Tiny Buddha

Category: mindfulness & peace

  • 4 Mistakes That Are Built into Your Brain

    4 Mistakes That Are Built into Your Brain

    Thinking Brain

    “Cognitive bias is the biggest self-imposed obstacle to progress, not only for oneself but in the end, for all mankind.” ~Unknown

    On a beautiful Pittsburgh morning in 1995, McArthur Wheeler decided to rob a bank. Not just one bank, but two. McArthur had a secret plan, one that he thought would make him exceptionally successful. It involved something very sour, a lemon.

    McArthur had just recently discovered the “invisible ink,” a substance commonly used in elementary science class. Lemon juice, when used as ink on paper and dried, only appears visible when heated. Unfortunately for McArthur, his ingenious plan involved covering his face in lemon juice and then robbing two banks.

    The fact that his face was not made of paper didn’t discourage McArthur from employing his reasoning that some lemon juice on his face would make him invisible to all the surveillance cameras.

    Unsurprisingly, several hours after the two robberies McArthur was in custody. To his astonishment his plan was unsuccessful. He even objected to detectives, “But I wore the juice.”

    Although most of us have never been this ignorant, our lives are still full of examples of ignorance. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, some mistakes just never go away.

    I have personally struggled with my own mistakes throughout my life. Not because I am scared of them, but rather because I seem to keep encountering the same problems. How can I make the same mistake over and over again? Am I just stupid? Why don’t I see other people making the same mistakes?

    We all know that we need to approach these errors as learning opportunities, but that is much easier said than done.

    The truth is that some of these mistakes are built into our brains. We are programmed by birth to make cognitive shortcuts. These are quick jumps in our thinking that often leave us making poor judgments and even worse, faulty decisions.

    Let me explain.

    Our brains are remarkably wondrous things that have evolved for one simple reason—survival. They have morphed into supercomputers that can take the unending sea of information in the world and make it simple. To be conscious of even a small percentage of all the information that our brains take in would be blinding.

    Instead, our brains take in everything and only stream the information that fits within our model of the world. This is referred to as “mental accounting.” A good accountant doesn’t bore you with every detail of the process, but rather gives you the final product, which you care about. Our brains work the same.

    Why Are We Always Right and Everyone Else Is Wrong

    Have you ever had an argument with someone so frustrating you wanted to smash your head on the wall? Other people’s biases are always ripe for judgment, but rarely do we afford ourselves with the same pleasure. The brain is biased toward protecting our own beliefs and avoiding contradictory information.

    If your beliefs are like a house, you must support your structure. You can’t go digging around the foundation looking for inconsistencies or contradictory beliefs. We have a vested interest in ignorance, which makes us naturally resistant to seeing our mistakes. Instead, we often try to justify our decisions and prove to others they are wrong.

    Seeing Your Mistakes Is a Recipe for Growth and Clarity

    Acknowledging your mistakes is a powerful method for seeing how easily we are influenced and biased. Looking at our decisions will provide clarity and create compassion for others around us.

    Today we’re going to look at four mistakes we make in our daily living. These are wired into us; if you look hard enough you’ll see them everywhere.

    Confirmation Bias – Why We Always Need To Be Right

    Last week I was arguing with my girlfriend about something that I later realized was trivial and inconsequential. We had both entrenched ourselves in our opinions on the matter, and before we knew it we were shooting off a list of examples and reasons why the other party was wrong and we were both right.

    This is the bias that makes arguing with people really annoying. Why? Because most people think they know what they are talking about. The problem is you also think you know what you are talking about.

    So what usually happens when you encounter this dilemma? Naturally, the next logical step is assuming that they are either a) unfair/stupid/biased/illogical, or b) purposely being stubborn.

    How can they not see the clear, impeccable logic of my argument and see that I am clearly correct?!

    This is a slippery slope, and chances are both of you are suffering from the confirmation bias. We look for confirmation of our beliefs/philosophy or opinion in any context or situation. We find scenarios that support it and then stick to those, regardless of how terrible our argument may be.

    Calling someone “closed minded” would be a manifestation of the confirmation bias. The confirmation bias is so fundamental to your development and your reality. We look for evidence that supports our beliefs and opinions about the world, but excludes those that run contrary to our own. Confirmation bias is the support structure that holds our beliefs into place.

    You find examples of what you want to believe and ignore those that don’t fit.

    Sunk Cost Fallacy – Why You Just Can’t Give Up on Things You Should Give Up On

    When I was younger I got myself stuck in a long five-year relationship that I knew deep down was an absolute waste of time. We were not right for each other and on two totally different trajectories in life, but I still persisted. I kept thinking we had already spent so much time together, how could I possibly quit now?

    This is the sunk cost fallacy, when we use past decisions to justify irrational current decisions. Basically, we justify putting more time/effort/money into something because we have done so in the past, despite the fact that evidence indicates continuing the decision will outweigh future rewards.

    Sound familiar? We can see it everywhere. From business to our love lives none of us are safe from this pervasive little mistake. Sunk cost isn’t just a hyper persistent behavior, but rather persistence in the face of certain overwhelming evidence of potential future failure.

    Money isn’t the sole factor that can escalate levels of commitment. Any form of pressure may contribute to an irrational level of commitment. Social pressure or psychological pressure are also powerful escalators.

    Think of a relationship, one that you shouldn’t be in. I’m sure many of you have experienced that. How many times have you seen two people together and thought why the hell are they together? It’s pretty hard to pull the plug on something that you’ve spent so much time in, especially if you still hold an irrational hope that things will change.

    The same goes with a job that you’ve done for years. You feel hesitant and scared to try something new. You’ve already spent so much time working hard; you can’t just leave now.

    Fundamental Attribution Error – Why We Judge So Quickly

    The driver in front of me is so slow. What is he or she doing? It must be an elderly person who can’t even see over the steering wheel. You increase your speed and catch up beside them wanting to satisfy your curiosity with a glance into the passenger window. You are surprised to find a young women talking on her cell phone.

    It works like this: John is late, so therefore, John is inconsiderate and always late.

    A small observation (regardless of how inaccurate it is) leads to a wide generalization. All further judgments are fixed with that label. Assigning fixed states or characteristics due to singular events is an automatic process that we use to simply the world.

    The world is a complicated place, and the amount of sensory and social stimuli that our brains have to process is beyond our comprehension. This is the brain’s way of categorizing things, very fast and very inaccurately.

    I know you are probably thinking of how unfair this is. Fairness is not an issue when faced with our intrinsic need to create a world that is both safe and controlled.

    We want to make things understandable and safe, and consequently, easier to assign blame. Attributing failure to personality causes, as opposed to situational causes, is a wonderful way to accomplish this.

    The truth is there is no way we can understand a fraction of the events that contributed to an event occurring; most of the time it’s simply pure speculation. Believing that things are tidy and neat satisfies our need to see the world as fair and encourages the illusion that we have control.

    The fundamental attribution error is more than just judging a book by its cover; it’s represents a fundamental need to see the world as simple and easily understandable.

    Availability Heuristic – Why You Never Consider the Long Term

    I recently decided to wear a helmet while biking. I had never done this before, but after seeing a local news article about an accident I figured now would be a good time to start.

    As I get older my ability to forget things has continued to amaze me. Time spent with friends and relatives seem to blur. Annual events come by and I am left shocked, thinking that I was in the same place at the same time last year doing the same thing. It somehow feels close and yet far away at the same time.

    Our memory isn’t optimized to remember things in the past in incredible detail and clarity. We are biologically wired for the now. Our survival instincts have evolved to be hyperactive pattern detection machines that focus on the here and now.

    Our vast experience and history is not automatically factored into our decision making process, rather we weigh our judgments to the present information. This is the availability heuristic; we overly value recent events over past events.

    Good decision-making means using past experience and knowledge as a reference point for future decision-making, rather than using whatever random information you have recently encountered to form a decision. However, availability bias skips this step.

    Why is it so hard to think clearly when you are emotional?

    The answer is simple. Anything that is vivid, unusual, or packed with emotional latent material is given first class priority by our brains.

    These upgraded passengers are pretty big and may even require an extra few seats on the plane, much to the chagrin of our more rationally minded smaller passengers. Decisions made in a more rational state of mind are quickly forgotten when an emotionally charged situation arises.

    That’s why the ol’ walk around the block once and cool off trick usually works.

    Bottom Line

    These are just four of the many systemic mistakes that are built into our brains. Remember they aren’t evil or necessarily bad; in many cases they are necessary for healthy living. However, they do represent a fundamental method for simplifying the world and making it more understandable.

    I think the biggest takeaway from these four mistakes is that understanding them builds compassion. Understanding others needs to start on an individual level—understanding yourself. Knowing how easy it is to make these kinds of mistakes allows us to be more compassionate when seeing others encounter the same issues.

    What are the mistakes you find yourself constantly making? Drop a comment and let us know.

    Thinking brain image via Shutterstock

  • Limited Edition Tiny Buddha “Just Breathe” Shirt (Supporting the David Lynch Foundation)

    Limited Edition Tiny Buddha “Just Breathe” Shirt (Supporting the David Lynch Foundation)

    *Update: This campaign has ended. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for daily or weekly emails, and to learn about future shirt campaigns!”

    Hi friends! For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Lori, the founder of Tiny Buddha.

    For the past two weeks, I’ve been offering a limited edition “Just Breathe” shirt, and I’ve been excited to see the response from the community! The campaign ends this Sunday, so if you’d like to grab a shirt, this is your last opportunity to do so.

    Lori Deschene Just Breathe Shirt

    A portion of the proceeds will go to the David Lynch Foundation, a nonprofit that helps prevent and eradicate trauma and toxic stress through Transcendental Meditation.

    This cause is quite dear to my heart because of the work they do to help at-risk populations, including children in low-income urban schools, veterans with PTSD, victims of domestic violence, homeless and low-income men and women, inmates in some of America’s toughest prisons, and individuals recently diagnosed with HIV.

    Meditation changes these people’s lives and helps them heal, find peace, and develop the resiliency needed to thrive in spite of their challenging circumstances. And of course, when individuals thrive, that ripples into their communities, helping us all live happier, more peaceful lives.

    You can choose from six styles—including a fitted tee, racerback tank, and a hoodie—with sizes ranging from XS to 5XL (for some styles).

     

    Don’t see the button? Visit https://represent.com/tinybuddha to place your order. Have an idea or request for a future shirt? Leave a comment and let me know!

  • Accepting Delays and Appreciating the Gift of Empty Time

    Accepting Delays and Appreciating the Gift of Empty Time

    Time for a Break

    “Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment… Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to life and see how life starts suddenly to start working for you rather than against you.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    A few weeks ago I had a soccer game about a half-hour away from my house, in the middle of nowhere.

    Grumbling about the heat and the length of the game, I walked down to the field where my team was seated under a tent. In truth, I love playing soccer, but for some reason I was annoyed at how big a chunk of my day it took.

    “Hey,” someone said to me, “the game’s delayed forty-five minutes. We’re just going to sit and wait it out.”

    I walked to the portable bathroom, plunked my soccer bag down, and teared up in frustration. How dare the team, the sport, the world violate my time?

    I walked back over to my team, fuming inside. I thought about the homework I still had left, the near hour I could have spent writing or playing guitar or being quiet and meditative. But I was stuck on a dirt patch miles away from home, sitting in my soccer clothes, with nothing to do but wait.

    Then I thought of the radio show I’d been listening to in the car on the way there. It was about Taoism and the importance of accepting what exists and the natural order of things. The world, the host declared, is in itself perfect, and when we submit to the circumstances of the world we can find peace.

    Sitting there on the field, I forced myself to close my eyes, take a deep breath, and feel the wind settle on my skin. For the first time, I was accepting the unfilled time life had offered me rather than fighting it.

    Meditating on the field was incredible. In that moment, I felt more alive and present than I ever have meditating in my own home.

    Unlike at home, I was submitting to the natural order of things and my reality. Rather than building time for meditation, I was receiving it.

    I don’t know a single person who doesn’t consider themselves busy. We live in a world of technology and mobile devices that allow us to be working constantly. Our biggest rival is time, and our most formidable fear is running out of time before deadlines, projects, and our own eventual demises.

    Because of the finite amount of time we have on this planet, I always thought of time as something I had to organize and maximize. I planned my week and activities so I could have large chunks of unstructured time to get things done. I avoided having short periods of empty time like the plague.

    The more I structured my time, the more stressed I became. I was frugal with my time like I would be with money.

