Tiny Buddha

Category: love & relationships

  • What Seems Obvious to You Could Help Someone Else

    What Seems Obvious to You Could Help Someone Else

    Friends

    “We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.” ~Mary Catherine Bateson

    Despite being a professional blogger, I am not particularly adept at technology.

    I don’t have a data plan on my phone. I don’t have an iTunes account. I have no idea how people do that thing where they connect their computer to the TV. What is this witchery?!

    But because of my age and my profession, people frequently assume that I’m a computer genius. They are sadly mistaken. One day, my significantly-more-tech-savvy BFF was looking over my shoulder as I checked email. She glanced at my screen and said off-handedly:

    “You know you can just click on that little arrow to read the next email, right? You don’t have to keep going back to your inbox.”

    Whhhhaaaaat?! My email-reading life = changed. Productivity = upped. With an afterthought of a comment, my friend significantly improved my work life.

    And I’m sure she nearly didn’t tell me because she thought her suggestion was too obvious.

    We’re all guilty of this, right? Discounting our knowledge because it has become so ingrained in our everyday life that we assume everybody else knows that thing or has that skill set.

    Or we worry that we’ll offend someone by telling them something that seems so incredibly, painfully obvious.

    But here’s the thing: what’s obvious to you is helpful to me. What’s old news to me might be fresh and mind-blowing to you.

    And really, we can apply this to just about every arena of life.

    It’s obvious (to me) that my friend is amazing/intelligent/double-take good looking. But after a series of terrible dates, maybe she needs reminding.

    It’s obvious (to me) that I should @mention people on Twitter when I write about them on my blog. But maybe my clients don’t know that.

    It’s obvious (to me) that when I travel, I should use packing cubes and Airbnb.com. But if you’re not an experienced traveler, you probably have no idea that your suitcase could be revolutionized by some zippered cubes.

    It’s obvious (to me) that I should buy my favorite jeans and tank tops in pairs when they go on sale. But if you’ve never experienced the wonder of Old Navy Rock Star jeans, maybe you don’t know.

    It’s obvious (to me) that I should end blog posts with questions to engage my readers and create a sense of community. You haven’t been blogging for five years? It’s not your fault you don’t know.

    For ages, I didn’t share these obvious insights with anyone. It seemed insulting to state what (to me) seemed readily apparent! 

    But after the fateful day of Email Management Epiphanies I’ve changed my tune.

    If you phrase it correctly, you won’t offend anybody, even if you’re telling them something they already know.

    Here are a few phrases you can use to point out (what you believe to be) obvious:

    “You already know about _________, right?”

    “I’m sure this is old news to you, but ___________”

    “You probably already know this but I always like to err on the side of providing too much information.”

    “Have you tried_______________?”

    And even if these things are obvious? Maybe your friend just needs reminding. Or maybe your comment will be the gentle push they need to make see things differently.

    “You already know about that website that coordinates ads for blogs, right?”
    Yes. And I’ve been putting off signing up and dealing with HTML editing. But I should really join.

    “I’m sure this is old news to you but Hipmunk.com is a great airfare search website.”
    Yup. I was sort of confused by the interface but if you think it’s good, I’ll give it another try.

    “Have you tried giving up coffee?”
    Ugh. No. But I know I need to and I know it’ll help me sleep better.

    And you know what? There are certain obvious things that can never, ever be  said too frequently.

    Things like:

    “You’re so insanely clever.”
    “Gosh, you’re good at that!”
    “You throw great parties!”
    “You really have a gift for this.”
    “That color looks great on you!”
    “You’re so good at handling tough situations.”

    Just because you think a solution is obvious, doesn’t mean it is. Just because you think someone’s talents are self-evident, doesn’t mean they are. Just because you think a best-practice is common sense, doesn’t mean it is.

    So go ahead. State the obvious. We’ll all be grateful.

  • Imperfection Is Lovable and You Are Enough

    Imperfection Is Lovable and You Are Enough

    “You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” ~Brene Brown

    We are all perfectly imperfect just as we are.

    Yes, it’s true. Sometimes hard to believe, but always the truth. Believe me.

    I’ve always recognized that I am a perfectionist.

    I was the little girl who wanted to know how to play the piano at my first lesson, how to roller blade the first time I tried, how to do the splits at my first gymnastics class.

    I’ve always wanted to do it right the first time.

    On the one hand, I appreciate my intention to do and be my best at whatever I do, but on the other hand, I see how this mentality has often paralyzed my efforts and prevented me from daring and learning to be brilliant.

    The one practice I’ve committed to in my life, where I’ve been willing to be less than perfect and continue to embrace each day, is yoga.

    The meditative quality, the healing breath, the invigorating movement all resonate with me and remind me to just be where and who I am, in each moment.

    It’s been fifteen years now since I began my yoga practice in an effort to release the tension in my neck that was triggering chronic headaches during my first year studying at UCLA.

    I felt transformed after my very first yoga class and just knew that I would grow and expand with my practice.

    In the beginning, most of my transformation was physical—feeling more relaxed, open, energized, and flexible. In recent years, my practice has guided me to expand my perspective, and I find myself open to understanding life anew.

    I’m discovering new ways of being and of seeing the world.

    Just two months ago I had a revelation.

    I was communicating with a life coach who is an incredible listener, endeavoring to understand why I was constantly feeling challenged in my relationship with my husband. Together, we realized that I was creating the same expectations of perfection for him as I had carried for myself since childhood.

    A memory surfaced: me, around twelve years old, sharing my report card with my father.

    “Why are they not all As?” he questioned unapologetically.

    I glanced at my grades, noticing that I’d earned six A’s and one B+, and said, “I did my best.”

    “I expect all A’s next time,” he firmly instructed.

    “I’ll do better,” I submissively acquiesced.

    And this stuck. The need to do better than my best. The desire to be better than myself. I wanted my father’s approval. I wanted my father’s love. I wanted my father’s attention. And so, I worked even harder and earned a 4.0 GPA each semester.

    But you know what? It was never enough.

    I never felt enough. I never could earn the love and attention that I desperately craved from him. 

    I needed to look within myself.

    Now, some twenty years later, I’m still struggling with my tendency toward perfectionism.

    This insight is life changing: A chance to understand myself better. A reflection of how and why I choose to think and act the way I do. An opportunity to acknowledge that I’ve associated being perfect with being lovable.

    Now, without judgment or criticism for myself or my father, I have the choice to change.

    I can choose to shift my perspective and tell a new story. I choose to embrace a new truth…

    Imperfection is lovable.

    With this knowledge, I see my relationship with myself and with my husband, my children, my family, my friends—with life itself—in a new light.

    We are all imperfect.

    But who wants to be perfect anyway? How boring that would be!

    The most fun is in the growing, in the expansion, in the learning and becoming ever more who we are.

    I release the compulsion to be perfect, to constantly achieve, do more, handle every task on my to-do list immediately.

    I allow myself to be more present, to be in the moment, to remember what matters most: love.

    I can let go of always doing and instead let myself be. I can stop rushing around handling tasks, and allow myself to stop and smell the roses with my daughters, kiss my husband, call a friend, stare in wonder at the beauty of our universe.

    I am worthy of love, I know I belong, I recognize my life has meaning, and I give myself permission to take it easy and just be me.

    I embrace this truth:

    I am good enough. I do enough. I have enough. I work enough. I love enough. I am beautiful enough. I am smart enough.

    I am enough.

    Can you say this to yourself and really mean it? Practice. Notice how it feels.

    With this new perspective, everything blossoms.

    I allow myself to make mistakes without being judgmental.

    I give others space to be imperfect without being critical.

    I allow myself to be me.

    I allow myself to love myself just as I am.

    I allow myself to love others just as they are.

    Whenever I begin to lose focus of this reassuring truth, when I start to feel overwhelmed by all the “shoulds” and judgments in my mind, I sit in stillness in my meditation space.

    I read the words I’ve etched on my chalkboard wall:

    I am enough. Surrender. Live and let live. Imperfection is lovable. Be human.

    Immersed in the sensation of my breath, I choose to focus my mind on these powerful truths. Soon, I relax into the comfort of knowing that all is well. And I begin again the journey of self-love and acceptance.

    I am grateful for being where I am, for all the wisdom and love so many gracious and kind people have shared, and for the powerful practice of yoga that encourages self-awareness and growth.

    I am grateful for the opportunity to recognize the perfection in our imperfection and to use this wisdom to infinitely improve my interactions with the people I love the most.

    Our minds are powerful. Our thoughts are powerful. Our love is powerful.

    Let us choose to focus on the good, appreciate who we are, share our love unconditionally.

    Let us remember that we are enough.

    Let us embrace our value and know we belong.

    Let us always remember that our imperfections are lovable.

    Can you practice loving yourself and others unconditionally today?

    Every beautiful journey and inspiring transformation begins with an intention and moving in the direction of where you hope to be.

    Wishing you ease in loving and freedom to be just who you are.

    Be human. Be perfectly imperfect. Be you. Just be.

  • Learning to Trust Again When You’ve Been Hurt in the Past

    Learning to Trust Again When You’ve Been Hurt in the Past

    “The only way to know if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” ~Ernest Hemingway

    In a world where it seems as though all we hear about and see is how one person betrayed another, how do we allow ourselves to trust someone to get close at all, let alone trust them to be near the most fragile parts of us?

    Over the course of the last year, I’ve been working as an intern-counselor at a residential high school with around seventy teenagers. Many of them have come from unbelievably challenging backgrounds where they have had to learn to not trust anyone as a matter of survival.

    Imagine having spent your entire life always having to watch your back literally and figuratively, not just because there are strangers who may want to harm you, but also because even those who are supposed to be close to you could turn against you in an instant.

    How difficult do you think it would be to let down the defenses that kept you safe and in some cases, alive, for so long?

    In my own world, I’ve struggled with allowing people to really know me because for most of my life, it felt as though I was burned every time I did.

    Over time, I learned how to seem friendly but kept virtually everyone at a distance, and those who got too close I rapidly pushed away, sometimes completely out of my life.

    I was already struggling to put my pieces back together after several major tragedies in my family, and allowing others in meant (the possibility of) compounding my heartbreak. I just couldn’t handle anymore at the time.

    Eventually I began to open up, but each time found myself wondering why I had been so naive again.

    Then there came a point where, slowly but surely, people began to enter my life who showed me what it meant to be able to trust—trust them to show up, trust them to listen, trust them with commitments, and the biggest one of all, trust them with my heart.

    These people came in the form of friends who are now my family and have had my back in countless ways over the years, and the most surprising and recent of all, a man who is not only telling me, but showing me, what a man does to express his profound interest beyond just the physical.

    If I wouldn’t have begun to take down my walls, I may have never found these amazing people. They didn’t appear because I had perfectly learned to trust already. They appeared because I was willing to learn to trust, even if imperfectly.

    As I’ve been learning to trust and lower my defenses, I’ve been working with my students to do the same.

    Their stories are different in that many of them have come from a history of abuse and/or gang related activities. But we share a similar outcome in struggling to realize that what once protected us is no longer needed, and in some cases, is actually hurting us further by isolating us from the love we need to heal and move forward.

    It’s like taking too much medicine; sometimes a certain amount is necessary to get better, but beyond that it can break our systems down.

    We each come to crossroads in our lives where we have to make the decision to let go of our old survival mechanisms in order to grow and make room for something better.

    Sometimes what used to protect us becomes what harms us and stifles the capacity for our lives to be open and full of joy, love, and peace.

