Tiny Buddha

Category: letting go

  • Accepting Things for What They Are Instead of Resisting Change

    Accepting Things for What They Are Instead of Resisting Change

    Acceptance

    “What we see is mainly what we look for.” ~Unknown

    Years ago I was fortunate enough to travel on a Mediterranean cruise. I had just graduated from college and was in that difficult transition stage where I didn’t know what would come next. I was looking to relax, but also hoping that some soul searching would lead to clarity, epiphanies, and answers.

    One day I thought I found them on the island of Santorini, Greece.

    Between the blinding whites, the sapphire blues, the sun-kissed streets, and the black-sand beaches, I felt like I had been dropped in a utopia.

    There, where everything was crisper and brighter, my mind felt clear and my heart felt hopeful. I suddenly had the feeling I would find my way and all would be right in my world.

    As I lay on the beach made from volcanic ashes, overflowing with happiness, I knew I wanted to remember the moment, capture that feeling and preserve this place.

    I strolled down to the shore where hundreds of rocks were piled together. They were all jet black, oval shaped, and glistening. I picked some up and felt like I was holding little pieces of paradise in my palms.

    I collected a dozen or so. The plan was to wrap them in a towel, bring them home, put them in a decorative jar, and always be reminded of the beauty of Santorini.

    I imagined my future self, back at home, thousands of miles and hours away from this peaceful sanctuary.

    I thought these rocks would become miniature touchstones any time I was feeling down or confused—that I would look at these black slabs, be transported back to this moment in time, be reminded of Santorini, and feel instantly better.

    When I got home, I unveiled the rocks and immediately felt disappointed.

    These rocks weren’t pieces of paradise anymore.

    Without the shimmering sun and the sparkling Aegean waters, the rocks had lost their magic, their glory.

    All I had in my hands were a pile of greyish looking stones. In the light at home, away from the Grecian sands, I could see the rocks weren’t breathtaking or naturally shiny and they certainly weren’t that memorable.

    They were just…. well, rocks.

    I wasn’t reminded of the feeling on the beach. Instead I was upset that what I wanted the rocks to be was clearly not their reality. Somewhere the rational part of my brain knew this was ridiculous, but I was still angry.

    It wasn’t until recently that I realized how these rocks did in fact, give me a gift. They taught me a few important lessons.

    In life we can have a tendency to take something and try to make it into another thing. Does it work? Sure, sometimes. After all, we can take lemons and turn them into lemonade; we can take a blank canvas and turn it into a beautiful painting.

    But more often than not, we can’t change something into something it’s not meant to be.

    Sometimes, a rock is just a rock. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just a rock. And no amount of wishing, manipulating, forcing. or hoping can change that.

    Isn’t that wonderful?

    Knowing this can help save a lot of energy that gets wasted on frustration and sadness.

    The rocks hadn’t changed—not one bit. My perception of them had. The feelings they evoked and the moment I had in Santorini simply passed. I was stuck between wanting to hold on and having to let go.

    We often try so hard to hold onto something from the past that we miss what’s right in front of us, in the present.

    The same is true for the people in our lives. We sometimes try—accidentally or purposely—to get the people we love to be more of who we want them to be instead of appreciating who they already are. We want them to be who they used to be or who they could be, instead of who they are in the present.

    I remember when I had the realization that one of my oldest and closest friendships was falling apart. There were many reasons for this split, but ultimately I think it came down to the both of us not seeing each other for who we were in the moment.

    We kept trying to squeeze each other into the roles of who we were when we first crossed paths years and years ago.

    We put this pressure on ourselves too. We attempt to perfect a million things, instead of just acknowledging our weaknesses and strengths and working with them. 

    We rarely accept who we are in the present because we are so consumed thinking of who we want to be in the future—or remembering a younger version of ourselves.

    I don’t know what just now made me remember those rocks from Santorini—the ones I didn’t put on a pretty display—but I am glad I did.

    I am grateful for the reminder that we need to accept things or situations for what they are and people for who they are. When we stop looking at everything the way we want to see it, and start seeing it simply as it is, life flows much more smoothly.

    After all, it’s better to let things and people shine where and how they are meant to.

    Woman breathing deeply image via Shutterstock

  • Letting Go of the Attachments That Keep You Unhappy

    Letting Go of the Attachments That Keep You Unhappy

    “Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    My father died when I was fifteen, so I learned right away that life was too short. At the time, the only meaning I could grasp from his death was that my life needs to mean something.

    I vowed to make something great out of myself.

    I went to college determined to become a police officer. I had a strange gut feeling going in, something telling me that it was wrong, but I just assumed it was because I had a hearing loss, and I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

    I graduated with a degree in Applied Arts and Science. To this day, I’m not sure how I went down that path.

    I know it was mostly due to confusion and self-doubt. I still had to be an officer though; I had to do something with my life. I spent more than a year unemployed, hating myself more and more with each failed interview, each rejected resume.

    In my spare time, apart from moping, I wrote. Growing up I always had a small dream to be a writer, but I always pushed it aside, for too many reasons to list.

    One day, after I failed a physical to enter the police academy by two seconds, I drove home and it hit me.

    I didn’t want to be a police officer. I wanted to be a writer.

    What was I doing?

    I mentally beat myself up. I was so desperate, so attached to the idea that I had to be great, go somewhere no hard of hearing person ever went, that I failed to truly live.

    How could I miss all the things around me that I enjoyed, that made me happy and at peace?

    I had an amazing husband who always nudged me to write. I had great friends who loved me for who I was, not who I was set out to be. I had a family who supported me no matter what.

    I lived in Colorado with beautiful mountains and scenery.

    I failed to realize what I really learned from my father’s death: life is too short. Embrace the moments.

    How often have we attached ourselves to an idea that if I accomplish this, then I’ll be happy? The thing about dreams and goals is that they have to change with us. We can’t expect things out of life. We have to enjoy the ride, learn from our sufferings, and take each day as it comes.

    Letting go of a dream, especially one I’d held since childhood, was a very hard thing for me to do. But once I did, I’d never felt so free. Everything in my life fell into place.

    Attachment makes us suffer; it forces us into self-doubt and misery. We are tied down and locked in the prison of our own minds.

    Once you let go, you are free. It’s so liberating. It starts to become a little bit easier, day by day, to let go of other things. It’s not easy, though. Old habits tend to pull us back in, but if we learn to recognize this, we can continue to soar.

    How can you let go? Here’s what I learned that helped me.

    1. Don’t expect things out of life.

    This applies to everything. When you’re nice to someone, you expect them to be nice back. When you do someone a favor, you expect something in return. When you have a dream, you expect that it has to happen or you’re a failure.

    I expected to be a police officer. I ended up being a writer and working in a bookstore. And I’m so happy with where I ended up. You can’t force life to happen. Letting go helps you to embrace life and the path you are on, not the path you expected to be on. And sometimes you end up where you need to be.

    2. Accept things the way they are.

    Again, apply this to every aspect of your life. Accept people for who they are and how they behave. Accept who you are. Accept the world for what it is. Once you accept things, you can look deeper and see things for what they really are.

    3. Meditate or sit quietly.

    Sometimes just sitting still and quietly can help us look deep within ourselves and see what we really want. If I had done this long ago, I would’ve realized that being a police officer wasn’t what I truly wanted.

    When you meditate or just sit with your thoughts, you’ll find that the answer you want will come to you. and it’ll always be the one you’ll least expect.

    4. Recognize your feelings.

    When you find yourself attached to an emotion or idea, recognize the feelings and reasons behind it. What emotion is locking you to your attachment?

    For example, my attachment to being an officer was due to an old childhood emotion of wanting to prove to everyone that I can do something most people can’t.

    5. Forgive.

    This is one of the hardest. We have to look deep within us and forgive ourselves for everything. We have to see that we’re humans, and no human is perfect. We all make mistakes, and it’s okay to have made mistakes.

    Forgive yourself for everything. Once you do, you can let go of the attachments that keep you trapped, whether it’s to anger, a false self, or fear.

    It’s only until we let go are we truly free. And it’s only then can we really embrace the present moments and life itself.

  • How to Find Yourself By Losing Yourself

    How to Find Yourself By Losing Yourself

    “Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” ~Walter Anderson

    Growing up in a small town in Western Canada, I was known as the kid who accomplished things.

    I was the well-mannered and conscientious child who skipped grade two, was at the top of her class, played three musical instruments, took ballet lessons, French lessons, swimming lessons, and any other lesson in which I expressed an interest.

    While this might sound like the calendar of an over-scheduled kid, it actually never felt that way. I had a real love of learning, and appreciated the opportunity to be exposed to so many things.

    While I was grateful for all the privileges afforded to me by my parents, the unintended side effect of being the kid who accomplished a lot was that it set a very high bar in terms of others’ expectations of me.  

    I knew my classmates and teachers expected that I would go on to great things, and so, I continued to achieve. I was educated at some pretty prestigious schools and got a Masters’ degree, and then a PhD. I embarked on a career as a corporate psychologist in which I consulted to high-powered senior leaders, lived a jet-setting lifestyle, and made a healthy income.

    And, if I’m being perfectly honest, it wasn’t just others’ expectations that drove me—I savored the response I got from people when they wrongly sized me up based on my appearance, and then found out about what I did. I enjoyed getting upgraded on airplanes and having access to V.I.P. areas of hotels.

    Being an achiever was an integral part of my identity. Yet, after a while, it started to become confining.

    As you can see from my childhood experiences, I am the sort of person who has varied interests, and a lot of them are creative. So, as you might expect, there eventually came a point in my career in which the artistic-dreamer aspects of my personality felt like they were being trampled by the pragmatic, results-driven, goal-oriented parts of me. I knew I needed to make a change.

    I talked with friends about my dilemma and got advice akin to some of the backlash many others who have been lucky enough to have some degree of privilege receive. People unsympathetically dismissed the stirrings of my soul as being in the realm of self-indulgent “first world problems.”

    “Do you know how many people would want your job with the money you’re making? You can’t mess that up!” a well-meaning friend said.

    “Are you kidding me?” chimed in another, “You sound like one of those spoiled self-absorbed celebrity types who has lost touch with how things really are and don’t realize how good they have it.”

    So, what did I do? Nothing. I put my nose to the grindstone, continued business-as-usual, and tried to revel in the identity that looked like gleaming gold to others, but was beginning to look painfully tarnished from the inside.

    Then, in 2013, my husband and I had a son. Each night, as I rocked him to sleep, I did what so many parents do: I shared my hopes with him regarding how he would live his life.