    I was miserable in the face of rescheduling and spontaneous events. Everything the world threw at me threatened to destroy my entire week’s plans. The more I tried to maximize my time, the more I felt like a victim to time itself.

    The spontaneity of the world became my enemy. In trying to use every moment to its fullest, I had turned myself against the present moment and the natural order of things.

    That day on the soccer field changed me in a profound way. That day, I let go of my schedule, my compulsive need to structure my time, and my hatred of the ever-changing world. I embraced the moment that was given to me and allowed myself to be immersed in the time and space I occupied.

    I had never before recognized that I was in a constant battle against time.

    I now see this battle playing out every single day in my life. I get stressed whenever I have five minutes to “kill” without my computer or cell phone on which to do my homework.

    These empty moments threaten us because we don’t know how to accept the emptiness that life offers us.

    In all of our haste to complain about such moments, we miss the opportunity they offer us to tune into the world and submit to its natural perfection. We miss the truth: that every moment, not just the ones we set aside for meditation, can be used to appreciate and revel in the present.

    Emptiness is not evil. Emptiness allows us to breathe, feel, and accept the world as it is.

    Ironically, I always wanted more time in which to meditate. I felt like I could never find a chunk of free time in which to simply enjoy the present moment. Now, I realize that they are all around me, but I fill them with anxiety instead.

    If you’re tired of feeling like time is against you, worn down from all the frustration you’ve felt toward the world and the circumstances taking your time, you must back down from the fight. The world will always win.

    Fortunately, if you accept the world and the time you are given rather than rebelling against it, you also win. That is the perfection of the world: we benefit most when we let the world carry us.

    That is not to say that making plans and organizing your time are useless endeavors. It is important that, as a society, we continue to put time into our jobs and families. I am not preaching a breakdown of schedule, but an acceptance of change.

    Instead of using meditative strategies only in the comfort of your home or nature, find the beauty of the present moment in the time the world gives you to be still.

    Feel your weight in the seat of your car and the smoothness of the wheel in your hands when sitting in traffic. Close your eyes and feel your lungs expanding when someone is running late for a meeting.

    Spend those interim moments of inaction in your life being at peace with the world rather than grumbling at your watch. Those minutes add up, day by day, into all those minutes you wish you could spend meditating instead of sitting in the office.

    Empty time is not forced upon us; it is given to us. Empty time is a gift. Yield to it and accept it, and you will find yourself more in tune with the present moment and more accepting of life and the world.

    The present moment is a gift that we are always receiving. Our choice is whether to deny the gift and suffer, or open it and feel the world’s perfection within and around us in the ever-present now.

    Time for a break image via Shutterstock

  • How to Make the Most of the Time You Have

    How to Make the Most of the Time You Have

    Woman with Clock

    “Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.” ~Pema Chödrön

    There are twenty-four hours in a day. This is true for you, me, Obama, and Oprah. Yet, I often feel like there are things that I would love to do… if I only had enough time.

    I used to spend my days in a frenzy.

    At my worst, I woke up at around 4:45 to meditate for an hour, then go to the gym, rush off to my twelve-hour law job worried that I would be late for my first meeting, eat at my desk, cancel coffee dates and dinner dates because something urgent came up, take a cab home at 10:00 or so, go to sleep, and do it all again the next day. There was no space.

    On the one hand, you could say that I was making the most of my twenty-four hours. After all, I was getting a lot done! But was I really? Each task that I was doing was focused exclusively on getting it done so I could move onto the next one.

    It was all about checking off items on the list, and moving forward to some elusive time or place when I would have… time.

    Thankfully, I have now changed my relationship with my precious twenty-four hours. Here is what I do to make the most of the time that I do have:

    1. Notice the words “I don’t have enough time.” Change the language.

    We’ve established that we all have the same amount of time. So why dwell on the obvious? Instead, be honest with yourself. If there is something that you are not doing, you are choosing not to.

    When someone asks you to meet up and you say no, when you forego a workout, when you wish you could get a massage but can’t fit it in, recognize that you’ve made a different choice with your time today.

    You could say, “I would love to, but I have another commitment.” Be present with that. Notice how it feels to have made that choice. Perhaps, you will make a different choice next time.

    2. Know what your priorities are. Stick to them.

    Today, I know clearly what my priorities are. And they are so simple.

    • Stay healthy—physically, mentally, and spiritually. I make time for about one hour of yoga and meditation daily six days a week.
    • Spend time with my friends and family. I’ve foregone promotions so I can work reasonable hours, have dinner with my family every day, and spend time with my husband in the evenings. When I make a commitment to meet a friend for coffee or lunch, I stick to it and say no to other things that come up, with very few exceptions.
    • Be kind and helpful to others; be of service. In the hours that I am at work, I try not to procrastinate or complain. I am present with whatever task or person is presented to me, and do my best to help. I give my full attention to what is happening in the moment, and use my skills and talents to assist to the best of my ability.

    By knowing my priorities and sticking to them, I know I am making the best of my twenty-four hours. I am consistently doing things that are important to me, and that I feel are making a contribution in some way.

    3. Let go of what others think of you. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

    Sticking to your priorities will involve a whole lot of saying no. No is a complete sentence. You will get better at it. People will respect you for it.

    On Monday, I am starting a new job. I am terrified and I have heard that it is a gruelling environment, and people tend to work late at night and on weekends.

    I am still planning to work from 8:30-4:30. I have already mentioned this to my new boss, and she agreed. At the same time, I’ve already been copied on e-mails that fly back and forth at 10 pm or 5 am.

    The advice I have gotten, that I hope to follow, is to pause before responding to these after-hours e-mails. I will ask myself: Is it really necessary for me to respond right now, or can it wait until the morning? My guess is that 95% of the e-mails can wait.

    This approach, if I’m able to stick to it, will likely have a few outcomes:

    a. A lot of people will be unhappy that I’m not responding right away. They may not like me

    b. Eventually, they will accept it.

    c. If I do great work in the hours that I am available, they will learn to respect my choice.

    Another possible outcome is that it will be a disaster and I will have to leave and go to another job. That is okay too. My choice to use my twenty-hour hours in a way that supports my priorities of health, human connections, and service is well worth it.

    4. Stop worrying about your “purpose.”

    I tend to spend a lot of my time worrying about what to do with my time. Is this really the best career for me? Should I go back to school? Am I using my best skills? Is there something else I am meant to be doing? Am I fulfilling my potential? Am I living wholeheartedly and making the world a better place?

    This is a huge waste of time for me! When it comes down to it, you live your life how you live your days. If you live your days, your moments, your hours well, you will spend your life well.

    So stop worrying about your “life,” and bring your attention to what this day brings. Love all of it. Your purpose is not to change the world, but to experience it fully in all its ambiguity.

    5. Enjoy the most mundane tasks. Do them with joy.

    There are many activities throughout the day that we may call a “waste” of time. Being squished like a sardine in the subway. Brushing your teeth. Standing in line at the grocery store. Doing the dishes… again.

    Yet, let’s return to this concept of the twenty-four hours. They are what they are. However we are spending them, they are of equal value. We can’t waste them; we already have them. We are not “wasting” time; we are forgetting to experience it.

    One of the most common difficulties people have in starting a meditation practice is that they don’t have enough time. Yet, these moments of “wasted” time are the perfect activities for meditation!

    Next time you are in a “time-wasting” activity, bring your attention to your breath. Settle into whatever it is that you are doing. Notice your feet supported by the earth beneath you. Notice your posture, relax the shoulders, open your heart.

    Notice your mind wandering to whatever you have to do next, or whatever didn’t yet get done today. Let the thoughts go and return to your breath. Rest in the preciousness of this very moment. You may just find that you have all the time you need.

    Woman with clock image via Shutterstock

  • How Thoughts Can Lead to Emotional Explosions

    How Thoughts Can Lead to Emotional Explosions

    Exploding Head

    “Stay present. Stay conscious. Be the ever-alert guardian of your inner space.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    It was approximately 1:20 pm on a sunny Thursday afternoon, and I was halfway through my presentation at a high school, when I was interrupted by a loud automated female voice blowing through the intercom speakers.

    “Please secure your classroom. Please secure your classroom,” it said.

    I was extremely alarmed but mainly confused. I looked at the instructor for direction. His face had turned bright red and it was obvious he was holding back panic. He dashed to the front of the classroom to lock the door and turn off the lights.

    “Please secure your classroom. Please secure your classroom,” the robotic voice continued to blare out.

    In an authoritative voice, the instructor asked everyone to move to the right side of the classroom, away from the door, find a desk, and sit under it in silence.

    I didn’t budge. I was waiting for him to explain to me that this was a routine drill the school had scheduled and that there was nothing to worry about.

    The explanation never came. I did, however, get a stern look signaling me to follow directions.

    I found a spot near the teacher’s desk next to a boy who seemed to be frozen in fear. As I was beginning to wonder how serious the situation could be, my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a group of students snickering and whispering.

    I turned to look at the teacher, who had gotten up from his hiding spot and looked extremely angry. In a loud, terrified whisper he said, “We could be on lockdown for up to four hours, and it’s very important that you don’t make a sound!”

    I tried to keep my cool, but after twenty minutes of dreadful silence, fear began to creep in. Could this be one of those shootings I’ve see on the news? What could possibly be happening out there? I’m in a prestigious neighborhood; could something really awful happen in a place like this?

    A million thoughts were bombarding my head when my mind flashed back to the speech I was just presenting before the lockdown.

    I had just been discussing details and examples from my own life to paint a picture of how persistent negative thoughts can lead to intense emotions. If left unresolved, those feelings can bubble up inside us and eventually cause us to burst emotionally.

    To illustrate this further, I had used a Coke bottle to prove my point.

    I had shaken the bottle for a few seconds, each shake representing one of life’s challenge. Then I opened the bottle, to represent our inability to hoard an overwhelming collection of negative, fearful thoughts. And of course, the soda explosion symbolized our emotional burst, caused by not properly dealing with the war zone within.

    My mind raced back to the present moment. If there did happen to be a gunman walking the school hallways, that person probably had a lot of negative thoughts and emotions they had not dealt with properly, which led up to this particular event.

    More than likely, he/she was not a happy person who woke up that day and just randomly decided to participate in such atrocity. A series of harmful thoughts and emotions had led them to potentially hurt innocent people.

    This is why it’s crucial to recognize and challenge harmful thoughts, and get help if we need it, I thought to myself.

    Our thoughts inspire our perspective, and our perspective is the number one indicator of how happy and peaceful we will feel in our lives.

    Our perspective determines how successful we will be, how happy our marriages are, and how much love and connection we feel toward ourselves. Our perspective is everything.

    Although not everyone’s boiling point will lead them to cause mass pain, it can be extremely detrimental to their own life.

    Not everyone will decide to terrorize a school, a movie theatre, or a mall. Perhaps not all emotional explosions will lead to suicide or self-harm, but they can all lead to adverse circumstances.

    The negative voice in our head can drive us to give up on losing weight or never achieve the financial freedom we crave. It can cause us to feel eternally stuck in a bad situation in life, or feel chronically unhappy and stressed.

    We regain our power when we realize the answer lies within ourselves.

    Becoming the ever-alert guardian of our mind is what will carry us forward.

    This means monitoring our thoughts and only accepting ideas and beliefs that align with strength, love, and grace. It means accepting that things don’t always go the way we hoped, but faithfully knowing that there is a better plan in store for our future.

    To change our reality we must first change our mind. We must consistently, concisely, and deliberately choose an empowering perspective. Then, and only then, will we begin to live a life fascinating beyond belief.

    As these thoughts poured into my brain I heard the instructor say that the lockdown had been lifted and we could all go back to the presentation.

    It turned out that the police were looking for a man who was on the run after committing a crime in the area, and to take extra precaution they asked that the school go on a secure lockdown.

    Whew!

    Thankfully, I had not been part of a ghastly school shooting, but that didn’t stop me from coming out from underneath the desk completely transformed.

    This experience had given my work a lot more meaning and value than I had previously placed on it.

    Sitting under a desk in that dark classroom, anticipating an emotional explosion, took the words of my presentation to another level because it gave me a glimpse of what an unguarded mind can lead a person to do.

    Our thoughts are the precursor to everything else we experience. We must guard them with our life.

    Exploding head image via Shutterstock

  • 50 Questions That Will Help You Feel Grateful and Good About Life

    50 Questions That Will Help You Feel Grateful and Good About Life

    “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~Melody Beattie

    There’s very little that upsets me like feeling stuck and out of control. That’s exactly how I felt at the beginning of this year.