    When it comes to trusting each other, we have to accept that our past is not our present. We have to be able to recognize that what hurt us before is not necessarily what is currently standing before us—even sometimes when the situation looks frighteningly similar, and sometimes even when it’s the same person.

    Does this mean we won’t ever get hurt again? Nope. That’s a part of life. People will let us down, and we will let them down, but that doesn’t mean our efforts to disassemble our defense mechanisms are in vain.

    If we never allow ourselves any vulnerability, we lose out on the opportunity to make incredibly deep and meaningful connections that open up our lives in ways that couldn’t happen any other way.

    Those connections draw out the very best within and create a new reality—one where we learn that the only way to know if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

  • 8 Things to Do If You Want to Be at Peace with Yourself

    8 Things to Do If You Want to Be at Peace with Yourself

    “He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the world.” ~Marcus Aurelius

    How can I find peace of mind? It’s a question often asked, but rarely answered in a satisfying way.

    Some say peace of mind lies in security. Some say it’s about de-cluttering and finding stillness and calm in life. Some say it’s about acceptance and letting go. I say it’s all about what you do.

    Let me introduce myself. I’m an addict. An alcoholic since my teens, I lived most of my life on various edges.

    At twenty-one, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, as if being an alcoholic wasn’t bad enough. If you don’t know what BPD is, it is an unsettled and shifting sense of self, and it’s unbearably difficult to live with.

    I possessed a fearful and fraught mind at the best of times. Both my addiction and my BPD led me to do some pretty crazy things. Crossing a drunk person with a personality disorder is not conducive to the sort of life you would wish on anyone.

    I spent my twenties clambering out of one catastrophe and into another, doing some fairly disgraceful things—hiding, lying, hurting other people and myself. At least one hour a day was spent in absolute misery and penance, sorry for myself and for anyone who crossed my path of destruction.

    But behind the carnage, I was a genuinely good-hearted person. All through my mental illnesses, I tried to make the best of it, to be a nice person. And there was no one more empathetic than me. If anyone else had a problem, I would drop everything to run to them.

    But my mind was not somewhere you would want to take a fishing trip, let alone a whole vacation. Of all the people I hurt in my life, I hurt no one more than myself. I hurt myself by doing things that would make me feel guilt and shame later on.

    When I finally got the right treatment and got sober, after a decade of madness, I heard people speak about serenity and finding peace of mind. In early recovery, it was still an utter mystery to me.

    I saw a counselor who told me to give it time. I went to alcohol services—they told me to work a program. I listened to “spiritual folk” who told me to meditate.

    No one seemed to be giving me practical answers about how to achieve something I had been searching for all along: peace and self-esteem.

    But the answer was so simple. You create your state of mind by the things you do, and you cement that by the things you tell yourself.

    As long as I behave with integrity every day, I can feel at peace with myself.

    Things will always change. Life will sometimes be tough. People will say and do things that upset you. That’s just the nature of things.

    As long as you hang onto your integrity, no matter what is happening in your world, you can go to bed with a clear conscience. And no matter how tough things get, you can still have that wonderful sense of peace within you.

    But it takes some practice to really start to feel it, and to live with integrity at all times. Here are some tips to help you cultivate a sense of peace.

    1. Know your ideal self.

    Make a list of all the good qualities you intend to cultivate. Are you going to be kinder, fairer, more tolerant, more magnanimous, more patient, more dignified? What are your responses to difficulties going to be? What principles do you wish to uphold?

    2. Do the next right thing.

    If you’ve been struggling with your emotional or mental state like I was, it may be difficult, at first, to act with integrity all the time. You may find yourself making mistakes and sometimes behaving in a less than ideal way. In order to build up a habit of sticking to your principles, just practice doing the “next right thing” all the time.

    3. Let go of perfectionism.

    I could have made my life a lot easier if I had validated the attempts I was making to do the right thing even when things were a struggle. Instead, I beat myself up and made myself feel worse because I was angry with myself for not living right. It’s all a journey. Allow yourself to be imperfect, and yet still make progress.

    4. Make amends immediately.

    If for some reason you end up treating someone unfairly or unkindly, or doing something dishonest or mean, make amends for it as soon as you can. Don’t wait. Correct your mistakes as soon as possible, and you can find peace of mind in the fact that you have improved upon your actions and done your part to relieve any ill feeling or guilt.

    5. Practice patience.

    Other people around you may not be living in the same way that you have chosen to. It doesn’t matter; they will have their conscience to live with at the end of the day, and you will have yours. Choose to respond in a way that will give you peace of mind. Take a deep breath before reacting to people who push your buttons.

    6. Let your head and heart support you.

    You won’t have a peaceful mind if you allow negativity to dominate your thinking. Try to understand others rather than judging them. Forgive others and you free yourself. Radiate compassion and be a good Samaritan. Not only will others benefit; you’ll also add to your own sense of self-esteem.

    7. Think long term.

    It may be tempting to lose your rag when you’re feeling angry or frustrated. But think about how you will feel about yourself and your own actions later on. Will you be happy about your behavior? Will it lead to you feeling peace of mind? If not, don’t do it.

    8. Validate yourself.

    You will not get to feel that lovely sense of peace if you don’t take the time to fully acknowledge it. In difficult situations, look at what you did well. If you’ve been struggling, notice when you make progress. At the end of each day, summarize to yourself how you’ve acted well and kept your integrity.

    What helps you feel at peace with yourself?

  • Love, Light, and Other Lessons That Crisis Reveals to Us

    Love, Light, and Other Lessons That Crisis Reveals to Us

    Inner Light

    “Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.” ~Paul Coelho

    There have been more shocking and devastating world events in recent memory than I can keep up with. Hurricane Sandy. Sandy Hook Shooting. Shooting at Portland Mall. Australian wildfires. Club Fire in Brazil. Hurricane Nemo. Earthquake in China. Bangladesh Factory Collapse. Boston Bombing. Texas Plant Explosion. Floods in Midwest. Tornadoes in Oklahoma.

    So much loss. Devastation. Pain. Piled one on top of the other with little time to regain our footing in between.

    I can hear that fearful place inside me questioning, “Is this how it’s going to happen? Is this the beginning of the end? Is nature finally gonna take us out for what we’ve done, or are we just gonna take each other out?”

    And I fall into that spiral of anger, frustration, and endless questioning, feeling my energy getting dragged down and down. 

    I want to crawl into my hermit-y, safe shell and hide, and resolve in the fact that people are screwed up, and nature is ultimately in control, and there’s nothing I can do about it except wallow and whine about how no one’s doing anything about it.

    And I can hear that fearful place inside me wondering, “Why? Why there? Why those people? Why kids? What’s going to happen? Should I be scared? Prepared? Worrying? Ramshackling together a bunker in my garage? What am I supposed to do?”

    So I do all I can do. Clutching my loved ones a little tighter to my chest, I keep going.

    My fear usually continues until the day after comes. Until we know it’s over. And then the fear and anxiety releases in a flood of relief as love comes in to fill its place.

    On the day after, there is hope. Incredible tales of resilience, courage, and survival. Amazing stories of heroism, selflessness, and grace.

    Suddenly, we feel spared, lucky. Yes, look at all we’ve lost, but look at all there is left to be grateful for.

    Suddenly, we are reminded that life is only about the people around us and that it’s all, and always, about love.

    Neighbors, strangers, communities coming together. Nations rapt in attention, holding their breath. In those moments, we experience our oneness. In those moments, we shift from a modality of competition into one of cooperation. In those moments, we can actually feel the truth that we’re all in this together. It’s palpable. 

    Could that be why these horrific events keep happening? Their rate seeming to steadily increase since 2013 dawned and we were ushered into a new era.

    It seems we need a collective shift in consciousness; our entire energy needs to be raised.

    And unfortunately, it often takes shock to knock us out of our hypnotic day-to-day enough that we wake up, rise up, and come together. It takes a shock for us to start questioning why we’re here and what it’s all about.

    It feels like the something greater out there has two gigantic defibrillator paddles on the Earth’s heart and is trying to shock us back to life. Clear. Hurricane! Shooting! Tornado! Bombing! Come on. Wake up. Come back to us.

    And in those moments when we do wake up and act out of courage, act out of conviction, act out of love, we feel it: lucky just to be alive. Grateful for this moment, this one, right here. We can’t believe how blessed we must be to be alive right now, having this experience.

    We feel connected. On purpose. Like we’re here for a reason. Like it all matters. And that’s how we’re meant to feel everyday. Not just through trauma and pain, but in our good ole, average ordinary.

    Miracles are not extraordinary events; they are happening all around us, all the time. It just often takes extraordinary events for us to see them and realize they’ve been here all the while.

    I think that if we can take one message from the sadness that’s surrounded our world lately, one possible why, is that only by witnessing the dark can we know what the light is.

    That light exists within all of us, and once we know where the switch is, we can turn it on every single day—not just in our darkest moments.

    It is wholly within our power and responsibility to feel lucky, and grateful, and amazed just to be alive. Just to be a part of it all.

    It’s wholly within our power and responsibility to shine our individual lights as brightly as possible so that when we come together, the darkness will have no fighting chance. We’ll obliterate it.

    From my perspective, our response to all these inner-light-switching events as of late just confirm to me, more now than ever, that our future looks positively bright.

    Photo by Hartwig HKD

  • The Dangers of Staying Quiet: Learning to Ask For Help

    The Dangers of Staying Quiet: Learning to Ask For Help

    Covered Lips

    “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” ~Elbert Hubbard

    My right leg lay twisted, broken and disconnected. As I regained awareness, I could hear a primal scream.

    It took a while to register that it was coming from me.

    At the time, I was supposedly living my dream, but in truth I was drowning in my loneliness. So I had stood almost directly behind a horse I knew was prone to kicking and pulled her tail.

    She wasn’t malicious; if she was, I would be dead now, as I had lain under her until I was found. But I had invaded her space and she told me she didn’t like it.

    That was fifteen years, three long operations, and one titanium rod ago.

    I had been riding since I was four, and at the time I was twenty-two and competing professionally. I had trained with Olympic medallists and I had supposedly landed this great opportunity and I was on my way.

    It all looked right and perfect. The truth was that I was miserable and felt completely out of my depth. I knew no one where I lived. I was isolated yet expected to succeed—to deliver without any support.

    The more time went on, the more I hid the truth of my situation and how I felt from everyone who loved me, denying myself, because I didn’t know how to say I had made a mistake. I was struggling and desperately needed help.

    I had realized I’d made a mistake by accepting this job. I didn’t trust the owner for whom I was working and I couldn’t do everything I was expected to do alone, but I didn’t want my friends and family to think I had failed.

    It took me ten years to admit to myself that I was ashamed for having caused my accident.

    I chose to sacrifice myself and put my body in danger so that I could make the situation end—to somehow be rescued and for things to change.

    I was ashamed that I had caused drama in my life and trauma to myself as a way of getting what I needed. I got change, but the consequences were more dramatic than I could have imagined.

    Not only did I lose my job, but I also ended my professional riding career for good.

    I ended my dream of competing at the Olympics, which I had been striving, training, and working for my whole life. I lost my house and my friends, who I had left when I moved away to the new job. For a year, I totally lost my independence, and it would take several years until I was fully physically recovered.

    I would live the rest of my life with physical scars to remind me, and internal scars that would haunt me for years.

    It has been my greatest lesson in life to find a voice and not just speak, but to speak up and tell the truth about how I feel. To be true to myself and take care of what I need and want, and demonstrate to myself that I matter, by telling other people what is important to me.

