Category: love & relationships

4 Tips to Create Meaningful, Authentic Connections Online

“The most important things in life are the connections you make with others.” ~Tom Ford

Three years ago I was living in the Bay Area, working for a start-up website as a community and content and manager. Every day, I signed online and wrote for hours about a topic that meant absolutely nothing to me.

I accepted the position because it was a dramatic pay increase from my previous temp and freelance lifestyle, and it afforded me my first solo apartment. I’d held dozens of different jobs in my time as I searched for meaningful work, and I certainly worked hard, but I always felt like I’d failed when it came to taking care of myself.

I simultaneously worked fifty-plus hour weeks to build my freelance resume and stockpiled ramen noodles, which felt disheartening to say the least. When I had a desk, a briefcase, and copious amounts of overtime where other people had a social life, I felt accomplished and important.

It wasn’t until the office closed and I began working from home that I realized how unfulfilled I felt.

I didn’t want to develop some calculated online persona to represent my company—I wanted to be my authentic self. I didn’t want to write about something that meant absolutely nothing to me for the sake of getting paid. And I didn’t want to engage with people superficially with an eye on Google Analytics.

If I signed onto a social networking site with a link to something I wrote, I wanted my heart to be in it. If I commented on someone else’s blog, I didn’t want it to be a thinly veiled attempt to drive traffic back to my employer’s site. I wanted my words and interactions to mean something more than that. (more…)

January 16, 2011
Accepting & Loving Ourselves in 10 Simple Steps

“Why compare yourself with others? No one in the entire world can do a better job of being you than you.” ~Unknown

The idea of loving yourself often seems cliché. We throw around the phrase, but do we really understand what it means? Do we actually know how to love ourselves? Or what the process of self love even looks like?

I really believe that everything in our lives is directly affected by how much we love ourselves, but I’m often at a loss for words when trying to articulate what is really all about. In my attempts to answer these questions, I am excited to have come up with a little analogy that I feel really pulls it all together. So I figured I’d share, in the hopes that you all can explore and expand on this concept with me.

To start, think of people are like cars. In order for a car to function properly you need to fill its tank with gas. So in order for us to feel as centered, loving, and grounded as we’d like, our “love tanks” need to be full.

When our love tanks are full, we have the energy and patience to give love to the world around us; but when we are running on empty, that’s how we feel: empty.

With an empty love tank, we feel overwhelmed, frustrated, angry, sad, you name it. And that’s how we treat others, which can ultimately lessen their love tanks too.

If you think about the people you know and love, and make a mental image of their love tanks, how full do they seem to you overall? If you look at yours, in this moment, how full is it?

Remember our love tanks have the potential to shift throughout our days and lives.

So how do we fill our love tanks? (more…)

January 6, 2011
Authentic Communication: 3 Tips for Receiving in Conversations

“As for the future, your task is not to foresee it but to enable it.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Have you ever heard the expression everyone loves a cheerful giver? While there’s a great deal of truth in the philosophy of offering without hopes attached, what about the flip side?

Sometimes we become so focused on providing antidotes or anticipating what we perceive to be the other person’s needs that we steamroll a conversation, taking center stage in our interactions.

In my own day-to-day life, pauses and hesitations in conversation used to make me uncomfortable or even anxious. I would rush to fill the space with chit chat that meant little, or offer to help that person with a favor—not so much to experience the joy of giving another person a break but to alleviate the unease inside me.

Coming from a place of fear, I frequently dampened the point of the conversation with my desires to keep the talk flowing and elicit the behavior I wanted from others.

As a one-time people pleaser, I knew that there had to be a more peaceful way to connect, and on a deeper level, with those around me.

After I turned thirty, I began to step back and actually give other people room to express their opinions and thoughts—even if it meant several seconds of complete silence, something that previously would have seemed impossible to me.

