often say I wouldn’t trade this body for my twenty-year-old self unless I could retain all the lessons life has taught me. Beauty without wisdom holds no appeal.

    In recent years I’ve tried to move a bit more humbly through the world, letting others go before me. Watching and loving, rather than taking control.

    I think back to the times in junior high and high school when I did everything possible to blend in, mostly from an insecurity I no longer feel. There’s a freedom to being unremarkable, I suppose. It just never occurred to me that as I aged, this role would be handed to me, rather than chosen by me.

    Even if society’s default mode is to relegate me to the background, I still have plenty of options. I can find ways to push myself forward—like I did last week at a seminar, when a well-known horticulturist dismissed me after I’d said hello to him. He smiled at me and turned to greet the older man beside me.

    “I have a question,” I announced firmly, which brought the horticulturist up short and his attention graciously back to me.

    Or, depending on my mood, I can settle for the contentment that I’ve earned. I’ve fought on the front lines in plenty of battles. I’ll probably insert myself into a few more before my days here are through.

    To my surprise, though, most of the time now I find that I’m happy for someone else to steer this starship. This goes hand-in-glove with one of the lessons that keeps getting thrown at me: Acceptance of what life presents me with—and forgiveness of those who overlook me—is a lot easier than fighting things I have no chance of changing.

    Back here I can quietly take stock of each new situation. I more readily notice people like me and other overlooked folks. What can they teach me? Calmer, quieter, and no longer constantly seeking the spotlight, I find I have nothing to prove. I can simply be. Isn’t this peacefulness what I longed for in my earlier years? How can I use it now to do the kinds of things I couldn’t accomplish with energy and verve in my younger life?

    This is my heart’s new work—part of it, anyway. The rest is encompassed in my own six-word story:

    Forgiveness begets peace. Infuriating, but true.

  • How to Tackle Fear and Anxiety Cognitively, Behaviorally, and Spiritually

    How to Tackle Fear and Anxiety Cognitively, Behaviorally, and Spiritually

    “The beautiful thing about fear is that when you run to it, it runs away.” ~Robin Sharma

    During my first-grade choir concert, my classmate, Meg, fainted from the top row of the bleachers, and in a subconscious gesture of empathy, I went down right after her, breaking my glasses and flailing on the gymnasium floor.

    It’s possible that this triggered some kind of coping mechanism in my brain, because I started fainting again and again.

    One time I fainted at the dentist’s office—immediately after the dentist injected me with my first round of Novocain—then months later in a hospital parking lot after a small medical procedure.

    I also fainted a few days after getting my ears pierced. I was showing my grandmother my new gold studs, and I happened to look toward the TV just as Nellie Olsen fainted during a Little House on the Prairie rerun, and that was enough, over I went.

    What affected me the most during those early years of growing up was not the tangible act of fainting, but my anxiety anticipating when and where I would faint next. Whenever I wasn’t moving, whenever I tried to be still, my thoughts traveled to the fear of fainting. And because of that, I tried to keep my mind constantly active.

    I had several tests, and the doctors found nothing medically wrong with me. I literally scared myself to the point of fainting. Though I never let fear prevent me from doing things, inner struggles and cautious dread were always present. It made living in the moment very difficult.

    Going to church became a major source of stress for me. I had time to think, worry, and become anxious. These were ideal fainting conditions for me.

    I’d have panic attacks during Sunday mass without anyone knowing. Moments of pulling my hair, pinching my skin, feeling my heart pounding out of my chest were common, all while trying to will myself from fainting.

    This continued for years.

    I seemed to outgrow my anxiety attacks after high school, and I continued through college and beyond, without thinking much about my prior angst. I got married and had three children. Then, during my late thirties, my anxiety returned with a vengeance, escalating to a fear of driving on the highway.

    Things got worse in my early forties when I developed major health concerns. Again, there was nothing physically wrong with me; I was purely manifesting physical symptoms from worrying about a certain disease or medical condition. It was quite a skill—one that I was not proud of, but one that certainly awakened me to the power of my mind.

    My fear ran deep and was so powerful that it physically controlled me.

    The more I tried to ignore my anxiety, the more it escalated until it gradually controlled the person I was becoming. I didn’t like “me” anymore.

    I was afraid of everything. I talked to my doctor, read every Louise Hay book, went to biofeedback, performed EFT, and saw a few therapists. I would do anything to remember who I was before the fear of living got in my way.

    The funny thing was, no one else noticed because this overwhelming anxiety never stopped me from doing anything. It just sucked the spirit out of me. No one knew that, to me, life felt really scary.

    I wanted to crawl up in a ball with my kids. I wanted to control every waking move I made and make sure we were all safe.

    I remember a profound moment one fall day after finishing a run. Out of breath and standing there with my hands on my knees, I looked up at the trees and saw a leaf floating from a tree. I stood and prayed that I’d learn how to let go and release my inner struggles and be as light and free as that leaf.

    That was when I decided I would not consume my every waking moment with this fear. I would be the person who chose to live life fully.

    So this is what I know now.

    To let go of something, you need to lean in.

    This is counterintuitive. We all have a built-in “fight, flight or freeze” response to stress, which is a physiological reaction that occurs in the presence of fear and is exhibited by the urge to flee, run, or freeze and do nothing.

    In many ways, anxiety can protect us from harmful situations. In other ways, when the threat is not harmful, it can prevent us from functioning at our fullest capacity and experiencing all that life has to offer.

    I spent many years of my life trying to push fear away and running as fast as I could from it. But what I needed to do was to allow myself to lean into fear, to work through it, to face it head on. I needed to show my anxiety and fear that I wasn’t afraid anymore.

    This was a frightening act. But the alternative was to continue to run—and this was even more terrifying.

    So I began to allow, to surrender, to trust. I stopped fighting and made a conscious choice to choose love over fear—again and again. Battling and rejecting a part of myself had only caused feelings of isolation and anguish.

    I searched to understand the power of my subconscious and began to process fainting as my defense mechanism. I realized that if I was going to move through this fear, I’d have to love and accept myself, including the anxiety within me.

    I stood firmly anchored in the ground of acceptance. Of all of me. And the result was a newer, more powerful version of myself—one that no longer was afraid to live.

    If you’re struggling with anxiety and/or fear, here are eight ways to move forward. In more severe instances, you may need the help of a medical professional.

    Cognitively

    Acknowledge your fear.

    This is a major first step. We often ignore our fears and anxiety for so long that they progress into a part of us.

    Compartmentalize your fear, separating it from yourself. Then peel back the layers and find out what it is that you fear. Is it disappointing others? Rejection? Failing? Something else? Recognize that it’s holding you back from becoming your true self.

    Fear is sneaky. It can be quite obvious, presenting as physiological symptoms, or it can be much more obscure. Procrastination, perfectionism, and overwhelm can all be forms of fear.

    Explore if any of these are showing up for you and consider how they may be contributing to your lack of progress.  When you pinpoint the underlying fear and how it is presenting itself, you diminish the power it has over you.

    Initially, I believed I was afraid of fainting. After much reflection with my coach and therapist, and as my thoughts evolved, I was able to identify my underlying fear—the fear of dying. Every time I fainted, my blood pressure would drop and I’d lose consciousness, essentially looking death in the eyes over and over again.

    Once I recognized this, even though it was still scary, the awareness allowed me to use coping skills to move forward.

    Lean into your fear.

    When you feel like running or fleeing, it’s time to face your fear with courage. Although our automatic response is often to run away, numb our feelings, or somehow distract ourselves, escaping only temporarily relieves anxiety. Fear will return, possibly in a different form, until you choose to confront it with kindness.