    We are taught in school that if we don’t understand something and need help, to put our hand up and ask. It sounds so simple, but why do so many of us see this as a weakness and instead believe we must struggle and suffer in silence?

    My suffering in silence eventually led me to dramatic and potentially life-endangering measures.

    When I lay on the floor waiting for the paramedics, before someone had covered my leg, I stared at it broken like a china doll.

    I was lucky that I had been wearing calf-length leather riding chaps and it was to them that I owe the fact I didn’t lose my leg; it managed to keep everything together enough to be saved.

    My physical healing was relatively easy, with some time, patience, and loving care. Although I did eventually get up and ride again, even compete, even though I was told I never would, the psychological damage stripped me of my trust in myself, something that would last for years.

    I came to fear that I might self-sabotage again, betraying myself, and that there would be dire consequences if I took any risks.

    So I quit trying.

    For a long time my life was small and riddled with fear, which kept me prisoner—physically safe but, ironically, once again deeply lonely.

    It has taken an immense amount of courage to change this, and sometimes I would start to feel better, only to end up back in my cell.

    I had to stop waiting to be rescued by someone—anyone—who might telepathically know how I felt without me actually saying.

    I laugh now, because I have been taught by life that real love means being encouraged to be the biggest, most confident, strongest version of myself, to be able to stand up for myself and tell the truth, even if it might hurt someone else’s feelings.

    It is not my destiny to be self-sacrificing for fear of disappointing someone or hurting other people, but instead my responsibility to protect, love, and honor my well-being and happiness.

    My mistakes, actions, or consequences no longer need to be catastrophic, as long as I speak up and be honest early on, ask for help, talk to others, ask for someone to listen to me or even sometimes just give me a shoulder to cry on or a hug.

    A plaster always needs to be ripped off quickly to minimize the pain—and sometimes speaking the truth must be done in the same way.

    Because I didn’t do this, the pain, grief, shame, and trauma of that time in my life got stuck in my body and festered, eventually becoming too painful to hide from. Strangely, though, it actually helped me find the strength I needed to face how I had let myself down.

    I had chosen to be the victim, rather than speak up.

    I finally chose instead to let the tears fall, to wash away the pain, and I started speaking the truth. It wasn’t pretty, but I wanted to find a way to forgive myself and finally let go of the past.

    A few years on, I still sometimes struggle a little to speak up straight away when I am cross, in pain, and upset, but the truth always finds a way to bubble to the surface.

    Something in me won’t let me be quiet any more.

    With practice, I have learned to quieten the inner voice that tells me to ignore my feelings and keep pretending that everything is fine and dandy.

    Instead, I have to practice speaking with emotional clarity to say what I need, even if I have to shout it, write it, or repeat it over and over again to be heard.

    I have learned the simple truth that mistakes only happen when we are confused, don’t understand what is being communicated to us or expected of us, and when we don’t ask for help to make sense of something we don’t understand.

    So, the next time you find yourself in that state of fear, confused about which way to turn, don’t stay quiet, don’t suffer in silence!

    Remember our school lesson and put your hand up, either metaphorically or physically, and ask for help from anyone, whether in prayer or from another person.

    Be honest, keep asking, and don’t give up until you find what you need.

    You might not always find the answer straight away, but by talking about it, asking, and listening, it will come.

    Photo by Mitya Ku

  • 9 Ways You May Unwittingly Deprive Yourself of Love and Fulfillment

    9 Ways You May Unwittingly Deprive Yourself of Love and Fulfillment

    “Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~Rumi

    Do you want to let go and live life fully?

    If you feel that you are missing out on fulfillment and happiness, but cannot put your finger on why, perhaps there is something deeper going on.

    Believe it or not, anyone can develop an unconscious habit of self-deprivation. Usually this habit begins in childhood.

    Here’s how mine developed.

    When I was younger, if anyone approached and tried to attend to my needs, I’d make sure they understood that I was just fine without their help.

    Interestingly, I was also accident-prone. I was always managing to take a spill, as if in hot pursuit of another skinned knee or broken bone. Yet, I cannot remember one instance when I welcomed sympathy or caring or intervention from anyone.

    I guess thought I was pretty tough. Looking back, I also wonder how much I wanted to prove that I didn’t need other people. I am fine! Now, kindly leave me alone. This was my attitude.

    Why? There could be many reasons.

    You could call it genetics—just look at the other men in my family. Enough said!

    You could say I had a somewhat cold and distant mother. I was proving to her that I didn’t need her anyway.

    You could even blame the primal backlash that occurs when we exit the womb. When we make the transition from the oblivious comfort and security of the womb into a world where, by comparison, we feel deprived, controlled, and rejected, we are bound suffer some maladaptive consequences.

    We could find lots of things to blame, but the point is, I developed this pattern. And I marched right into adulthood with it firmly in place.

    The unintended outcome was that I rarely felt loved (imagine that). It was hard to be close to anyone and I felt disconnected, empty, and alone. I didn’t want to feel this way, but that’s what happens as you refuse to connect when people reach out.

    I couldn’t have been more successful if my unconscious mind had an actual goal to keep me in a state of emptiness and deprivation.

    The big AHA moment came when I realized I was attached to being emotionally deprived. Attachments are not a conscious choice, but an unwitting set up that lands us in that old, familiar place where we do not get what we want.

    Amazingly, over the years we learn to tolerate it, come to expect it, and even prefer the deprivation in some strange, familiar way. It is critical to recognize when this is happening.

    Here are nine signs you have developed an attachment to deprivation, unwittingly setting yourself up to feel unfulfilled:

    1. You don’t express your needs.

    Refusing to express your needs virtually guarantees deprivation. Millions of people allow others to ignore, take advantage, and take them for granted because they will not speak up.

    2. You are overly focused on the needs of others.

    Focusing solely on the needs of others at the expense of your own is actually a disservice to yourself and others. It typically leads to resentment and emotional martyrdom.

    3. You feel guilty when you do something for yourself.

    Guilt or “selfish” feelings when you meet your own needs is a sign that you don’t believe you deserve to have them met, as if it were wrong.

    4. You can’t take compliments.

    Not accepting compliments graciously (inside and out) is a way to deflect them, depriving yourself of the need to be appreciated.

    5. You are attracted to emotionally unavailable or self-centered people.

    A sure way to not to get your needs met is to attract emotionally unavailable or narcissistic people into your life. When you commit to these kinds of people, you set yourself up for a lifetime of emotional deprivation.

    6. You expect disappointment.

    Expecting disappointment keeps fulfillment at a distance. Going into situations anticipating disappointment becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    7. You don’t know what you want or cannot define your purpose in life.

    This is so common! People usually don’t think of it this way, but not knowing what you want or even trying to figure it out is a way to avoid your purpose. Living with a sense of purpose is a huge need that brings meaning and fulfillment.

    8. You shy away from intimacy.

    When you avoid close relationships or shy away from deeper connections with people, you miss out on this fundamental contribution to happiness and fulfillment.

    9. You cannot enjoy the moment.

    Letting go and having fun in the here and now is an important way to experience fulfillment and reduce stress. It is a huge need! Staying in your head, remaining preoccupied or self-conscious robs you of the opportunity to enjoy your now.

    Each of the above examples leads us straight into deprivation, even though we did not consciously choose to go there. It is important to shine the healing light of awareness on this issue and begin to question whether or not it is appropriate to continue doing this at this point in life.

    My self-deprivation tendency, to act too tough to accept help and love, is much softer these days. I’ve been working on it. In the process, I have discovered a whole new world of support—people who are willing to love and be loved, to support and be supported.

    This new world has always been available; it was just hidden behind my attachment.

    Look for the signs of a deprivation attachment in your life. You may be surprised at what you find!

  • 4 Steps to Let Go of Blame in Your Relationship

    4 Steps to Let Go of Blame in Your Relationship

    “When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” ~Dr. Robert Anthony

    After living alone for five years, I moved in with my girlfriend just eight months ago. I knew that I would have to make some adjustments, but I had no idea what they might be.

    I expected most of the changes to be around the dynamics of our relationship and spending too much time together. I didn’t foresee any personal growth coming out of it.

    But that’s exactly what happened. I grew, and I evolved.

    What Sparks a Fight

    For both me and my girlfriend, cleaning our apartment is a big issue.

    Neither one of us wants to do it. And even when we do clean, we want credit for it. Or at least I do.

    I remember one time I had just finished cleaning our bathroom, and I felt like I had made a significant contribution to our apartment. My girlfriend—let’s just call her Mary—thanked me, but I felt like she wasn’t contributing as much to our apartment.

    I accused her.

    Mary hadn’t cleaned anything in a week, and I didn’t want to do all the cleaning by myself. Now it was her turn.  And she should know about it.

    She didn’t take it so well.

    She said that she had cleaned the bathroom the last two times, in addition to the kitchen and parts of the bedroom. I told her that I had cooked the last few meals, and that she’s the one who keeps dirtying the bathroom and bedroom anyway. Why should I clean her mess?

    Things Get Ugly

    Before I knew it, we had escalated into a full-blown fight as we got more and more upset at each other. We were blaming each other back and forth for what the other person had or hadn’t done.

    We were playing the “blame game.”

    And this wasn’t the first time either.

    We had played the blame game many times before, and every time we did, it would damage our relationship in a new way. Sometimes there would still be ripple effects days later.

    We would get mad at each other. We would accuse each other. We would look for reasons why one of us was right and the other was wrong.

    It was a downward spiral.

    Blame Awareness and The Gift of Pain

    Usually before I can make any significant change in my life, I need to have a high level of awareness about it. I can’t change without first knowing what change I need to make. And usually, the big alarm that tells me when something isn’t working is this:

    I feel pain.

    It can be sadness, anger, unhappiness—basically, any emotion that feels bad is my warning sign that something’s wrong. And this time, it was my girlfriend and I being intensely angry at each other.

    Pain is a gift.

    Why?

    Pain is a gift because it tells us that something is not right, that something isn’t working and needs to be changed. Without feeling this pain, we might never know that we need to change.

    This painful experience is what brought our blame game to my awareness.

    I was now empowered to change.

    Taking 100% Responsibility

    I read somewhere that most successful people take 100% responsibility for their lives.

    Hmm.

    I thought I’d try an experiment.

    What if I were to take 100% responsibility for everything in our apartment, in our relationship, in our lives?

    Even though a relationship is really a 50-50 partnership, I figured I’d bite the bullet and take all the blame and responsibility—for everything—and just see what happens. (Note: If you’re in an unhealthy relationship, and your partner regularly mistreats or takes advantage of you, I would not recommend this.)

    I deliberately became more aware of my tendency to blame. I was denying responsibility for things I could change.

    Blame is a victim mindset, not an empowered one.

    I would catch myself after I had just blamed Mary. I would catch myself while I was accusing her, or right before I was about to.

    I would catch myself merely thinking the thought—that it’s her fault for such-and-such. And right before I was about to blame her for something, I’d just sit in awareness of it, as if I were a Buddhist monk.

    Letting go of the blame, I would instead take full responsibility for it.

    Talking About It

    Accusing her and blaming her only made our relationship worse. So I was taking 100% responsibility for our relationship, and I wasn’t going to blame her for anything. Even if I felt certain it really was her fault.

    At first, I didn’t tell Mary what I was doing.

    Eventually, though, I told her everything. We had been blaming each other a lot, and it was making our relationship not so good, and I was making an effort to stop. I was happy when she said that she would make an effort too.

    She soon stopped blaming me.

    Even when she hadn’t cleaned up the mess on our table, and it was clearly her mess and her “fault,” I took responsibility for it.

    Sounds crazy. Sounds dis-empowering, right?