    I whispered to him that he could do anything he desired. I encouraged him to go after his dreams and live out his passions. I told him he was uniquely talented, and that he needed to use his gifts to the best of his ability. In other words, I told him to do everything I wasn’t doing.

    As someone with a newborn, I was a rush of emotions, novel experiences, and sleep-deprivation. I had quite a bit of time in the wee hours of the morning to introspect and contemplate the meaning of life. And when I reflected on it, I knew that the reason why I wasn’t practicing what I preached was because I was scared.

    What if I tried something that I was truly invested in and failed? How would others respond? Perhaps I would have to listen to sincere concern from loved ones questioning why I was making reckless choices.

    Maybe I would get expressions of disappointment from certain friends as I fell from the pedestal on which they had placed me (against my will). And, it certainly wasn’t inconceivable that I might be on the receiving end of some gleeful schadenfreude from others behind my back.

    Plus, there was that pesky issue of my identity. I liked being known in my circles as the one who could be counted on to achieve. Who would I be without that identity?

    After numerous quiet meditations during 3:00AM feedings, I realized that who I would be was someone who was a whole lot happier.

    I would be able pursue my heart’s desires unencumbered by apprehension about how others might respond. I would no longer have to stifle the voice deep inside trying to get me to embrace all sides of me. I would be free.

    So, to honor my creative side, I finished a book I had started writing a few years prior. I dealt with the feelings of uncertainty and nakedness that I felt in response to putting something about which I was truly passionate outside of my reach for others to judge.

    I have approached my work differently, drawing on my penchant for asking life’s deep questions and a desire to help others have professional lives that provide them with a sense of purpose.

    I have allowed myself to delight in the journey, without worrying too much about how others might perceive whether or not I am living my life in the way they think I should.

    And, the invisible weight that I have been carrying around has disappeared. I can just be myself—whoever that happens to be at the time.

    If you, like me, have let your view of yourself hold you hostage, here are some suggestions for breaking free:

    1. Think about your various identities.

    Which ones work for you? Which ones constrain you? While some identities might be obvious in terms of how they hold you back (i.e.: “I am not smart.”), be aware of others that might seem positive, but actually can work against you (i.e.: “I must do everything well.”)

    2. Recognize that other people, though well-meaning, can box you in.

    While listening to others’ feedback can be a helpful way to develop, be aware that they bring their preconceived notions to the table. Trust your gut, and be comfortable with the fact that others may not always agree with your choices.

    3. Be aware that identities change.

    Just because you have been known as “The person who…” for as long as you can remember, doesn’t mean you have to own that persona for the rest of your life. Who do you want to be? What feels right for you right now?

    4. Give yourself permission to grow.

    Instead of needing to be exceptional right away, arming yourself with the knowledge that you can always develop in an area through effort can help to deal with some of the fears that might come up when trying something new. Be compassionate with yourself.

    5. Keep in mind the words of the late, great Maya Angelou, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

    Do you want to look back on your life with regrets? If not, be true to yourself, and you will be rewarded with greater life fulfillment and meaning.

  • 3 Ways to Let Go Of Control and Relax Into The Flow

    3 Ways to Let Go Of Control and Relax Into The Flow

    “You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.” ~Steve Maraboli

    Sometimes I try really hard to control things.

    I run two businesses so, in many ways, control gives me a sense of peace of mind.

    When my team is doing what they are supposed to be doing, I can relax. When business is booming, I can relax. When I am getting what I want, I can relax.

    This control freak-ness doesn’t just apply for me in just business. I used to be this way about my body, and I notice these tendencies even pop up in my relationships too.

    When I feel like I am in control, I feel free. When I feel like I’m not in control, I feel frustrated, scared, and angry. It rocks my sense of security straight to my core.

    It’s tough to admit, but it’s the truth.

    I’m getting a lot better at relaxing without needing to be in control, and I’m realizing that the greatest control is in letting go of the need for it.

    When I try to control, I get attached to how I think it should play out; I think I know the best way for things to happen. But many examples in my life have shown me that when I trust and let go of thinking I know best, the outcome is better than anything I could have imagined.

    Letting go doesn’t mean giving up the desire, it means letting go of the struggle.

    It’s exhausting needing to be in control all the time, isn’t it? And the truth really is that any sense of control that we think that we have is false anyway.

    Our greatest power is in learning how to trust. When we focus on our desires with a sense of non-attachment to exactly how they unfold, it releases the blocks and opens us up to greater opportunity.

    Here are three ways I’ve learned to trust and let go of trying so hard to control.

    1. Step away.

    Richard Branson has been one of my greatest mentors from afar. He amazes me with his ability to balance business, family, and fun in the perfect way for him. He doesn’t even own a desk, and never has!

    I love watching the videos that Virgin posts on their blog about his life, because they remind me that creativity and great ideas come from stepping away from work and letting your mind open up. Richard says he gets some of his best ideas while in the bath, and he kite surfs every day, even if it’s just for fifteen minutes.

    While we don’t all have the luxury of our own private island to jet away to (yet), we do have the ability to take a long walk outside in nature, start our morning with even just five minutes of meditation or yoga, or turn the computer off an hour earlier each night.

    Taking time to enjoy life will only inspire and rejuvenate your energy for your work.

    2. Stop looking around so much.

    Compare and despair. Have you ever gone on Facebook to see what your friends are up to, and then twenty minutes later you are down in the dumps because somehow you ended up on a thread or a site comparing yourself to that person and where you think you should be?

    The second we get caught up in comparison, it sucks the creativity and energy right out of us. One of the best things I’ve done for myself is cut back on looking around at what everyone else is doing.

    I finally got to the point where I realized that, not only am I never going to measure up to them, I never want to!

    I want what I want, not what they have. So now I just try to stay in my own little bubble, working on the creative projects that excite me.

    Every now and then I do look around to see what others are up to, but I am super conscious to continuously check in with myself and ask, “Is this what I want to create for myself?” versus immediately judging how I measure up to their level of success.

    I also remind myself that I am on the right path, because I am on my path.

    3. Listen to your body.

    The human body is an amazing machine, one that most of us take for granted. We get signals from our body all day long, signals I call inner wisdom or intuition. Oftentimes, we ignore those signals and choose to follow what everybody else is telling us to do instead.

    Our body really has a vast amount of information that can help us with making decisions. When I am trying to control, I am totally ignoring my intuition. The more I relax into the flow, the more I rely on my intuition to guide me.

    Sometimes my body tells me I need a fifteen-minute nap. Sometimes it tells me that it’s not time to write the blog post right now and instead I should focus on something else. Whatever it is, I really try to listen and override the ego part of me that tells me I must push or force things to happen in order to succeed.

    It’s the difference between being solution-oriented versus problem-oriented, or in other words, inspiration-driven versus fear-driven.

    As a society, I feel like we need to remind each other often that an unhappy journey does not lead to a happy ending. It’s like we believe that if an achievement doesn’t involve stress or hardship, we don’t deserve it.

    We do deserve it, and we deserve a life built around a lot of ease and fun.

    What’s one thing you do to let go and release stress?

  • Can You Make Your Brain Fall Out of Love?

    Can You Make Your Brain Fall Out of Love?

    “Sometimes love means letting go when you want to hold on tighter.” ~Unknown

    A long time ago now, but once I was in a relationship that was full of great passion and hot desire, but it was also addictive, distracting, and destructive.

    When I noticed that it was ultimately bad for me, I knew I had to “get out.” So, I went cold turkey, as they say, and broke up, thinking I would be able to handle it.

    Unfortunately, it was much harder than I thought it would be. Every morning I woke up and found myself in the midst of some sort of insanity; my mind and body were filled with thoughts about him.

    My mind just wouldn’t stop racing about all that had happened, what I could have said differently, what I could have done differently, what could have happened differently. I lived with this for months and it was a daily dose of hell.

    It was at this time, however, that I enrolled to study as a hypnotherapist. When you train to become a therapist, you learn to treat different conditions.

    Usually, we had our teacher describing and explaining a therapeutic technique, and then he demonstrated the technique on one of us, which was followed by each of us practicing on each other.

    (By the time we had finished the degree, we cured all of each other’s phobias and bad habits, until none was left. This was quite a journey of self-development!)

    Soon the day came when the topic was “Suggested Amnesia,” a technique to “erase” unwanted memories. I volunteered immediately, ready to let go of all it all.

    The experience was nothing like you would imagine as some cold-war brainwash type of hypnosis.

    During the whole procedure, I didn’t lose any of my awareness. At the end, I didn’t lose any of my factual memories, either. But the memory of my tormenting relationship, previously so eminently on my mind, became a dim and vague residue memory as a result of the procedure.

    The amnesia worked on the emotional level. The edge of my thinking, which made my life so hellish, was gone. Actually, it taught my brain to fall out of love!

    The scientifically interesting background of this experience is about the nature of memory. Since the age of information technology, we tend to think of memory as a kind of data in our brain, which is either stored (remembered) or not (forgotten).

    Information is stored in our brain like on a computer, which can be kept on file or erased. Interestingly enough, however, newest psychological experiments show that the analogy for memory as a data bank is not quite accurate.

    Memory is not a piece of information from the past simply stored in our brain. Rather, all past events have created imprints on our mind, but those imprints are not static. Our mind constantly works with them and constantly changes memories as its current thinking changes.

    Memory is formable. You can change past memories by changing your present state of mind.

    How is this possible? Memories are formed as neurological connections in the brain: a certain sequence of connections is fired when the event is happening and later recalled.

    The same happens during imagination. When you close your eyes and visualize whatever you want, you’re actually creating new neurological pathways. This means that memory and imagination are created on the same neurological level and therefore one can override the other.

    You can try a little experiment. Close your eyes for a minute and think of a person you had a bad experience with.

    With your eyes shut, recall the memory of that negative experience. Make it as real as you can: see it like a colorful movie on your mind. See what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt at that time.

    Don’t make it too long, just long enough that you can open your eyes and notice the negative feeling coming up with the memory.

    After that, close your eyes again. Bring back the last scene of the same movie on your mind, but this time turn the colors black and white, play it backward, and start to shrink the size of the whole picture, until it’s nothing but a tiny dot that disappears into the vast blackness behind your eyelids. Gone.

    After that, start to make a new movie, completely out of your imagination, in which the same situation with the same person has a positive outcome.

    Maybe the person says something different, or you do, as long as at the end you can see the “enemy” person smiling at you, shaking hands, perhaps even giving you a hug (if that’s within your comfort zone).