    Bring yourself into the present moment by noticing the sensations in your body. Where Is fear showing up as discomfort for you? In your chest? Your stomach? Your throat? Fully experience it.

    Befriend your fear.

    Let fear know that you’re not afraid of it. Ask it: What are you trying to tell me? What do you want me to know?

    What I learned from asking these questions was that fear was trying to keep me safe from harm. A part of my past needed to be acknowledged and fear was whispering, “You can’t move on and become your most powerful self until you work through this, my friend.”

    Then thank it for trying to protect you in the only way it knew how.

    Behaviorally

    Exercise.

    For me, running has always been a huge stress reliever. Whether it’s running or yoga or something in between, movement calms you down by releasing chemicals called endorphins.

    Make healthy choices.

    When I feel stressed, I limit my sugar and caffeine intake, since sugar crashes can cause irritability and tension, and stimulants like caffeine can worsen anxiety and even trigger panic attacks. A well-balanced diet full of healthy, whole foods will help also alleviate anxiety. Be sure to eat breakfast to keep your blood sugar steady, and stay hydrated to help your mind and body perform at their best.

    Breathe.

    Since I have made yoga and meditation a part of my daily routine, I’ve noticed a difference in how I react to stressful situations. Slotting this time into my morning ensures I get it done before the day gets busy. When you’re in the middle of a panic attack, it’s harder to move into meditation and deep breathing, so it’s helpful to make this an everyday practice.

    Spiritually

    Trust.

    Fear and anxiety can stem from self-doubt and insecurities. If you regularly work on accessing your inner wisdom, and acting on what you learn, you’ll develop more trust in your ability to do what’s best for you and handle whatever comes at you. You can begin to strengthen your relationship to your inner wisdom by journaling, meditating, and sitting in silence. This is an ongoing process that requires exploration.

    One of the most effective ways to build self-trust is to take small steps forward. Know that it can (and most likely will) be scary, but once you step out of your comfort zone, you’ll see that much of what you were afraid of was in your imagination. To make this easier, I often recall a time when I trusted myself, despite my self-doubt, and things turned out positively.

    Surrender

    When you have done all you can, let go. Discern what is outside of your control and find the courage to release all expectations of it. You may just find a sense of relief in allowing life to unfold naturally.

    —

    I still have moments when I get anxious and overly worried. In these moments, I think about the influence my mind has over my body. Perhaps it’s not about resisting my mind’s ability to control me, but rather redirecting its incredible power to work in my favor.

    And with that, I can move mountains.

  • Lessons from a Life Lost Too Soon: Don’t Let Your Inner Critic Destroy You

    Lessons from a Life Lost Too Soon: Don’t Let Your Inner Critic Destroy You

    “What you tell yourself every day will lift you up or tear you down. Choose wisely.” ~Unknown

    It was a story I just couldn’t get out of my head. A young teen had died in a town not far from where I live, a town where I used to live. I knew people who had kids who knew this girl.

    I heard she was a swimmer, bright and popular. At first the talk was about how she’d died. I heard someone surmise that she was killed. Someone else said it was a horrible accident, and of course, there were murmurings that maybe she had done it herself. And then, I heard nothing.

    Months passed and I eventually put the whole incident out of my mind, until I came across an article in our major metro newspaper. The girl’s parents had come forward to share the terrible truth about their beautiful teenage daughter who threw herself off an overpass.

    What could make a girl who seemingly had it all make that terrible choice? Her grades were good, she had friends, she was an athlete, and she had mad robotics skills. No one knew the depth of her suffering, and that’s just how she wanted it.

    At one point, the girl vaguely confessed to a teacher that she was stressed, and the teacher immediately shared this information with her parents. They in turn brought her to therapy, but the therapist never learned the truth or depth of this girl’s suffering. No one did, until it was too late. Not surprisingly, the girl’s parents were completely blindsided when they learned what their daughter had done.

    So how did her parents come to understand what led to this terrible tragedy? And what did they hope to achieve by sharing their daughter’s painful story with the reporter? The answer was in the girl’s journal, excerpts of which were featured in the article.

    The parents had not even been aware that their daughter had kept a journal until after her passing. What they learned upon finding her journal was that for one year prior to her suicide she had written a daily diatribe of the worst, most hateful insults directed at herself. This is something she allowed no one to see—not her closest friends, not her parents, not her therapist, no one.

    As I read through the excerpts, one word kept coming to my mind over and over again. The word was “indoctrination.”

    This girl had utterly been indoctrinating herself as if she had joined a cult, hell bent on getting her to feel nothing but utter contempt for herself.

    The reporter even pointed out that one of the many cruel, self-demeaning excerpts was written on a day when the girl and her robotics team had experienced a triumph at a competition, yet not one utterance of this victory was reflected in her writing. She had convinced herself that she was worthless, and she was not going to allow any evidence to the contrary to challenge that perception.

    Why am I telling you this story? First, let me ask you a question. Do you have a voice inside your head that tells you that you are unworthy, undeserving, ugly, stupid, or any number of other similarly hateful messages? I do. It’s harsh and it’s painful and it’s shameful. It’s the voice of self-abuse, and it can prevent us from enjoying life by shaming us for even our most minor imperfections.

    Those of us who live with this voice, tolerate it. While we know it’s not pleasant, we don’t typically see it as deleterious to our health. We don’t challenge it; we endure it. We sometimes try to drown it out with food or sex or alcohol.

    This girl however, took it to another level. She gave that voice power, she wrote down the toxic words in her head every day and drank them in even as they slowly poisoned her mind into believing that she didn’t deserve to live. That thought, that realization, hit me like a sledge hammer.

    It was at that moment that I asked myself a question. If the words she wrote down, reinforcing every ill-conceived, misguided, self-negating thought she had about herself, had the power to kill her, what would the opposite have done?

    What if every day she’d come home and filled her journal with thoughts of self-compassion, self-forgiveness, and unconditional love and respect? Could the power of those words have saved her life? Could they have defeated her cancerous self-hate such that she’d be alive today to share her amazing journey back from hell with the world? I believe the answer to that question is, yes!

    I can’t bear the thought of this precious girl dying in vain, so in a way, I write this article on her behalf even though I never had the pleasure of meeting her. I feel I owe her a debt of gratitude. She helped me understand the immense power we have to either convince ourselves that we are worthy or that we are worthless.

    We can choose to let self-hatred breed and grow in silence, or we can notice it and challenge it. The funny thing is, I agree with her initial action. I believe that writing down or at least saying our self-deprecating thoughts out loud is a necessary first step for exposing the lies we mistake as truths. We can’t stop there though; we then need to move to self-compassion and take on the difficult task of writing a different narrative.

    Let me just say up front that this will not be easy. In fact, this may seem like a Herculean task. It’s essentially forcing a runaway train to change direction. Reflecting on my own experience of trying to turn the train around, I find that I often fall back into old habits, drifting toward the familiar path of self-hate, but I now understand it is imperative that I stay the course and continue my efforts to change. If I don’t, I will ultimately be consumed by my self-destructive inner dialogue.

    Most of us who grapple with our inner critic never choose to end our life physically, but make no mistake when we allow that voice to take over, we are killing ourselves. What this girl’s story did for me, and what I hope it will do for you, is stop the complacency around self-denigrating self-talk.

    While I still hear my negative thoughts, I don’t feed them. Instead, I spend time every day intentionally focusing on the positive, and when life is hard and I don’t do as well as I’d hoped I would, I do my best to meet myself with love and compassion.

    So, what would happen if you committed to indoctrinating yourself daily with nothing but self-love, self-praise, self-compassion, and gratitude? How might your experience, your outlook, your world change? Your words are powerful. Your choices are powerful. Choose self-kindness. After all, you deserve it.