    But maybe, I had created the circumstances to allow her to leave the mess. Maybe I hadn’t communicated clearly to her that I don’t like clutter on our table. Maybe I hadn’t done anything to encourage us to both clean up together, as a team.

    Total responsibility.

    In the end, I didn’t become a victim either. If Mary was going to take advantage of me, this strategy would have backfired and I’d be her scapegoat. But because we’re in a healthy relationship, she didn’t mistreat me.

    Eliminating Blame in Your Relationship

    You’ll notice from my experience with Mary that I took specific steps to eliminate blame in our relationship. Here are the steps you can take to do the same:

    Pain

    The first step is just to notice if it’s an issue in your relationship. Are you fighting, getting angry with each other, playing the blame game?

    Awareness

    Get super-aware of when you’re blaming or faulting or accusing, even if you’re doing it in your head. If you can catch yourself sooner, you can let it go and preempt sparking a fight.

    Take Responsibility

    This is the hardest part, because it’s easier to find fault in others than in ourselves. We want to be right. So just do an experiment, and see if you can take complete responsibility for your life, including your relationship. See what happens. Remember, this advice applies to anyone who’s in a healthy relationship. This doesn’t mean you need to take responsibility for someone else mistreating you.

    Communicate

    Tell your partner what’s been going on, how you feel about it, and the effort you’re going to make. (And if something’s really bothering you, communicate your feelings without blaming.) This will bond you together, and get you on the same team. Once you’re both making an effort, you’re well on your way.

    Photo by Bjorn Soderqvist

  • You Don’t Have to Be Lonely: Proactively Choose to Connect with People

    You Don’t Have to Be Lonely: Proactively Choose to Connect with People

    Happy Brother and Sister

    “Make the best use of what is in your power and take the rest as it happens.” ~ Epictetus

    Do you know that feeling when you are completely alone?

    I don’t mean in a calm, solitary, I-choose-to-be-on-my-own kinda way.

    It’s the alone that inflates with silence that makes your ears ring. It’s the ache in the pit of your gut that boils the insecurities and needless feelings of rejection. It’s the push of desperate pain that wells in your eyes and stains your cheeks.

    You know, that kind of alone?

    I never intended to feel this way. When I first moved to Paris, the images of hope and “my future starts here” were bursting from every pore.

    As I whizzed around daily life, getting to know my new colleagues, digging into shiny new work projects and exploring the jewels of this amazing city, I was so engulfed in the newness of it all that I made no time to stop and think about the long term.

    And there was no need to. I was embarking on an exciting new phase of my life. There was no time to stop and think!

    But then the newness faded. My colleagues became familiar to me. My job was less about discovery and more about delivery. My apartment was decorated. I was done being “new.”

    And that’s when reality finally sunk in.

    It was time for normality. Routine. Familiarity.

    But nothing in Paris was like my old life. I didn’t have any real friends here; nobody I could call and say “hey, let’s hang out together today.” Family were in a completely different country too.

    The emptiness was explosive.

    Humans are naturally social creatures, and I am not just gregarious; my energy comes from connecting with others. Taking this option away from me was like stripping my identity bare.

    I didn’t descend into a depression. Neither did I go out nor have wild, cocktail-soaked nights. In fact, there was no defining moment when a flare of inspiration transformed me from the no-friends-alone-on-the-weekends person to a blossoming social butterfly.

    As with anything I had in my life, friendship would take time to achieve. And even then, there was no end game, no one event that signified completion.

    Building a life filled with what I wanted would not swiftly appear through chanting a few affirmations or signing up to a list. I would have to define it for myself. It would be an evolutionary process. The difference was made using two words: what and how.

    What did I actually want? It was simple. I wanted to have someone I could call and spend some time with. But more than ever, I just wanted engagement, conversation, a spark of chemistry and shared experiences.

    I didn’t want acquaintances. I wanted real friends—the ones where we shared a mutual respect and just had each others’ back. Simple!

    How to get there started with letting go of preconceptions and insecurities, like:

    • Everyone already has a circle of friends. Why would they want to befriend me?
    • I don’t speak the language yet, so how can I engage with new people?
    • The French are notoriously unfriendly, so the odds are against me anyway.

    Thoughts like this alone could have been strong enough to keep me routed in my own self-doubt.  But my security did not come from removing the doubts, but choosing to take action in spite of them.

    My journey to finding new friends began with two main themes: the people I knew already, and the things I was interested in doing.

    I decided I would first ask a few colleagues to have lunch with me. These conversations revealed shared interests, so I asked one colleague to join me at a couture class where we learned to sew dresses. Another colleague and I went indoor-wall climbing.

    Mingled with this was using the desire to learn French to also engage with people outside of the office. I joined an online group and began meeting people who wanted to learn English and in turn they taught me French. This created a reason to meet and some common ground to work from.

    Some of these people have become irreplaceable friends and some I will probably never see again. But I found simple joy during this process. Would I ever have encountered these people if I had not made the effort to do so in the first place?

    And that is perhaps the most fundamental lesson from this experience. If I wanted friends, I had to ask for them. It was my responsibility to make the first move. There was no magic pill, no secret formula—just discovering the what and the how.

    What changes have you made to feel less lonely? What has this taught you about yourself?

    Happy kids image via Shutterstock

  • Who to Fall in Love with First: 6 Ways to Love Yourself

    Who to Fall in Love with First: 6 Ways to Love Yourself

    “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~Rumi

    Most of us are so busy waiting for someone to love us that we’ve forgotten about the one person we need to love first—ourselves.

    Ironically, it was when my ten-year marriage fizzled that I began the innermost process of self-discovery about love.

    While discouraged and saddened at the crumbling of our relationship, I began to explore love more. How had it fizzled? Why had we stopped loving each other, and what had happened to our love?

    The People Who Were to Have Loved Us

    I grew up in a rather patriarchal culture and family, which had trouble expressing or showing love.

    In fact, they showed love in unusual and unhealthy of ways. My mother used harsh language, put-downs, and comparisons to others to berate, embarrass, and ridicule me about my personal habits, lack of achievement in school, and potential career choices.

    My dad showed love in the form of his belt, which lashed against my body throughout my childhood. I remember horrific lashes, which left marks around my legs, buttocks, and back. If I were lucky, the lashes were made by the softer leathery-parts of the belt. If I wasn’t, it was the buckle, which did the scarring.

    The violent strikes resulted from disobedience, for challenging my parents’ authority, and mediocre grades.

    My adolescent years were filled with memories of some of these physical scars, which have disappeared, but also emotional scars, which continued to linger.

    My ex-wife’s parents similarly showed love in unhealthy ways: ignoring her feelings, constantly criticizing and comparing her to others, and not expressing their love for her.

    What I’ve realized since our divorce was that we were two damaged people who had trouble loving ourselves, let alone each other. When the love you’ve known has been physically harmful, emotionally painful, and psychology scarring, how do you love another person?

    With this realization, I’ve had to find ways to love myself first.

    You too may have been unloved or shown love in unhealthy ways in your life. Here are some tips on loving yourself first before searching for love in your life.

    1. Be kind to yourself.

    You may have hurts, emotional pain, and shortcomings. Learn to accept yourself, shortcomings and all, even if your family and previous partners may have berated you about your inadequacies.

    We tend to be harsh on ourselves, often because the people who were supposed to love us were unusually cruel and heartless to us. We hear their non-stop chatter in our minds and our beings.

    Focus on your many positive qualities. Focus on your strengths, your abilities, and your admirable traits. Let go of harsh judgments, comparisons to others, and self-hatred.

    When you can see yourself as the soulful and divinely inspired person you are, the damaging internal dialogue doesn’t hold up.

    Be gentle with yourself.

    2. Feel the love within you and be that love.

    You may experience both self-hatred and self-love. Spend more time focusing on self-love.

    Try loving and positive affirmations. Nourish your soul through a love-kindness meditation or spiritual practices that help you feel compassion and love toward yourself.

    Once you feel vibrations of self-love or the peace of positive affirmations, try to be in that place of love throughout your day.

    Infuse this love with your interactions with others in your life.

    3. Give yourself a break.

    You’re not perfect. No one is. You don’t have to be at the top of your game every day. No one is happy all the time. No one loves themselves always. No one lives without pain.

    Be willing to embrace your imperfections and excuse your bad days. Don’t set such high standards for yourself emotionally and mentally. It’s normal to feel sadness and pain and to hit some low points in life.

    Allow yourself to embrace these emotions without judging yourself for them.

    4. Embrace yourself.

    Are you content being alone by yourself without feelings of anxiety, fear, and judgment?

    You may have to go within and seek solace in yourself to be comfortable in your own skin. Practice moments of alone time and be aware of how you treat yourself.

    Learn to embrace solitude and allow yourself to be mindful of your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about yourself.

    The process of self-discovery can happen through the process of clinical therapy or counseling. This healing process can help you discover who you are and what your obstacles to loving yourself are.

    In the alternative, periods of introspection, silent meditations, journaling, and sharing your feelings with supportive friends may help you be more aware of who you are.

    The process of loving yourself starts with understanding your true nature.

    It took a combination of meditation, therapy, writing, and silence to come to terms with my past and my present. Only once I realized I wasn’t loving myself could I attempt to change that.

    5. Be grateful.

    Rhonda Byrne, author of The Magic, shares with us a powerful way to change all of our relationships and our life.

    Byrne encourages us to practice gratefulness and regularly count our blessings.

    “When you’re grateful for the things you have, no matter how small they may be, you will see those things instantly increase,” Byrne says.

    She includes twenty-eight practices for twenty-eight days of your life to help you feel gratitude more deeply. Her initial practice is a formula to count your blessings.

    She encourages you to write out the following sentence for ten items you’re grateful for everyday.

    “I am truly blessed to have _____________, because _____________(why?).”

    You will immediately start loving yourself more when you realize all the things you’re grateful for in your life.

    6. Give yourself in service to others.

    When you think about kindness toward others and being love to others, you open the door to divine love.

    “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” ~Rabindranath Tagore

    Yes, giving to others is a gift of love you can often give yourself which brings you more love.

    When you’re being kind, considerate, compassionate, and giving of yourself, your soul will rejoice. You’ve reached the highest level of self-love in this state of serving others.

    Find ways to do small and large tasks to assist those living in your house, neighborhood, or community. Practice conscious acts of kindness and giving.

    The love you’re sharing with others in the form of service will help you feel more love and fulfillment in your life.

    You’ll realize you don’t need someone else to feel complete any longer. You’re complete.

    A relationship will only make you shine brighter and bring more love in your life.

  • Transform Your Confidence by Learning to Approach New People

    Transform Your Confidence by Learning to Approach New People

    Friends

    “As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    I remember it like it was yesterday—sitting in the corner of a bar in Holland at a social gathering, feeling alienated because I didn’t know the people I had to mingle with. After all, they were friends of my girlfriend at the time.

    My worries had consumed me and I didn’t know where to begin. I wondered: Should I pluck up the courage to strike up a conversation, or should I withdraw?

    I realized from this experience that I lacked self-confidence.

    I was bullied as a kid, and because of my inability to connect with my peers I spent a lot of time in my room playing video games. I had no idea how to communicate, let alone show people who I really was as a person and what I had to offer.

    In the long-term, my relationships suffered, I did terrible at job interviews, and I was always misunderstood, all things that affected my self-confidence.

    I knew by my early twenties that something had to change. It seemed that everyone in my age group lived normal lives, with a great circle of friends—something that I always dreamed of having, but avoided with video games and social networking.