    After you have effectively created the movie, open your eyes and observe how you feel. You should feel less negative toward this person, neutral, or perhaps even positive.

    The difference between your emotions following the first (memory) and the second movie (imagination) is due to new neurological pathways you have created in your mind.

    After my experience at the hypnotherapy course, my whole obsession with being “in love” completely changed.

    I no longer had those morning thoughts that had previously tormented me for hours after awakening. I no longer had those memories flushing into my life seemingly out of control.

    It is sobering to think how much of what is happening to us is actually a product of our own mind. How often do we say, “Oh, I can’t help it … I’m like this … I’m like that,” while it is our own mind that is responsible for our emotional reactions—whether we are conscious of that or not.

    I felt great relief. For a moment, I also felt disillusionment. My story was about a broken relationship, but what about good relationships?

    “Programming” our minds to fall in and out of love, would that not deprive relationships of all poetry and beauty? Are those happy, loving, and promising relationships also nothing more than connections in our brain?

    Of course not, I reminded myself. True love is not generated by our brain; it is a matter of our heart. Luckily, no amount of research, science, and therapy will ever change that.

    Woman in pain image via Shutterstock

  • How to Turn Worries About the Future Into Action Right Now

    How to Turn Worries About the Future Into Action Right Now

    “Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace.” ~Joan Borysenko

    After years and years of living with anxiety, I can’t tell you exactly what I have been anxious about.

    Is it a pervasive thought about how my life will end? Is it a constant worry about my financial security? Is it simply that I’m nervous to give a speech in front of people? Or a combination of all of them?

    Even thinking about anxiety causes more anxiety. Ahhh!

    Anxiety is also really hard to define. It’s so subjective.

    I don’t think my anxiety will ever truly go away. I still have thoughts about the future, and the “what ifs” still run through my mind.

    I’m not some blissful angel walking around in a constant state of Zen. At least, this is how I imagine how I would be anxiety-free. There doesn’t seem to be a cure for anxiety that works for everyone. If you find one, please let me know.

    However, I know that I am no longer miserable. It’s different now than before. There are some positive things that have worked for me.

    One of the worst parts of my anxiety was that nobody could tell I had it. When I told people, they responded, “Wow, you always seem so calm and put together.”

    That is not how I felt on the inside. Why was what I felt on the inside so different than how others perceived me? I wanted to change this, and I wanted to be comfortable.

    I have found some ways to cope with and significantly reduce my anxiety about the future. Because that is what anxiety is all about—the future. Yet, I experience anxiety in the moment, not in the future.

    Rationally, this does not make any sense. How is feeling anxious in this moment going to fix or solve any problem in the future? It can’t. Oh, how I wish it were that cut and dry.

    However, telling myself this simple fact somehow helps a little. Anxiety isn’t logical. The more I treat it that way, the less I struggle with it. Still, even if it isn’t logical, it is very real.

    I’ve found that small action steps can turn some of these thoughts into real positive change, which helps me be a little more comfortable. The best part is the more you do them, the easier it becomes. It’s like a muscle you need to keep working out.

    Here is a breakdown of action steps to take when you’re worrying about the future.

    First, acknowledge what you’re worried about.

    Let’s say I have constant anxiety about an upcoming work conference where I know I will have to interact with important people. When I acknowledge that I’m feeling anxious, and why, I can then begin to take action.

    Next, ask yourself, what I am actually afraid of, and why?

    Write it out if you’d like. In the above situation for me, it would have been the fear of passing out or throwing up as someone important approaches me or asks me a question. Why? Because I get uncomfortable in social situations and don’t want to embarrass myself.

    Imagine the worst-case scenario.

    My worst-case scenario is sweating profusely and having a room full of people laughing and pointing at me because of it. Oh, and then I’d have a heart attack. Sound crazy? Think about something unusual you have convinced yourself to be absolutely true.

    Move from fear to action.

    Ask yourself, how can I take this fear and turn it into something I can do today—something that will most likely not cause the absolute worst-case scenario to happen?

    We want to increase our odds here.

    How can I break this down into an action that will help?

    In my case, I could approach some friends at work and make conversation; nothing serious, just more than I usually do.

    Or, maybe I could go home tonight and research one of the speakers at the conference to get to know them a little better.

    If I’m feeling really brave, I could volunteer to present something small to a couple of coworkers or even to an all staff meeting.

    Maybe I could sign up for an improv class to get comfortable in front of people.

    Maybe I could just talk to someone I trust about how I’m really feeling.

    The more I take action toward that future moment, the less pervasive my thoughts.

    Think about the desire to become an expert at something. You can ruminate over and over again how you wish you could play the piano, but it won’t make a difference if you never take action and sign up for just one lesson.

    If you can do something of value at your best today, there isn’t anything about the future you need to worry about.

    You see, every single moment becomes another moment, and then becomes another.

    I’ve found that if I can do one action today toward something I am anxious about, and do it my best, that is good enough for me.

    If you take many small actions over time, when the big moment actually becomes the moment (no longer in the future), not only will it become easier to handle, but you’ll most like realize that it wasn’t worth all the stress.

    I like to think of life in this way: I don’t know how it will all end, nor do I want to. I know that I can’t control my fate. I’m not perfect and I make mistakes. And that’s okay.

    One thing I do know for sure, if I do my best today I can look forward to a future that’s much better than my worst fears about it.

  • Doing Your Best Without the Stress of Perfectionism

    Doing Your Best Without the Stress of Perfectionism

    Stressed

    “Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.” ~Robert H. Schuller

    Have you ever been stopped in your tracks by perfectionism? Would you rather not do something if you can’t be sure it will be perfect? Although this kind of thinking doesn’t make much sense, I understand it, because I’ve been there.

    I’d like to share with you some insights that helped me overcome my own deeply ingrained perfectionism and the unhappiness and stagnation it caused me.

    Avoiding perfectionism doesn’t mean avoiding quality work and high achievement.

    I am someone who loves making sure that even the smallest details of my work are right, and that the work I deliver lives up to my highest standards.

    I used to think that the opposite of perfectionism was doing sloppy work, so I tried that for a while, but it really didn’t sit well with me. I don’t know about you, but I like to do something well and make it good quality work, and doing something less than that makes me feel bad.

    If giving your best is what you do naturally, then doing something only half as well as you could just to avoid the trap of perfectionism isn’t going to help you. Trying this has always made me feel stressed because I was going against my nature and because I didn’t like the work I produced. So what to do?

    Who defines your “perfect”?

    I think perfectionism is really fear of being judged by others. It’s actually likely that others will judge us for what we do and say, but in most cases, we can get over it because it’s not so bad—or because we have to.

    However, a perfectionist never looks to compassionate and wise people and imagines how they might judge them! For example, when I am writing a new blog post, I never think of what my grandmother or the Dalai Lama would say about it. (It would probably be something like, “It’s wonderful that you express yourself creatively and try to help others at the same time!”)

    Instead, the people I have in mind are the cynical journalists whose articles I read (which is really my own fault) and the mean and angry people who post anonymous insults in online newspaper forums. I’m pretty sure they would actually hate what I have to say, but why do I pick them as my internal jury?

    This internal process is what I call destructive perfectionism, because it’s a way in which we beat ourselves up and possibly feel so stifled that we never even start our work, or never dare show it to anyone.

    Constructive perfectionism is the fuel you need to move forward.

    Destructive perfectionism stops you in your tracks. Constructive perfectionism allows you to start and do your best—even if a year from now you find it amateurish. That’s how great things get done; you have to start somewhere and work your way up.

    I started getting into strength training, movement art, and gymnastics over a year ago because I wanted to move as capably, strongly, and gracefully as the movement teachers I admire. I soon found that achieving this in a short time frame was highly unrealistic, meaning: For a long time I looked and felt more like an elephant doing gymnastics than an actual movement artist.

    But the vision of what is possible kept me going, and now I am a far better and stronger mover than when I started, even though I am miles away from what I want to achieve. If I had given up after one attempt because it wasn’t perfect, I’d still be a couch potato!

    In my journey away from perfectionism, I also stopped beating myself up and driving myself so far that I came by several injuries, and started enjoying the movement and the small progress I made every day.

    Maybe I will never reach the kind of athletic ability and grace that I long for, but I am enjoying the process so much and doing my health a big favor. So I hope you take this to heart and start enjoying yourself by doing what you love and giving it your best.

    Life is too short to miss out on the pleasure of doing something well just because others might judge you or you might not get it right. As they say: Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.

    Photo by Helga Weber

  • Some Things Take Time: Slow Down and Stop Pushing

    Some Things Take Time: Slow Down and Stop Pushing

    Silence and Stillness

    “Smile, breathe, and go slowly.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    As life speeds up, as we check our phones and Twitter feeds for instant gratification, as we seek out another spiritual practice in the promise of evolving even faster, we have lost sight of something quite fundamental.

    Some things just take time. This can apply to relationships, business, and, in my experience, it especially applies to spiritual awakening.

    Yes, our practices such as meditation, dance, service, and energy work can support us on our soul journey. But rushing our development can even result in us taking one step forward and two steps back.

    And, most importantly, it will likely just happen anyway—if we get out of the way and allow it.

    I know this firsthand.

    When I felt the call to start developing my spiritual practice, the quirks of my overachieving personality took center stage. I quickly found out that there were sankharas to pluck out, energy centers to unblock, past life traumas to heal, and old soul contracts to wrap up.

    And I wanted this all sorted out ASAP, thanks.

    So I went from an occasional meditation practice to spending upward of two hours on the cushion every day, and chanted several times a week.

    I spent every single spare moment practicing and developing my newfound energetic skills. I declined social invitations so that I could concentrate totally on the latest text that had fallen into my hands.

    I don’t regret any of this. I learned a lot and it was my path.

    But after a couple of years, I realized that my approach to my practice was perhaps a bit obsessive; that it could just be another manifestation of the way that I had been living before “waking up,” as I had termed it.

    I thought that if I threw all my might at my spiritual evolution, then I might master this new way of being more quickly, and more effectively. Yet under the guise of spirituality, I was just playing out my old patterns.

    The result? I was increasingly ungrounded. I spent days feeling totally knocked around by major energetic “clearings.”

    I was slowing myself down, or at least not really assisting the flow of what wanted to move through me. And I was just as over-the-top about succeeding as ever, this time, at my practice rather than in my career.

    I eventually realized that spiritual evolution is not like a report or book that you can write faster if you stay up late. You can’t force this type of evolution. It’s not the type of thing that you can control.