  • Life Is Far Less Painful When We Drop the Story in Our Head

    Life Is Far Less Painful When We Drop the Story in Our Head

    “You will never be free until you free yourself from the prison of your own false thoughts.” ~Philip Arnold

    Every meditator knows the dilemma of trying to find that perfectly quiet place to meditate, where silence is the golden rule and voices hush to a whisper.

    Oh how perfect our meditation would be if only everyone would be quiet.

    As wonderful as it sounds, we know it just doesn’t always work out that way.

    And that’s what made this particular meditation experience so insightful. It gave me an opportunity to see how my judgmental thoughts can make life far more painful.

    The setting was a camping trip in Northern California. Even though I was in this beautiful place and it’s generally quite peaceful, not everyone was there to commune with nature.

    On the day in question, I was heading back to my campsite after taking a leisurely stroll with my dog. I was relaxed and content as I started preparing for my afternoon meditation.

    Before any sitting I start with some stretching. I don’t know if it’s old age or just tight hips, but I cannot sit without some movement first.

    So as I was preparing my body to sit, my neighbors were preparing for a party.

    I could hear the preparations going on but didn’t give it much thought—that is, until I heard the music.

    Led Zeppelin at full throttle!

    I am a fan under most circumstances, but not at full volume and definitely not when I’m about to meditate.

    So in came the thoughts…

    How can I meditate with such loud music?

    What kind of horrible person would do this?

    The whole park should be quiet right now—I need to meditate!!!

    My initial thought was to forget about my afternoon sitting, as there was no way I was going to be able to meditate through this.

    So, instead of meditating, I just sat there, becoming more irritated and frustrated over the loudness of the music, my anger toward my neighbors increasing.

    At this point I was painting them as serial killers who should be arrested for being so inconsiderate. I imagined all the things I would say to them and how I would get the park ranger to shut this clearly unlawful gathering down.

    Because doesn’t everyone know this is the hour we meditate? Everyone should be quiet!

    The noise that was coming from the music was nothing in comparison to the noise in my head.

    By this time I was furious.

    After mentally torturing myself for about thirty minutes, having my neighbors arrested and convicted multiple times, I finally had a flash of mindfulness and asked myself, what’s really bothering me?

    Is it the music?

    Is it my neighbors?

    Or is it the story I’m telling myself about why they shouldn’t be playing the music?

    The music, in fact, was not painful; as I said, I like Led Zeppelin.

    And my neighbors, whom I had met earlier in the day, did seem like very nice people—highly unlikely there were any dead bodies lying in their trunk.

    What was upsetting me was the story of why they shouldn’t be playing the music and how this made me a victim.

    So I decided at that moment I would meditate, but I would also be on guard for what the real disturbance was. Not the music, not my neighbors, but the story of why they shouldn’t be playing the music.

    Because I was so prepared for the disturbing thoughts, the moment they started to arise, the moment those first few words would creep out: “But they shouldn’t…” “How inconsiderate…” “Why does it…” I dropped them like a hot potato.

    The link between the thoughts and the pain was crystal clear; their seductive power crippled. And as long as I didn’t give the story any fuel it couldn’t sustain itself, so there was nothing to bother me.

    As I sat my concentration got deeper, even as the music blared on.

    When the meditation was over I could hardly believe what had happened.

    I finally understood this teaching I had heard thousands of times: It’s not the situation but what I’m telling myself that’s causing me to be unhappy.

    But why did it have to take so long?

    Our thoughts have enormous power over us, and we tend to underestimate just how much control they really have. How sneaky and insidious they are, how they sweep in and take over before we even know what’s happened.

    At that point it’s too late; we’re so justified in our anger, our rightness, our pain that we can’t let the thoughts go.

    As I reflected on the music, the meditation, and what I could learn from it, I realized what made it so much easier was that I was on the lookout for the thoughts.

    I was expecting them.

    So I started making a list of other recurring thoughts that disturbed me. The same thoughts I had been rehashing my whole life, allowing them to sneak in and steal my happiness over and over again.

    That’s when I came up with my Top 10 Playlist.

    My Top 10 most recurring thoughts that just drove me nuts and had no benefit.

    After writing them out and staring at them in black and white I recognized my theme immediately. It was aversion.

    We all have two main modes of thinking (everything else is a subtext of these two modes). They are wanting/chasing/desire and aversion/not wanting/resisting. We all spend time in both modes, but often we have a preference for one over the other.

    For me, it looked like this:

    I wish I hadn’t said that.

    I don’t want to be disturbed.

    I don’t want to go to this event.

    How many times had I walked away from a conversation and immediately replayed it in my head, to find that one thing I shouldn’t have said? Nothing mean or unkind—just that I would agonize over that one stupid sentence, imagining the other person thinking about me disparagingly because of one measly sentence! Meanwhile, the other person was probably agonizing over the one silly thing they said!

    Or maybe I’d want to be alone and then spend hours disturbing myself (while I was alone) with the thought of not wanting to be disturbed.

    Or I’d dread some upcoming event, spending hours torturing myself ahead of time, only to say afterward, “That really wasn’t so bad.”

    Now that these were added to my Top 10 Playlist, I was on the lookout.

    Just like in the meditation, every time I started to see the familiar thought wanting to arise—“I wish I hadn’t said that,” “What if someone disturbs me,” “I really don’t want to go”—I would say to myself, “Oh that’s a Top 10,” and drop it right away.

    To be clear, I wasn’t suppressing any thoughts; that’s a bad and ineffective strategy.

    I dropped them because I had done the work already. I looked at these thoughts on paper in the light of day, and I couldn’t deny the pattern.

    I knew how long I had been dragging them around with me—my whole life. But what I also knew was that the thoughts were making me unhappy—not the other person, not the situation, not the upcoming event. ME! I was the one causing the pain by always being ready to fuel the story.

    When I’m asked, “How do you let go of negative thoughts,” my answer is always the same: it’s easy to drop them when you see the pain those thoughts are causing you.

    And that’s the problem: We don’t see the pain, or at least we don’t see that we are the ones causing the pain.

    Once we are caught up in a thought-stream, once we’ve created the story where we are once again the victim in this tragedy of our life, it’s too late. So we stay with the thoughts and the pain until we exhaust ourselves and then repeat.

    Keep in mind I’m referring to situations where we haven’t actually been victimized—when life may seem annoying or even unfair, but no one has literally violated us.

    That’s why creating my Top 10 Playlist was such a game changer. It helped immensely to see them all written down and reflect on how many times I’d been caught in these stories, how many endless hours I’d tortured myself, and nothing ever changed.

    But something did change. I brought them to the surface, I wrote them down, and there is enormous power in that exercise.

    For the first few weeks I would look at my list daily, typically before I would meditate and right after. This was when my mind was the most clear, and allowed a great deal of separation between me and the thoughts, because there was no emotion tied to the thought.

    As each day went by I felt more and more space and peace in my mind. Nothing changed, except that I wasn’t thinking these thoughts anymore. These thoughts that had tormented me for as long as I can remember.

    If I was alone and someone did interrupt me, it really did only last a few minutes because there was no story around it.

    As soon as my mind wanted to start replaying a conversation I just had, I’d drop it. I knew the pattern; I knew where the thought would take me.

    For every recurring thought on my Top 10 Playlist, I was prepared. They didn’t have the same emotional trapdoor they had before because I was expecting them.

    Are We Really Free?

    A prisoner isn’t free to choose even the simplest of things—to go outside, to look at the sky, the trees, the birds, the flowers, to feel the warmth of the sun or the breeze of the wind.

    But how free are we when we go about our days not seeing the world around us? Not appreciating even the simplest of things, not because they are not there but because we are always lost in our thoughts: worrying, fretting, constantly rehashing, and replanning our lives.