    I understood that I had to start doing things differently; that I should no longer refuse an invite from a friend to go out and meet new people. That I should no longer say no to potential meetings, and to at least give things a try to see what happens.

    My New Discovery

    I realized that the potential for interacting with people was all around me. I vividly remembered going to department stores with my family, seeing people who I really wanted to meet, and resisting only to regret it later.

    I knew at that moment that this was the biggest hurdle I had to deal with. If I were to simply get over my fears, my social skills and sense of self-confidence would begin to improve.

    I understood at that moment that while I had a fear of approaching and starting conversations with strangers, I could get past it.

    Slowly but surely, I did. I started taking baby steps by asking for directions and creating small talk with coffee shop baristas.

    After doing this repeatedly, I eventually found myself in a place where I could easily strike up conversations and be comfortable in new environments. Sure, I still had a long way to go in being completely natural, but I knew I was making progress.

    Fast-forward to today, my life has transformed. I no longer see people as strangers to fear; instead, I see opportunities to add value and make new friends.

    What I Learned

    The path I took was clear, and I will explain it to you as follows:

    1. Be willing to fail and get rejected.

    One of the first things I had to deal with when getting over my fears with strangers was the idea of getting rejected.

    I would always imagine the worst possible scenario of getting told to go away, and this would prevent me from talking to them. This fear faded after I got rejected a handful of times.

    I eventually understood that there was nothing to be afraid of since many of the people I’d met were indeed strangers who didn’t know me.

    Understand that rejection is part of the process and that it’s never personal. There are a multitude of reasons why some people may not be willing to talk, and often it has nothing to do with you.

    There is no way to know unless you go over and find out!

    2. Find genuine reasons to talk to people.

    What worried me the most was that I wouldn’t know what to say to people. What can you say to someone when you don’t know who they are?

    I was left with only one choice: to somehow come up with a genuinely good reason to talk to them in the first place. Maybe it was it their style. Or I was lost and looking for directions. Or  I was curious about where they were from.

    Whatever the reason, start to become observant and really think about what it is about that person you would like to find out about.

    3. Create a balance between statements and questions.

    Try to imagine how you talk to good friends. How does the conversation usually flow?

    One of the best ways to make a person feel comfortable is to balance statements and questions. Share about yourself and ask about them. Use their responses to your questions to shift the conversation toward topics they’re most comfortable with.

    4. Be positive and playful.

    As I started approaching more people and improving my communication skills, I began to see patterns in what people found comforting and what they found awkward. It was clear that most people prefer talking about uplifting topics, since most of us deal with a lot of negativity in our daily lives.

    The more I appeared warm, friendly, and playful, the more value I was providing to people. I became a beacon of positivity, which emanated out of me, and in turn, allowed others to feel the same.

    5. Be genuinely interested in people.

    When you take an interest in other people’s lives, it makes them see that you’re genuinely interested in who they are.

    What is it about them that you’re curious about? What of what you’ve already learned do you appreciate? Asking them about these things allow you to learn more about what makes them tick.

    6. Remember how happy you feel when you connect with others.

    The more I socialized, the more I started to feel a sense of happiness in myself and with others. I felt connected with society, and knew that the only way I could ever get to this place was through taking personal responsibility and getting out of my own way.

    While I can’t promise the same results as I had when taking these actions, what I can promise you is an increased sense of joy and connection with the outside world. We all want a sense of belonging. And once you find it, your sense of self-confidence will begin to flourish. 

    Photo by Austin Goldberg

  • You Have the Power to Change Someone’s Day for the Better

    You Have the Power to Change Someone’s Day for the Better

    Pushing Car

    “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

    It’s a feeling of dread. Maybe you’ve experienced it before.

    You’re driving down the highway and suddenly something goes wrong. You’re stepping on the gas pedal but nothing is happening.

    All the little lights on the dashboard come on and you notice one particular gauge you’ve been meaning to address sooner.

    The needle is just past the E. You’re out of gas. 

    It’s a helpless feeling. Desperation flashes through your mind as the wheels begin to slow. Other cars start passing you as you attempt to merge over to the emergency lane to get out of the way, the whole time hoping you can coast just a little farther, ever closer to the oasis of fuel at the next exit.

    Maybe that isn’t how it felt for you or perhaps you’ve never been through this little peril. But that’s how it felt when I ran out of gas recently.

    I was four or five miles from home, cruising down a long hill on the interstate when I realized my car wasn’t responding to my foot’s orders. 

    Fortunately, I was able to get over and coast all the way to the next exit and even up the ramp.  My mind raced, wondering how far I was going to have to push the car, and worse, if it would be uphill.

    When my vehicle’s momentum finally slowed to a stop, I was relieved to see the gas station only a few hundred yards away and that I’d only have to overcome a slight incline to get there.

    So, I got out and started pushing. As I grunted and heaved I was unpleasantly surprised at how heavy my little car was on a relatively flat stretch of road. But I pressed on, inching my way towards the plastic gas station sign that signaled my salvation. 

    My muscles strained against the heavy burden, legs and arms burning from the exertion. I thought about the times I’d seen other people who were out of gas. I always felt bad for them, maybe even a little embarrassed for them.

    Now I felt the shame I’d always imagined those people felt.

    More than a few times, I’d actually stopped and helped them push their vehicles to the nearest station. While I lumbered forward, one particular instance popped into my head from several years before.

    I was in Austin, Texas for a convention. A friend and I had been hopping around to different bars (like any good convention-goers) when, from the sidewalk, we saw a guy pushing a monstrosity of a car. It was a big convertible from the 1970s. 

    I don’t recall what make or model the behemoth was. All I know is that it was the heaviest object I’ve ever tried to move in my life.

    Still, my friend and I started pushing with the guy. He hadn’t seen us at first and was surprised that his task had been suddenly lightened. He smiled back at my buddy and I as we kept pounding our feet across the pavement, one foot in front of the other.

    “Just steer,” I told him as we kept easing the car towards a section of the road that began to slope downhill. “Once you get to where it starts slanting down you’ll be fine,” I said. 

    After several exhausting minutes, we reached the crest in the road and the car began to coast on its own. The driver thanked us and offered us money, which we declined. He waved back to us as he hopped in and guided the wheeled boat to the station.

    We went on about the rest of our night and didn’t give the event much thought. In fact, I hadn’t thought about it in years.

    Now here I was, in the same predicament, out of gas and trying to reach a little section of the road up ahead where it started to slope downward, the whole time trying to steer and push, a difficult pair to manage at once.

    Suddenly, the car felt like it was half its weight. I first looked down to see if I’d reached some kind of a little down slope or something. Then I heard a guy’s voice from behind me. 

    “Thought you could use a little help.”

    I turned around to see a total stranger, in his mid-thirties, pushing hard against the back end of my car. I smiled broadly. “Thanks man!” I shouted over the passing traffic.

    He had parked his truck just off the exit, probably as soon as he had seen my plight. He hadn’t hesitated or thought about helping me for more than a second. His instant thought had been to help.

    “You should be okay once we get to that little down slope up ahead,” he commented. 

    Inside, I laughed, remembering how I’d said those exact words to the guy in Austin a few years before.

    A minute or so later, we reached the downhill section of road and my car began coast itself towards its haven. “I think you’re good,” he yelled and waved.

    I thanked the man again and hopped in my car, steering it into the station on nothing but gravity’s sweet momentum.

    I don’t know much about karma, but I do know this: life presents us with opportunities, little moments where we can make the world a better place with a simple action.

    That stranger made my day better by lending a hand. He lightened my load and thus, lifted my spirits.

    Had he not helped, I may have become annoyed at the situation and more easily bothered the rest of the day, even irritable. I could have returned home less happy and let those feelings pass from me to the people around me, making their day worse.

    You have an extraordinary power to change someone’s day for better or worse, and you have no idea how far reaching that impact will be. 

    Another thing I took away from the gas incident is that good deeds never seem to go un-repaid.  It is an indelible truth that I’ve noticed time and again. Call it karma or mitzvah or comeuppance, it all works the same way.

    I kept smiling as I filled up my tank. I felt grateful that a random stranger had helped me. It gave me a good feeling inside, a sense that everything would be okay, no matter what.

    I started to replace the gas cap when I heard a familiar sound on the other side of the pump. A police officer in an old, beat-up pickup truck was trying in vain to get the engine to turn over.

    “Battery dead?” I asked. “If you need a jump, I have some jumper cables in the trunk,” I offered.  The man’s frustration visibly eased a little.

    “Thanks man,” he replied.  “I’d appreciate that.”

    “No problem,” I said as I reached in the trunk and grabbed the cables. “It’s always good to help someone out.”

    Photo Geoffrey Callaway

  • 8 Simple Tips to Bring More Love into the World

    8 Simple Tips to Bring More Love into the World

    Love in the World

    “You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” ~Brené Brown

    Have you heard the story of the ugly duckling?

    Well, there never was an ugly duckling; he was actually a swan whose real beauty had not been recognized by him or by others.

    All of us may or may not be ugly ducklings, but we are totally worthy of being loved, accepted, and cherished just as we are.

    Ultimately we are all trying to do the best we can with our current knowledge, awareness, and understanding. But we lose our way, and the first thing that goes is our ability to love ourselves and others.

    I began to write this article on a train to London. The driver had informed us that our train was subject to long delays. My initial reaction was something along the lines of: oh no, here we go again!

    Then at the next station, I found out that there had been a fatality with someone hit by a train at that station.

    Immediately, my heart sank for the family of the killed person—so what if I was late getting home? There was one person who was never going to get home, never mind late. And the lives of his/her loved ones will never be the same again.

    This is yet another stark reminder of why we need to make the most of each day; we just don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

    Yet we all go through life as if there is always going to be a tomorrow for us. We squander our precious time and energy on things that really don’t matter at the end of the day.

    We put our lives on hold and we spend so much of each day on those things that we cannot control or impact. For example, here in the UK most of us moan and groan about our unreliable weather, and yet there is not much we can do anything about it!

    We try and control our relationships and how people behave around us—and yet we rarely look at how we are impacting them and what needs to change in us.

    We want things done our way and our way only. My way or no way!

    Okay, maybe I am exaggerating, but what does really matter in our lives?

    Maybe we are all imperfect. Maybe we are wired for struggle. And yes, maybe life sucks sometimes. But what really matters in life?

    What really matters in life is love. Simple.

    Love is the most amazing thing in our lives. It is what makes us human, what makes life worth living. The size of our homes, bank balances, the beauty of our spouse, the speed of our car—all these things pale into insignificance when we face the splendor of what it is that makes us tick.

    Love does not make the world go around; it simply makes the ride worthwhile!

    Love is not the highly commercialized circus we see on Valentine’s Day. It is much deeper and much more profound than sending someone a dozen roses at hugely inflated prices. It is much more than candlelit dinners and fancy chocolates.

    We remember the sheer joy of children playing and the love in their eyes. Our hearts skip a beat, we get goose pimples, and we get teary eyed when we witness an act of sheer love—pure, unadulterated, and unconditional. Such moments literally take our breath away.

    Can you recall a time in your life when you were blown away by such an act of love?

    Remember how amazing you felt and how everything in the world seemed just right.

    I can look back in my life and I can still remember the wonder I felt when I saw a friend’s baby son, only 20 minutes after he was born.

    Another time, I felt so much unconditional love and joy when visiting some orphans; indeed this first time that I experienced unconditional love changed my life forever.

    At the same time, when I look back on my life, there have been so many unloving things I have done that I now regret. Such as getting angry with my young nephew and mildly smacking him, or getting really impatient with my mother for her slowness, or getting angry with my late father for his quirky habits.