    This type of evolution is perfect. It’s like a delicate flower, which unfolds at its own pace, to the rhythm of its own internal clock.

    I came to this gradual realization, surprisingly, while pursuing a doctorate in women’s well-being and justice after violence.

    This involved deconstructing everything I knew—being prepared to ask the hard questions and receive the answers; asking some big questions of myself, too, and being prepared to hear the answers.

    It really involved a deepening of my understanding of myself and my spiritual practice. I started to appreciate which of my old patterns I had been inadvertently repeating, and which of my tendencies were actually not serving me.

    The doctoral process also taught me how to play the long game and how to let go—working alone every day and inching along with my ideas; waiting for months, sometimes, to receive any feedback from my supervisors; spending months and months writing thousands of beautifully edited, referenced words that never made it into the final product.

    Now, there are much less resource-intensive ways to learn this than through pursuing an advanced degree. Just bringing your awareness and being honest about whether you are playing out your existing patterns is the first step.

    And if you notice that you have a tendency to rush your process, make the decision to slow down. Once you realize that the timing of your expansion, or growth, or awareness is perfect, you will relax.

    When you fully internalize that the journey is just as important as the destination, you’ll know that you’re on the right path.

    In relaxing, and in getting out of my own way, I’m much more receptive. I don’t worry about how long things will take. I trust that it will all happen perfectly.

    I don’t push as hard now, and yet more opportunities seem to fall into my lap. My creativity flows. My life is much more fun. And my experiential understanding and my practices continue to deepen.

    It’s actually quite magical.

    Life becomes easier and far more fulfilling when we slow down and let things happen instead of pushing ourselves to make things happen.

    Photo by Lisa Omarali

  • When You’re Frustrated by a Delay: 8 Reasons to Appreciate It

    When You’re Frustrated by a Delay: 8 Reasons to Appreciate It

    Waiting

    “All great achievements require time.” ~Maya Angelou

    We all have a picture of what we want in our heads.

    We get attached to a timeline for achieving it. We fantasize about the results and how it will bring us happiness.

    We begin to work hard to attain it.

    But when we don’t get it right away, we get frustrated. We want things to move as quickly as possible.

    If we want a relationship, we want to find our perfect partner as soon as we can. If we’re building a career or a business, we want success in months. If we want to master a skill, we expect to get good after several weeks.

    Right now, I’m in this in-between stage.

    I’m in between getting my dream off the ground and where I want it to be. Because my dream hasn’t materialized yet, there are days where I lose motivation, because deep down I feel that if it’s not happening yet then maybe it isn’t for me.

    I hate waiting; I hate this grey area zone that I’m in.

    I want the results now. I want the validation. I want to make sure that I’m not wasting time and that what I’m doing means something.

    But I’m learning that it doesn’t work like that.

    When we resist this period of time, it creates a lot of anxiety, but if we look closer we may find that the delay actually contains great lessons for us.

    I’ve been trying to live a more intentional life of happiness and meaning. But the anxiety I’m feeling doesn’t align with what I say I want—and it’s not even getting me closer to it. In fact, I’m creating more delay. I procrastinate, I resist, and I sulk.

    So I’ve made a conscious decision to understand the lessons.

    It was difficult at first, especially since I felt that “must have it now” feeling. The last thing I wanted to hear was that I needed to wait some more. I resisted this because I deluded myself into thinking that if I ignored it, perhaps things would move along at a faster speed.

    But over time, as the lessons got clearer, I got more inner peace and reassurance that things are moving at the right time.

    What can we learn from delays?

    1. A delay is an opportunity to let go of attachment to outcomes.

    When we let go of our attachment to specific outcomes, we’re better able to concentrate on our craft.

    This is something to appreciate, because what happens if the result isn’t what you imagined it to be? Will you stop creating? Will you stop working on your passion?

    2. A delay can help us realize how badly we want it.

    Do you want it badly enough to keep working at it despite not getting the immediate result you want?

    3. A delay can help us build a stronger foundation.

    It prepares us and helps us develop our muscles.

    Get better at your craft. Figure out ways you can better use it to serve others.

    We practice and learn during this waiting period so that when the time comes, we are equipped to handle it better.

    4. A delay can teach us to think outside the box.

    When our way is not working and we’re cornered, it can force us to come up with new ideas and new ways of doing things.

    5. A delay can teach us to accept that anything worthwhile takes time.

    It takes time for things to grow. It takes time to build trust. It takes time to build anything.

    The sooner we get this, the sooner we’ll free ourselves from anxiety, and the faster we’ll focus on doing what we need to do.

    6. A delay can teach us to be productive while waiting.

    When we’re able to accept that some things are out of our control and that things don’t always happen as fast as we’d like them to, we’re better able to be productive, since we’re not overwhelmed and distracted by fear and anxiety.

    7. A delay can teach us to acknowledge and appreciate progress.

    With conscious effort, I am able to see my accomplishments and all the progress I have made so far instead of discounting it just because I’m not yet where I want to be.

    This is important because it’s removed the resistance that kept me from doing the work I needed to do; plus, I feel more fulfilled.

    8. A delay can teach us to be grateful for what we will receive.

    Because I have put in my sweat and tears in starting my dream from the ground up, I will make sure I will do whatever it takes to nurture it and not take it for granted.

    —

    A delay it not a denial. Just because something isn’t happening now, that doesn’t mean it’s not for us.

    I still get impatient but it’s getting easier, because I know that a delay can serve a greater purpose, and our greatest good.

    So, if you’re going through a tough time right now and something isn’t quite materializing yet, hang in there. Find reassurance in knowing that a delay can actually benefit you.

    You may not see it now, but hold on to this faith. This will help you find inner peace and enable you to keep taking action so you can get closer to what it is you want.

    Photo by Luz Adriana Villa

  • How to Let Go of the Fear of Being Hurt Again

    How to Let Go of the Fear of Being Hurt Again

    Hiding in the Rain

    “Accept your past without regret, handle your present with confidence, and face your future without fear.” ~Unknown 

    My pet fish died today. Red-striped fins as beautiful as always, he was swimming around in his tank only four weeks ago. First he became less active. Next he refused to eat. Then he was gone.

    As I buried him in the yard, my first thought was, I don’t want to have a pet fish ever again. Awareness kicked in, and I realized that my thought was triggered by fear to experience an unpleasant circumstance such as this again.

    This is how our minds tend to work: After we go through a hurtful situation, we subconsciously avoid anything that we believe caused our pain. 

    This instinct of self-preservation can protect us from repeating mistakes and experiencing pain, but it can also prevent us from living life to the fullest.

    One of my friends accepted a job that required her to relocate often. After the fourth move, she decided it wasn’t worth it to make new friends in her new town. It seemed to be a less hurtful option to distance herself from others.

    Focused entirely on work and her immediate family, she stayed in touch with a few long-distance friends, such as me, but she admitted that she often felt something was missing in her life.

    My uncle swore to never have another dog after his fourteen-year-old Shih Tzu mix had to be put to sleep. He didn’t have to deal with the loss of another pet, but was still in mourning for his dead dog years after the event.

    After a traumatic experience with marriage, the mere thought of being in a new romantic relationship used to make me my physically ill. I didn’t want to get hurt again, so I would distrust everyone I met, which prevented me from welcoming new people into my life.

    That’s until I realized that my sense of self-preservation had become my biggest obstacle to create new meaningful connections.

    How do we let go of the fear of being hurt again and open our hearts and minds to what life has to offer?

    Contemplating the following truths has helped me and it might help you, too.

    A full life is made of a wide range of experiences, and some of these experiences will be unpleasant.

    Job situations change. People and pets become ill and die. Relationships end.

    Accepting that sometimes things won’t go your way will allow you to let go of the anxiety and stress that arise from resistance to your life circumstances. When you stop resisting, your mind is clear enough to find solutions to your problems.

    Avoidance based on fear will not protect you from experiencing pain.

    Why? Because living in fear is already living in pain. Instead of avoiding perceived sources of pain, seek sources of joy.

    When I focused on the character traits I wanted the people in my life to have, and adopted behaviors that reflected these qualities, I started to meet amazing beings who became trusted friends.

    Assuming responsibility for your unpleasant circumstances is a way to regain control of your life and to learn.

    Ask yourself how your thoughts and behaviors might have contributed to what happened to you. The past won’t repeat itself if you learn from the difficulty and assume control of your thoughts about the situation.

    And even if you feel that you didn’t play a role in the challenge you experienced, you can still take responsibility for your attitudes and feelings about what happened. You can choose to move on.

    My friend could choose to apply for a job that doesn’t require moving so often, or she could view relocation as an exciting opportunity to make friends all over the country.

    My uncle could cherish the memory of his previous pet by giving a new dog all the love and care that all creatures deserve.

    When I let go of my limiting thoughts, I started to see life under a different lens, and welcomed new people who were aligned with my values and appreciated me for who I was.

    The instinct of self-preservation is a powerful tool when combined with conscious awareness.

    Become aware of your negative thoughts as soon as they pop up, and assume the objective perspective of an observer. This will prevent you from being ruled by fear and will allow you to tap into your intuition.

    Allow yourself to learn from the past and then, let it go. Leave the hurt and the pain behind. Move forward so you can enjoy the unlimited, amazing abundance that life has to offer!

    Photo by Eddi van W.

  • You Are More Than Your Past and Your Pain

    You Are More Than Your Past and Your Pain

    “We are like the little branch that quivers during a storm, doubting our strength and forgetting we are the tree—deeply rooted to withstand all life’s upheavals.” ~Dodinsky

    I began struggling with anorexia and bulimia in high school, a development that, in part, stemmed from sexual abuse.

    I internalized my struggles and made them a part of me, leaving me with feelings of shame, guilt, unworthiness, and despair. I had completely lost connection with my authentic self and instead, took on the roles of “ruined,” “broken,” and “worthless.”

    If you had asked me who I was three years ago, I would be stumped. I would get as far as my name and follow it with “I have an eating disorder.” Even after my recovery, my eating disorder was still a big part of my identity.

    I became the protagonist, but my “self” was more about the plot than actual character development. I allowed myself to be defined by external events and situations instead of unveiling my raw authenticity, values, and assets.

    My true self was masked by what had happened to me. Somewhere within the storms of my life, I lost myself and adopted a lesser, superficial version of Kelly.

    I felt fragile and unsteady, walking on eggshells and avoiding anyone or anything that may elicit a potential hurt or disappointment.