    Things were going well in many areas of my life, but I was unhappy living in my boyfriend’s childhood home in a Bay Area suburb, after we’d spent years living in LA and traveling. Though I knew this was ideal for him, it just didn’t feel right for me,

    And even if I could wrap my brain around asking him to leave his hometown when he was just settling back in and reconnecting with old friends, I wasn’t entirely sure what would make sense for us both long term, given that we have family on opposite coasts.

    Some days I’d start crying out of nowhere, while eating breakfast, working, or watching TV. I’d feel fear, anxiety, and confusion, and then more guilt for being so emotional and unable to identify and own my desires.

    One day I realized I’d fallen into a trap I’d fallen into many times before, and an ironic one, at that: because I’d felt trapped in my circumstances, I’d gotten trapped in my emotions.

    I was dwelling, overanalyzing, and worrying about worst-case scenarios. No wonder I was so blocked. I was trying to solve a problem from a place of desperation and fear. Always a recipe for disaster.

    So I decided to do something I’d done before, but hadn’t in quite a while: I started a gratitude journal.

    I knew I needed to nurture more positive emotions on a daily basis, and that everything would get clearer and easier from there.

    At first it was a little difficult. I’d write something down—“catching up with my brother,” for example—but it didn’t necessarily change how I felt.

    That’s when I remembered that knowing you should be grateful and truly feeling gratitude are two very different things.

    In order to actually feel gratitude, I had to dig deeper and reflect upon just how fortunate I was.

    People have always seen me as fortunate, even when I was secretly struggling with depression and bulimia, as I’ve always appeared to have a lot going for me.

    But I realize I am more fortunate than ever at this point in my life. I just needed a little more to help me access my gratitude, buried as it was beneath layers of fear and anxiety.

    Throughout this year, I’ve been building a list of questions that help me identify what I most appreciate about my life and the people in it.

    If you too could benefit from nurturing more positive emotions—and let’s face it, we all could—try asking yourself one of these questions and see where they take you.

    1. What’s one kind or thoughtful thing someone did for you recently?

    2. Who is always there for you, and how do you feel about them?

    3. Who has helped you become the person you are today, and what’s the top thing you’d thank them for?

    4. Who’s someone who always really listens when you talk, and how does that affect you?

    5. How have your spiritual beliefs or practices fulfilled you recently?

    6. What’s the best thing that happened today so far?

    7. What’s something that inspired or touched you recently?

    8. Has anyone done anything recently that made your job easier?

    9. What’s one thing you enjoyed about doing your job recently?

    10. Can you think of any non-physical gifts you’ve received recently—someone’s time, attention, understanding, or support?

    11. What about today has been better than yesterday?

    12. Who have you enjoyed being around recently, and why?

    13. How have you used your talents and abilities recently, and what have you enjoyed about doing that?

    14. What have you learned recently that will help you in the future?

    15. What made you laugh or smile today?

    16. What’s the last song you heard that you enjoyed? How did it make you feel, and why?

    17. Have you experienced any blessings in disguise lately—things that didn’t turn out as you’d hoped and yet turned out for the best?

    18. What’s the weather like today, and what’s one good thing about that?

    19. How has technology enhanced your life and your connections recently?

    20. Have you had an opportunity to help someone recently, and how did you feel about that?

    21. What’s one thing you experienced recently that made you feel a sense of wonder or awe?

    22. What’s the best thing about your home, and have you taken time to enjoy it recently?

    23. If you didn’t get what you wanted today, can you identify something in what you got that’s worth having?

    24. What’s improved about your life from this time last year?

    25. What choices have you made in the last five years that you’d thank yourself for making?

    26. What’s something you did well recently, and what qualities or skills enabled you to do this?

    27. Who made a positive difference in your life recently?

    28. What’s something you’re looking forward to in the future?

    29. What did you learn from the most difficult part of your day yesterday, and how will this lesson benefit you going forward?

    30. What’s something you witnessed recently that reminded you that life is good?

    31. What’s something you witnessed recently that reminded you that people are good?

    32. How many of your basic needs do you not need to worry about meeting today?

    33. What event or interaction made you feel good about yourself recently?

    34. How have you made personal or professional progress lately?

    35. What simple pleasures did you enjoy—or can you enjoy—today?

    36. What modern conveniences (i.e.: electronics and appliances) do you enjoy that make your life easier?

    37. What’s the most beautiful thing you saw today?

    38. What’s something enjoyable you get to experience every day that you’ve come to take for granted?

    39. What are three things your arms or legs allow you to do that you enjoy?

    40. What’s the kindest thing someone has done for you lately?

    41. How do your friends and/or family members show they care about you?

    42. What’s the last thing you enjoyed with your senses—a good meal, a song you love, or aromatherapy—and how amazing is it that you were able to experience that?

    43. What movie, book, blog, or article affected your life for the better recently?

    44. What have you seen in nature recently that made you feel happy, peaceful, or free?

    45. How has modern medicine improved your life, recently or overall?

    46. How does electricity simplify and improve your life—and can you imagine what life would like be like without it?

    47. What’s your favorite thing about your bed, and how often does it enable you to get restful sleep?

    48. What’s something you have easy access to that always improves your mood, and how has it improved your life?

    49. Who in your life has survived something difficult, and how do you feel when you think about the fact that they’re still here?

    50. Have you recently imagined a worst-case scenario that didn’t actually happen?

    This last one was crucial for me. Not only did this help me appreciate things that turned out better than I’d anticipated, it reminded me how often this happens—if only I’m willing to act.

    And act I did. A couple of months ago my fiancé and I moved back to LA, still far from my family, but in an area I love, near an industry we both love. And we’re now planning to start working on short films together.

    We’re also prioritizing visits with our loved ones, together and separately, so we can both still nurture our relationships.

    It’s a compromise we can both not only live with, but hopefully one that will enable us to thrive.

    I am far happier for having made this choice (and grateful that my fiancé was open to it). And I know I found clarity and the strength to act on this, in large part, because I made the effort to change my mental state.

    It’s funny how that happens. We can sit around and stress about our problems all we want, trying to force a solution. But sometimes the best way to fix what isn’t working is to first focus on what is.

    Everything gets easier when we move past fear and desperation and nurture a grateful, hopeful heart.

    UPDATE: Tiny Buddha’s Gratitude Journal is now available for purchase! You can grab your copy here.

  • 7 Things Your Inner Child Needs to Hear You Say

    7 Things Your Inner Child Needs to Hear You Say

    Sad Child

    “Stop trying to ‘fix’ yourself; you’re not broken! You are perfectly imperfect and powerful beyond measure.” ~Steve Maraboli

    Have you ever thought about why you can’t move forward? Have you wondered why you sabotage yourself? Have you ever questioned why you so easily feel anxious, depressed, and self-critical?

    Inside each of us there’s an inner child that was once wounded.

    To avoid the pain, we’ve tried to ignore that child, but s/he never goes away. Our inner child lives in our unconscious mind and influences how we make choices, respond to challenges, and live our lives.

    My mum left me when I was six. I didn’t see her again until I was fourteen.

    I don’t remember ever missing her. I told myself it was a good thing that she left, because no one was beating me anymore.

    But now I had to prove myself to make my dad proud. He was all I had.

    So I was one of the popular kids at school. I got good grades. I went to a top university to get a commerce degree and was hired into a big bank’s graduate program before I even graduated.

    I worked for years in the finance industry, writing corporate lending deals, meeting clients, and selling derivatives trading tools. But I saw firsthand and up close how that was destroying people’s wealth and lives.

    It didn’t align with my values. I felt like a zombie, taking the transit every day back and forth, living like a fraud.

    But what else could I do? I had always believed that getting into finance was the way to success, and the wounded child within me was afraid of failing and disappointing my dad.

    Then, on my twenty-ninth birthday, I stumbled upon an online art course and discovered my passion. But ditching finance to pursue the life of an artist wasn’t easy for me.

    My dad was disappointed and angry, and he tried to change my mind. Now I understand that he was afraid for me. But at the time I was angry with him for not supporting me because deep down I was scared that he would no longer love me.

    I knew then, to have the courage and strength to continue down the road less traveled, I had to heal my fearful, wounded inner child.

    If you too feel lost, lonely, small, and afraid of losing love and acceptance, you may also benefit from healing the inner child who once felt insecure and not good enough. Saying these things to yourself is a good start.

    Say These 7 Things to Heal and Nurture Your Inner Child

    1. I love you.

    As children, a lot of us believed that we needed to accomplish goals—get good grades, make the team, fill our older siblings’ footsteps—to be lovable.

    We may not have had parents who told us we deserved love, no matter what we achieved. Some of us may have had parents who considered showing love and tenderness to be a sign of weakness. But we can tell ourselves that we are loveable now.

    Say it whenever you see yourself in the mirror. Say it in any random moments. Love is the key to healing, so give it to yourself.

    2. I hear you.

    Oftentimes when we feel hurt, we push down our feelings and try to act strong. For a lot of us, this stems from childhood, when we frequently heard, “Quit your crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

    But those feelings don’t just go away. They fester inside of us, affecting the choices we make as adults until we make the conscious effort to hear them.

    I never acknowledged that I felt abandoned when my mum left, but I did, and I carried that into my adult relationships. To heal, I had to acknowledge how her leaving affected me. I had to give a voice to all the pain I stuffed down back then.

    Instead of suppressing the voice of your inner child, say, “I hear you. We’ll work through it. It’s going to be okay.”

    3. You didn’t deserve this.

    As children, many of us assumed that we deserved to be abused, shamed, or abandoned. We told ourselves that we were a bad kid, that we did something wrong.

    But that’s simply not true. In many cases, the people who wounded us simply didn’t know any other way. Perhaps my mum was beaten as a child, so it was the only way she knew how to parent her daughter.

    A child is innocent and pure. A child does not deserve to be abused, shamed, or abandoned. It’s not the child’s fault, and though we may not have had the capacity to understand this then, now, as adults, we do.

    4. I’m sorry.

    I’ve always been an overachiever. I considered slowing down a sign of weakness.

    Not too long ago, I was constantly stressed about not doing enough. I couldn’t enjoy time with my kids because I’d be thinking about work.

    One day it dawned on me that since I was a child I’d been pushing myself too hard. I never cut myself any slack. I would criticize myself if I simply wanted to rest. So I told my inner child I was sorry.

    She didn’t deserve to be pushed so hard, and I don’t deserve it now as an adult either.

    I’ve since allowed myself a lot more downtime, and my relationships with my loved ones have improved as a result.

    5. I forgive you.

    One of the quickest ways to destroy ourselves is to hold on to shame and regret.

    The first night my mum returned home when I was fourteen, she asked to sleep with me. We only had two beds at that time, one for me and one for my dad. I couldn’t fall asleep, and I kept rolling around. Then all of a sudden, my mum blurted out, “Stop moving, you *sshole!”

    The next day, I put a sign on my door that read “No Unauthorized Entry” to prevent her from coming in. My mum left again. Then, a few days after, my dad told me that they were getting a divorce (after being separated for eight years).

    I thought it was my fault. Why did I have to roll around and so childishly put up a sign?

    But now I know that their divorce wasn’t my fault. And I forgive myself for anything I could have done better. I was only a kid, and like everyone, I was and am human and imperfect.

    6. Thank you.

    Thank your inner child for never giving up, for getting through the tough moments in life together with you with strength and perseverance.

    Thank your inner child for trying to protect you, even if her way was holding on to painful memories.

    Your inner child doesn’t deserve your judgment. S/he deserves your gratitude and respect.

    7. You did your best.

    As a child, I always tried to outperform, to overachieve, to meet someone else’s standard, to be “perfect.”

    I was always demanding and cruel to myself, and no matter how well I did, I never felt it was good enough.

    But I did the best I could at the time, and you did too. We’re still doing the best we can, and we deserve credit for that.

    When we let go of perfection, the fear of failure recedes. Then we can allow ourselves to experiment and see how things unfold.

    —

    I started saying these things to my inner child as I was recovering from depression. They’ve helped me experience more love, joy, and peace. They’ve helped me become more confident and compassionate.

    My social worker, who first came to work with me after a self-cutting incident, recently asked me how I got to be so content and happy.

    It started from acknowledging, accepting, and beginning the ongoing process of re-parenting my inner child.

    What is the one thing you most want to say to your inner child today?

    Sad child image via Shutterstock

  • 3 Lessons That Help Me Overcome Anxiety and Depression

    3 Lessons That Help Me Overcome Anxiety and Depression

    “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” ~Maya Angelou

    I’ve suffered from anxiety and recurrent major depression for more than twenty years. Over that time, I’ve learned a number of lessons about living life and dealing with these diseases.