    We stay in this prison because we think we don’t have the keys.

    But we do.

    Do this exercise for one reason and one reason only—to free yourself. Step outside and see for yourself how much more beautiful life is when we experience it without a story.

  • Grief Isn’t Something You Live Through, It’s Something You Live With

    Grief Isn’t Something You Live Through, It’s Something You Live With

    “Obstacles do not block the path, they are the path.” ~Zen proverb

    I thought the concept of a “cold sweat” was unreal and paradoxical until the evening of August 27, 2014. That was my first cold sweat. My first of a lot of things.

    My heart jack-hammered in my chest.

    I heard my pulse in my ears.

    I gasped for air on my dorm room floor in New York, while my mom tried to calm me down on the other end of the phone in Los Angeles.

    “It’s just a panic attack, sweetie. Just breathe deep.”

    No, no, no, I thought. Panic couldn’t possibly evoke this kind of physiological response. My arm hurt, my chest hurt. Was it possible to have a heart attack at age nineteen?

    I didn’t sleep for days after that. I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up again.

    Every night, I would set my laptop on my nightstand. A close family friend with insomnia agreed to stay on Skype with me all night long while I slept so that I wouldn’t feel so alone. She stayed up with me three nights in a row.

    I stopped attending classes, social functions, and missed almost the entire first week of my sophomore year of college.

    Finally, on the night of August 31, I decided to take a walk with some friends. Those same feelings as that night in my dorm room came over me. They took me to the emergency room. An EKG, blood pressure test, and Xanax later, the doctor came in.

    “Tell me a little bit about what’s going on with you.”

    “Well, I keep feeling like I can’t breathe, sometimes my heart starts to—”

    “No,” he interrupted. “Tell me what’s going on with you. Not your body.”

    I looked at him perplexed for about ten seconds, and began. I told him that my father died suddenly in a hit-and-run crash in December. I told him I had to come right back to school afterward because my scholarship was riding on my attendance. I told him how heartbroken, lost, and alone I felt living on the opposite side of the country—away from my family—during the worst period of my life.

    He told me what I had been vying to hear for months.

    “You need to go home.”

    Without argument, I nodded, went back to my dorm room, and told my mom to book my flight. I knew I had to go home, but hearing that vocal validation was what I truly needed. Within minutes, months of torment and post-traumatic stress melted into relief.

    Unfortunately, while the doctor told me what I had been longing to hear, he also diagnosed me with generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder. Even upon returning to LA, starting a new school, a new job, and a new life, waves of panic continued to ravage my mind and body. And they always hit unexpectedly.

    Although I came home to properly cope with my grief, that task was still put by the wayside. Now, I had to deal with my anxiety and panic first. I had to find the right pills, the right dose. No matter what pills or what dose, I felt emotionally hollowed.

    In attempts to keep my anxiety levels down, the pills were making me tired all the time. I didn’t experience any more anxiety or depression, but I didn’t experience happiness or joy either. I had to try something else.

    In the boredom of a frigid December night, three years into my turbulent grief journey, I opened up the app store on my iPhone. Truth be told, I was looking for a crossword game, but instead I stumbled upon a free meditation app.

    I selected their grief meditation, settled into the plush carpet of my bedroom floor, popped my earbuds in, and began. Breathe in, breathe out. The sound of ambient ocean waves that underscored the guided meditation was like the waves of my grief—coming and going, never knowing when the next one would strike, sometimes dramatic and thunderous, sometimes muted and repressed.

    It wasn’t until the meditation ended and I opened my eyes that I realized there were tears in them. This is what my anxiety pills hadn’t been able to achieve. An actual outpouring of emotion. What I needed was to experience my grief, not silence it.

    But, I also needed to experience it in a place where I felt safe—and that place soon became that very spot on my bedroom floor. So vastly different from the spot on my dorm room floor across the country that was tainted with sadness and anxiety.

    For the longest time, I thought meditation was the silencing of your thoughts and emotions. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Soon I realized that meditation was the observation of these thoughts and emotions, without the heartache and turmoil of getting wrapped up in them.

    Every day, I gave myself ten minutes to meditate, to grieve. A year later, I weaned off my anti-anxiety pills, and never looked back. Two years later, and nearly five years since my father’s passing, I continue to meditate daily. Only now, it is as much a way to celebrate my contentment as it is to cope with my grief and panic.

    My grief and my panic disorder will always be a part of who I am, but I no longer see them as afflictions. Rather, they are facets of my overarching journey.

    Meditation took the place of my medication. But, that’s not to say that there is a right or wrong choice between the two. Without the help of my anti-anxiety pills, I would’ve never been able to see clearly enough to know that meditation is an option.

    There is no shame in needing the help of a pill, much like there is no shame in needing the help of a mindfulness practice. A practice that has taught me acceptance is the most critical part of our journey.

    So I began to accept. Accepting that pain, panic, and pills were part of my journey to peace. Accepting that grief is not something you live through, but something you live with.

    Accepting that all of these things were the path all along, not the roadblocks I thought they were.

  • How I Healed from an Eating Disorder and Stopped Hating Myself and My Body

    How I Healed from an Eating Disorder and Stopped Hating Myself and My Body

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

    I remember looking at the nutrition information on the bag of jujubes I had just eaten and feeling utterly and completely disgusted with myself.

    That was my first binge. Little did I know how much worse it would get.

    It was four days in to the first official diet that I had somehow managed to stay on for more than one day.

    I had dieted on and off most of my life, but any time I tried a diet that told me what I was and wasn’t allowed to eat (Atkins was the first of many), I never managed to last longer than a day or two before I’d “blow it” and give up.

    Prior to the day of my first binge, I had actually lost a lot of weight on my own, simply by counting calories, but I hired a trainer because, while I reached my goal weight on my own, I still hated my body and wasn’t happy.

    So, I did the only thing I knew to do at the time—pay someone else to tell me what to eat so I could have a perfect body and finally be happy.

    Ha.

    I white knuckled my way through four whole days before I found myself at the grocery store feeling much like I’d imagine a junkie feels as their high begins to wear off. I needed a fix and was jonesing bad.

    The next day, I barely ate anything and ran for about two hours to punish myself for being such a pig the day prior.

    Within a few months, I was sitting in a therapist’s office hearing him call me bulimic while I bawled hysterically and begged him to tell me how to stop feeling so completely out of control with food.

    The harder I tried to control my intake, the more out of control I became.

    The more out of control I felt, the worse I felt about myself and treated my body.

    Depression, panic attacks, bingeing, and restricting/over exercising (those were my compensatory behaviors) took over my world.

    What was wrong with me? I wanted a perfect body so desperately; why couldn’t I just eat what I was supposed to eat?!

    I spent a lot of time with my therapist, and he never really gave me answer for what was wrong with me (beyond the eating disorder) or how to fix it.

    It just kept getting worse.

    My body would shake and I’d be so desperate to get into whatever food I had as fast as humanly possible that I’d usually end up eating an entire large bag of candy on the drive home before continuing to eat until I was sick once I got home.

    After awhile I started noticing that it literally felt like a hole in the center of my being that I was frantically trying to fill—unsuccessfully. No matter how much I stuffed in there, it just never ever felt full.

    What started with one small bag of candy turned into a monster inside me that I could not control. It morphed from a bag of candy to eating myself sick and ultimately feeling like I was killing myself with food. At my worst, there were nights when I had eaten so much I was legitimately scared I was going to have a heart attack in my sleep and wondered if I should go to ER.

    So I started reading everything I could get my hands on. I was desperate—desperate to not eat myself to death, but also desperate to find a way to stop so I could just have that perfect body and finally be happy.