I found myself breathing more slowly and relaxing more into the moment. I started to feel the same happening to others I interacted with. (more…)

January 3, 2011
Fostering the Right Attitude: Know Who You Are

“I urge you to try not to get hung up in the mentality that says ‘I hope I don’t lose him (or her),’ but foster the attitude that says ‘He should be appreciative of having me in his life.’”

I read these words in the midst of a downward emotional spiral, and they grounded me almost immediately.

I was fifty-three when I read Marie’s words. I was in the eighth year of my relationship with my husband and realized that I had become a shell of the woman I was when I first met him. Amidst all the compromises I’d made to keep my relationship, I had compromised myself away.

By the time I reached forty, I had experienced enough of life to know relationships work best when individuals are authentic. I’m in awe of those who discover this treasure early in life.

And, forty was a turning point for me. My mother had died at forty, my first husband at age twenty-one. So, reaching forty brought with it a dramatic realization. There was a tremendous gift in front of me—time—and I would not waste it.

I devoted an inordinate amount of time and energy in my young adult life to finding for another Mr. Right; so I decided that I would not invest any more in that endeavor. I had raised my son, cultivated a successful career, put myself through college, and had recently bought my own home.

I concluded my life was grand just as it was. I did not need someone else to complete me.

Never did, actually. That frame of mind is society’s conditioning that a single person is half of something: it’s an albatross many of us carry until we choose to lighten the load. (more…)

November 29, 2010
7 Simple Ways to Create Thanksgiving Every Day

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the number of moments that take your breath away.” ~Unknown

Tomorrow as many people celebrate Thanksgiving Day with their loved ones, fully enjoy the day and take it all in.

This day is traditionally a time to be with families, friends, and loved ones. It focuses around sharing a meal and enjoying precious time together.

Here in London, I have never been to a Thanksgiving dinner, but I just love the whole concept behind this day of appreciation, sharing, and togetherness. Maybe in time, notwithstanding all the commercial implications, Thanksgiving will be celebrated globally.

Thanksgiving Day will be gone all too soon, but there is no reason why you cannot continue the spirit of Thanksgiving all year around.

Here are my seven simple tips to make every day Thanksgiving: (more…)

November 23, 2010
Staying Friends When You Wanted More

“Don’t wait for your feelings to change to take action. Take action and your feelings will change.” ~Barbara Baron

Paul and I had been acquaintances for eight years. When I opened the door to his office one afternoon to offer our usual casual hello, an alchemical change packed a walloping charge through my body.

When had my coworker become a handsome man with whom I suddenly wanted to share more than impersonal cafeteria trays in a crowd?

I’m not sure what flipped the switch for me, but I’d already cheered him when he ran two marathons, listened when his wife left and they divorced, and written while he lived abroad twice serving a medical charity.

We’ve raised money for causes and exchanged myriad e-mails about jobs, travels, and our families—my sister’s marriage, his siblings’ children being born.

While my sudden unspoken desire was to deepen our intimacy, Paul’s signals proved alternately encouraging then confusing.

A promised lunch together that fell through due to sickness; a lingering smile at my door one day turned into distracted “gotta run, department meeting” the next. (more…)

November 10, 2010
Better Together: We Are Not Alone

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” ~Helen Keller

My patient, John Done, rolled in by ambulance from his home in rural Oregon. As his story unfolded I understood why the nurses and ER doctors in the room were slack-jawed and shaking their heads, and I understood why I had been called to see what the nurse called a “DIY’er.”

I have been a surgeon for over ten years and had never been consulted for a case of do it yourself surgery. John had had a belly button hernia sticking out a couple of inches for many years. It started hurting a few days before I ended up seeing him.

Somehow, John convinced himself that the hernia had turned in to an abscess, even though it had been there for, as I said, many years. The pain changed his mind about an obvious reality. Once he decided it was an abscess, it made sense to lance it.

John was not fond of going to the doctor and usually took care of his own medical care. He opened up his Korean War medic kit and found his sterile scalpel…

When I got to John he had two stab wounds in his abdomen and was leaking intestinal contents onto the dressings. We took him to surgery, took out a segment of his bowel, and repaired his hernia.