    I began numbing myself from unpleasant feelings, and consequently, pleasant feelings as well. I felt empty inside and weighed down with memories of my past. My life was robotic, predictable, and lacked both meaning and direction.

    The thoughts I had adopted about myself became my truth. I believed, wholeheartedly, that I was nothing more than my eating disorder, my trauma, and my circumstances.

    It’s easy to take pain, disappointment, and unfavorable life events and internalize them. We struggle with these unpleasant experiences and let them weigh us down when we fail to separate ourselves from them.

    By making our past hurts a part of our being, we carry with us unbearable emotional baggage and become overwhelmed by grief, resentment, and anguish.

    It is vital, then, to find separation between who we are and what has happened to us.

    The best analogy I have come up with to visualize this separation is to view myself as a tree. After struggling for years with pain from my past, I began looking deeper into my being, digging up the roots of what really lies within.

    The rain and wind of life’s troubles seemed to uproot me and bend my branches to the point of breaking, and the aftermath of these emotional storms left me feeling scattered, weak, and exhausted.

    I found an everlasting steadiness when I began viewing my true self as the trunk of the tree—the unshakable core.

    Within this strong and centered point lied my authenticity—my heart, my values, and the myriad of quirks that made me, me. This part of me is protected with layers of bark, which the storms can no longer penetrate.

    Instead, the rains of my pain, disappointment, and unfavorable life events became external, rapidly beading off and nourishing my roots, no longer making me feel shaken, but nurturing me for growth.

    This is not where the pain ends; this is where it begins. We are shaped by our experiences, not defined by them. They are, in a way, part of us.

    Some of these reminders stay with us longer than others. They are the leaves that cover our branches. Some fall as winter comes, and time kisses our wounds; and yet others stay with us through the seasons.

    They are each unique and beautiful in their own way, shielding us like an umbrella of strength, protecting us from internalizing similar hurts in the future.

    Whether bare or full, a tree is a tree. Whether hurt or healing, the external experiences of life cannot change the constant steadiness that is our core—our heart, our unshakeable sense of self.

    Who you are is not what has happened to you. The lost are never really lost; even after years of struggling with anorexia and bulimia, and losing myself to my experiences, something still existed deep within, waiting to be found again: the true Kelly.

    I encourage you to dig deep, to penetrate the soil, and follow the roots to your heart. There you will find the eternal essence that is you.

  • How to Be Who You Really Are, Beyond Your Ego and Fears

    How to Be Who You Really Are, Beyond Your Ego and Fears

    Shadow

    “Whenever something negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it.”~ Eckhart Tolle

    For much of my life, I was ashamed of how my classmates perceived me in my youth.

    My chagrin and regret began in the spring of my senior year in high school when I opened our yearbook for the first time.

    The seniors got center stage in the yearbook, as usual, with a big picture of each of us along with a four-year list of our activities and awards. I was proud of my list of five sports, especially my letters in wrestling and football and my participation in the choir and the boy’s quartet.

    Next to each senior’s picture there was also a short, affectionate phrase describing the essence of the person.

    Judy Johnson: Dainty and neat from head to feet.

    Clayton Thomas: To be liked by all in this age and day is the highest compliment we can pay.

    Anna Mae Westphal: Who could ask for anything more?

    Ah, my best friend, Don Denkinger: Never a dull moment.

    I turn to Gary Stokes, and there I am in my gray flannel suit, shirt, and tie. I am not smiling in my picture, but gazing off stoically into what?—my future, perhaps. My descriptive phrase: Reserved pessimist.

    It was the only negative description in the senior pictures. Of course I checked to make sure. One negative description embedded with 124 positive descriptions.

    I Wonder Who I Am

    I was angry with the yearbook editor, a long-time classmate and neighbor. Maybe she had not written my description, but she approved of it. So did the faculty sponsor.

    I was embarrassed but never complained to them. Instead, I held a grudge against them and sustained it well into adulthood.

    I mulled over those two words for years.

    Reserved. Pessimist.

    Maybe this was the first of the many challenges to my ego that I would encounter over the next few decades, challenges that would help me learn, develop, and become my true self—a magical being.

    But at eighteen, I couldn’t figure it out.

    Was I reserved? I didn’t see it. I had friends. I liked most people. I had a beautiful, brilliant girlfriend who would very soon be my wife when we ran away and got married six months after high school graduation. My read on myself was that I was an ordinary, friendly guy.

    Was I a pessimist? This appellation was even harder to figure out. I didn’t worry about the future. I didn’t think things would turn out badly.

    I examined myself, but I couldn’t see any reserve or any pessimism.

    I finally concluded that someone on the yearbook staff didn’t like me and wanted to give me a jab. Ouch. It worked.

    So, did I discover as an adult that I am by nature reserved—difficult to know in some way—and that I am by nature pessimistic, throwing cold water on hopes about how people or things will turn out?

    The Yearbook Signaled the Need for Some Introspection

    I would eventually have to face some pretty negative things about myself.

    In several marriages I would discover that I had built up some armor around my lack of self-esteem.

    I was the most well defended person she had ever met, one of my wives told me.

    I wasn’t able to admit my fears, so I hid behind a mask of supreme confidence. Some, no doubt, experienced me as reserved, difficult to know.

    To boost my own ego, I was often critical of others. I became expert at dissecting the personalities and faults of those around me. In spite of the fact that I was a successful national leader in my field, I needed to assert my superiority continuously.

    Those closest to me may have heard my criticisms as expressing a fundamental pessimism about the lives of my fellow human beings. At times they objected to my criticisms. I countered that I was merely describing others accurately.

    In other words, I was a real human being and also a false human being—a complicated mix of ego and authenticity made up of love, passion, vision, competitiveness, cockiness, self-pity, and victimhood.

    If there had been a mid-life yearbook, the summary next to my picture might have been “He may be a warrior, but he still makes mistakes.”

    I Learn That I Am, and We All Are, Magical Beings

    Over time, I was able to see the magical being behind my fears and ego disguises and able to see the magical being that everyone else is as well. How are we magical beings?

    • Each of us is a perceptual dynamo, our bodies a master work of sensitivity, able to examine our lives, learn, change, and emerge into our full powers.
    • We are the most conscious beings in the universe, as far as we know, the only creatures able to explore the cosmos, peer back into its origins, and begin to explain how it works.
    • We are the only creatures who can laugh at ourselves, create comedies for each other, and find delight in almost anything.
    • We are able to love, each of us able to nurture other human beings, able to intuit and imagine the needs of others and to create the support and understanding they need for emergence.

    Ah, I am a magical being and so are you.

    How to Become a Magical Being

    My journey from reserved pessimist to magical being has been full of detours, bad maps, accidents, and late arrivals.

    But it has also been a journey of discovery, wonderful surprises, breakthroughs, and heavenly destinations.

    Looking back on my discovery that we are all magical beings, I see these key milestones in my learning. If you’re also feeling disconnected from who you really are, these steps may help.

    1. Identify and confront the fears behind your front.

    My long-term fear: I was afraid that I couldn’t be loved, that somehow I wasn’t likable enough and attractive enough. Didn’t my yearbook spot this problem early? Didn’t my recent divorce provide more evidence?

    I devoted every day to stalking my fears. Instead of avoiding them, as I had always done, I sought out opportunities to confront them, test myself, and learn. It was an exciting time, as I opened myself to intimate relationships in a new way. I gave love without worrying about it being returned and I saw that there was nothing to fear.

    One joyous day I realized that I was no longer afraid of anything. That day my love of life flowed without reserve.

    You can overcome your fears. They are phantoms and will evaporate with your scrutiny. Muster your courage, identify them, go looking for them every day, and confront them. You will discover that your fears were simply bad explanations for what is going on.

    2. Acknowledge self-pity and victimhood.

    I was still vulnerable to having my self-importance pricked by others. Hiding below my ego’s need to be respected, I saw my self-pity.

    My victim stories always followed a pattern—criticizing the person who had challenged me in some way.

    With the help of a loved one, I stalked my self-pity like a warrior hunter until I exposed my ego for what it was—a false self. And then I laughed, full of optimism about life without pretense.

    Notice how the ego gets angry, irritated, and resentful, always creating the bad explanation that someone or something outside yourself is creating your life. Dump the ego and fly free. You’re a magical being capable of creating the emotions you want to feel.

    3. Learn how to sustain poise, no matter what challenges face you.

    I discovered that my full powers are available only when I am present, connected, grateful, creative, and light hearted. Poise is the state of consciousness I choose every moment.

    Poised, I live a vibrant life of joy and practical advantage.

    In your magical state, you can transform every challenge into opportunity, adventure, and valuable learning. Welcome the challenges, embrace them, and say yes to them. Remember, magical beings are creative dynamos.

    The Reserved Pessimist Wasn’t Real

    Had my high school yearbook writers been more prescient about me than they were, they might have said: “He doesn’t know it yet, but he is a magical being.”

    We all are.

    Photo by rohit gowaikar

  • 4 Simple Steps to Freedom

    4 Simple Steps to Freedom

    Happy woman sitting on the beach

    “I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    Once upon a time my mind was filled with negative talk and self-doubt. Those thoughts were so loud I could not hear my authentic self shine through. On a deeper level I knew she existed, but I didn’t how to connect with her.

    I believed I would have to work at it, change myself, somehow be good enough so I could be free to be myself. I believed the key to happiness was figuring out how to fix everything that was wrong with me (and oh, was there a lot to fix).

    If I fixed myself, then I could enjoy life and be that free woman I always envisioned myself to be. Little did I know the key to this freedom wasn’t fixing myself at all, but realizing that the little voice coming up with all those things to fix was a big, fat liar!

    The most profound and important realization I’ve ever had came from reading a little book called A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. It was that I am not my thoughts, but the awareness behind them.

    Wow. My true self is the awareness behind my thoughts, and she is always here! I have the power right now to choose from which place I act—what a magical concept! (more…)

  • Releasing the Need for Certainty and Trusting Our Decisions

    Releasing the Need for Certainty and Trusting Our Decisions

    Peaceful Woman

    “If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is.” ~Unknown

    If you’re like me, you’re hard on yourself—and I mean hard.

    You analyze your decisions and try to somehow calculate the results of your actions to feel a sense of certainty. Little did you know that searching for the certainty causes all of your insides to do flips and only causes more uneasiness.

    What I always wonder is where did the need to know come from? I remember being a free spirit with no worries as a child (as I’m sure most of us were—the beauty of naivety), but never did I have the need to just know first so I could be happy second.