    If love is all that matters, where did the love go in these dire moments, which I still regret?

    The key to bringing more love into the world and especially in our relationships is greater self-awareness. This brings us more calmness and opens us up to greater compassion.

    You too can have authentic relationships that are heart-centred and full of love—and here are my simple tips to help you bring more love into the world:

    1. Next time you are in a potential conflict or disagreement with someone, ask yourself: does this really matter?

    Will I even be talking about this in the months and years to come!?

    2. Take some time out—get away from the situation and let your emotions calm down.

    Otherwise, as in my examples above, you might end up doing something you’ll regret for the rest of your life.

    3. Put yourself in the other person’s place and ask how you would want to be treated if you were them.

    Then treat them exactly the same way, if not even better.

    4. See each person in your life as a young, vulnerable, helpless baby.

    They all were at one time. Show them the same love and awe you would show toward an infant.

    5. Look for the highest good in the other person.

    Everyone is doing the best they can, so help them be the best they can be! Indeed, in any dealings with other people, always look for the highest good of all involved.

    6. Learn from any experiences where a relationship has deteriorated.

    Ask yourself: What lessons can I use to do things differently next time?

    7. Look for guidance from your mentors and people you look up to help you resolve any relationship issues.

    What would your role models say? What would Gandhi, Mother Teresa, or Lori Deschene say?  🙂

    8. Finally, the most important thing of all is to have a life mission to bring more love into the world.

    Ask yourself these two key questions anytime you are in a conflict:

    • What would love do?
    • How can I bring more love into the world?

    The Way Forward

    There never was an ugly duckling—just a beautiful swan that didn’t recognize his own beauty. Despite being teased and harassed by the ducks, he retained his dignity and one day woke up to his own beauty.

    In the same way, we are all beautiful swans—we just have to wake up! And we wake up by awakening to all the love in us and around us, and then doing our utmost to bring more love into all our relationships.

    May you continue to bring more love into the world; after all, love is all that matters.

    Photo by Steve Snodgrass

  • Create Purpose and Happiness by Being Useful to People

    Create Purpose and Happiness by Being Useful to People

    Helping

    “What is the meaning of life? To be happy and useful.” ~the Dalai Lama

    One of the beautiful things about being an intuitive reader is that people are willing to go very deep very quickly. Vulnerability, shame, fear, and hope are all active players at a table set with Tarot cards. Often people start out their first session with me warning that “You might get bored, this is just another love drama.”

    Of course I never do get bored—everyone has a unique and precious story and I feel honored to share in them, period.

    Besides, underneath every question that’s related to the future, or an attempt to figure out our relationships or heart hurts is the most fundamental question of all: “Why am I here? To what end and for what purpose? What am I supposed to be doing right now?”

    This is why in my work I always focus on where we are, right here and right now, because that is the most important thing to understand, and oddly, sometimes the thing that’s easiest to lose sight of—our here and our now.

    I see it again and again with others and I know that it is true with myself: we ask questions about the future not because we want to control it, but because we are trying to figure out how we can live our best lives in this single, grace-filled, present moment.

    Talk about pressure.

    As a little girl and a young woman growing up in traditional South Central Texas, I was taught early and often that I could never expect a man to make me happy; I would have to provide that (and everything else) for myself.

    Solid, safe, and sensible advice for sure, especially in a time when the women in my family watched mothers, sisters, and friends get trapped into loveless relationships and marriages.

    Self-reliance was smarter and safer; after all, if the only person I really relied on was myself, how great were the chances that I would get hurt? Of course, college and my early twenties were a crash course in how a self-reliant life strategy, while helpful in some ways, is no guardian against pain and emotional difficulties.

    And now that I have been with the same man for ten years and a mom to the most amazing little boy for two, I have had the limitations of the “find happiness within yourself” driven home.

    It continues to be a safe and sensible approach, at least on one level, but I’m not sure how solid it is, and I’m pretty sure that safe and sensible are not the keys that open doors of greater understanding, wisdom, and joy.

    Perhaps we are ultimately responsible for our own joy, but happiness is found and purpose derived from being in relationship to others—being in relationship with all the messiness, drama, kindness, frustration, and delight that any good relationship entails.

    This is one reason why, whenever we feel that a relationship is going badly or may be on the brink of ending we panic: because we recognize that the joy in our lives is found through connecting with and being kind to others.

    This is something we can do whether we’re in a romantic relationship or not.

    We can be of service to others, not by just noting what we can do for someone else but by actually doing it. To put it another way, as the Dalai Lama so wisely said, being useful.

    So often we think of “being useful,” especially when the Dalai Lama says it, as feeding thousands, healing hundreds, and compassionately embracing our enemies.

    I firmly believe that these great and lofty acts are built on a daily practice of awareness, noticing what might have gone unnoticed—the older woman fumbling with her purse in front of you at the check out line when you are in a hurry, the quiet kid in the corner, the fact that your friends know when you are not really listening, and are hurt by that knowledge—and acting upon it.

    Relate. Connect. Be useful. Be happy.

    Our first acts of usefulness are usually close to home—calling your grandmother not for a special occasion but just to say, “Hi. I remember you and I love you.”

    Really seeing and bearing witness to your child: being present with them, not on the computer, not on your smart phone—with them. Forgiving your dad…for whatever. Holding your beloved in an embrace that lasts longer than it has to because you have the time and it feels so good.

    The interesting thing about being useful is that it cannot come into being by itself. We are useful when we are in relationship to honor someone else. In fact, I think of usefulness as the devotion of being in relationship.

    We know ourselves in a deeper and truer way through serving, loving, and being present with others. We are not rocks, not islands—we are connection, kindness, and underneath it all joy.

    You want purpose? Go be a blessing in the world and joy will be fast on your heels.

    Photo by Steve Evans

  • 3 Unconventional Tips for Forgiving and Letting Go

    3 Unconventional Tips for Forgiving and Letting Go

    “The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.” ~Pema Chodron

    Forgiveness is good, right? I don’t mean in a heal the planet kind of way—I mean in a selfish, me me me kind of way.

    We want to let go of our resentments and connect with people genuinely. We want to feel happy and contented, full of love for ourselves and those around us. We want to run, carefree, through the fields in a pretty cotton dress, not sit around in our pajamas, twisted with bitterness.

    But how do you experience genuine forgiveness and stop feeling resentful? Because it’s one thing to know it intellectually but another to actually feel it. Like, in your bones.

    A few years ago, in an effort to “get over things,” here’s what I did:

    I read. I saw a therapist. I journaled. I even did the thing where you write down your hurt feelings, burn the piece of paper, and poof, up they all go.

    (I also did the one where you put your “angry feelings” in the freezer to help you calm down.)

    And sure. I felt a little better.

    But I was a long way from getting out my sundress and Googling “field with long grass to run through.” There was still that nagging thought: if they hadn’t done (blah de blah) then I wouldn’t have to deal with this.

    And it’s confusing—if you forgive, does it mean someone’s off the hook?

    It’s as if one bit of your brain is saying “It’s all good” and the other bit is saying, “Ah, I don’t think so, mister.” And in a way, this is exactly what is happening.

    Trying to forgive someone is like trying to give up smoking; until you change your underlying beliefs it’s almost impossible.

    Most smoking cessation campaigns focus on the effects. The images are frightening but they rarely change behavior.

    The most successful technique to stop smoking is Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking. It was how Ellen, Ashton, and I quit.

    So how does Carr succeed where squillions of health promotion dollars fail?

    It’s simple. Carr explains that cigarettes don’t elevate you to some higher plane, like most smokers think. The nicotine just raises you up to where non-smokers are naturally and then drops you back down, almost seconds after your last puff.

    The belief at the heart of why smokers don’t want to stop is they’ll miss out on the relaxing feelings. But Carr shows, give up smoking and feeling good becomes the norm. He flips the old belief.

    And this is what we need to do when dealing with the slippery fish of forgiveness. We need to flip the beliefs that make it seem difficult.

    I used to see forgiveness as something you did. A verb. Now, I see it more as a noun—something that occurs naturally when you understand the truth about your thoughts and feelings.  

    Here are my 3 Carr-like forgiveness “belief flippers” that have helped me not only let go of hurt feelings but deepen my sense of well-being.

    Admittedly, the bigger the hurt, the more challenging this gets. My hunch is these ideas might help the thing you’re trying to let go of.

    1. Your thoughts cause your feelings.

    A few years ago during an intensely challenging personal time, a good friend of mine told me she no longer wanted to be friends. It touched something deep within me, and for a long time I saw her actions as hurtful.

    But then I realized two things:

    First, I was being supremely self-centered by not considering what it was like for her.

    And second, the real reason I was upset had nothing to do with her and everything to do with me. She hadn’t done anything to me, really, but my “I’m not good enough” radar was going off big time.

    My hurt feelings were due to what I thought of myself deep down. (I say “deep down” because not so deep down, I’d convinced myself I was awesome).

    If my sense of self-worth had been rock-solid, I would’ve more easily seen her side of things. Yes, I would have missed her, but I wouldn’t have taken it personally and felt heart broken.

    Your feelings are the result of what you tell yourself about what happened. It’s your thinking causing your pain.

    Which in practical terms means you need to stop blaming others for how you feel.

    2. The art of just noticing.

    So if thinking is the cause of icky feelings, you should change your thoughts, right? Or at least figure out where they come from?

    This is a common belief. But it’s also, I believe, the hardest way. Here’s what I think is a better option:

    Rather than try and think a different thought, like gratitude, or even forgiveness, just notice your thoughts without getting caught up in them.

    Once I understood I was the creator of my own feelings, this is what I did. And for years, on the odd occasion the topic of my friend came up I’d burst into tears, but always I’d be thinking, “Wow, am I really still working through that?” Almost as if I were a bystander.

    And guess what? Over time, my sad feelings lessened and my genuine love grew. Not just for my friend, but for me too.

    By not judging my feelings or blaming them on anyone else there’s been a shift in something much bigger—my sense of self worth has got stronger.

    It’s not like I don’t get upset anymore. Cripes no. I do. But knowing that my feelings are “my bad,” I rarely take it personally. The sting has gone.

    3. Consider that there’s nothing to forgive.

    Over the years I’ve thought about the shift that happens when we go from feeling angry and hurt to loving and peaceful.

    Are we learning forgiveness or do we simply reach a point where we now see there was nothing to forgive in the first place?

    Is forgiveness so tricky because the real “cotton dress running through the fields” feeling we’re after only comes once we realize there’s nothing to forgive??

    To help me wrap my head around this I find it helpful to consider the larger picture. As in, outer space large:

    I imagine a kinder, wiser and more compassionate version of myself sitting on the moon, perhaps kicking back on a deck chair drinking a margarita with Alice Kramden, looking down and watching, as the earthly me muddles my way through life…

    Watching myself hold onto dodgy beliefs and making some epic mistakes.

    Watching children around me born into challenging times and how this affects their sense of self-worth and how easily this passes on to others.

    Watching us all learning to love ourselves unconditionally—trying, failing, and even succeeding, as we do.

    And I figure this wise margarita-drinking self would conclude that everyone in their own unique way was doing their best.

    And when you think about it, if everyone’s doing their best, what’s to forgive—doing your best? 

    Toss around the idea: “Forgiveness is understanding there’s nothing to forgive.” It’s big, but when it sinks in, it really helps. And check this out…

    Forgiveness is understanding. There’s nothing to forgive.

    Woman begging for forgiveness image via Shutterstock

  • Believing in Our Goodness: Do You Have Faith in Humanity?