He did well and was very happy to be free of the hernia. He agreed to call me prior to embarking on another DIY operation.

Although it seems unbelievable that lancing a hernia could happen, understanding the chain of events is instructive. (more…)

November 9, 2010
Compassionate Boundaries: Saying No Without Guilt

“Some people think it’s holding that makes one strong–sometimes it’s letting go.” ~Unknown

Today I’ve been thinking about fences, I guess as a metaphor for boundaries in life. There are many different kinds of fences, but that they all have the same purpose: creating a boundary.

Whether it’s a sweet white picket fence with roses or the electrified chain fencing at a federal prison, what it signifies is a line drawn in the sand. This is either a starting place or a stopping point, depending on your point of view.

Creating boundaries has always been a challenge for me. Until now, maybe still, I have needed to use anger to build my fences, to re-enforce my boundaries.

I recently became so angry with a family member that the anger seemed totally disproportionate to the deed. But I felt invaded, used, taken advantage of. I accused, I shouted, I slammed out the door. Nothing like being really, really mad to build a very solid fence.

But the effect on my body was like hauling the heavy cement blocks into place and then pounding them into their position. It took a huge toll, not to even begin to mention the effect this had on my emotions and on my spirit.

After my “anger fence” was firmly in place, I was exhausted; muscles rigid with residual fury, unable to even appreciate the fence so firmly planted. Yes, I had created a very defined boundary, but at what great cost, both to myself and to my family? (more…)

October 11, 2010
5 Ways to Create Random Acts of Love

“Practice random beauty and senseless acts of love.” ~Unknown

I recently decided to reverse the order of common sense, and senselessly follow my heart through an unplanned acts of kindness. After I made the choice, it was amazing how the world changed before my very eyes.

No longer was I fixated on how quickly I move through the events of my day. With my new focus, people began to shape shift from task zombies to loving beings.

One situation in particular really humbled me to the true power of random acts of love.

I was riding a train from LA to San Diego. As the train started I engaged the man sitting next to me in casual conversation. When he told me where he was going, a huge red flag went off in my head. It read DANGER.

Eerily cold and calculating, he said he was going to an ex-girlfriend’s house, unannounced, to place a tracker in her glove box so he’d know where she is day and night. Then he pointed out an ankle bracelet that lets his probation officer know where he is at all times.

Taking this train ride would violate his parole, putting him back in the system. He didn’t care. Being on the outside, he said, was meaningless any way.

I was just about to move seats. Instead, I assessed the situation to see whether it was a conditioned fear response or if I was actually in a safe place. I did an intuitive check in my heart, and felt I was safe and had something to offer this man. I surrendered to what that may be and sat tight.

Let me preface this with a disclaimer: I’m not recommending you seek out criminals on trains to brighten their days, potentially putting yourself in danger. I’m suggesting you learn to be present so you can receive inner guidance that may affect other people positively. (more…)

October 5, 2010
LOVE Versus Fear

LOVE IS UNCONDITIONAL (fear is conditional)

LOVE IS STRONG (fear is weak)

LOVE RELEASES (fear obligates)

LOVE SURRENDERS (fear binds)

LOVE IS HONEST (fear is deceitful)

LOVE TRUSTS (fear suspects)

LOVE ALLOWS (fear dictates)

LOVE GIVES (fear resists)

LOVE FORGIVES (fear blames)

LOVE IS COMPASSIONATE (fear pities) (more…)

September 16, 2010
How to Help Someone Without Saying a Thing

“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.” Benjamin Disraeli

Listening. It’s a very powerful tool but unfortunately not well utilized.

I propose that if we all learned to listen better, there would be less of a need for therapists. I myself am a social worker and have been providing counseling to clients for years.

I have often felt that I was working as a well-paid or glorified listener; that if “lay” people could just listen better, there would be less of a need for professional listeners.