    But as I read, I came to realize that my bingeing wasn’t about the food. The over exercising and starving myself to compensate for the bingeing, none of it was about the food or exercise.

    And my desperate need to have a perfect body, in order to be happy, wasn’t even about my body.

    It all had everything to do with how I felt about myself and my worth as a person.

    I hated myself and felt worthless.

    I didn’t think I was good enough for anything.

    And in that one moment of awakening, everything that was wrong in my life made complete sense.

    I finally knew why I was angry all the time—I was in pain.

    The starving, restricting, bingeing, and over exercising made sense—I was punishing myself.

    The obsessive ways I dove into everything, including food and exercise, were attempts to keep myself numb and not address the pain.

    I knew that if I ever had any hope of changing anything, I had to stop chasing the perfect body and start learning to love and value myself, which meant figuring out where the self-loathing and feelings of inadequacy were coming from.

    The first thing I had to do in my process of healing, recovery, and growth was to start learning to be forgiving of myself and treat myself with compassion. I had been living with excruciating emotional pain my entire life that I never allowed myself to even acknowledge, never mind deal with.

    My constant anger didn’t make me a b*tch or a horrible person; it was a symptom of someone who was hurting deeply.

    The initial weight problem that morphed into dieting/disordered eating and ultimately bulimia didn’t make me disgusting or weak; it was a symptom of someone who hated herself so badly she was punishing herself every day.

    Those realizations allowed me to start extending myself compassion for those things in me that I wasn’t proud of. They allowed me the space to start healing. Because you cannot change while you believe you deserve to be punished.

    I gave myself permission to eat whatever I wanted.

    I even gave myself permission to binge, and the weirdest thing happened—I began to do it less and less. Now I cannot remember the last time I binged. It’s been years.

    It sounds crazy, like the opposite of what we should do. Permission to binge?!

    But when I realized the purpose it was serving and stopped judging myself for it so I could work on actually healing the need it was filling, it all changed.

    You see, as long as we’re judging and hating ourselves, we’ll always feel like we’re bad and deserve to be punished. And as long as we believe we’re bad and deserve to be punished, we’ll never stop punishing ourselves.

    It came down to five basic mindset switches for me: permission, acceptance, compassion, kindness, and curiosity.

    Permission: It’s okay because I’m doing the best I can with what I know right now. When I learn how to better handle these feelings, I’ll make more loving choices for myself.

    Acceptance: It sucks pretty bad, but it’s my journey. For whatever reason, whatever I’m supposed to learn from this, this is the journey I’m supposed to be on.

    Compassion: How would I speak to a friend or client going through this? That’s how I started trying to speak to myself.

    Kindness: The worse I felt, the kinder I was to myself.

    Curiosity: I couldn’t just blindly give myself permission to binge forever without actively getting curious about why I was doing it. So, every time it would happen, I’d spend a lot of time asking myself why. How was I feeling? What feelings was I trying to keep myself from feeling? Was there a better way I could manage those feelings?

    Alongside making those changes I also worked on learning to love and value myself and change the stories I had been telling myself about who I was and what I was worth my whole life.

    So, dieting may have made me bulimic, but my obsession with finding happiness and self-acceptance by building a perfect body led me down a path of learning to love myself and create happiness from within.

    I am enough.

    And so are you. So give yourself permission, acceptance, compassion, and kindness, and get curious about why you do the things you do. Perhaps, like me, you’ll find this is the key to your healing.

  • New Tiny Buddha Shirts and iPhone Cases, Just in Time for the Holidays!

    New Tiny Buddha Shirts and iPhone Cases, Just in Time for the Holidays!

    Hi friends! I’m excited to share that I’ve recently launched a new selection of shirts and iPhone cases on Tiny Buddha, with five new designs—meaning nine in total—just in time for the holiday season!

    I’m also happy to share that the new store offers much better shipping times than I was able to offer in the past.

    The new designs are based on some of the most popular memes I’ve shared on social media. My personal favorite is the “Peace Love Music” one.

    Each design is available in multiple shirt styles: tee, v-neck, tank, sweatshirt, and hoodie, with a range of colors and sizes, including kids shirts. For simplicity, I’ve include just the tee style below:

    You can grab a shirt or iPhone case for yourself or someone you love, or one of the five Tiny Buddha books (including Tiny Buddha’s Gratitude Journal and Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal) by clicking the button below. Happy holidays everyone!

     

     

    **Please note that this a busy time of year for shipping companies, and shipping times vary based on which option you choose. I recommend ordering before the 7th if you’re purchasing items for holiday gifts.

  • How to Beat Insomnia and Get a Good Night’s Sleep (A Spiritual Approach)

    How to Beat Insomnia and Get a Good Night’s Sleep (A Spiritual Approach)

     

    “Our spiritual mission is not to ignore the darkness, but to bring light to the darkness.” ~Marianne Williamson                              

    It’s 3:17 a.m. You’ve been staring at the clock since 1:42 a.m., mind racing, body tense. In five hours you’re going to have to drag yourself to work, terrified that you’re going to fall asleep at your desk—again.

    If you have trouble sleeping, you’re not alone. I know what it feels like to lie awake, reliving mistakes, making lists of things that might go wrong, waiting for sleep that never seems to come.

    In fact, almost one-third of the adult population in the US has trouble falling asleep from time to time. Ten percent of us have long-term insomnia, which means we struggle to fall asleep at least three nights a week for over three months.

    Whether you have a wakeful night once in a while or find yourself lying awake all the time, here are some new ways to think about and deal with insomnia that could change the way you feel about those sleepless nights. 

    Preparing for Sleep

    Using the following Feng Shui techniques can help turn your bedroom into a sanctuary that invites relaxation and encourages a good night’s sleep.

    Clean Out the Clutter

    Begin by getting rid of anything in your bedroom that isn’t useful or doesn’t bring you joy. Clean out the clutter from under your bed, the back of your closet, and all your drawers. Dust out the corners of the room and make your bed. According to the National Sleep Foundation, people who make their beds are 20% more likely to get a good night’s sleep.

    Remove or turn off as many electronics as possible. If you choose to have a phone or personal device in the room, keep it as far from the bed as possible. That blue light from your device can inhibit the production of melatonin, which helps you fall asleep.

    Engage Your Senses

    Once your bedroom is clean and clutter-free, turn it into a welcoming retreat by finding ways to appeal to your senses.

    First, surround yourself with soft colors. Focus on pastels or earth tones, no black floors or walls. An occasional splash of vibrant color is fine, but the overall effect should be soothing and peaceful.

    To bring balance to the room and help you feel safe as you sleep, make sure the head of your bed is against a wall, the bed is easily accessible from both sides, and the bedside tables are a match in size and proportion.

    If you’re bothered by noise, try using a white noise machine, or play some soothing music to help you unwind.

    To appeal to your sense of smell, use a diffuser with scented essential oils. Lavender and jasmine are great for helping you relax.

    Every fabric that touches your skin should be soft and inviting. Your sheets should be the best quality you can afford. If you haven’t replaced your pillow in this century, it’s time for a new one. Your mattress should support your weight comfortably. If it’s more than ten years old or it sags in the middle, replace it.

    Making your bedroom into a safe, comforting sanctuary is a wonderful way to help ease insomnia.

    Getting to Sleep

    Acupressure

    Acupressure works by removing energy blockages in your body and restoring the flow of qi (life energy) throughout your body. This renewed flow of the life force helps bring a sense of calm and balance to your body, mind, and spirit, paving the way to a good night’s sleep.

    One of the most effective acupressure points for insomnia is called “The Spirit Gate.”

    To find this point, place your right thumb on the horizontal crease of your left wrist, in line with your little finger. Press or massage the point gently for a minute or two while you breathe deep into your belly. Repeat on the other hand.