    Believing in Our Goodness: Do You Have Faith in Humanity?

    Holding Hands

    “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

    When we hear someone speak about faith, we usually expect to hear about some kind of subjective encounter with supernatural forces. In our skeptical age, we tend to look at faith as “believing in something you know not to be true,” as Mark Twain expressed.

    Before we dismiss any talk of faith, however, we should remember that there are many ways to understand the word. You can have faith in a benevolent, loving deity guiding your every move. But you can also have faith that you’ll wake up in the morning. Or that the dollar in your pocket today will be worth as much tomorrow.

    For me, a “revelation” of faith came while sitting around a table with a group people determined to respond to violence with love.

    I didn’t realize it at the time, but this experience reaffirmed my faith that human beings are fundamentally loving and good, and will help and care for each other when given the chance.

    I think that faith really is the right word here, because holding onto this viewpoint in light of so much evidence to the contrary does indeed requires a “leap,” to borrow Kierkegaard’s famous line.

    This understanding emerged at a visioning process for the “Dawson Peace Center.” To its great credit, the Dawson College community has chosen to respond to the 2006 shooting not by putting bigger locks on the doors and stockpiling weapons, but by spearheading meaningful initiatives designed to cultivate peace.

    For my part, at this meeting, I spoke about the contributions that meditation might make in addressing the roots of destructive behavior, and how we might be able to integrate it into the college’s culture.

    During the meeting, I didn’t really feel like anything was out of the ordinary. Sure, I was inspired by many of the ideas that the other 20 people in the room put forth, but toward the end, my attitude began to shift as I realized that what was happening here was truly extraordinary.

    Here, we had a group of committed people seeking, however imperfectly, to affirm that the power of love is stronger than fear.

    Here, at least a few people understand that responding to violence in kind makes us no different than the perpetrator. Here, a group has resisted the temptation to let the violent imagination of a disturbed individual hijack our own.

    It takes strength and courage to stand up and say, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that human beings are fundamentally decent, kind, and caring, and that we have the responsibility to nurture these attributes.

    This audacious belief in basic goodness takes guts. It takes faith. And that’s what I saw around that table.

    We’ve all seen how human imagination has the power to create scenes of terror and violence (just open up the newspaper). But it also has the possibility to respond to those who unleash the demons with compassion and understanding, which to me seems the greater power (and usually gets far less media attention).

    This is the truth that every saint and sage has communicated: hatred never ceases through hatred. Only love has the power to heal. This is not really a “spiritual” or “religious” truth; even a jaded, secular humanist can see this at work.

    It’s up to each and every person to develop the understanding that no matter how far removed someone might seem from this basic goodness, no one is beyond redemption.

    Buddha and Jesus hung out with murderers, prostitutes, lepers, and other types of people who society had “thrown away” and given up on. What these marginalized people needed was compassion and understanding, not ostracization and judgment.

    And when a teacher who had discovered his own “enlightened nature” spoke to them, they were able to discover that within themselves.

    These people who had lead lives of violence and impropriety often went on to become exemplary disciples; the mistakes they had made in their lives were not sufficient to corrupt their essence and potential.

    In the eastern traditions, this is expressed through the image of a gem covered with mud, or a lamp coated in dust. These images affirm that the treasure/light is always there, and has only temporarily become obscured.

    But in order to sustain the commitment and diligence to undertake the “polishing” process, you must first have an inkling that there is something valuable waiting for you underneath.

    Meeting an enlightened teacher can certainly arouse this faith, but coming into contact with the enlightenment that flows through us all when we seek to act with love and compassion is also a catalyst.

    It’s by no means certain that we will uncover this treasure in ourselves, much less be able to help others discover it in themselves. But as I felt very deeply around that table, there is intrinsic value in the effort itself.

    Everyone’s face communicated the determination to love, despite everything. We understand that the alternative of powerlessness and despair is not really an alternative at all.

    Whatever we think about the world becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, so if we really want to create a world of peace, then we truly have to believe that it’s possible. Even very optimistic people like myself occasionally need boosters of faith to maintain this truly revolutionary attitude.

    Photo by kris krug

  • Why We Sometimes Enjoy Pity and How to Stop

    Why We Sometimes Enjoy Pity and How to Stop

    Sad Face

    “A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” ~Mark Twain

    When I was younger, I remember occasionally hurting myself while playing outside.

    If I rolled my ankle, I might fall to the ground clutching it, but not feel too bad overall. Then, when someone from my family or a friend would run up to me and see if I was okay, I’d start getting choked up.

    At the time, this confused me and made me even more upset. Why could I not control myself?

    I experienced a lot of self-pity, because I felt like I was weak and could not handle my emotions. And then I would break out in tears.

    None of this made any sense to me then, but it would happen the same way every time.

    Now that I’m older, I think I “get” it. I actually enjoyed the feeling of pity, and would subconsciously seek it out.

    This doesn’t just happen in children. Did you ever notice how when some people get sick or injured, they will practically brag about it?

    “Hey everyone! I totally broke my arm the other day. Look at me!”

    This whole “enjoyment of being pitied” business is a particularly nefarious form of attention-seeking behavior.

    It is a sign of insecurity. We want to be pitied because we crave attention, and without pity, we worry that nobody will care about us.

    Pity is a form of external validation that is based off feelings of inferiority. The desire for external validation and the internal lack of self-esteem is a serious one-two punch knocking down our happiness levels.

    How does this sort of behavior start? What is the original cause? Why do we think this negative external validation is a good thing?

    We all have beliefs about ourselves that require some form of validation for us to convince ourselves that these beliefs are true.

    There is something inherently alluring about having a victim mentality. If you believe yourself to be a victim, you surrender your personal responsibility, which essentially gives you “permission” to blame someone or something else for your negative situation.

    It also means that you “deserve” pity.

    So if something bad happens, your ego seeks out pity in order to reinforce a victim mentality, which then allows you to abdicate your personal responsibility to do something to change your circumstance—while receiving attention that you might associate with feeling important or loved.

    This sort of process is most likely internalized through childhood conditioning. For example, when I was visibly in pain, everyone focused on me, which I enjoyed, so I learned to prolong that by crying.

    And pity-seeking behavior goes hand in hand with self-pity, which presents a huge obstacle to happiness since you can’t feel good if you’re choosing to feel bad for yourself.

    Of course, like all of our ego’s defense mechanisms, pity-seeking behavior will try to hide itself from you.

    How Can You Recognize These Behaviors?

    You may be seeking pity if you:

    • Frequently start sentences with “I didn’t deserve…”
    • Regularly tells others that life or parts of your life are unfair
    • Repeatedly talk about how someone has harmed you
    • Draw attention to your problems and ask why they had to happen to you
    • Subtly wish for negative outcomes so you can talk about them
    • Get caught up in your own head and become unaware of other people
    • Look at someone else’s misfortune through how it negatively impacts you

    With that last one, someone else’s troubles allow you to create a story that you can use to garner more sympathy for yourself.

    An example would be a person who explains to her friends about how her husband lost her job. Instead of feeling compassion for him, she focuses on how she’s affected by his loss, as if it’s harder for her than him.

    We all do this time to time, but when it becomes a habit, it can interfere with our happiness and our relationships.

    How Do You Stop?

    As I said earlier, the two main drives that cause these behaviors are a reliance on external validation and a low self-esteem.

    In order to fully eliminate these behaviors, you need to address both of these causes.

    The first step is to consciously recognize that you are engaging in these behaviors. Once you’ve accepted this, you should take some time to meditate on the effect they have on your life.

    Are you more frequently in a bad mood? Do you find yourself sabotaging your own efforts? Have your relationships suffered?

    Perhaps you can’t emotionally connect with others since you are so focused on yourself. Or maybe you’re keeping yourself stuck personally or professionally because you’re committed to talking about the unfairness of it all.

    Recognizing these effects builds leverage that will help motivate you to change.

    Now, when you notice yourself engaging in pity-seeking behaviors, short-circuit your conditioning by practicing gratitude and recognizing how good it feels.

    Instead of focusing on how you have been wronged or hurt, immediately think about something positive in your life. Sure, you broke your arm while skiing, but you were able to use your two legs to take a walk in the park, and you enjoyed that without needing any type of negative attention.

    Repeatedly practicing gratitude will reverse the conditioning that caused your behaviors in the first place and help you create positive feelings without needing negative reinforcement.

    Over the long term, you need to build a sense of self-worth by accepting personal responsibility for your life and consciously choosing to change the situations that aren’t working for you. When you feel like you control your own fate, you stop being a victim and you feel far more valuable as a person.

    It feels much better to actually enjoy your life than it does to talk about how much you don’t.

    This isn’t an issue that you deal with once and then it goes away forever. It is deep seated within us, and it requires consistent self-improvement to minimize it.

    As I grew up, improved my self-esteem, and started to take responsibility for my life, my pity-seeking behavior decreased drastically, but it still exists.

    What’s important isn’t to eliminate the behaviors entirely, but to deal with the underlying causes as best we can.

    Do you enjoy seeking pity? Why do you think you do it?

    Photo by lupzdut

  • Love Yourself for What You Are Now Without Conditions

    Love Yourself for What You Are Now Without Conditions

    Love Yourself

    “You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Do I really love them, or am I simply afraid to be without them? Is my love an expression of freedom, or is it merely a mask that hides my insecurities? These are questions that haunted my awareness. What is love, if I am afraid to lose it?

    It seemed that I was running in circles trying to catch something that was never there.

    I felt as if my love was not love, but rather just a fear that saw myself as unlovable; thus I attempted to complete my self-love through finding others to love me. However, it wasn’t working.

    It seemed that no matter how much another person loved me, whether it was my wife, family, or friends, it didn’t complete the love I was searching for.

    Then it hit me, like a two year old who unexpectedly smacks you across the face: If I were looking to find love within myself, what good would it do to rely on the love of another person?  

    For if I did, then the moment they stopped loving me, I would be back where I started in the space where love felt lost.

    I wondered what it would mean to love myself without needing a love that existed outside what I am.

    I recognized that I’d manipulated other people with the hope that they would love me. I’d tried to create stories that made me seem better than other people, always knowing deep down that I was only pretending. I was looking to trick people into liking me, loving me.

    However, when I was insincere, when I was only telling people what they wanted to hear so they’d like me, what was it that they loved—me, or a lie?

    What good was it if they loved a pretend me, rather than the real me? If I was pretending to be something I was not, then they didn’t love me, but rather someone who existed in the imagination of my mind.

    This game of seeking love through pretending got me nowhere, so I asked myself: What does it really mean to love someone as they are? I mean really, am I loving someone as they are, or am I loving a pretend version of who I hope them to be?

    What is this love that truly loves, and doesn’t play a game that wants people to change in order to become lovable in the future?

    As a society, our love is often the kind that says, “I will only love you if…” How could this be love? If we put conditions on it, then it is not really love.

    It reminds me of the love I have for my daughters.

    It’s a love that says, “Regardless of what you do or don’t do, I love you all the same. There is nothing you can do that will take this love away; even if you hate me, I will still love you.”

    If I were to say, “I will love you only if you make me feel like a good father and not make me look like a bad father,” this wouldn’t be love; it would be manipulation.

    It would be an effort to keep hidden the love I withhold from myself. 

    It would reinforce the belief that I am not lovable unless I change, unless I become something other than what I am. These conditions I put on other people, before I extend love to them, are similar to the conditions I place on myself.

    So what would it mean to really love someone? It could only mean that I love them as they are, not as who I think they should be.  