Those clients who simply need a safe place to unload and vent would already have a space where what they say matters for that time period, where they feel heard and acknowledged.

As human beings, we all have a universal need to feel heard and understood.

I might be going out on a limb to say that I find many people to be quite self-centered in their conversation, or perhaps I should say in their monologue.

They love to hear themselves talk, rarely ask the other questions, and when they finally allow the other person to speak, they quickly bring it right back to themselves.

In the book The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, there is a paragraph on this listening business.

Narrated by a dog, it reads “I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another’s conversations constantly…. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories.” (more…)

September 9, 2010
How to Let Go of a Past Relationship: 10 Steps to Move On Peacefully

“The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Nine years ago my heart was in a million little pieces that formed the basis for a million regrets.

I had my first serious relationship in college, when all my insecurities came to a head. My ex-boyfriend had to juggle multiple roles, from therapist to cheerleader to babysitter.

The whole relationship revolved around holding me up. I realized this soon after it ended—that I’d spent three years expecting someone else to love me when I didn’t love myself. The guilt and shame kept me single for almost a decade.

I dated, but it was always casual. I’d start getting close to someone and then find a way to sabotage it.

Long after I let go of the man, feelings about the relationship held me back. I was afraid of being vulnerable. I was afraid of being hurt. But mostly I was afraid of hurting someone else again and having to live with that.

If you’ve been holding onto an old relationship, now is the perfect time to let go. Here’s how you can start moving on. (more…)

July 13, 2010
Stop Comparing Yourself to Others: An Alternative to Competing with People

“Why compare yourself with others? No one in the entire world can do a better job of being you than you.” ~Unknown

We all do it or have done it at some point in our lives: We compare ourselves to others and gauge where we are based on what we observe them to be doing.

If this was simply an observation, that would be one thing. But in comparing ourselves to others, we often end up judging ourselves. There’s no one worse to judge!

If you have ever noticed, it doesn’t matter how many people are on your side, cheering you on. If you can’t get on your own side, you never get past “go.”

The thing about comparison is that there is never a win. How often do we compare ourselves with someone less fortunate than us and consider ourselves blessed? More often, we compare ourselves with someone who we perceive as being, having, or doing more.

And this just leaves us coming up short.

But our minds do want to quantify. Our minds want to rank and file and organize information. Our mind wants to know where we fit into the scheme of things. So we need to give it something to do. (more…)

May 18, 2010
One Simple Way to Live a Successful Life

“Whenever you fall, pick something up.” ~Oswald Avery

There are plenty of people in this world who know how to be successful, but how many of them know how to fail?

When you fail, that’s when you become stronger—you learn to pick yourself back up, dust yourself off, and move on.

These are also opportunities to learn and to help others as you come back up. As the quote above says, when you fall, pick something up. I would add that when you fall, you should pick someone up too.

I used to envy other people, thinking them more successful than I may have been. But I have done a lot in my life, seen a lot of things, worked with lots of different kinds of people. I have been successful and I have failed, and I think it is this that has allowed me to be a more grounded human being.

I have learned that it takes all kinds of people to run the world, and that the ones running the world are not always the smartest.

I have worked underneath supervisors who make you wonder how they graduated from high school, and I have met truck drivers out on the road who are smarter, more educated, and more widely read than some of our recent US Presidents and CEO’s of fortune 500 companies. (more…)

May 13, 2010
10 Tips to Advise Wisely: How to Give Advice That Actually Helps

“If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind.” ~Buddha

Nothing appears to be going right. The worst part? No one gets it, even though they might claim to.

Even though you know this is all temporary—it always is—you feel the need to ask other people what you should do. If they say what you want to hear, you’re relieved. But it doesn’t usually work that way. In fact, oftentimes you’re more frustrated than you were before once they put their two cents in.

We’ve all been there before.

Think back real hard—what in particular helped or irked you about advice people gave you? Did they say you should have done something differently (which wasn’t very useful after the fact)?