    Continue, alternating sides, until you feel both your body and spirit relax.

    Qigong

    This technique is my favorite stress-buster. I often use it after a long, hard day to ease the tension in my body and soothe my anxious spirit. It comes from The Qigong Workbook for Anxiety, by Master Kam Chuen Lam, and is called “Overwhelmed, Lying Down, in the Middle of the Night.”

    Begin by lying on your back in bed, arms at your sides. While your heels remain on the bed, lift your toes so your feet are at right angles to your legs and you feel a stretch up the back of your legs.

    Turn your palms toward your thighs. Clench your fists and curl them inward until you feel a stretch in your wrists. As you squeeze your fists as tightly as possible, lift your head and look at your toes. Breathe in and hold your breath to a count of four. Then breathe out with a whoosh, relaxing your body at the same time.

    I suggest you repeat this pose up to six times or until you’re fully relaxed and ready to drift off to sleep.

    The Sacred Hours

    If you’re like me, you may have had no trouble getting to sleep but find yourself wide awake in the middle of the night. And if you’re a worrier like me, you can lie awake for hours, worrying about the undone project at work, the annoying thing your sister said, or the strange noise your car’s been making.

    Worst of all is the fear there’s something’s wrong with you and that you’ll never sleep again. Believe me, I know all about the vicious cycle of worry leading to insomnia and insomnia leading to more worry.

    What broke that cycle for me was learning that waking up in the middle of the night is a perfectly normal function of the human body. Believe it or not, before the invention of the light bulb brought us artificial light, people traditionally slept in two distinct segments.

    The first segment of sleep began in the early evening (starting between 7:00pm and 8:00pm). This first sleep was followed by a wakeful period of a few hours in the middle of the night (usually around midnight) and was followed by a second sleep through morning.

    For thousands of years, people used this time to think, pray, read, or even go visiting. Today research suggests that the time between those sleep segments is a good time to meditate, create, and imagine.

    Once I understood that segmented sleep was normal, I stopped yelling at myself for being awake, and I stopped trying to force myself to sleep. Instead, I began using those wakeful hours as an opportunity to reimagine my environment, rethink my self-care, and reconnect with both my spirit and my creativity.

    How about you? Does the idea of segmented sleep change the way you feel about your insomnia? Can you think of any way you could use that time to improve your life?

    Here are some techniques I use that you might find helpful. Try them all and see what works best for you.

    Meditate

    If you already have a meditation practice, this quiet time is perfect for making a connection with your inner spirit.

    If you don’t know how to mediate or find meditation difficult, just start noticing your breath as it moves in and out of your body. With each inhale, focus on the word “in.” With each exhale, focus on the word “out.” Notice how cool the air is as you breathe in and how warm the breath is as you breathe out. As you continue breathing, notice how, over time, your body relaxes and continues to sink deep into an ever-growing sense of peace.

    If you have trouble meditating on your own, listen to a guided meditation CD or app.

    Think Positive

    Instead of spending time reliving all the missteps and mistakes you’ve made in the past, why not use this time to focus on all the things that have gone well?

    If you don’t know where to begin, here are some prompts I use to get started:

    I’m glad I tried…

    I’m proud that I…

    I’m thankful for…

    I’m happy I have….

    I love being with…

    I appreciate …

    I had fun…

    I savored….

    All right, maybe you’re going through a tough time. Maybe you’re dealing with a recent loss or are facing a difficult challenge, and you’re struggling to find a single thing to be grateful for.

    Don’t give up. I promise you, no matter how bad things seem right now, there’s something in your life to be grateful for. Look for small joys, moments of pleasure, or unexpected beauty.

    Are you grateful for the warmth of your bed? Or that you have a great support system? Maybe you’ve recently enjoyed a great meal or heard a song that you liked. Be gentle with yourself. Just coming up with one or two things you appreciate can make a big difference in how you feel and how you sleep.

    If things are going well in your life, why not make a game of seeing how many things you can come up with to be grateful for? Can you find ten things to celebrate? A hundred? More?

    A positive shift in your thinking brings an inner sense of calm that can help you ease into a restful sleep.

    Forgive

    What if you used this peaceful time to let go of an old hurt, anger, hate, or shame? The burdens you’ve been carrying around for so long weigh you down. Releasing them can make your life easier and your sleep more restful.

    Think a minute. Is there someone you could forgive? Is there a situation you would like to put behind you? Do you need to forgive yourself?

    If you’re ready to release this old pain, begin by focusing on the person or situation you would like to forgive or let go. When you bring it, or them, to mind, what do you feel in your body? Where do you feel it?

    To let go of that pain, put your hand over the place in your body where that pain lives. Now, imagine that pain is slowly dissolving under the heat of your hand and draining out of your body into the ground below. As you breathe out, let go of those old hurts. As you breathe in, welcome a new sense of light and love.

    Continue until you feel a deep sense of calm and you gently drift towards sleep.

    Get Up

    Finally, if you still can’t sleep, consider getting up and doing something restful or creative.

    This is not a time to tackle a work project, answer emails, clean, or do anything that causes you stress. This is a time to explore who you are and to get in touch with your heart and your soul.

    Relax

    Sip a cup of herbal tea. Read something that uplifts your heart. Do a puzzle. Knit. Gaze up at the stars. Follow the path of the moon across the sky. Just sit and soak in the peace and quiet. Try a yoga pose or two if that feels relaxing, or maybe take a warm shower to help ease any muscles that feel tense.

    Create

    This is also a great time to write or draw in a journal. (It’s better to go old school here and use a paper and pen. The blue light from a personal device can keep you awake.)

    You could also use this time to sketch, write music, write a poem, or try your hand at that novel you’ve always wanted to write. (But no working on anything that causes you stress. The idea here is to enjoy the act of creation, not to judge or critique your work.)

    Another idea is to write a letter of gratitude to someone who helped you when you needed it or a letter of encouragement to someone who could use a kind word. Or you could write a letter of encouragement and support to yourself.

    Reassess

    After twenty minutes, check back in with your body. How is it feeling? Are your shoulders relaxed? How about your belly? Your jaw?

    If you’re feeling physically relaxed and emotionally calm, try going back to bed. If you’re still tense, wait another twenty minutes, then check in again. At that point, no matter how you feel, climb back into bed for twenty minutes knowing that it’s perfectly normal to still be awake, and that you will eventually fall into a deep, restful sleep.

    —

    No matter what’s keeping you awake at night, there’s always a way to bring some light into the darkness, to care for your heart and soul with kindness, and to love yourself through the night.

  • Your Story Shapes Your Life—and You Can Change It At Any Time

    Your Story Shapes Your Life—and You Can Change It At Any Time

    “Every moment of your life is a second chance.” ~Rick Price

    We are constantly telling ourselves stories about who we are and what we are capable of achieving.

    These stories are sometimes the nostalgia of once-upon-a-time that whispers longingly to us. The stories can be the remnants of hardened pain that want us to trace over the lines of old scars. They can also be the tales we invent about imagined futures—what we think will happen.

    All of the narratives that we repeat to ourselves—both of the fiction and nonfiction varieties—are what we internalize and use to create self-identity.

    Wait a minute. We use fiction to shape our self-identity?! That sounds crazy.

    Yep. We do, and probably more than any one of us would like to admit.

    The stories we tell ourselves about our shortcomings and failures fuel the negative self-talk that leads us to accept the myth of a single narrative—a belief in only one version of what our life can look like. We cast ourselves as a character locked in an inescapable maze, saddled with baggage we can not remove, riddled with flaws and insurmountable challenges.

    It’s our interpretation of the past and how we project the future that determines the roads we take to all of our tomorrows.