    Two equally meaningful and powerful days from that time stand out to me.

    My wedding day, fifteen years ago now, was a happy day when I was more confident and sure about what I was doing than any other.

    The day that rivals my wedding day in terms of my surety of purpose came just six months ago, the day I checked myself into the hospital because I feared I was going to kill myself.

    Complete opposites on the spectrum of happiness, these two days demonstrate the extreme highs and lows we can feel when we suffer from anxiety and depression.

    I remember so many people telling me they’d never seen me happier than when I married Emily. The aching loneliness and raw vulnerability of waiting in an emergency room for ten hours, wearing nothing but a disposable hospital gown on a bed in a hallway under suicide watch, will haunt me forever.

    But, of course, life isn’t solely made up of these extremes—most of life is filled with the in-between, the little moments that shape us, the lessons we grow from, the battles we fight every day.

    It’s been by being mindful of what I was thinking and feeling on these in-between days that I’ve been able to start recognizing and taking advantage of lessons I’ve learned from my struggles.

    Lesson #1: Realize that feelings and disease are separate from our selves.

    When we suffer from depression and anxiety, it becomes very easy for us to get wrapped up in our feelings and start thinking about ourselves in terms of our disease.

    When you spend so many days feeling depressed, it’s only a small step to start thinking of yourself as depressed. Identifying ourselves with our feelings is a trap these diseases set for us, luring us into becoming self-fulfilling prophecies of doom.

    When we start thinking, “I’m so anxious” or “I’m so depressed,” we set ourselves up with the expectation that we’re going to continue to be this way. We then become too anxious to, say, get through a day of work without feeling anxious. We’re anxious about being anxious or depressed about being depressed, and that’s the way we think we’re going to continue to be.

    So how do we break these self-fulfilling cycles that are so easy to fall into with depression and anxiety?

    The first big lesson I had to learn about dealing with depression and anxiety was this: I am not my depressed or anxious feelings, and I am not my disease. Learning not to identify with these destructive feelings is the first step to freeing yourself from them.

    The best way I found to separate myself from my feelings was by practicing mindfulness. I would repeat simple mantras to myself, such as, “I am feeling depressed, but I am not depressed.” Getting these ideas into my consciousness was an important part in making myself healthier.

    Lesson #2: Understand that choice is a strong difference maker.

    Depression and anxiety can leave us feeling out of control and trapped. We can’t control our thoughts or emotions; they’re just things that happen to us.

    I remember feeling so down, I’d lay on my couch with a pillow pulled over my head and ruminate for hours, just stewing about the way I felt or how worthless I thought I was. This could go on for days at a time, interrupted only by anxious sleep. I felt trapped in my own head.

    And if it wasn’t the depression, the anxiety would be sure to hammer me into inaction. Constant fear and worry would build on itself until I got anxiety about having more anxiety. I was constantly fearing that I would starting fearing something new, something that might push me over the edge.

    I was good at pinning myself in corners. With time and effort, I practiced lesson number one about separating myself from my feelings. And the times I was successful with that, I would move onto lesson number two.

    I realized that I couldn’t control my thoughts or feelings, but I also understood that I could choose how I was going to react to them.

    Seeing that I had a choice, even when I was feeling trapped, opened me up to new possibilities about the way I could potentially feel. I could choose to get off the couch and take a shower despite my depressed feelings. I could choose to go to work, even if I was scared of doing so.

    Knowing I had a choice left the possibility of improvement open in my mind.

    Lesson #3: Recognize that courage can be a powerful tool.

    Now that I had given myself the strength of choice, I found myself looking at the world a little bit differently. Having choices available to us also means that we’re going to have to make decisions.

    Being someone who suffers from anxiety, I found that at first this meant I was going to have more to worry about. What would be the consequences if I did this, or this, or that? It was easy to become paralyzed by my own fears.

    So I ruminated more. I dwelled on things longer. I was indecisive.

    I spent more time on the couch with my pillow over my head. At least now I was debating with myself instead of drilling deeper into feelings I couldn’t control. I needed something else to get me out.

    I needed courage.

    Such a powerful tool, courage. It allowed me to start taking steps toward believing in myself, toward doing things that were healthy for me.

    It started out with making choices to take showers every day, to eat on a regular basis, to take my medication on time, to keep getting it refilled and to stay on it.

    These small healthy choices have allowed me to grow and make bigger healthy choices. I quit a job that wasn’t good for me, I reprioritized my life, I checked myself into the hospital.

    I’m getting better, but there are times when I slip or my diseases get stronger. And when that happens, I go back to these three basics: not identifying with my emotions, recognizing my choices in any situation, and acting courageously. They’re steps that always get me pointed in the right direction.

    It’s up to me where I go from there.

    *This post represents one person’s personal experience. If you’re struggling with depression and nothing seems to help, you may want to contact a professional. 

  • 5 Essential Practices to Enjoy a Stress-Free Life

    5 Essential Practices to Enjoy a Stress-Free Life

    Calm Man

    “Stress happens when your mind resists what is.” ~Dan Millman

    A troubling thought, isn’t it? That most of us are too stressed out to even sleep through the night. You try to relax and decompress after a stressful day, but all you do is fight with your frustrations and worries all through the night.

    As much as we’d like to, it’s hard to let go of nerve-racking tension. We get caught up in the notion that the world will stop turning if we don’t play our integral part. I know what a burden stress can be.

    When I graduated from college, I moved to south Texas armed with an empty resume and two wildlife degrees. Most wildlife jobs are seasonal. Depending on what was migrating or nesting or being hunted that year, I’d move all over the country working three months at a time. No sooner had I celebrated my new position when I had to dive right into my next job search.

    I didn’t have a permanent address. My home was furnished with whatever I could fit in my car. And I rarely got reliable phone service.

    I was surrounded by breathtaking outdoor views and the wonders of wilderness. But all I could do was stress out wondering where my next housing and paycheck were coming from.

    Eventually, I let myself enjoy everything I loved about nature. But first, I had to relieve the stressors that I dealt with. Here are a few pivotal habits that will help significantly if you’re dealing with stress in your life, too.

    1. Do work you love.

    Your job can be stressful. But not liking your job is different from not liking your life. It takes more than just an income to be happy and stress-free in your life.

    After college, I thought that if I got a job doing something I liked, I’d never work another day in my life. But sometimes the work you love and your job are two separate things.

    I love being outside. I enjoy maintaining trails and outdoor areas for others to enjoy too. It’s how I find solitude. But I realized that I wanted to do it on my time, not an employer’s. Eventually, I found ways to indulge in nature and keep up with the rigors of a demanding job separately.

    One of the best ways to de-stress is to do what you love outside of your job. Whether you indulge in a hobby or a business venture on the side, enjoy the fulfillment of doing something that matters to you.

    2. Take a toxicity vacation.

    Avoid people and situations that inflame you. If you cannot avoid them entirely, take a break from them and decide later if you want to invite them back into your life.

    Toxic people are like bad investments. They rob you of the hopes and dreams you worked so hard for. They’ve got a problem for every solution.

    Don’t waste another minute turning into a nervous wreck over people who stress you out. Instead, take time to relax and de-stress around the people who show you the support and respect they say they have for you.

    3. Declutter.

    Clutter leads to overcrowding. There’s nothing more stressful than feeling like you’ve lost control of the space around you.

    My friend Doronda stressed out over being alone in her forties. By herself in her bedroom one day, she got sick of doing nothing but complain about it.

    She started cleaning the mess under her bed. Pile after pile, she sorted and trashed until she cleared out what she called her “marriage space.” Doronda wasn’t just tidying up. She was reclaiming her space and deciding to stop stressing over dating. Not surprisingly, she met a man soon after whom she still dates to this day.

    Clearing away the clutter gives you a sense of expansiveness and spaciousness. When you feel like you have room to grow, you can relax and relieve stress around you.

    4. Find your voice.

    One of the worst ways to stress out is to hold everything inside. Get a creative outlet. Whether it’s through art, writing, dance, or music—express what’s inside you.

    One of my favorite excuses used to be, “But I’m not a creative person at all.” Using that line absolved me of ever having to risk looking like I wasn’t perfect. But using that line also silenced me. It kept me invisible, like I didn’t matter.

    Just because you’re not Picasso does not mean you’re not creative. It’s time to let go of the stress of feeling invisible and find your unique way to invent being heard.

    5. Just say no.

    Stop stressing yourself out with everyone else’s busy work. Trying to tackle everything that’s thrown at you is like trying to digest an elephant in one gulp. At the end of the day, all you’ve accomplished is swallowing an elephant.

    Don’t worry so much about what you “should” do. De-stressing is all about saying no to what’s not essential for you and yes to all that moves you closer to where you want to be. Address your priorities and say no to the rest.

    —

    Life has de-stressed for me. I’ve enjoyed the same home for almost ten years, I’ve got a job that I love, and I run a consulting business on the side. It took some effort, but I finally subtracted what wasn’t getting me near my goals and added what worked.

    Stress can rob you of your chance at happiness. When is that ever worth it? Do whatever it takes to practice a stress-free lifestyle. Wherever you get your income, fulfill yourself with work you love. Don’t put up with toxic people. Find your voice and be heard. You’ve got a lot of life to live. Why not enjoy it stress-free?

    Calm man image via Shutterstock

  • An Ode to Solitude: The Beauty of Just Sitting

    An Ode to Solitude: The Beauty of Just Sitting

    Man sitting on pier

    “I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.” ~Henry David Thoreau

    Meditation makes you realize it’s not so much the silence as it is the not being around people that’s so profound. No human interaction, a human break if you will, is its own simple kind of joy.

    Who knew that as a species who can’t function without the social ties of community, it is solitude that re-charges us and gives us the strength to go out into the big, bad world and interact with that lovely mess I like to call humanity?

    In our hyper connected, overworked, extroverted, always-on-the-go American culture, the very idea of solitude can seem anathema to what we as Americans hold dear. The mere possibility that a person would skip out on social gatherings or not respond to work emails on the weekends because they want some alone time seems downright un-American.

    For most of my life I was (and still am, I admit) a quintessential “busy person.” I pretty much came out of the womb with a list of things on my to-do-list, and as I got older that to-do list became longer… and longer… and longer….

    But that was the way I liked it. Each time I ticked off a box I’d get a sense of satisfaction, a rush not unlike I imagine one feels after doing a line of cocaine or popping some ecstasy tablets. And, as with most drugs, once the satisfaction of accomplishing something on my list wore off, I would work on accomplishing the next thing, chasing that next rush, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum.

    I made the drug comparison purposely, because the constant need to be doing something can feel like an addiction if taken to the extreme. After each line on my to-do-list was checked off I couldn’t wait to add ten more things.

    And, not surprisingly, my incessant busyness was reinforced at every turn. It encouraged me to get good grades and load up on the extra-curriculars in high school, which in turn helped me get into an ivy league school for college, which then helped me get into a highly competitive medical school program… you get the gist.

    But once in medical school I kind of reached a breaking point and realized this treadmill life where I never gave myself a break was not sustainable.

    It was fitting then, that around this time I started to learn about meditation. I find it ironic that in the hyper competitive, fishbowl of an existence that is medical school I found the one thing that advocated the exact opposite.

    Once I started going to meditation classes and getting better at being in the present moment, I began to gain some introspection, which made me rethink this whole busyness thing.

    I actually started to worry a bit about my poor little restless soul and wondered if this is what it was going to be like for the rest of my life. This constant need to fill my days with something—anything—so I wouldn’t have to face the vast emptiness of doing… well, absolutely nothing. It was unfathomable to me.

    Living alone, however, made me change my perspective. As I got older and could afford to live without roommates, this whole world of solitude opened up.

    At first it was terrifying. As busy as I am, even I couldn’t fill every second of my waking days, so the restlessness grew stronger and stronger, until I thought I might explode.

    But once I got past this obsessive need to always be doing something, I loved it. I could just sit, literally. I started to feel like I had all the time in the world.

    Actually, I started to feel like time itself didn’t even exist anymore, and I could just sit there, forever, in my wonderfully empty apartment on my wonderfully empty couch with my wonderful self for company. I noticed that a previously unknown feeling started to make its way into my life. I believe they call this feeling serenity.

    A recent Pew Research Center survey asked: How important is it to you to have times when you are completely alone, away from anyone else? My answer: as important as being around people.

    In all my reverence for solitude, the fundamental truth is that solitude vs. sociability doesn’t have to be an either-or equation. They are both necessary if one wants to be a healthy, functioning adult. It’s just that we as Americans have way more of the sociability than the solitude.