Did they tell you to stop feeling sorry for yourself because other people have bigger problems? Did they offer some platitudes or cliche advice that sounded impossible to follow?

When friends have problems that seem incurable and never-ending, you can sense that hopelessness. And you want to fix it, which always seems so simple when you’re sitting on the outside. (more…)

April 20, 2010
40 Ways to Live Life Without Regrets

“The saddest summary of life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.” ~ Unknown

We all have something stored in our memory banks of the past that we wish we could have done differently, or something we wish we didn’t do.

As we get older we learn and grow, but that doesn’t mean we have to regret what we did before we learned how to do things differently. If we didn’t go through those experiences, we might not have grown into the strong and knowledgeable people we are today.

What I’m proposing is that we get rid of the negative thoughts—the could haves, might haves, and should haves—and start living a life that won’t make us feel regretful. Not even at an older, wiser age.

Here is a list of things you can do to practice living life with no regrets:

1. Realize that it’s okay to make mistakes. Just make sure to learn from them, forgive yourself, and move on.

2. Make your health and wellness a top priority and always take care of yourself so you’re ready to take care of others.

3. Follow your own path, not one that others want you to follow.

4. Find the humor in life and laugh like there is no tomorrow.

5. Relax and move with the flow of life by being unafraid of change.

6. Be adventurous by trying new things and taking more risks.

7. Have more intellectual curiosity and embrace creativity.

8. Try to find happiness with as many different people as you can.

9. Think for yourself instead of letting other people’s opinions influence you too much.

10. Try not to judge people before you get to know them.

11. Be thankful for what you have now instead of thinking about what you don’t have.

12. Wish well upon everyone equally and try to admire without envy.

13. Share your happiness with others instead of hoarding it all for yourself.

14. Don’t try to change someone—love who they are now.

15. Enjoy the journey, not just the destination.

16. Know that happiness is bigger than any bank account.

17. Control negative thoughts so that they don’t contribute to the outcome of your life.

18. Use your energy wisely because spending energy complaining, worrying, or being impatient is just wasted energy.

19. Be bold. Find the courage to change things that should be changed and accept that there are some things that cannot be changed.

20. Love your work. If you don’t currently love what you do, figure out what you would love and take the first step toward that life.

21. Turn your discontent into a mystery and enjoy trying to solve it.

22. Face problems from different angles in order to find solutions.

23. Gain independence by realizing that on this earth we are all dependent upon each other.

24. Change your perspective by taking on a wider view of things.

25. Don’t waste time trying to bring disagreeable people around to liking you.

26. Become the person you would like to spend the rest of your life with.

27. Be honest with yourself and others by saying what you mean and meaning what you say.

28. Treat people with respect and compassion.

29. Live in the now by loving the present and being aware of your thoughts and actions. Think happy thoughts and speak powerful words.

30. Try not to put things off until later.

31. Never hold grudges.

32. Face your fears head on and try to do the things that you think you cannot do.

33. Spend time with people who make you happy while also not depending on other people for your own happiness.

34. Stand up for yourself and others and don’t let anyone or anything hold you back.

35. Be yourself and love who you are now.

36. Be a participant in life rather than an observer.

37. Do the things that you love to do as much as you can.

38. Write out a list of goals and achieve them by doing them step by step. Don’t give up when things get difficult.

39. Do something every day that makes you feel proud of yourself—commit random acts of kindness whenever you get the chance.

40. And always keep on moving forward.

I know it seems like a rather large list of things to take on, but you can accomplish a lot on this list by doing just one thing. For example, right now as I’m typing this I’m putting into practice at least eighteen things.

Put these things into practice and see where life takes you, without regrets. And please comment below. I’d love to read your thoughts on this.

Man and the moon image via Shutterstock

April 7, 2010
One Simple Way to Make a Big Difference in Someone’s Life

“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.” ~Samuel Johnson

Just after my mother’s colon cancer surgery, my father was laid off from work.