    Where does this need to know come from? 

    I’ve recently been reading a few books by Don Miguel Ruiz, the most current being The Voice of Knowledge.

    A chapter in the book talks about our personal stories we have in our heads—the truths we tell ourselves based on our past experiences and overall beliefs about ourselves. We all have them, and we all utilize them to interpret the world in our own way. 

    These stories have become so ingrained within us that we almost don’t notice we’re still holding onto the things that no longer serve us.

    They teach us “because this happened in the past, this will happen again.” Even though the situation could be entirely different, we hold on to these “truths” for some surefire way to predict an outcome before we even know what it will be.

    We no longer trust ourselves to make the right choice because we want the certainty that it will work out the way we want it to, so we can avoid any hurt or disappointment. I’ve learned that this is actually the quickest way to disappointment, hurt, and unhappiness.

    We put so much of our energy and tie so much of our happiness into the outcome of this one decision, and we then beat ourselves up when it doesn’t turn out “right.”

    I’ve been there many times before, and I have to say, it’s still a work in progress toward fully understanding this concept and practicing its lessons. This has been most apparent as it pertains to my relationships.

    For a long time I was torn from a past relationship. I analyzed every bit of it until I had no clue what I was looking at. (Haven’t we all been there?) I closed myself off in fear because a part of me wanted to avoid making a wrong decision and ending up in a similar predicament where I had allowed myself to be hurt.

    Now that I’ve moved on, I’ve found that at times I still carry that fear of uncertainty with me, the fear that trusting myself isn’t enough to know what is right. And that is why I say I’m still a work in progress. I’ve had to learn to let go of these “truths” and stories in order to see things fresh.

    Realizations don’t always lead to immediate changes, but recognizing is the first step.

    I’ve gone a little bit easier on myself over time, but I’ve tried to remember that happiness doesn’t come from knowing; it comes from living through what life gives us.

    It can’t be about figuring out some correct equation to all, because one equation can never fit any and every situation.

    At the end of the day, the best thing you can do for yourself is trust in what feels good to your soul, but first open the space within yourself to receiving these feelings. If you close yourself off emotionally and get caught in your head, you won’t know how to feel anymore.

    So as a reminder to me and as a reminder to you, go easy on yourself. Respect the space within you that desires the freedom to live, without the need to know right at this moment.

    There is never a true state of knowing because we are constantly learning; there is just a state of trusting and accepting the choices we make and knowing every outcome is a lesson—even if we’re still opening ourselves to receive it.

    Photo by Giuseppe Chirico

  • The Stage of Grief You’ve Never Heard of But May Be Stuck In

    The Stage of Grief You’ve Never Heard of But May Be Stuck In

    “Life is a process of becoming. A combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” ~Anais Nin

    Since I was a little girl I have believed in the power of wishes. I’ve never missed a first star, a dandelion plume, or load of hay (load of hay, load of hay, make a wish and turn away) to express to the universe my deepest desires.

    When I was fifteen and my dad was at the end stages of cancer, I would wish on the first star, not to save him, but to plead a peaceful end. Since my oldest son passed away very unexpectedly in October of 2010, I have made hundreds of wishes to remember every detail I can about the boy who was the other half of my heart.

    In the three years since Brandon’s death, I believe my wish to keep his memory alive have been answered by learning to turn my “whys” into “hows.”

    Asking “why” isn’t one of the official stages of grief, but maybe it should be. Anger and denial get all the attention, while getting stuck in the “why” freezes you in your tracks and prevents any opportunity for growth or movement toward healing.

    Not being able to let go of needing to know “why” forces you to focus on the rear view mirror. It keeps you in the past and prevents you from living in a way that honors the person or thing you have lost.

    It’s in my nature to ask why. “Why” can be a powerful question that leads to clarity and progress. It can also be a roadblock in the one-way traffic of life.

    Life doesn’t come with reverse, only neutral and various speeds of forward progress. “Why” firmly plants us in neutral, and that’s where I was in the months after Brandon’s death.

    I obsessed over the “why.” My brain whirled at sonic speed looking for it. I assumed if I found the “why,” I would find comfort and would be able to pick up the pieces and move on. I came up with elaborate theories of why Brandon died.

    Brandon was home on leave from the Army when he passed away, but was scheduled to be deployed within the next few months. I spun that into my favorite “why theory,” that dying at home saved him some horrible combat death in Afghanistan.

    It made me feel better, briefly, but I was still left with the bigger question that would never be answered—why did it have to happen at all?

    “What’s your why?” has become a motivational catch phrase. I remember seeing an inspirational quote on Pinterest after Brandon died, with a picture of a scantily clad, fit chick with “What’s your why?” typed beneath her sculpted abs. I shouted at her in the quiet of my room to eff-off—my “why” died!

    “What’s your why?” sounds absurd to the grieving person, and it’s not comforting!

    Not only had my “why” died, I also found myself pleading with the universe for the explanation to “why this happened. “Why” is a question with no answer when it comes to loss. “Why” offers more questions than comfort.

    Another word that isn’t included in the official grief process, but again, I think it should be, is “how.” “How” explores possibilities. “How” shines a light into the future. Exploring “how” to live a life that honors the memory of my son made my wishes come true.

    After realizing being stuck in “why” would never ease the pain of losing him, I began to realize that how I live the rest of my life is the outward manifestation of my son’s spirit.

    It is the only way anyone will ever get to know my son, and the only way I can keep his memory alive. If I continued to live in the “why,” I would diminish his memory, but by living in the “how” I magnify his memory by my actions.

    It doesn’t make the grief go away; rather, it ignites my grief as a powerful vessel for change.

    My “how” is manifested in cultivating a life of adventure and using radical self-care to ensure that I have the energy to embrace a life that reflects Brandon’s best qualities.

    It is a labor of love for my son that I embrace life, take risks, be courageous, pay it forward, and act in a way that makes people ask what I’ve been smoking. My actions are how I keep the memory of my son alive; it is how my wish has been granted.

    If you or a loved one is stuck in the “why,” let it go—it simply doesn’t exist. It’s time to live in the “how.”

  • How to Stop Hurting When You Feel Like You’ve Been Wronged

    How to Stop Hurting When You Feel Like You’ve Been Wronged

    “At any given moment, you have the power to say: This is not how the story is going to end.” ~Christine Mason Miller

    Several months ago my partner’s father (we’ll call him D) verbally attacked me. A couple weeks later it happened again, except this time it was more aggressive and more personal.

    When I calmly told him that his behavior was unacceptable, he became angry and spent the next several months using every tool in his vast arsenal to put space between my partner and me.

    And for a while it worked.

    Suddenly I found myself constantly obsessed over the confrontation, playing it back in my head like a bad movie that wouldn’t quit. I was sad all the time over the continued aggression, as well as the loss of the illusions I had unconsciously subscribed to. (“But we’re a family!” and “It’s supposed to be different than this!”)

    Most importantly, though, I found myself removed from the happy, joyful person I was before. Instead, I was consumed by feeling angry, wronged, and resentful, seemingly unable to climb out of the hole of alienation and anger.

    We all want to be accepted, seen, and loved, but it’s hard to feel any of those things when we’re too busy feeling victimized or picked on.

    There’s no doubt that my partner’s father was out of line and that his behavior was disrespectful and hurtful, but there’s also no doubt that I allowed myself to be affected by it.

    We’ve all heard that nothing ever goes away until it’s taught us what we need to know, and now that I’ve learned my lessons, I can tell you about some of the ways I was able to move past the anger and hurt:

    1. Remember that people who seek to make others miserable are miserable themselves.

    Most of us couldn’t imagine consciously attempting to tear down another human being through our words, and that’s because most of us are not in a place of such deeply rooted despair and self-loathing.

    I had a very hard time understanding the hurtful things D said to me, and for many months I insisted on making it about my own inadequacy and wondering why I wasn’t good enough for him.

    This went on until I came to understand that a person who is so accustomed to violence from within does not know how to function without creating external violence as well.

    Understanding this does not excuse the action of the aggressor, but by recognizing the source of the aggression, we can choose to extend compassion and understanding rather than returned aggression and venom.

    2. Just do right.

    As D’s attacks continued to get more and more violent, my partner’s family began to push me to appease D in order to smooth things over. The thing about this approach, however, is that although smoothing things over would’ve been expedient, it wasn’t exactly right; and as such, I didn’t want to do it.

    I wanted to hold out. I wanted to insist upon better treatment, yes, but mostly I felt the need to stay true to myself and to uphold my own moral standards. As author Maya Angelou has said, “Right may not be expedient, it may not be profitable, but it will satisfy your soul. It will give you the kind of protection that bodyguards cannot provide.” And, of course, she’s right.

    Part of freeing ourselves from the anger and resentment that surrounds negativity is to not allow ourselves to be altered by negativity. We may experience great external pressure to “go along to get along,” but, at the end of the day, it’s more important to act in a way that you can look back upon proudly.

    3. Set boundaries.

    It may seem like an oxymoron, but it is possible to establish and maintain compassionate boundaries. I couldn’t completely walk away from D because of his proximity and relationship to my partner, but I could make it very clear that I would not accept such attacks in the future.

    By making our mental, emotional, and physical space into a safe harbor, we can carefully control what is allowed to enter our hearts and minds.

    We might not be able to transform the person trying to harm us, and indeed it is not our job to do so, but by insisting upon the creation of a safe space, we make the tiny spot of earth upon which we stand a better place and consequently, we render ourselves less available for hurtful attacks in the future.

    4. Stay calm; stay true.

    I had to fight to stay calm many times during the months following D’s attacks. Part of me wanted so badly to return venom, but looking back, I’m glad I never did.

    As we all know, it’s easy to lose our heads when we are faced with an intensely emotional situation, especially one that feels like an assault on our dignity. But returning aggression for aggression ultimately does not serve us and, indeed, only serves to fuel the fire of the aggressor.

    The best thing we can do when we feel overwhelmed with intense emotion is to transport ourselves mentally to a place five years down the road, look back at the situation, decide what type of action would make us proud in the future, and then act that way.

    Getting angry might feel like a release in the moment, but that’s a false sense of righteousness. It’s better to state your truth quietly and calmly and remove yourself from the situation. By doing this, we refuse to allow ourselves to be transformed by the intensity of the emotions; instead, we act in a way that allows us to feel good about our actions, which is the first step to healing from the initial hurt.

    5. Only do the work that is yours.

    One of the toughest lessons I learned is that I couldn’t “fix” the situation, because the situation involved a lot more than just me. I wanted my partner to protect me. I wanted his family to respect me for standing my ground. I wanted a lot of things, and I made myself crazy trying to get them for months.