    A wise person once said, “Don’t just do something, sit there.” So take some time out of your busy schedule each day to just be.

    No computer, no phone, no Internet, no TV, no music, no reading, no talking. Just you and your own crazy thoughts.

    Though it may be terrifying at first, you might be surprised at what you find lurking in the deepest corners of your mind. Peace, joy, forgiveness, clarity? There’s only one way to find out.

    Man sitting on pier image via Shutterstock

  • A Simple Trick to Feel Less Anxious and More Confident

    A Simple Trick to Feel Less Anxious and More Confident

    Power Posing

    “Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.” ~Plato

    A few weeks ago, I was standing in front of a mirror in the women’s bathroom at work.

    I could feel the cold sweat down my spine and was angry for not being able to gain a better control of myself. I attempted everything in the book—took deep breaths, closed my eyes, tried to calm down, counted slowly to fifty.

    No change.

    My anxiety was still running high, my pulse was rushing, and I looked as a frightened little bird trapped in a cage. The occasion? An executive meeting that I was supposed to lead and pitch an idea to the company’s CEO about ways to achieve efficiency and save some money.

    No biggie, some would say. In fact, many people would thrive at the opportunity to make themselves visible to the highest levels of leadership. I wish I were one of those thrill-loving extroverts.

    As an introvert, though, I shy away from being the centre of attention. Right now, I was also terrified. And as I was standing in the washroom, I felt as if I would have a heart attack. And nobody would know what a great presentation I had prepared!

    Then, I remembered something that I read a while ago. Worth the try…

    In 2012, at the TED Global conference in Edinburgh, Prof. Amy Cuddy, a social psychologists from Harvard University gave a speech that became one of the most watched TED talks of all times. The topic: “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are.”

    The main idea is that standing in certain poses, even if we only visualize it, can give us an instant boost of self-esteem, although we may not feel truly confident on the inside. In other words—faking it can help us make it.

    Her research has shown that by taking a power pose—or, as she calls it, “making ourselves big”—for two mere minutes before an important meeting can change our brains and make us more assertive and less anxious.

    After only two minutes, our testosterone levels increase by 20% while cortisol levels decrease by 25%. (Ideally, every great leader has high levels of testosterone and low levels of cortisol). The power poses are the ones where we spread ourselves.

    For instance, forming a “V” with our hands or putting our hands on our hips. Poses, such as crossing our arms in front of us or hunching forward, in contrast, make us feel small and insecure.

    Therefore, if we want to portray instant confidence, we should practice power poses daily.

    This notion may not sound as a revolutionary one at a first listen. But, in fact, it is.

    The “power poses” study shows that by standing in certain body positions, we can make ourselves not only appear more confident to others but also feel this way. In other words, we can change who we are, as Prof. Cuddy puts it.

    Our brains’ chemistry would change, literally. And therefore, over time, our personality would as well.

    My train of thought races forward to yet other pieces of research I’ve read about, done few years ago on smiling.

    Many studies have previously shown that smiling is not simply a way to do facial gymnastics, nor something that we should only engage in when we feel happy. Conscious efforts and even “training” ourselves to smile can make us feel happier.

    It’s not always an inside-out relationship (we feel happy, therefore we smile) but rather greater benefits can be experienced the other way around—when we start with that small facial gesture that can, in turn, change our mood, make us appear more likeable and competent to others.

    Simply put, smiling can make us feel happy.

    The proof and the examples are countless.

    Patients injected with Botox who are unable to frown have reported to feel generally happier than those who can express negative emotions. People that smile during medical procedures have also stated to feel less pain.

    Even more surprising, though, is the fact that Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to propose this idea. All the way back in 1872, Darwin stated that “the free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. Even the simulation of an emotion tends to arouse it in our minds.”

    Simply put, he suggested that even faking an emotion can light up our brains and make us feel better. Exactly as Prof. Amy Cuddy has also stated and proved so many years later.

    If we convince ourselves that we are happy and smile often, or that we are confident and fearless and start acting this way, over time, we do become happier and more confident. Pretty amazing!

    Back to my reflection in the mirror. So, I spent two minutes in a “V” pose, and another two with hands behind my head and elbows to the side.

    Up until today, I am still unsure if this really helped me to pull through that day, or it was my self-persuasion that I would somehow make it. Regardless, I did feel better—after the “V” pose and grinning for about five minutes without stopping.

    I can only imagine what I looked like to a bystander! But hey, if smiling and taking “big poses” can help us live a longer and happier life, does it really matter if we look quirky in front of a bathroom mirror form time to time?

    Finally, if you ask me today what the secret to being a cheerful, confident, and fulfilled individual is, I would tell you that it may as well be something as simple as becoming a smiling Wonder Woman (or Wonder Man) for few minutes every day.

    Girl in superhero costume via Shutterstock

  • 7 Ways to Learn from Your Negative Thoughts

    7 Ways to Learn from Your Negative Thoughts

    Positive and Negative Thinking

    “The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” ~Plutarch

    I remember when I first learned about positive thinking. I was to observe my thoughts, then sort them into “useful” and “not useful.”

    This made sense to me, and it surprised me how many “not useful” thoughts I encountered. On a daily basis, I was telling myself that I was not good enough, that things could never work out, and that I was on the verge of being fired from my job.

    “Not useful, not useful,” my mind kept repeating. And yet the thoughts persisted. Why was this? Why wasn’t my positive thinking working?

    I began repeating affirmations. I made a list of everything I hated about myself, then reframed it in the positive and read it every day. I repeated mantras. I watched YouTube videos with subliminal messages.

    And yet I was calling myself a worthless P.O.S. on a daily basis.

    It was only when I began working with a therapist that I began to see the value of my “negative” thoughts. I told her about my sorting process, and her response was, “That’s good, but you’re missing some in-between steps.”

    Those in-between steps involved looking deeply at the negative thoughts, questioning their validity, and then redefining them.

    Rather than rejecting a part of my mind, I began to lean toward it, to learn from it. Thoughts that don’t feel good are merely opportunities to redefine, to change reality as you know it, and to help your own mind to suffer less. When you know how to handle them, they are gifts.

    Here are some steps you can take to lean toward negative thoughts and redefine them:

    1. Observe (without judging) your emotions.

    However you feel is fine. Really, it is. Emotions are attention-getting devices that the mind uses to help you observe your thoughts. Notice, especially, when you don’t feel good. When do you experience fear, hopelessness, or anger?

    2. Notice the thoughts behind the emotions.

    Feelings are caused by thoughts. You can access these thoughts by asking “Why?” Why are you afraid? Why do you feel hopeless? Why are you angry? The thoughts behind the emotion can show you your mind’s misunderstandings, because any thought that causes an unpleasant emotion is likely caused by an assumption. And assumptions can be redefined.

    3. Channel your inner two-year-old.

    And “why?” And ask it again. Why do you think what you do? And why do you think that? What might you be assuming? And what are you basing that assumption on? Who are you considering to be your authority? Question, question, question. Dig deeply, and look at every facet of that assumption. It might be helpful to type or write this out.

    4. Look at the “evidence” for your belief.

    The mind can only see evidence for what it already believes. So what experiences, conversations, etc. is your mind using to prove its “negative thought” true? List them. Then ask why they are true? Do they make sense?

    5. Come up with other possibilities.

    What other explanations are there? For example, if a co-worker yells at you and you are assuming it is because you are lazy, what other reasons could there be? Could they be stressed out at home? Pressured by deadlines? List as many other possibilities as possible.

    6. Find evidence for at least one possibility.

    Your mind is subconsciously finding evidence for its assumptions, and now you are going to fight fire with fire. Why should your redefinition be true? Prove it to yourself!

    7. Repeat.

    Repetition is how the mind learns. You will need to repeat this process, even if it seems to be verbatim. And you will need to vary the wording, as your mind presents it to you. Eventually, your subconscious mind will accept your redefinitions, and you will see a natural end to your negative thoughts.

    For me, this process was life-changing. I began therapy living in a four-bedroom house, working in the job I had held for ten years.

    I did not love the job. I did not want to raise my daughter (who has autism) in that school district, which would provide her with minimal help. I did not want to retire in that town, where people used four-letter words in restaurants and teenagers pushed baby buggies down the sidewalks.

    So, as I redefined the beliefs I held about myself, I found that the limitations I had placed upon myself disappeared.

    I had wanted to move to a warmer climate, but I doubted my ability to land a new job. So I tried. I pulled the right strings and landed a Skype interview 1,300 miles away. The day after the interview (which I had deemed to be a failure) I received a job offer.

    We emptied our house, signed it back over the bank, and took whatever our Volvo station wagon would carry to Houston. A year later, we moved onto a small thirty-five-foot sailboat. Our goal now is to be cruising full time within the next five years.

    In the meantime, we are enjoying our life in the marina, which is a tight-knit community that will always be “home” to us. And I am not afraid to try new things, to take “risks” and to see exactly what my potential is.

    What is the moral of our story? Don’t let your thoughts and fears limit you. They may seem like gospel truth, but nothing actually is. Everything you think, everything you feel, is up for questioning. If it doesn’t make sense to your mind, it can be redefined.

    Had I been limited by my beliefs about myself and my fears, I would still be living in that house. Instead, I am free to explore the world, and to re-invent the “American dream” as my family sees fit.

    I have learned that I am more than those fears that kept me stuck in that job for ten years, and my life consists of more than that house and the property that we thought was “ours.”

    Take nothing for granted, and don’t accept anything as the “way it has to be.” Look closely at your negative thoughts and redefine them in a way that helps you to reach your own potential.

    Positive and Negative Thinking image via Shutterstock

  • 10 Thinking Patterns That Can Fuel Depression

    10 Thinking Patterns That Can Fuel Depression

    Depressed

    “Nothing can harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded.” ~Buddha

    You know the feeling …

    When out of the blue your mood switches.

    One moment you’re feeling upbeat and optimistic; next you’re feeling down in the dumps.

    You can’t think clearly and struggle to put things into perspective. The bright outlook on life of a moment ago has vanished, and in its place now resides an intense longing for its return.

    You feel disconnected, lost, and confused, and everything around you looks and feels dark and bleak. And even though you have no reason to feel this way, it feels all too real to you.

    And you know where that leads. You’ve been there many times before and don’t want to go back.

    I know the feeling too.

    Recovery is such an illusory term.

    It implies that once recovered, the depression is gone. But those who have recovered know this is false.

    Recovering from Depression Is Not the End of the Battle

    Having spent half of my life depressed, two years after recovery, I still find myself waging the battle of relapse. A battle that at times seems harder to fight than the recovery—just as you tasted the sweetness of the non-depressed life, you never again want to taste the bitterness of depression.

    On the surface, a mood swing looks like “having a bad day.” The kind everyone experiences and snaps out of quickly. But for those with depression, the consequences of mood swings can be severe and lasting.

    First, there’s the sudden change in mood, the one that is more than “feeling-down-soon-will-snap-out-of-it,” followed by a drastic change in outlook. One moment you’re looking at life through clean lenses, and now dirty ones blur your vision.

    Then the inevitable guests start showing up—low self-confidence, paralyzed will, self-loathing, and the most dreaded of all, inertia.

    Not getting completely trapped in the spell of this depressed mood is key in preventing relapse, which is not always easy to do.

    How to Keep Depression from Disrupting Your Life

    I used to believe depression was about “feelings,” so my focus was on understanding and managing my emotions. An approach that not always kept me from relapse—until I learned about the connection between thoughts-feelings-behaviors and about mastering one’s mood, which gave me a new perspective on depression.

    We think. We feel. We behave.

    “It is an obvious neurological fact that before you can experience any event, you must process it with your mind and give it meaning. You must understand what is happening to you before you feel it.” ~David D. Burns, M.D.

    So, how do you master your mood? Well, it’s not that hard. It involves the following:

    1. Detecting the mood change, its severity, and duration.

    For me, the most severe of mood changes, when I’m most vulnerable to relapse, is when it lasts more than a couple of days.

    2. Knowing the consequences of giving in to the depressed mood, as this is key in forcing you to take action.

    In my case, it always leads to the vicious cycle of procrastination, guilt, regret, and self-loathing. A cycle that, once started, is difficult to break.

    3. Taking action to keep the depressed mood from lasting too long.

    The longer it lasts, the more debilitating it becomes, and the harder it is to get back to normal.

    One of the things I used to do as soon as my mood changed was write about how I felt, a strategy that didn’t always keep me from relapse. But when I came across Feeling Good by Dr. David D. Burns and learned about the thinking patterns of depression, I found a new way to battle it.