I was sixteen years old and felt silently helpless and terrified. My mom had been attending church but, on this certain day, she didn’t feel well enough to attend. After this particular church service, an exceedingly thin, frail, elderly woman approached me. She requested if I would please accompany her on an errand.

I felt too afraid of being disrespectful of the elderly, so shyly I sat next to her in her car as she drove to a grocery store. Her name was Georgie.

I began pushing Georgie’s grocery cart down the first aisle. It was then that she paused, pointed to an item, and asked, “Do you have this in your house?”

I started to cry, realizing the true purpose of her “errand.” (more…)

March 1, 2010
Compare Well

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.” ~Lao Tzu

Conventional wisdom suggests that if you want to be happy you shouldn’t compare yourself to other people. Conventional wisdom isn’t always realistic.

Try as you may to completely stop making comparisons, you’ll likely come back to the instinct at least on occasion.

Discontent is part of the human condition—the nagging sense that something’s missing, even when you seem to have it all. We’re constantly evolving, growing, and looking for new ways to expand our impact on the world, new ways to reach and stretch our potential.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing if you see the pursuit as constant gain instead of the cause as constant lack. And it’s equally harmless to compare yourself to others if it allows you to learn from people you admire.

If you compare yourself to your boss and it motivates you to work smarter, that comparison improved your life for the better.

If you compare yourself to someone your age who started a non-profit, and it inspires you to volunteer, that comparison made a difference in not just your life, but others’, too.

It’s when the comparison game gets you down on yourself that you need to be cautious. (more…)

February 23, 2010
Forget Yourself

“When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand.” ~Sue Patton Theole

Whether you’re talking to your mother or your coworker, odds are you don’t always give your complete attention, without formulating thoughts of your own. Even the most Zen person sometimes waits to talk instead of really listening.

It happens all the time.

As your sister recounts her afternoon and the hassle she encountered at the DMV, you feel the temptation to interrupt and one-up her—your afternoon was even crazier.

While your boyfriend tells you about his interview, you half-listen and half prepare your own monologue, entitled My Long Day at the Office.

And let’s not forget your daughter’s after-school recap, when it takes everything inside you to not finish her sentence, rush her to the point, and start doling out chores. Without realizing it, you’ve given a subtle cue she doesn’t deserve your time and full attention. (more…)

January 26, 2010
Accepting Blame and Asking for Forgiveness

“Never ruin an apology with an excuse.” ~Kimberly Howard

As a kid I was quite often “långsur.” Långsur is a Swedish expression for being grumpy for a long time. Every time someone was mean to me, I sulked for hours, even days. This became quite tedious at times, especially since as soon as I became happy again, some new event triggered me to sulk again.

You get the picture.

I simply had such a hard time forgiving people.

It went the other way too. I found it hard to admit that something was my fault. At least out loud. Inside, I blamed myself, but I could not get the “I’m sorry” across my lips.

As I grew older, I realized no one liked Miss Grumpy and those long days of sulking had to be shortened a wee bit if I wanted to keep some friends, but to be honest, forgiving was still hard. Also, even though I was happy on the surface, many days I was still “långsur” on the inside.

Guess who suffered the most from this?

It was not until I had kids that I really got out of this extremely negative mindset.

All of a sudden, I didn’t have time to sulk. Diapers were to be changed, bottles heated; and sleep—that wonderful thing we all take for granted BK (before kids)—was to be enjoyed, or rather desperately grasped at when there was a moment.

Not only did I no longer have time to sulk, I also realized that for us parents to mentally survive, we had to be able to communicate quickly, honestly, and rationally. We had to make decisions without hesitations. We made mistakes all the time, but we survived them.

At this stage, a baby’s life depended on my behavior. It was not just me anymore.

It was at this time that I realized that you can actually get mad and stop being mad in matter of minutes, as long as you set your mind to it. It was up to me to decide how I wanted to feel inside.

And, if I did wrong toward another person, there was a liberating sensation in saying I’m sorry and moving on. No dwelling. (more…)

January 15, 2010