    It was only after I realized that I was waiting for someone else to “fix it” that I was finally able to let go.

    I realized, finally, that if I was going to feel safe and respected and loved, it had to come from within.

    If the boundaries were going to be set, I had to be the one to set them. If the safe space was going to be created, I had to be the one to create it. If a demand for better behavior was going to be made, I had to be the one to make it. Furthermore, I had to be the one to behave better.

    So, I started actively chasing the things that made me feel happy and safe: I invested myself fully in the beginning steps of a career that I love. I spent more time with friends and my family. I cooked huge meals for nobody but myself. I read ravenously. I went to therapy. I took long walks. And this is where the healing came from.

    It’s inevitable that other people will hurt us. We can’t avoid it, and we don’t even need to understand it entirely; all we need to do is learn to take care of ourselves when it does happen. We cannot change the actions or perceptions of other people, but we can change how we respond to them.

    We can choose not to harbor anger and resentment; we can choose to forgive and to walk away. We can focus on the things that make us feel safe and happy and devote ourselves to nurturing those relationships and hobbies.

    We can use the negativity of others to become stronger, happier, and more complete. We can rewrite the ending.

  • How Forgiveness Enables Us to Stop Hurting Ourselves

    How Forgiveness Enables Us to Stop Hurting Ourselves

    Healing

    “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and realize that prisoner was you.” ~Lewis B. Smedes

    I was planning a seminar event with one of my good friends. (Let’s call her “Randi.”) It was a great match; she had event planning and design expertise, and great energy in front of an audience. I understood the structure of such an event, and I authored much of the content.

    It was a powerful presentation and we were going to be a great team bringing the material to life. We spent months putting the seminar together: rehearsing, setting the date, booking the venue, designing the graphic announcements, and buying advertising. With only a few weeks to go, everything was in place.

    Then I got an email from Randi. She was still going to do the seminar, just not with me.

    She had a new boyfriend whom she felt he was more suited to her vision of how to present the material. Without consulting me, Randi changed the graphics for the presentation, one of the presenter names, and charged ahead with her new version of the seminar.

    To be honest, I was shocked. I had spent a significant amount of time and money up to this point, and leveraged all of my contacts. I thought we made a great team, and I trusted her without question to carry out the tasks we had agreed upon to make the seminar a reality.

    I immediately called Randi but she didn’t answer my calls (probably a wise thing since I was mad). I wrote to her explaining that a great deal of the content in the seminar was my original material, and she had no right to use it.

    I demanded that she refund my share of the money we had spent on advertising and the venue deposit. She wrote back that she was sorry, but the answer to all my demands was no.

    I was outraged and felt betrayed! I developed a story that I repeated endlessly in my head about what she did, why it was wrong, and how it violated every agreement we made.

    Gathering all my evidence I headed to court: not legal court but the court of public opinion. I went to all my friends and laid out the facts—the evidence—and asked them for a verdict. The verdict was unanimous. Guilty!

    Now I had plenty of evidence that I was right. In my mind the betrayal was not clouded in shades of grey but was black and white: We had an agreement, I trusted her, and she had violated that trust.

    I was right, and yet being right was making me miserable. The more I told the story of what she did, and why it was so wrong, the more unhappy I became.

    Simply put, I was using her to abuse myself. But as long as I kept telling the betrayal story—to myself or anyone that would listen—I couldn’t let it go.

    Eventually the stubborn attitude, “I can’t get past this,” was no match for the awareness that every time I engaged in my story it was like hovering too close to a hot stove. It was unmistakably clear to me that my insistence on being right was burning me.

    Being right (my intellectual interpretation of the event) was a dead end I could never resolve. Repeating my story was like hitting my finger over and over again with a hammer.

    It took a while, but the awareness of what I was doing revealed that there was only one choice I could make to get the emotional turmoil to stop.

    What finally healed me was forgiveness. In the end I didn’t forgive her because it was the right thing to do. My intellect was too strong and the facts too compelling.

    I didn’t forgive her because that’s what good people do. I couldn’t forgive her even though I agreed with what the famous poet Alexander Pope said: “To err is human: to forgive, divine.”

    I could never come to a resolution weighing the pros and cons. I simply chose to give up my story, let the whole thing go, and forgave her because it felt good. Forgiveness was the only medicine that would heal the wound I created.

    When we can’t forgive someone for an offense, and justify being right about it, we are only using them to hurt ourselves. It’s a trap, a maze of suffering without end.

    Being right and getting all worked up about it—our national pastime—only hurts us.

    To heal any hurt caused by the perception that you’ve been abandoned, betrayed, disappointed, misunderstood, or unfairly treated takes a double dose of the sweetest medicine of all: forgiveness.

    Photo by Neal Fowler

  • How to Create a Happy Future by Accepting the Present

    How to Create a Happy Future by Accepting the Present

    Happiness

    “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Imagine if every night you wrote the script for your tomorrow.

    You’d tuck it under your pillow and when you woke up, it would begin unfolding just like you envisioned.

    The man or woman of your dreams would appear in the Whole Foods aisle you were perusing.

    A check for a million dollars would show up in your mailbox, with a note reading “have fun.”

    Your friends and family would call you to tell you how great life was and how awesome they felt.

    Seems pretty sweet.

    But is that what we really want?

    I used to put a lot of effort into becoming a great “manifestor.” I thought I’d be happy if and when I could figure out how to make what I wanted come true.

    This desire was grounded in the belief that reality wasn’t okay as it was. Something had to change in order for me to fully enjoy it.

    I remember crying to a friend because “I sucked at manifesting.” Things weren’t coming true in the way I wanted them to, and they definitely weren’t happening fast enough.

    It seems silly, but I was completely devastated by this.

    I wanted so badly to feel fulfilled in the work that I did, but I only saw one possible way to make that happen—to coach others and own my own coaching business. I refused to do anything else, even though I was struggling financially and didn’t give myself nearly enough time or money to grow a business.

    I also wanted the freedom to travel the world, take my work with me, spend extended time in various places so I could truly experience them, and visit my family whenever I wanted. Again, I only saw that one way to make that happen.

    And it wasn’t working.

    I felt disempowered, hopeless, and stuck.

    The rigid need to make things happen blinded me from the millions of opportunities and beauty all around me. I had missed the whole point of manifesting.

    At the time, Eckhart Tolle was my main man. I was re-reading my favorite book of his, and I’m pretty sure it was in his sweet voice when I finally realized “I’m doing this to myself!”

    So, I took my blinders off and became willing to see other ways. My vision became 360 and I saw possibilities—not just one, but many.

    I can’t say that all of the sudden everything changed for the better, but it did change, and the shaking-up felt good. I was working with, not against, the present moment, and with that came trust and patience.

    Within a year, after a random sequence of perfectly orchestrated events, I received an opportunity to work for a company I adore.

    Surprisingly, I was and am fulfilled by what I do, and guess what? It allows me to travel the world, take my work with me, spend extended time in various places so I could truly experience them, and visit my family whenever I want. Go figure.

    What you truly want can only come to fruition by working with the present moment.

    Life is a wild, adventurous ride, and that is exactly what makes it so beautiful and intense.

    Some days are filled with beauty and joy.

    And others, dreams don’t come true, your car dies, you get rejected, you get a really big, unexpected bill in the mail, or you’re forced to deal with difficult people.

    The thing is, you decide how you want to react when you’re caught right up in the middle of the not so pretty stuff. You always have the choice.

    This is how we create the reality in which we want to live in, moment by moment.

    You may find your reactions defaulting to:

    “Life isn’t fair.”

    “I never get what I want.”

    “Why me?”

    “When am I going to catch a break?”

    These thoughts have an intrinsic rigid resistance to what’s really happening. They are unaccepting of reality.

    By resisting reality, you become disempowered, hopeless, and stuck.

    “What you resist, persists.”

    Have you ever noticed that feeling fat and calling yourself fat never worked as a good strategy for weight loss?

    Or, feeling poor and always saying, “I never have any money!” hasn’t made you rich?

    By resisting, you’re actually creating more of what you don’t want because you’re constantly focused on what you don’t want.

    The only way to create what you do want is full acceptance of what is.

    This is the place where you see possibility instead of limitation. Where you get creative. Where you can see solutions. Where you feel hope and maybe even some peace.

    How do you accept the present moment? You celebrate it. You appreciate it. Even when you don’t feel like it. Especially when you don’t feel like it.

    Small acts of appreciation for the present state can cause giant shifts in your life. You become wildly empowered, creative, and resourceful.

    I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s a moment-by-moment practice. It’s a constant decision to take your power back and remember that you create your life and your happiness, always.

    Here are some things to remember when you find yourself fighting the present moment.

    It’s okay to feel it.

    The more you experience your emotions and the sooner you allow yourself to experience them, the sooner you’ll find yourself accepting the present moment.

    Your emotions are there to be felt, seen, and heard. There’s no power in pushing them away, avoiding them, or pretending that they don’t exist, because they will find a way to come out eventually.

    It’s a priority to truly experience your emotions. This is an act of celebration in and of itself.

    As you feel your emotions, you release them.

    Let’s just say during that time above I cried, a lot. My friends might say all the time.

    I’ve never journaled more, cried more, released more, or talked it out more. As I’m writing this, I can see how that was the first time that I allowed all of my emotions to be fully okay.

    I paid attention to them and I let others pay attention to them. This was beyond powerful and ultimately what led me to face reality and move into a place of empowerment.

    Find the silver lining.

    There will always be a positive result of whatever is occurring.

    Even if it feels completely and utterly negative, I promise you, there’s at least one positive result.

    From the most tragic of situations, we can find hope, help others from our experience, and experience compassion.

    Always take a moment to find the silver lining and acknowledge it.

    Saying “thank you” out loud is so powerfully simple.

    Thank you for my humanity. Thank you for this adventure. Thank you for that one positive thing.

    By experiencing your emotions, seeing the positive, and having a sense of gratitude, you can work with anything the present moment brings you.

    By doing this continually, you are actively creating more and more of what you want in every moment.

    Photo by Moyan Brenn

  • Releasing Negative Beliefs: How Letting Go Sets Us Free

    Releasing Negative Beliefs: How Letting Go Sets Us Free

    Free

    “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” ~Andre Gide

    I have walked on water.

    The frozen wasteland known as Chicago had kept me inside, wary of the intense cold that was breaking records that particularly frigid winter. But after interminable snow days, I began to feel like a caged animal that needed to break free.