    The 10 Thinking Patterns You Need to Recognize to Prevent Relapse

    A few weeks ago, I found myself close to relapse after having completed a major project—one I’d been working on for a while that needed to be done—which put all other work on hold. When it was done, I felt pretty good, but the feeling didn’t last long, and I soon found my mood changing.

    One moment I was feeling happy and proud of what I’d accomplished; next I was miserable and beating myself down.

    I had no reason for feeling the way I did, and this was confirmed when I put the thoughts behind the feelings to the test using the ten thinking patterns of depression to challenge them.

    1. All-or-nothing.

    At the core of perfectionism is the tendency to evaluate ourselves in terms of absolutes and nothing in between—good or bad, winner or loser, smart or dumb. In this situation, not being able to do both—complete my project and keep up with other work—pointed to not having achieved the “perfect situation.”

    2. Overgeneralization.

    Believing that if something bad happened once, it will happen over and over and over. “I did it again,” the thoughts that reinforced the belief it will always be this way—unable to manage and prioritize my work.

    3. Mental filter.

    The tendency to focus on one negative aspect of a situation while ignoring all other positive evidence. In spite of having completed the project, my focus was solely on “how behind I was.”

    4. Disqualifying the positive.

    More destructive than mind-filtering, this involves taking a positive experience and turning it into a completely negative one. With all the distorted thinking already stewing in my head, the sense of achievement from this moment was replaced by a sense of failure for not being able to keep up with everything else.

    5. Jumping to conclusions.

    Automatically jumping to negative conclusions without any basis for it. The immediate assumption here was that “I’ll never be able to catch up,” even though I always have in similar past circumstances.

    6. Magnification and minimization.

    The tendency to magnify our mistakes and weaknesses while minimizing our successes and strengths. The heightened sense of failure for not being able to keep up obscured my abilities and skills to overcome this and any other challenges.

    7. Emotional reasoning.

    Looking at life through painful eyes where everything looks bleak and dark. Once the wheels of distorted thinking were set in motion, everything I needed to do to get caught up appeared daunting and impossible.

    8. Should statements.

    The useless mind-noise resulting from being disappointed with ourselves and the world, reminding us of what we could’ve, should’ve, or would’ve done differently. “I should’ve tried harder to keep up.” “I must do all of this to catch up.” These were the thoughts that began popping into my head.

    9. Labeling and mislabeling.

    The constant labeling and mislabeling of ourselves in a self-deprecating manner. Once trapped in this way of thinking, the usual self-loathing terms to devalue myself showed up—loser, not smart enough, can’t do anything right.

    10. Personalization.

    Feeling responsible and guilty when there’s no reason for it. Even though I had a valid reason to do what I did (postpone other work), I blamed myself and felt horrible for finding myself in the situation I was in.

    Everyone thinks in this manner at one time or another.

    But for those with depression, it’s a way of life, with each distortion feeding and supporting the others, keeping us in a constant state of emotional turmoil.

    Transforming the Distorted Thinking of Depression

    Giving the insane thinking of the depressed mind a name, an identity, takes away its power to make us depressed. A power that lies in its obscure nature and that, once exposed, can be seen and defeated.

    This new way of understanding how the depressed mind thinks revealed how most (if not all) of the time when I’m depressed, it has nothing to do with what’s going on in my life but rather the result of distorted thinking.

    Today, armed with this knowledge, whenever I feel the depressed mood coming on, I immediately start jotting down the thoughts that pop into my head. I give them form by labeling them, and then I replace them with rational ones by questioning their validity.

    In this situation, the negative thoughts “I am so behind, and I’ll never catch up” kept me from acknowledging the positive aspects of having completed a major project. A form of mind-filtering, they persisted, making me feel overwhelmed, guilty, and anxious, all potentially leading to relapse.

    On the surface, “falling behind” was true. However, the underlying assumption—that I intentionally procrastinated—was wrong.

    When I realized this, the distorted thoughts lost their validity giving way to a more accurate and rational way of thinking: That this was a major project that needed to be completed and required all my attention. And that “putting everything else on hold” was a conscious choice made and not due to procrastination.

    Master Your Mood and Stop Being Victimized by Depression

    One by one, I challenged and transformed every distorted thought until there were none. As a result, my mood improved, and I went back to relishing the joy and pride the moment warranted for having completed the project.

    You can do it too.

    Master the mood of depression so it doesn’t take over your life.

    Learn to master it, and never again feel the fear of relapse.

    Break the chains of its prison by giving form to its formless thinking, and free yourself once and for all.

    And never allow depression to keep you from fully and uninterruptedly savoring the joy that life brings!

    *This post represents one woman’s unique experience of preventing a depression relapse. If you’re struggling with depression and nothing seems to help, you may want to contact a professional. 

    Depressed image via Shutterstock

  • Now Is the Time to Appreciate Each Other and Enjoy Life

    Now Is the Time to Appreciate Each Other and Enjoy Life

    Friends Making Heart Symbol

    “If your forever was ending tomorrow, would this be how you’d want to have spent it? Listen, the truth is, nothing is guaranteed. You know that more than anybody. So don’t be afraid. Be alive.” ~Sarah Dessen

    It was beginning to get dark. Lightning streaked across the cloudy sky above the ocean. The full force of the wind took the breath out of me as my eyes squinted from the heavy rainfall.

    Waves rolled in to crash down in front of me, as if the ocean was screaming at me.

    “Turn around, human. Go home!”

    “Maybe I should,” I thought. “What am I doing out here in this extreme winter weather?”

    But my intention returned. The news I had received that day continued to stir at the back of my mind. And so, I moved forward.

    The water was ice cold as the waves smashed against my legs. I moved forward.

    Just as I thought I could bear no more, I submerged myself underwater. The sounds and sensations shifted as I merged with the ocean for a brief moment. And then I resurfaced to brave the magnificent storm.

    In this moment, I felt so alive!

    I had awoken to the reality of life—that there is only one thing that holds us to this world. A heartbeat.

    Earlier that day I had received news that my friend, Nick, had tragically and unexpectedly passed away. His heartbeat no longer held him to this world.

    How fragile we truly are. Yet living this truth is where we truly fail.

    My ocean swim in extreme winter weather was a way to remember that I had a heartbeat; that I was alive. It was a reminder that all those I know and care about are mortal, fragile, and finite.

    Why had I ignored this truth? Why had I lived my life to this point in safe denial?

    Reflecting back on this experience, I have come to realize that when we lose someone, it temporarily shifts our internal compass of reality.

    It points us home, toward what some people call our “higher self,” “inner wisdom,” or put simply, our raw humanity.

    These lessons we learn from loss are valuable reminders for our own personal growth. They serve as road signs that lead the way back to our own humanity, which we so easily lose touch with in today’s society.

    In finding my own way back to humanity on that stormy night at the beach, my first road sign pointed toward letting go of judgments.

    Too often we form negative judgments about people based on their mistakes and choices we don’t agree with, and in doing so can’t see the best in them. What a selfish person! What a rude person! How could he do that!

    We create generalizations that cut us off from the people around us. We zoom in on these judgmental labels and before we know it, it’s too late to appreciate the people in our lives.

    I knew my friend who passed as a casual acquaintance for six years. Sometimes I thought he partied too hard. There were times where he even got into trouble with the law.

    Yet, there were so many things I could have appreciated more by simply looking beyond my judgments. 

    He was friendly and known by so many. He had a great sense of humor and was extremely fun to be around.

    His energy and zest for life were contagious. Although he had never been employed, I really admired his courage to live a satisfying life in his own way without worrying what others thought. But I never told him while he was alive because I was too busy judging his choices. And now I’ll never have the chance.

    Which judgments are getting in the way of connecting with people in your life? What would you appreciate about them if you knew your time with them was limited?

    My second road sign back to humanity pointed toward appreciating the present moment. Too often we sleepwalk through life, lost in our own minds with endless thinking. Many times we’re not even present in what we’re doing.

    If you’ve ever taken a shower and realized that you can’t remember whether you have already washed your hair, you will know what I am talking about.

    Perhaps you’ve taken a walk on the beach on a sunny afternoon, but spent the whole time gazing at the ground lost in thoughts about the day.

    The present moment? Before you know it, it’s gone.

    Appreciating the present moment is as simple as noticing the sensations and experiences around you.

    My spontaneous ocean swim allowed me to feel the heavy rainfall on my skin, the sheer force of the wind and waves against my body, and the exhilaration of submerging myself into the ice-cold water.

    What are the things that make you feel alive? What prevents you from fully enjoying those things, and what can you do to start experiencing them more mindfully?

    Oscar Wilde, a nineteenth century Irish writer, remarked that “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

    I encourage you to go beyond simply existing. Appreciate the present moment and completely savor the experience. Because that’s what we are all here for, right?

    In sharing my lessons from loss, I hoped that you too will remember that there is only one thing that holds us to this world: a heartbeat.

    Let this truth guide you in your actions every day, and be mindful of life lessons that serve as reminders.

    The moments we have are small grains of sand in an infinitely trickling universe; take time each day to enjoy the present moment before it trickles away.

    The people in our lives are drops in an endless ocean that forever ebbs and flows; take time each day to appreciate them before the waves carry them away.

    Friends making heart symbol image via Shutterstock

  • Why Self-Help Might Not Help, and What Will (Interview & Book Giveaway)

    Why Self-Help Might Not Help, and What Will (Interview & Book Giveaway)

    the-end-of-self-help

    Update: The winners for this giveaway have been chosen. They are:

    When I first found what looked like a self-help book called The End of Self-Help, I thought it was a tad ironic. And I wondered if perhaps the author was suggesting that self-help is inherently harmful.

    As someone who’s bounced back from overwhelming adversity using some very powerful self-help tools, this didn’t quite sit right with me.

    Then I decided to stop wondering what this book was all about and instead find out by reading it. I couldn’t be more grateful that I did.

    Powerful and insightful, Dr. Gail Brenner’s book touches upon a common misconception that might lead us to self-help resources—the idea that we’re broken and need to be fixed.

    This mindset keeps us focused on the possibility of happiness in the future instead of enabling us to create happiness and fulfillment right now.

    But there is another way. We don’t need to embrace personal development from a place of inadequacy. It is possible to simultaneously empower ourselves to grow and allow ourselves to feel whole and happy in the present.

    The End of Self-Help teaches us how to do the latter.

    If you’ve ever felt trapped by your thoughts and feelings, if you’ve ever felt fundamentally damaged, if you’ve ever felt incapable of feeling peace in the present, The End of Self-Help could be life-changing for you.

    I’m grateful that Gail took the time to provide some incredibly detailed answers to my questions, and that she’s provided five free copies of her book for Tiny Buddha readers.

    The Giveaway

    To enter to win one of five free copies of The End of Self-Help:

    • Leave a comment below
    • For an extra entry, tweet: Enter the @tinybuddha giveaway to win a free copy of The End of Self-Help http://bit.ly/1iNkb2f

    You can enter until midnight PST on Monday, September 28th.

    The Interview

     1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to write this book.

    First, Lori, I’d like to thank you so much for this opportunity to connect with your readers. We get to talk about my favorite topic—peace and happiness!

    By profession, I’m a clinical psychologist based in Santa Barbara, and I’ve loved my work with the elderly and their families, specializing in aging, loss, and dying.

    For as long as I can remember, I’ve been on a quest to be happy. Even after fifteen years of psychotherapy and reading many self-help books, I was still experiencing anxiety and wondering how I could truly feel happy and fulfilled.

    Like many of us, I was a self-help failure, but I kept searching!

    Finally, I turned to spiritual teachings where I discovered this truth: that unhappiness is a case of mistaken identity. When we suffer, we’re defining ourselves by conditioned ways of thinking that aren’t necessarily true. And when we stop clinging to these identities, we’re happy.

    I’m passionate about the liberating fact that who we are is not the limited, unlovable person our thoughts tell us we are. I wrote this book because I want everyone to have the opportunity to live fully, without fear, in openhearted contentment and love.

    2. What differentiates your book from most self-help books—and do you believe self-help can be positive and, well, helpful?

    The intention of self-help is pure—we just want to be happy. We don’t want to live our lives feeling broken and inadequate. It makes sense that we look to self-help offerings to help us discover the peace we’re so desperately looking for.

    But here’s the problem. The phrase “self-help” contains an incorrect assumption about who we are. It assumes that we are broken and damaged selves who need to be helped.

    And while we’re searching for help and trying to fix ourselves, what is our present moment experience? It’s not happiness, fulfillment, and the simple enjoyment of life. We feel anxious and inadequate, and we mistakenly think we’re missing what we need to be whole.