    These stories can either lift us up or lock us down. They inspire us to reach for more or they make us stuck. The narratives inevitably shape who we become.

    Our storytelling begins at a young age.

    There’s the narrative of your childhood dreams, the one where a kid like me thought she’d become a singer or an Olympic ice skater, own a house in Malibu, and have a Barbie doll body and an endless supply of money and youth.

    Of course I neglected to consider the fact that I couldn’t sing or ice skate, had no desire to learn, and that Barbie’s body is make-believe. None of that would have deterred six-year-old me though. I felt truly unstoppable during my childhood.

    But it passed in the blink of an eye.

    Childhood narratives faded and gave way to the hormonally-charged teenage years. The boundless optimism of my imagination receded as my body changed and life shifted from the slow-moving days of childhood to the volatile ups and downs of being a teen.

    This is when my narratives became toxic. My social life determined the tempo of my weeks, and my identity started to become intertwined with how I felt about my desirability to boys.

    I was a walking powder keg of emotions who somehow managed to earn good grades and visibly hold it together. But on the inside, I was beating myself up to the tune of the dangerous stories I told myself: not good enough, not good enough, not good enough.

    I decided early on that I would never be as cool as the popular girls. I would never be skinny enough or pretty enough, and I wouldn’t even be smart enough to compete with the nerds. I would perpetually feel like I was falling short in all categories of my life.

    Those negative affirmations increased as an adult. My future projections about what my life would look like were often rooted in fear, anxiety, and stress about the present.

    A soundtrack of negative self-talk played non-stop in my head, reminding me about everything I was not, and everything I couldn’t do.

    I’m a failure.

    I’m too ugly.

    I don’t deserve it.

    Not smart enough.

    I’m unlucky.

    I make bad choices.

    I am a bad wife and a bad mother.

    It’s not my turn yet.

    I can never do that.

    I will never have that.

    Yadda, yadda, yadda.

    Whenever something went wrong, I blamed myself. We have this urge to blame someone for our problems, and like many people, I turned myself into my personal scapegoat. I would throw myself under the bus.

    We perpetuate a narrative of hopelessness that makes us believe we are victims with problems that are unique to us. Scarcity mentality tricks us into believing that we can never have what we want. We think we are abnormal and defective and forget that we are merely human.

    The terrible stories win. Those are the ones we become attached to and believe.

    They are us.

    We are them.

    It is difficult to separate who we are apart from those narratives because we spend so much time repeating those stories over and over again.

    I was thirty-four-years-old when I woke up one morning in April 2016 and had my story unexpectedly and irreparably changed.

    I found my husband unconscious on the living room floor. My six-year-old, three-year-old, and one-year-old were asleep in the nearby bedrooms while the firemen tried to resuscitate my husband before they whisked him away to the nearest hospital.

    By the time I followed the ambulance, a doctor met me at the entrance of the ER and greeted me with, “Nothing we could do.”

    My husband was dead.

    I would later find out that he had an aortic aneurysm and went quickly. There was nothing we could have done.

    And just like that, the life that I had on autopilot was over.

    I always experienced negative self-talk, but now I was living the real life horror story of being a young widow and single mother.

    There was nothing more shredding to my identity than getting forced into a story that for once wasn’t the terrible fiction I usually concocted about myself. This was my terrible reality.

    I couldn’t see any hope for the future. It felt too daunting and terrifying to even contemplate. Happiness felt like a cruel joke.

    I defaulted to blaming myself. I spun narratives to explain why I was in that situation, and why I deserved to be miserable and unhappy.

    I needed something to help me understand why I did everything I was supposed to do in my life and still got this crappy hand from the universe. There had to be a reason why I was alone while everyone else got to go home to their significant others.

    My answer to those burning questions was to throw myself under the bus again.

    I must have deserved this.

    I was probably destined to live a miserable life.

    I would feel shame and get judged by society, and I deserved all of it. Single motherhood would be hard and it would make me a societal outcast amongst my social circles. I would become just another sad, overburdened single parent.

    My children would suffer and be damaged by not having a father. I would single-handedly ruin their happy childhoods by not being able to live up to the staggering amount of responsibility required to raise a large family on my own.

    I would never accomplish the things I wanted to do in my life. I’d have to trade in those dreams for survival and my soul would wither. I would deserve it.

    I would never find another person to love me. I was now damaged goods with too much baggage. I would die lonely.

    I would always be mired in struggle. And I would drown in my fears. The pain would throb forever. It could kill me. I would never feel better. I didn’t even want to live. I would never be happy again.

    The nasty voice whispered to my subconscious, wanting me to believe this version of my life. It begged me to accept an exile to the wasteland of a life I did not choose. In the midst of my despair, it seemed easier to give in to that story.

    Later I would realize that I had to get it out of my system. Acknowledge the pain. Recognize the thoughts and emotions.

    Feel all of it.

    And then, let them all go.

    What if we just flat out said no to a narrative that we didn’t want to believe? What if we rejected terrible narratives about ourselves?

    I didn’t want to die a sad widow forced to accept an eternity of unhappiness. I didn’t want to give up my dreams and goals. I didn’t want to be alone forever.

    There was only one thing to do: rewrite the future and reclaim my life.

    Instead of capitulating to our darker thoughts, we can become a gatekeeper who chooses what to let in and what has to pass through.

    Negative thoughts are normal, but instead of holding on to them and becoming attached to those narratives, a healthier alternative is to let those thoughts float in and out. Hold on to the ones that make you optimistic about life—let those be the ones that grow and take root in your subconscious.

    Tell those stories every day.

    Instead of believing the narratives that tell us what we can’t do, we can choose to focus on what is in our control. When we don’t like a narrative, we can write new ones.

    Narrative two. Or a narrative three or four or five or whatever it takes to get to the version of your life story where you are going to be okay, you are important and worthy, and you can live a happy life no matter what happens. Living a life of your own design. One that is true to your authentic self.

    The life you wanted. Not a life that you got stuck in.

    At any given moment, we can make the next choice to move us closer to our personal goals. It doesn’t have to be a monumental choice—just a tiny baby step in the direction of where your goal sits brightly on the horizon.

    That is all you need. Moving toward a new narrative, even at the slowest of speeds, is all you have to worry about.

    It doesn’t mean that life will necessarily go as planned. It doesn’t mean that we won’t ever experience bad things.

    We will.

    Over and over and over again.

    Choosing an alternate narrative is a way to make the best out of what we have to work with in our lives.

    It took a good year after my husband died for me to feel open to creating a new narrative. I had to choose to leave behind the story about myself where I was given a death sentence of misery and obstacles.

    To be able to leave that narrative behind, I had to trust that there were many more narratives in my future, even when I couldn’t always see the details or know what direction they would take me in. I had to embrace the idea that there were still many more chapters in the story of my life.

    When I was ready to turn off the depressing noise in my head about who I thought I was as a pathetic single mother and widow, I began to brainstorm the positive things I had going on in my life. This was the prelude to my Narrative two.

    -I was thankful that I got to share almost ten years of my life with my husband. I learned so much from him, and I feel like a better person for having known him and experiencing the loss of him. This was part of my story, not the end of it.

    -I was thankful for the three children we had together. I wanted to become a mother ever since I was a little girl. I thank my late husband for these gifts, and I will be intentional about how I enjoy my time raising the children and enjoying their childhoods. I will savor motherhood, even when times are tough and stressful. I will focus more on my joy with them rather than the tediousness of single parenthood.

    -I never thought I would get married to begin with, but I did. I will trust that when I meet someone worth losing my single status to, it will happen. Just like it happened the first time. Until then, I will enjoy living my life on my terms, as a whole person regardless of my relationship status.