    I woke early one morning, overcome with the urgent need to connect to something living, something wild. I wrapped myself in countless layers like the kid in The Christmas Story and ventured out into the urban tundra. I felt compelled to walk to the beach that was a few miles from my house.

    An eerie, otherworldly feeling washed over me as I walked, achingly aware of the stark, endless whiteness all around me. The world itself felt as it was hung in frozen suspension and apprehension. Everything seemed to be hushed in reverence.

    When I reached the shore, I was hyper aware of the need to maintain a safe distance from the water, but I felt compelled to get as close as possible.

    As I moved forward across the frozen sand, I tried to gauge exactly where the land ended by using various items as points of reference—a fence, a wooden bench, a recycling bin. I inched my way toward the lake until there were no more reference points, and then became as still as the land beneath me. Or what I thought was land.

    I looked down at my feet and realized I was standing on a frozen wave, not a snow covered sand dune as I originally thought. I had walked out too far. I could both hear and feel the movement of the wave beneath my feet.

    I felt a juxtaposition of fear, exhilaration, and an overwhelming sense of weightlessness. My first instinct was to run, but I wasn’t sure of my footing. I was terrified that if I shifted my weight too quickly, I might fall through. I had no idea how deep the water was where I stood.

    At that moment I zeroed in on my true purpose for coming to the water. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a little bag filled with small strips of paper like confetti. On each one I had written something I wished to release from my life.

    • The fear that I will never find the type of love I want and need.
    • The commitment to being alone.

    I opened the bag to the wind, letting the belief-covered papers flutter out over the frozen lake. I did this quickly because I sensed the danger to my body on that unstable surface, and the danger to my heart if I held onto those stories a moment longer.

    With my task completed, I gingerly walked back to solid land. I let out a deep breath and knew so much had been released with those papers still floating on the wind.

    That moment on a frozen lake taught me a few very important things about surrender.

    • Surrender is about vulnerability and receptivity.
    • The opposite of surrender is resistance and control.
    • And it all comes down to fear and trust.

    I realized that my heart had become like that lake. A living thing that is supposed to flow, constricted by a lack of warmth and space into a frozen and dangerous place.

    One of the ways we keep our hearts frozen is by holding on to negative beliefs. These beliefs may be seem like they are about others or life in general. Usually, however, they are based on our perceptions. Negative beliefs are born from our wounds and stories.

    Eventually, every life experience becomes colored by these beliefs. Everything we see, say, do, and even feel is filtered through these limitations, judgment, patterns, conditionings, and doubt. The sad and scary part is that these beliefs tend to hide themselves in our subconscious, making us think that we are acting from free will.

    We may not even be conscious that we are holding on to negative beliefs.

    Unconsciously, we begin to nurture our negative beliefs without even being aware that we are doing so. We feed them and help them grow by giving them energy. We affirm them by attracting experiences that validate their existence. This becomes a vicious cycle. Holding on to negative beliefs justifies our need to be right.

    Many of us hold on to our grievances and emotional scars with fierce protection. They become like badges of honor.

    We think that without our constant vigilance, the memory of our wounds or broken hearts will be forgotten. We believe that we are some how “honoring our personal story” by holding on. If we do not act as the constant “keeper of our wounds,” our suffering will have been in vain.

    But spring must come if life is to flourish again.

    We must allow our hearts to thaw. We need to frequently evaluate our belief structures and release the stories that no longer serve us.

    Releasing our attachment to our personal histories doesn’t invalidate the emotional pain we suffered. It doesn’t mean that the defenses and barriers we erected to protect ourselves weren’t based on a real need for self-preservation at those times. Instead, it means that we assimilate the lessons we have gained from the experience while loosening its ability to control our lives.

    Just like the coldness and bareness of winter allows the Earth to rejuvenate, and ultimately makes everything stronger, so too do our personal winters allow us to access our depths. Every wound makes us stronger as we heal it, and gives us greater access to our power.

    Letting go of beliefs puts a great responsibility on us. If we connect with our personal power we must give up the illusion that we are victims. We can longer view ourselves as passively vulnerable to the whims of others. We now must take responsibility for how our life unfolds.

    This realization is a lot scarier than standing on a frozen lake.

    To truly open our hearts, to truly wield our power, we must be willing to participate in life.

    This requires both owning our part in situations and allowing experiences to unfold as they will. Accepting others’ actions and emotions without making them fit into some box as a hero or demon. And especially releasing our mental constructs about how life should be, what we should or should not be doing, and how other people should interact with us.

    Releasing expectations and resistance is one of the most empowering acts of life. Resisting what is can be emotionally, spiritually, and physically exhausting. We get stuck in patterns that begin to define how we interact with the world. And even though they are painful, because they are familiar and usually hidden, we can stay stuck for years.

    I had developed many of my beliefs to protect myself after a series of breakups and broken hearts.

    I convinced myself that believing I wasn’t worthy of love was safer than opening myself up to the possibility of love. If I never opened my heart to anyone, I would never be disappointed or have to experience the excruciating pain of heartache.

    I was keeping myself lonely and cut off from life. Trying to protect myself from pain, I was actually constantly hurting myself more.

    When I finally relaxed enough to let go of my old beliefs, my life began to flow with greater ease and grace.

    I walked out onto that frozen water because I needed to have a close encounter with life. I needed to let the primal elements cleanse me of my outmoded ways of being.

    I went beyond the fear and conditioning because, finally, being alive mattered more than being comfortable. Now I recognize that I must trust that life will always provide the situations and experiences required for my evolution. And that surrender is the only way to be free.

    Photo by Andi_Graf

  • The Real Reason Some People Always Seem to Push Your Buttons

    The Real Reason Some People Always Seem to Push Your Buttons

    “Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.” ~Buddha

    I always felt invisible whenever my husband and I got together with a certain couple.

    Every time we saw them, it triggered feelings of rejection because they would go on and on about themselves and never ask about how I was doing or feeling. I went home feeling ignored and sad every time.

    Finally, after putting up with this non-reciprocal relationship for a number of years, I decided that it was best for us to break free from it. 

    For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why this self-absorbed behavior bothered me so much.

    Eventually, the light bulb went off and I realized I kept hoping that one day this couple would validate me, in the same way that I kept hoping and hoping that one day my father would validate me.

    You see, my biggest negative childhood trauma was feeling invisible and unworthy of my father’s love. So anytime someone, like this couple, ignores me and I feel invisible, the little girl inside me feels pain.

    You may have people that trigger the young vulnerable parts of you, leading you to feel unloved, unworthy, and invisible.

    This little girl that is frozen in time in my psyche felt worthless and not enough.

    She eventually had had enough of me ignoring her, and she sought redemption by making me have a two-year battle with depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.

    Antidepressants and therapy took the edge off, but they didn’t heal the source of the hurt.

    I was searching for answers on how to permanently get rid of emotional scars, like a gardener looking for a way to dig up and discard the roots of stubborn weeds. My search ended when I discovered a little known powerful, rapid, and different method of healing emotional scars through self-led re-parenting and unburdening young parts of toxic memories.

    The young parts of you that hold negative emotions of shame, guilt, rejection, abandonment, and unworthiness need the love and reassurance from you that they never got when they first experienced negative events.

    I went back into the old toxic experiences that created the faulty beliefs that I was unlovable, unworthy, and not enough. I “re-parented” that little girl by telling her she is lovable, worthy, and enough.

    I explained to her that Dad didn’t know how to show his love. He was acting from his wounded parts, and that’s why she grew up in an environment that was filled with emotional misery.

    The little girl now understands what happened, and she’s able to believe that she is worthy, enough, and lovable because I told her she was. She is no longer frozen in time and has come into the present with me, where she resides in my heart.

    As a result of loving this young part, I recovered from depression, anxiety, and panic attacks for good.

    I also stepped into my father’s shoes and now know that validating me is something he was not capable of, because of his upbringing. I have forgiven him and now have compassion for him instead of anger.

    I am so thankful that this couple was in my life. They gave me the gift of identifying my most painful emotional wound.

    Who pushes your buttons? What is the gift they are giving you to help you identify your most painful wounds?

    This re-parenting technique that resulted in unconditionally loving myself has positively and permanently shifted my happiness set point and boosted my self-esteem and confidence.

    Nothing is holding me back from being happy now and in the journey to living to my potential and making a difference.

    My wounded part showed up as depression. Your wounded parts may show up as health and weight challenges; addictions such as eating too much, drinking too much, shopping too much, and procrastination; self-sabotage; anger; perfectionism; or overachievement.

    The following steps will help you heal your emotional scars at their source, delete the limiting beliefs that keep you stuck, and reprogram your brain with positive beliefs.

    1. Identify who triggers you.

    Which feelings do they trigger? Who is the parent, teacher, sibling, or old boyfriend/girlfriend with whom you originally felt this way?

    2. Step into this person’s shoes.

    Understand how much pain they are in from their own past. This will help you have compassion for them and forgive them.

    3. Access the young part of you that acquired the faulty beliefs as a result of interactions with this person.

    Examples of faulty negative core beliefs are: “I’m not lovable,” “I’m not enough,” “I’m not worthy,” and “I’ll never amount to anything.”

    4. Recall a scene that made you believe you were bad.

    Be with that part and give it the love and reassurance that it never got when that event happened. Tell it that it is lovable, worthy, and enough. Soak in the image of your loving self of today kissing, loving, and hugging this young part.

    5. Unburden yourself of the original negative feelings and beliefs.

    Imagine the ocean washing away the faulty beliefs of “I’m not lovable,” “I’m not worthy,” and “I’m not enough.” This energetically releases the bad memories and beliefs from your body.

    6. Bring that young part into the present.

    Have it be part of your team to move you forward and be happy.

    Healing myself through this technique has allowed me to create a new narrative for my life story. I now believe the Universe purposely gave me negative experiences for the evolution of my soul.

    These events gave me the gift of finding my life’s calling. 

    You too can figure out your life’s mission by healing your emotional scars first. Then you can figure out the new narrative that helps you make lemonade out of your lemons. As a result, you can live fully with joy and purpose before you die. 

    When you heal the emotional scars that keep you unhappy, you can significantly improve your happiness set point and positively change the course of your life.

    So, if you have people that push your buttons, thank them for being in your life. They are a gift because they help you find the source of your deepest wounds, which hold you back from being shameless and confidently showing up as the happiest version of you.

    Do you have emotional scars that are triggered by certain people?