    The premise of The End of Self-Help is that we can always find our way to happiness and peace in any moment. Instead of waiting for happiness, we get to live it right now. This is a marvelous discovery!

    That said, self-help can teach us about specific topics, such as communication skills, strategies to change habits, or ways to maintain healthy boundaries.

    But if we spin our wheels relentlessly looking outside ourselves for that one tip—or person or situation—that will finally make us happy, we’re believing we need to be fixed, and we won’t be successful.

    The solution is to make a U-turn with our attention inward to discover the inner aliveness always here at the core of our being. Every time we return here, we’re naturally happy.

    3. As someone with a tendency to overanalyze, I found the section on thinking to be quite powerful—particularly the idea that we don’t need to stop our minds to be peaceful and happy. Can you elaborate a little on this?

    Trying to get rid of thoughts resists the fact that thinking is present. And as the saying goes, what we resist persists.

    Instead of fighting with our thinking, the way to find peace is to be unattached to the content of our thoughts, to not take them as true. Then it doesn’t matter if thoughts are present or not.

    I know that sounds challenging, so let’s start with some bold truths about most of our thinking.

    It’s useless and repetitive.

    • It’s fear-based.
    • It doesn’t actually solve problems.
    • It’s negative and critical.
    • It’s distorted and not based on facts.

    The most authentic, palpably alive experience of this precious life is right here, outside the thinking mind. But when our attention is absorbed into thinking, mostly about the past and future, sadly we miss it.

    It’s possible, in any moment, to consciously lose interest in thoughts. Instead of compulsively thinking, we can take a breath and open our attention to what this now moment is actually offering us outside of our thoughts about it. Because this topic is so important, I devote a whole chapter of the book on ways to undo our attachment to thoughts.

    In case you’re wondering, life is just fine without all our thinking about it. If I’m wrestling with a problem, I find that creative solutions come not from thinking, but from resting my attention in the space of silence and stillness underneath the thoughts—and listening for the answers.

    4. I’ve always believed that happiness has a lot to do with the questions we ask ourselves, so I especially appreciated the section on curiosity. How can shifting from “why?” to “what?” decrease our suffering and increase our happiness?

    I love curiosity, too, Lori. It was a huge moment of transformation for me when I started being genuinely curious about my inner experience. Being curious means that we explore what’s present from a place of deep openness with no expectations about what we will find.

    When we ask why we feel a certain way or why things are as they are, we answer with the mind, which only feeds more mental activity. We blame ourselves, others, the situation, or our childhood, and these thoughts don’t lead us to peace.

    But asking “what” changes everything. Instead of going into more story, we get curious about our in-the-moment experience, asking:

    • What exactly is happening right now?
    • What thoughts are present?
    • How does this experience feel in my body?
    • Can I just be here, breathing and aware?
    • What do I really want for this moment?

    As we go beyond our stories and wake up to the reality of right now, we realize the possibility of being peaceful with things just as they are.

    5. As you wrote in Chapter Seven, we’re constantly bombarded with messages about what we’re lacking. How can we start to experience freedom from our feelings of inadequacy?

    This is such an important topic because people have so much pain around inadequacy. And we start by understanding exactly what we’re experiencing in those moments when we feel inadequate.

    When we shine the laser light of our awareness on this experience of inadequacy, we’ll find a subtle stream of thoughts that may be barely conscious that convince us we’re inadequate. These thoughts tell us a distorted story about ourselves that criticizes, compares, and doubts.

    Then we might find some bodily sensations of contraction and tension that physically make us feel small and separate.

    Now we get to follow these breadcrumbs to freedom.

    • First, when this pattern arises, take a breath and shift your attention to being present.
    • Notice that when you observe these thoughts and sensations, there’s a gap between you and them. You’re not completely gripped by them.
    • When you feel stable in observing, shift your attention to the observing presence itself, and expand into this peaceful awareness.
    • Rinse and repeat, a thousand times a day if necessary, as each time chips away at the power of this pattern.

    Over time, we’re less driven by this conditioned belief that we’re lacking. And we become more transparent to our natural vibrancy and uniqueness that starts shining out everywhere!

    6. The crux of your book, it seems, is that separation disconnects us from the truth of who we are and leads to suffering. What’s the alternative to living life this way?

    As we shed our false and distorted identities about who we think we are, we become more available to life as it’s unfolding right now. I have found that everyday living becomes so delicious!

    Where before we were fear-driven, constantly needing to protect and defend ourselves, now we come from wholeness and love. We encounter familiar relationships, some with their familiar, unsatisfying dynamics, but we can show up in them freshly, which changes everything.

    We no longer need to spend energy avoiding difficult feelings or analyzing ourselves and other people. Welcoming everything without resistance, there is free space for creativity to arise, for simply enjoying ourselves, and for love and appreciation.

    We stop taking life situations so seriously, so we don’t need to ruminate about them. Stress diminishes, as it’s seen as the product of a busy, anxious mind. And without our attention being occupied by worry and regret, we are quiet, listening within, and moving in the world with greater clarity.

    It’s not at all that we’re eternally blissful and that difficult situations and feelings never again arise. But we open up to our experience rather than avoid it, meeting our emotional reactions with love and understanding so they no longer control us.

    7. What’s the main message you hope readers take from your book?

    No matter what your mind tells you, you are not broken or damaged, and you don’t need to be fixed. Be diligent about looking within to discover your essential wholeness, which is boundless, unlimited by any ideas, luminous, and infinitely peaceful.

    Then go out there and enjoy your life!

    You can learn more about The End of Self-Help on Amazon here.

    FTC Disclosure: I receive complimentary books for reviews and interviews on tinybuddha.com, but I am not compensated for writing or obligated to write anything specific. I am an Amazon affiliate, meaning I earn a percentage of all books purchased through the links I provide on this site. 

  • How Accepting Anxiety Can Lead to Peace

    How Accepting Anxiety Can Lead to Peace

    “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    My unwillingness to accept my anxiety disorder (there, I said it, I have a disorder) results in panic.

    It results in waking up at night, heart racing, body tingling and trembling.

    It results in driving down the road in a thunderstorm thinking I am having a heart attack—but I just keep driving and talking to my beloved on the phone because “if I can just keep driving away from it, it will be okay.”

    Instead of accepting anxiety as a family member of sorts, I resist and resent her visits. She’s always forced into drastic measures to get my attention.

    When the panic and physical symptoms of anxiety start, I assign it to something else.

    My heart races and I must have a heart condition. I’m dizzy and I must have a neurological condition. If it’s not me I assign it to, it’s my children. My son has a horrible bruise; it must be Leukemia. Life is too good; something awful is going to happen to someone I love.

    It always happens just like this, I’ve realized recently.

    Anxiety shows up over and over the course of my lifetime, yet my expectation is that it won’t.

    Instead, I expect that I will always be happy, stress-free, compassionate toward others (but not myself), kind, thoughtful, smart, successful, fit, skinny, wrinkle-free—the list of things I “should” be goes on for miles. That word, “should,” is something that I need to eliminate from my vocabulary.

    I convince myself that anxiety can’t be the cause of these physical symptoms, because that would mean that I am something less than happy.

    Ah, there it is. Feelings other than happiness are bad, and I should (there’s that word again) be happy all the time; so therefore, if I’m not happy, I’m not perfect and I’m a failure. See how that works?

    Yeah, I see how irrational, uncompassionate, and unforgiving that is when it’s on paper, which is one reason I’m writing this. The other reason is because I realized I’m not being true to who I am without accepting this part of me.

    People who know me describe me as an open book. I would have described myself that way until recently.

    This is a part of me that I’ve hidden for years. I tuck anxiety away like that black sheep of the family and make sure no one, not even those closest to me, know her.

    I’ve been ashamed of my anxiety and I’ve realized that all along that black sheep family member just needed me to accept her.

    To sit with her and maybe give her a hug and say, “I see you. I know you’ve visited before. Feeling something other than ‘perfectly happy’ is a normal part of life and I should expect to feel anxious, worried, upset, or even sad sometimes. You’re here to help me figure out what feeling is really behind this anxiety and what actions I can take to feel better.”

    Recently, my children went out of state with their father for a week. This was the first time I had been that far away from them for that long.

    Every day I would wake with a jolt, heart beating fast, wondering why I felt so anxious. I finally realized that being away from my children and worrying about their safety was causing these feelings of panic.

    After recognizing this, I decided to focus on the fun things they were doing every day and how this trip would provide them great memories for many years to come instead of thinking about all of the “what ifs” associated with their trip.

    I see this recent epiphany as progress in my lifelong journey of self-acceptance.

    I am going to try hard to see anxiety as the gift she is, because every time she leaves, I’m a little more enlightened. I feel more capable of managing my anxiety and I realize that I am in control of my thoughts, not the other way around.

    I am able to be more compassionate to others when they are feeling less than “perfectly happy.” I’m able to dig a little deeper into what is causing my anxiety versus denying I have it at all.

    When I do that, I can develop a plan, which either addresses any legitimate concerns or dispels any irrational ones. It’s a lot easier than continuing along just being a victim of my own thoughts.

    The next time anxiety shows up, I’m going to try to embrace her visit so she doesn’t have to go to such drastic lengths to be seen and heard. I’ll simply say, “Oh, it’s you again. Come on in and sit a spell. We have work to do.”

    If you also have a family member named anxiety that’s visiting you more often than you would like, sit with her for a while. Think about why she’s there. What are your anxious thoughts?

    Write down any irrational, anxious, or self-defeating thoughts on one side of a piece of paper. On the opposite side, list any actual evidence that the thought is true.

    An example for me would be “I’m a weak person because I have anxiety.” To challenge that thought is easy—I can list 100 examples of how I am not weak, and have a hard time coming up with even one that proves my thought is true.

    Most of the time writing it down takes away the power of the thought and brings some clarity. If you do have a thought that’s true, figure out some steps you can take to address it. Put yourself back in control. Try it the next time anxiety visits and see if it shortens her stay.

  • The Simplest Way to Create More Calm in Your Life

    The Simplest Way to Create More Calm in Your Life

    Man Relaxing on Beach

    “I vow to let go of all worries and anxiety in order to be light and free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    This particular week, I flunked. I’d be lucky if you gave me a D grade in assessing my calmness.

    Generally, nobody can question my commitment to leading a life of less stress. I try hard. I try very hard.

    You might even be impressed with my healthy diet, my abundance of sleep, and my regular exercise. You couldn’t fault the careful thought and planning that go into my days and weeks. Hell, I can even claim meditation, mindfulness, and self-awareness as long-time, well-practiced skills.

    But some weeks you take your eye off the ball, don’t you.

    And I can’t blame any common stressors that predictably make life tougher: no illness or injury, no family or relationship conflict, no extra pressure at work or excessive financial strain.

    That particular week I failed because I didn’t stop. I didn’t let go. Too much rushing, too much on my mind, too much scheduled.

    And of course I was on edge, with that irksome and uneasy agitation that plagues you when stress gets the better of you.

    It feels unshakeable, lurks about robbing you of simple pleasures, sapping any joy from your day. Left unchecked it will escalate. We all know that stress may pass with little consequence, but let it go and go, and it mutates, into depression, anxiety, or destructive behaviors, ruining work, relationships or your health.

    Despite working hard over the years to build my repertoire of tricks and techniques to restore calm, on this occasion it was more luck than effort that turned things around for me.

    The surprising antidote arrived on the Saturday afternoon.

    Unplanned, Unexpected Calm (and How It Happens)

    “Tilt your head forward so that you’re looking down,” Claire instructed, and boy, did it feel weird. “Yes, it will feel strange, as though you’re swimming downward,” she went on.

    Ugh. What was I doing here? And why?

    Well, I had signed up my husband and I for a swimming instruction session—determined to choose a shared experience that he’d enjoy for his birthday rather than buying more stuff.

    But here I was near the end of a hectic week, with a very full head, stacks of unattended emails, and loads of washing to do. The swimming thing had seemed like a good idea at the time and I knew he’d love it, but maybe I could have skipped it, got some jobs done, and joined him afterward for dinner.

    Then it happened.

    Claire again: “Swim a short distance that you can manage without a breath, go as slow as you can, and try to minimize any splash. How does it feel, what do you notice?”

    I noticed I was beginning to feel better!

    She had my attention now, and with each instruction, she dragged me out of my head (with all of its worries and preoccupations) and into my body, full of new muscle, body-position and watery sensations.