    If this is true, then the love I am searching for means loving myself as I am now, and not as some future self that exists in the future, in an imaginary tomorrow.

    I love my children in such a way that they feel free, in the sense that they know it would be impossible to lose my love for them. I love them in a way that gives them the freedom to be what they are, and not be caught up in a quest to change into more lovable versions of themselves.

    This, of course, makes me reexamine the love I have for all those I claim to love. Do I love them as they are, regardless of what flows through them; or am I using love to control them with the hopes that they don’t make me feel insecure?

    Do I love them, or am I merely hiding from my own lack of self-love?

    If I love my partner, it can only mean that I love them as they are. For if I want them to change, then my love becomes conditional—and that’s not love, but rather an expression of fear.  

    This is the love I’ve been searching for: to love myself as I am; to realize that I don’t have to change in order to be more whole, or more lovable. I am lovable as I am. I am free.

    At anytime I am without this self-love, it means that I am putting a condition on love, by saying that what I am right now is unlovable, and I must change. However, it simply isn’t true. It’s a judgment that attempts to compare myself with another person, or the pretend version of me in my mind.  

    The truth of the matter is that we are all doing the best we can with what we have. When we love ourselves with conditions, it puts us in a position where love can be given and taken away, thus we find ourselves with anxiety about living up to this condition we’ve created in our mind.

    Unconditional love means loving ourselves in such a way that we feel free to be what we are now, in this moment.

    Photo by julipan

  • When Love Is Not Enough: 4 Tips for a Strong Relationship

    When Love Is Not Enough: 4 Tips for a Strong Relationship

    “Good relationships don’t just happen. They take time, patience and two people who truly want to be together.” ~JnK Davis

    My husband and I were going through a difficult time a few years ago. It felt like a pivotal time in our relationship. People say that marriage isn’t easy and you have your ups and downs. Well, we were definitely experiencing a low point.

    We had been together for several years; we had been high school sweethearts and were each other’s best friends.

    During this time we had several issues going on in our life, one of which was my husband being out of work, and suffering with anxiety, depression, and a lack of self-esteem and confidence as a result. Our relationship was in a bad place and we were being tested.

    We were not spending any quality time together, nor were we going out together as a couple (my husband didn’t want to face anyone, including friends and family).

    We didn’t feel like each other’s friends, let alone the lovers and best friends we had grown to be. At times we even felt like strangers—or even worse, each other’s enemies. We were forever fighting, bickering, and whining at each other.

    After a lot of heartache and many heated arguments, we realized we could no longer go on like this. When we stopped to analyze the situation, we asked ourselves several questions:

    Did we still love each other? Did we still want to be married? Had everything changed so much that we just couldn’t work things out?

    Once we decided we wanted to be in our marriage, we each made a commitment to start treating each other differently.

    We hoped that, with a new perspective and our mutual love and respect for each other, we could start working together and make the change we so desperately needed. We hoped that a change in attitude and behavior would salvage our marriage.

    The following four elements became very critical in our relationship and led to us saving our marriage, as well as making it stronger for the future.

    1. Communication.

    During this rough period we stopped communicating clearly. It’s funny how, as human beings, we withdraw from each other when there is a sign of trouble or misunderstanding.

    We decided to consciously work on our communication. We spoke in “I” statements rather than “you” statements.

    We expressed how we felt rather than blaming a situation on the other person. “I” statements work because they show how you feel, whereas “you” statements create a sense of accusation and blame.

    This helped us be open with how we felt, stopped us from shutting each out, and allowed us to talk about our issues in a productive and efficient way.

    2. Appreciation.

    We were feeling a lot of resentment toward each other, and not feeling loved and appreciated, so we put in place a daily appreciation diary. Keeping a personal gratitude journal is a great asset; it makes you focus on the positive in your life and leads to happiness.

    Keeping a gratitude diary as a couple had the same benefits and gave us hope. It forced us to focus on the positives of the day and not just the negative events or what the other person did or didn’t say. It made us appreciate the other person and see them for the person we fell in love with.

    It also made us feel good to be acknowledged and appreciated for what we had done on a daily basis. It helped to hear the other person say thank you, even though we were being thanked for doing our expected roles—me, for going to work full time and my husband, for taking over the home duties.

    It was important for us to hear the gratitude from the other person so we didn’t feel like we were being taken for granted.

    3. Quality time as a couple.

    It was also helpful for us to schedule quality time with each other—getting out of the house and spending time together away from all the issues of our life; taking the step back and just being with each other.

    It’s important to set some time aside to just be a couple; spend quality time together regularly, but especially during hard times. This doesn’t need to involve money; just a walk down the park together or along the beach will help. Just taking yourself out of your home environment will be beneficial.

    We enjoyed each other’s company once again and started to feel more happiness as a couple.

    4. Showing love as the other person wants to receive it.

    We both still loved each other, but didn’t really feel that we were loved. I’ve read books and articles about how people receive and give love differently. Your partner may not perceive love in the same way as you; and remember, someone’s perception is their reality.

    How your partner receives your love is important. You can’t assume the other person knows that you love them.

    For myself, I feel loved when people spend quality time with me, making the effort to talk to me and listen. My husband, on the other hand, receives love by affirmations, people giving him compliments and positive statements.

    With this in mind we made an effort to show each other love in ways that we knew would make each other feel loved on a regular basis.

    By doing all of this we started to feel like we were in a loving marriage and that weren’t battling through our difficult life on our own. We had each other there for the support we needed. 

    We look back on this time as a lesson learned. We feel proud that we got through it and grateful that our relationship is stronger. We faced the challenge and came out on top.

    We now practice these simple things every day to grow together and maintain a good and loving relationship.

    We can be confident that by using these simple techniques, we can face the many challenges life throws at us together, such as having a miscarriage last year and our ongoing quest to start our own family.

    If you are fortunate enough to share your life with someone you love, then you owe it to yourself and your partner to make an effort every day in your relationship.

    They say love conquers all and that all you need is love, but unfortunately a solid relationship needs more than that. It requires being there for each other, showing support, feeling loved, being grateful that you are sharing your lives together, and above all, showing your appreciation every day.

    Photo by Jeanne

  • How to Speak Your Mind Without Making Someone Else Wrong

    How to Speak Your Mind Without Making Someone Else Wrong

    Friends Pulled Apart

    “Would you rather be right or free?” ~Byron Katie

    Do you have the freedom to say what you really feel? Do you share your true thoughts and ideas, or do you struggle to avoid hurting, disappointing, or angering others?

    It can be easier to try to meet others’ expectations and avoid conflict. We may even believe we are making someone happy by not speaking our truth. What’s the cost? Slowly giving up fragments of who we genuinely are: our authentic self.

    There was a time when right and wrong worked for me. I had stability, harmony, and a practical path for pursuing a career in accounting, marrying a wonderful man, and raising three beautiful children.

    I didn’t realize I was following expectations of what I thought should make me happy based on what I learned and believed to be true. I was living on the surface, stuck in the paradigm of right and wrong. Though I was happy, something was missing.

    Until I ventured within and followed my real passion (psychology, writing, and seeking spiritual truth), I couldn’t see that I’d been living in the framework of family norms and social conditioning, not knowing how to listen to myself.

    I grew up shy, fearful of having the wrong answer, one that didn’t fit into what others told me I should be, do, know, and think.  

    The social mask forms the moment we’re born and we hear our first words. We learn to please, meet expectations, and avoid sharing our feelings, which can turn into a lifelong struggle to be good enough, know enough, and have enough.

    We long to be seen and heard for who we are unconditionally, but we find ourselves on the path of conditional love, seeking the approval and appreciation from others that we eventually discover must come from within.

    When I began sharing my ideas, it went against expectations of “right and wrong,” and I faced criticism and judgment. I was finally following my own values and the things that excited me.

    I’d eagerly share with my family, not realizing how far “out of the box” I’d gone, and was met with silence, or criticism behind my back.  

    As I stepped into my beliefs, I encountered defensiveness and attempts to prove I was wrong. Conflict for the first time! Both of us were living in our ego’s fear, needing to be right in a space of  “how could you think that?”

    Then a twenty-year friendship ended abruptly when I wasn’t following her “right” way of business ethics.

    As university friends, we had both become coaches, leaving behind our corporate careers, and suddenly I was a competitor instead of a friend.

    She felt the need to control the way I did business. Sadly, it turned out to be more important than our friendship.

    Soon after, I faced blaming, false assumptions, and horrific judgments from a friend of over a decade. I no longer followed her “right way,” which culminated in a six-page letter about why I was wrong, and who I should be—otherwise this friendship wasn’t working for her!

    I was shocked, and felt enormous hurt, disbelief, and some things I didn’t expect: anger, hatred, and resentment.

    I hadn’t felt this intensity of negative emotions toward anyone in my entire life. I couldn’t forgive because I’d become attached to my way needing to “be right” for her. 

    At the same time I’d developed a strong inner trust, validated by the most fulfilling life experiences in all areas of my life. Suddenly, I could see that who was right and wrong didn’t matter.

    I was judging her for judging me!

    I was also trying to correct her in an effort to fix her, convincing her of my beliefs, needing to control, or trying to change her to make me happy.

    It often happens with those close to us who are now hurting us with their “disregard, disobedience, or disrespect” for not following our right way.

    I now held the energy of criticism (finding fault, complaining), and judgment (blaming, resentment, punishment). While I trusted what was right for my well-being, I needed to let go of it being right for someone else.

    Doing this does not mean we accept or absolve responsibility for all manner of words and behavior. It just means that we stop blaming and judging someone else and consider that they’re doing their best from their own state of consciousness.

    The constructive or destructive choices they make form their learning and experiences, and can only be 100% their responsibility.

    We may have the best of intentions with our criticism and judgment, and we might find ways to punish, yell, impose, demand, and justify them as the “right way,” but love does not condemn.

    When we’re coming from a place of love, we share, teach, and role model in a space of curiosity, compassion, and understanding.

    How do you communicate authentically from a judgment-free space so others will stay open to your thoughts? It may help to use these phrases:

    • I notice that…
    • Are you willing to…
    • I’m curious about…
    • Here’s how I’m feeling, what are you feeling?
    • Are you open to hearing my thoughts and feelings around this?
    • Here’s what I desire for our relationship…what do you want?
    • Are you willing to listen to my point of view, even if it may not be the same as yours?
    • I’m feeling disappointed or not okay with….because what’s important to me is…
    • I think/believe that…what do you think/believe?
    • What exactly did you mean by…
    • I just want to understand where you’re coming from, can you say more about…?

    You may want to avoid certain phrases that come across as criticism and judgment, as they may cause defensiveness and affect other’s ability to be authentic with you:

    • You should…
    • You never….
    • You always…
    • Why can’t you get that….
    • What’s wrong with you?
    • Why or how can you not see that…
    • I’m so disappointed that you…
    • How could you…?
    • I can’t believe you…
    • You are so…

    I’ve learned that, at times, I cannot be authentic because it will bring out someone’s ego (blaming, complaining, condemning), even if I share from a genuine place of love.

    We have no control over where someone chooses to live on the spectrum of fear versus love, and must discern whether there’s space to share—and what’s better left unsaid, so we don’t step on other people’s spiritual path.

    Sometimes we may simply need to wish others well on their journey, creating a new space for both sides to reflect on what truly matters. This is also a loving choice.

    And when you love without judgment, you won’t need to be right because you’ll be free.

    “Out beyond ideas of right 
and wrong there is a field.
I will meet you there.” ~Rumi

    Photo by Elvert Barnes