    -There are pros and cons to everything in life. I might as well take advantage of the benefits of being single and seek a life that I wouldn’t have had while I was married to my husband. I can explore new interests and take the time to reflect about who I am and what I want. I can pursue goals. This isn’t the life I chose, but I can still enjoy the unexpected benefits of being alone. In the end, this time will make me a better person.

    This past summer I was on vacation in Australia. My children and I spent an evening watching the penguin parade on Phillip Island, near Melbourne. Every night when the sun set, thousands of the world’s smallest penguins swim back to the shore and waddle across the sand to find a place to sleep for the night.

    We got to sit literally a foot away from where the penguins passed by. We listened to their noises as they called out to each other in the darkness. The Antarctic winds whipped across our faces.

    It suddenly struck me. This is Narrative two.

    I’m living it. Right now. Here.

    It isn’t what I originally planned for my life. I wouldn’t have chosen it on my own—I would have rather had my husband here with us instead. But this is good too. This was me doing what I wanted to do, seeing the world, raising my children, experiencing beautiful things. Narrative two was not an exile.

    It was an opportunity to rewrite my story. A story worth living, even after the tragedy that threatened to destroy me.

    If you can believe in multiple paths, you can change your narrative.

    If you can believe that whatever you don’t know, you can learn, it will happen.

    If you have a willingness to try new things, you can change your narrative.

    If you can take the time to figure out your preferences, it can happen. What do you like to do? What feels like enchantment in your life?

    If you can believe in yourself, you can write any narrative you want.

    And when something changes and the story isn’t what you want anymore, you can keep writing new ones. You don’t have to be a hostage to any narrative. Give yourself permission.

    Tell yourself the stories about those times when you were courageous. Tell stories about your strength, perseverance, and resilience. Tell stories about how strong you are.

    Tell the stories of your survival. The ones where you got through the hardest of times and experienced joy again. The stories where you knew in your bones that life was worth living.

    You have those stories. Those are the ones to repeat.

    Tell them over and over again so you never forget who you really are.

  • How to Keep Going When Doubts and Fears are Holding You Back

    How to Keep Going When Doubts and Fears are Holding You Back

    “If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” ~Vincent Van Gogh

    I don’t think there is anything more liberating.

    At least nothing I’ve experienced at this point in my life.

    I’m sure it’s happened to some of you. Probably more times than you can count.

    The freedom I’m alluding to here is the moment when you do something that a part of your mind didn’t believe was possible.

    Interestingly, the word ecstasy comes from the Greek ekastis, meaning “to step outside of oneself.”

    And when you are able to rise above your doubts and fears, it can be absolutely ecstatic.

    But the process of getting there is not without mixed feelings. You may have a kind of Stockholm syndrome with the parts of your mind that are holding you captive. These doubts and fears are yours; they have been whispering in your ear, dictating your actions; and they’re hard to let go of.

    Last year I went through a period of being heavily influenced by my own doubts and fears. I was juggling some health issues and had recently started a Masters degree, all the while working full-time.

    I was soon exhausted and began to fear that I had taken on too much. This was compounded by a number of setbacks I had at work. The launch of a product that I had been working on for six months fell flat when sales were drastically less than I expected.

    Maybe it would be fair to say that they weren’t just setbacks. Actually, I’m going to call them failures. Because although when I take a step back, I can be diplomatic enough to call them setbacks, at the time, when I was completely involved in the outcome, they felt like nothing less than absolute defeats.

    But I didn’t quit on the project. I kept going forward, whether by my own hard-fought persistence, faith in something greater than myself, or even just a conditioned habit. Probably a bit of a mix of all three.

    And now, this year, things are starting to pay off. But the fruits of my labor are somewhat bitter-sweet, as I realize just how indoctrinated I was by my own doubts and fears.

    So I’ve done some reflecting, and I’ve identified the mental shifts that have helped me keep going and step outside of myself in times of need.

    Here are four ways to keep going when your doubts and fears are holding you back.

    Recognize that everyone has doubts and fears.

    When we are gripped by doubt and fears, they can feel strong, overwhelming, and completely unique to us. We feel we have to believe them because we don’t realize everyone feels these things—even incredibly successful people—and we can actually choose not to give in to them.

    For example, I recently told a friend that I often feel tired when things in my business don’t work out the way I expect. I was momentarily humbled when he replied, “You know that happens to everyone, right?”

    The human brain is wired to invest energy in things that are novel. When we recognize that our fears and doubts are common, we learn to give them less attention when they arise, which slowly drains their magnetic pull. And over time we get better and better at feeling the fear and doing it anyway, whatever it may be.

    What stands in the way, becomes the way.

    This phrase comes from the Roman Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius. It’s a powerful reminder to that we can always work with what’s in front of us, and even use it to our advantage.

    Our brains have the tendency to see the world in terms of objects. We roughly sort these objects into “tools” and “obstacles.” If you look at obstacles as part of the path going forward, they transform into tools. However, if you only see potential tools as obstacles, you’ll quickly become overwhelmed by everything in your life that may stand in your way.

    Over the last few years, I’ve dealt with a chronic back injury, which has meant that I have to take frequent breaks from sitting down in order to manage the pain.

    Initially, I was frustrated that I couldn’t simply work for eight hours straight, without interruption. Fortunately, I’ve come to see the way I work as, well, just that—the way I work. It may be unconventional, but it’s still a tool that gets me to where I need to go, and not an obstacle that stands in my way. In fact, the breaks allow me a mental rest and help me to be just as productive as if I was able to work all day, maybe even more so.

    Come back from the future.

    Perspective is everything. We often feel doubt and fear when we’re fixated on our current situation. The longer we focus on our concerns, the more intense they appear.

    Our thoughts and feelings often change over time, and we can use that to our advantage. One way to do that is by realizing things have often turned out better than we once feared they would. We can take this a step further by coming back from an imaginary future and looking at the present moment through the same lens.

    I do this in my own life by visualising my future self looking back at any worrying situation. Sometimes I like to write down the question “What would the ninety-year-old me think about this situation?”

    For example, three months ago I decided to invest in a course to improve my marketing skills. The price didn’t break the bank, but it did create some anxiety about when money would come in and pay it off. When I asked the question of my future self, I immediately felt relieved, because I realized the anxiety was caused by a story about one month of income, and a lifetime of potential earnings was quick to put the concern into perspective.

    Collect wins somewhere else.

    Whether or not they recognize it or admit it, everybody has thousands of small successes and failures in their life. However, our minds can hone in on the failures and cause fear and doubts to run rampant. If you’ve begun to neglect the part of yourself that is successful, it’s incredibly useful to remind yourself that this part still exists.

    You can do this by intentionally doing something you know you’re good at and know will elicit positive feedback. For example, if you’re a talented artist, but you’re not feeling so confident at work, create something that you know will make you feel proud.

    This works because winning causes a dopamine spike in the brain, which leads to an increase in motivation and risk-taking behavior. The positive feedback loop can start from something as trivial as a board game, and creates the perfect antidote to fear and doubts: momentum and confidence.

    When the product I created fell flat, I spent a couple of weeks meditating for longer periods of time and pushing myself in the gym. This helped remind me that even though something I had invested time and energy in had failed—and I was very disappointed—I was still psychologically and physically strong, and my strength was the only tool I needed to try and try again.

    —

    These four ideas are relatively simple, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t incredibly effective. If you can put them into practice whenever you’re feeling held back by doubts or fears, you’ll begin to have more insights into what you are truly capable of—and you’ll begin to actually reach your potential.

    Doing something you previously didn’t believe possible is truly liberating, and the more you embrace these shifts in perspective, the better you’ll be able to tackle these worries in the future!