    I let go and resigned myself to the present moment. And why not? The emails and washing were out of reach and my work worries would still be there when I got back to my desk. Anyway, in order to follow Claire’s instructions, I had to tune in!

    I had to listen and interpret her words with my body and my movements.

    Claire is a Total Immersion swimming coach, and this method of swimming is all about slowing down at first to improve the accuracy of your stroke: to get balance and movement right, in order that you maximize propulsion and minimize drag. It’s very mindful. It requires that you commit to the present moment and focus inward.

    Calm was upon me, hooray.

    Take a romantic view, and envisage the sensory experience of the cool and quiet of the water, the slow and rhythmic movements of the body. Or the simple science of it: the activity required me to engage my pre-frontal cortex, thus redressing the dominance of the stress-fuelled, and stress-fuelling, limbic system.

    Your Way is the Best Way

    The swim session reminded me of a lesson I’ve learned before, my pursuit of mindfulness and meditation. Many years ago after the traumatic loss of a loved one, I survived on yoga and walks on the beach.

    Even earlier in life, during anxious exam periods, I had a taste of it when I got some physical and mental relief from dancing around my room and singing along to Thelma Houston and The Pressure Cookers’ “I Got the Music in Me.”

    Some of my friends are also devotees of yoga and meditation, but many of them aren’t. They have their own way of getting out of their heads and into their bodies. Out of the angry memory trap of yesterday’s argument with the boss, or out of the anxiety-ridden imaginings of tomorrow’s tense family gathering.

    They find their way into the present moment and into their bodies via all sorts of sometimes forgotten, yet always relished activities, like surfing, guitar-playing, gardening, painting, baking.

    They rediscover and commit to these cherished activities, and learn as I did again in my swimming lesson, that they rebuild your depleted stores of calm and stop the ravages of stress.

    What is your calm-restoring activity? When was the last time you did it? Or is it time to take up something new?

    (It ought to go without saying that escapist distractions, like the game you play on your phone on the way home, don’t cut—they do nothing to bring you into the present, or into your body!)

    I’m certain you want more calm in your life, and I could give you a long, long list of ways to achieve it. But the simplest and best way to begin is to find your own way and commit to it. But beware.

    The trick to getting started on the path to more calm.

    Finding your way, your chosen activity, is not hard. Making it happen is harder. You must stop. You must stop and let go. Certainly, when I get it wrong, that’s where I go wrong—I don’t stop.

    You won’t find the time for it; you must make the time for it. Thank goodness I booked that swim session weeks before.

    You must stop and give yourself permission to let go of your troubles, even just for a short while.

    It won’t solve your problems, but it will, in the very least, ground you and let you feel better. And it will likely leave you better equipped to deal with your challenges.

    By all means develop your meditation skills and practice. But the simplest way to get more calm right away is to choose your calm-restoring activity, and make a time for it. That’s the trick.

    Calm will happen.

    When you struggle to get out of your head and let go of all that’s in there nagging at you, your activity is the way to go. And this easy indirect way of letting go is, happily, habit forming.

    You will get better and better at stopping. Better and better at returning to the present moment. Better and better at restoring calm.

    Thich Nhat Hanh said: I vow to let go of all worries and anxiety in order to be light and free.

    Hear, hear. I am renewing my vow to let go of all worries and anxiety in order to be light and free. I will do my best. And to that end, and especially when I struggle, I will make time to swim, or do yoga, or whatever it may be that will bring more calm.

    How about you?

    Man relaxing on beach image via Shutterstock

  • How We Create Problems for Ourselves (And How to Stop)

    How We Create Problems for Ourselves (And How to Stop)

    Man Lying in the Grass

    “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” ~Ram Dass

    I just returned from a four-day trip with my family. It was my own family of four (my husband and two kids), plus my mom, my two sisters, and my brother-in-law.

    It was great. We get along well and have fun together.

    And, it was four days with family.

    It’s a funny thing…although you grow up with your siblings, listening to and being influenced by your parents, you all end up so unique—different from each other and different from the adults who raised you.

    Of course we’re all unique. But our differences seem to be a little harder to accept or dismiss when we’re talking about family. These are the people you care about most in the world, and that usually means they can get under your skin like no others.

    We tend to have the most opinions about, and agendas for, the ones with whom we have the deepest emotional connection. Unconditional love and all of that good stuff aside, four days with family can be the perfect breeding ground for I-can’t-believe-she-said-that and I-must-be-adopted.

    A Shift in Understanding

    In the past, when I’d think about the frustration and annoyance that would come up around my family, it looked very real. It looked like it was definitely about—and caused by—them.

    I would have described it something like this: “Being around my family stirs stuff up. That’s normal, right? I experience some frustration, but it’s relatively minor. We get along great for the most part, and whatever annoyance there is tends to fade as soon as we go our separate ways.”

    Basically, it looked to me as if there was an actual issue with my family, but I was grateful that it was minor. I was good at seeing the bright side.

    Bright side-looking isn’t all bad. That was the best way I could see our “issue” for a long time and it served me. It kept me showing up and it allowed me to mostly enjoy our time together.

    But on this most recent trip, I was blessed with an insight that gave me a different understanding of the exact same circumstances.

    What I saw is that there is no problem with my family. There never was.

    We don’t have an actual issue. If you looked at us from the outside, you’d see eight people hanging out with each other. There is no problem.

    The “issue” I was feeling and attributing to my family all these years was nothing more than my own thinking. It’s just where my mind tends to go.

    My mind likes to tell stories and get quite overactive when it comes to my family. It’s been doing that for decades, actually.

    When I’m around them, my mind tells predictable, old tales tinged with frustration and fear, full of why-do-they-do that, and they-don’t-ever, and what-about-me. On this particular night, my mind was full of stories of how we should feel around each other, how we should be on the same page, how people should listen to me more.

    And those stories have nothing to do with my family. They have to do with my own unmet expectations and my own biased mind in the moment, not with my family at all.

    What a relief! The moment I saw this, the tension was gone. This may sound like a strange reaction, but I found it hilarious, actually, to see that I’ve spent thirty-some years in a mental dialogue about something that was never about what it looked to be about.

    The mental dialogue was the source of my angst all along.

    The Same May Be True for You

    The same may be true for you and your family, or whatever you think your outside “issue” is, as well.

    Part of why my insight had such an impact on me is that it wasn’t just about me and my family. It showed up as I found myself lying in bed ruminating about what someone had said earlier that day. But the problem wasn’t what they had said.

    It hit me like a ton of bricks that the rumination my mind happened to be doing was the only “problem” I had ever had.

    Your opinionated, personal mind is either being quiet or loud. When it’s quiet, it looks like all is well in the world outside. Actually, all is well on the world inside—the peace you’re feeling is your own inner peace.

    And when your mind is loud, it looks like all is chaotic in the world outside. Actually, it’s just a little chaotic internally, at the moment. It may have nothing to do with what it looks like it’s about. Or, as they say, it’s not what you think…it’s what you think.

    This difference may sound insignificant, but it’s been really huge for me. I thought I was getting off good by putting a nice spin on our family “issues.”

    To see that there are far fewer issues than I think—that often the main source of frustration is the show my mind is putting on in any moment—that’s freedom. When my mind gets tired or the show ends, it’s done. No issues to get over, just seeing thought as thought.

    You might wonder: but what if there is something that needs to change? The beauty of seeing how your mind ruminates and replays and creates problems is that when it stops doing that so much, you know if there’s something to do and you do it, drama-free.

    It’s like if you’re driving across the country with a filthy windshield. That’s kind of what an I-can’t-believe-she-said-that opinionated mind does—it muddies your inner windshield and taints everything you see.

    So going on a road trip with globs of dirt and mud on your windshield, well, that’s going to affect your judgment, right? Things won’t look as clear. You’ll probably miss turns because you can barely read the signs. You might mistake a town as “dirty” or “blah” because you’re seeing the windshield more so than the city.

    From a very busy mind that believes everything is a big issue to be solved, you’re not seeing clearly.

    You’re might try to intervene on things that might naturally blow over; and fear, self-doubt, or resentment might have you staying quiet when there is a place to intervene. You’re seeing from a dirty windshield so you’re not getting an accurate view of things.

    Seeing that your mind is constantly running what are essentially re-runs of this story about your family (or whatever your story happens to be about) lets you discount those stories. You naturally disconnect from them because you see the truth about them. That clears your windshield.

    From that place, you handle any actual problems you might want to handle calmly and peacefully. It’s a night-and-day difference. From a clear mind, you simply know what to do and you go about doing it the best you can.

    When you see that a gigantic proportion of your “issues” are caused by a dirty windshield, the windshield is wiped clear and anything that needs to actually be dealt with in the real world is dealt with. It’s as simple as that.

    I can breathe deeper knowing that. I hope you can too.

    Man lying on grass image via Shutterstock

  • Confessions and Lessons from a Former Approval Addict

    Confessions and Lessons from a Former Approval Addict

    “It’s not your job to like me. It’s mine.” ~Byron Katie

    I’m short. I’m stumpy. My nose looks like a pig’s. My inner thighs touch when I walk. My gums show too much when I talk. I have to change the way I look. Maybe then you’ll like me.

    I obsess. I overanalyze. I get caught up in my head. I dwell on things I should let go. I can never simply go with the flow. I have to learn to be laid back. Maybe then you’ll like me. 

    I’m shy. I’m anxious. I’m dependent on reassurance. I ask for advice way too much. I look for validation as a crutch. I have to be more confident. Maybe then you’ll like me.

    Day in, day out, plotting away—that’s how I spent my life. I didn’t like who I was, so I hoped you’d do it for me.

    If only you’d tell me I was okay. If only you’d confirm that I didn’t have to change. If only you’d give me permission to be myself. Maybe then I’d like me.

    It’s what led to more than a decade of self-torture.

    I’d cut myself to feel relief and create a physical representation of the pain I feared no one else could see.

    I’d stuff myself with food to the point of bursting, then hide myself away to purge it, up to thirteen times day.

    I’d curl up in my bed and cry for hours, hoping maybe my tears would wash away the most offensive parts of me.

    I remember once, when I was in a residential treatment center for bulimia, an art therapist asked me to draw a self-portrait.

    I drew a bag of vomit with me curled up inside. That was how I saw myself.

    I know why I grew into this needy, insecure person. I can trace the moments that, bit by bit, eroded my self-esteem and caused me to question my worth.

    But it doesn’t really matter why I learned to feel so small and insignificant. What matters is how I learned to tame the fears that once imprisoned me.

    Notice I wrote tame, not destroy. For some of us, the fearful thinking never fully goes away.

    I have never seen myself as a before and after picture, because it’s never felt black and white to me.

    There wasn’t a distinct turning point when my life went from painfully dark to light.

    It’s been a slow but steady process of cleaning layers of grime from the lens through which I view myself—and sometimes, just after chipping away a massive piece of dirt, I catch a splash of mud in the spot that was briefly pristine.

    I live, day in and day out, in a messy mind that, despite my best efforts, has never been fully polished.

    But it’s far clearer now than it once was, and I have the tools to clean it a little every day—and to accept the times when I simply must embrace that it’s still dirty.

    Perhaps you can relate to the lost, lonely younger me, desperately seeking approval. Or perhaps you’ve come a long way, but you still struggle with confidence every now and then.

    Maybe you sometimes feel like a fraud because you’re human and imperfect.

    Maybe you still want to fit in and belong—who doesn’t? We’re social creatures, and wired to seek community.

    But there’s a difference between looking for connection and looking for permission to be.

    There’s a difference between depending on people for support and depending on them for self-esteem.

    Here’s what’s helped me shift from seeking praise and approval to knowing I deserve love and support.

    Become aware of the layers of grime on your lens.

    You may see yourself as someone else once saw you, years ago when you were too young and impressionable to realize they weren’t viewing you clearly.

    Or perhaps your grime built up later in life, when people close to you projected their own issues onto you and convinced you that you were somehow lacking.

    Most likely, a combination of both led you to form a harsh, critical view of yourself, backed up by caked on beliefs, reinforced through consistent self-critical thoughts.

    Understand that, much like those other people, you are not seeing yourself clearly—or fairly.

    You may see small mistakes as evidence that you’re unworthy. You may interpret your challenges as proof that you’re incompetent. Neither of these things is true, and you don’t have to believe them.

    Learn how to clean your lens daily.

    While I wish I could say I know how to power wash that lens, I’ve yet to discover such a process. But I can tell you how I’ve slowly chipped away at the mud:

    Change your beliefs.

    Once you identify a limiting belief—such as I’m not lovable—you can start to change it by looking for evidence to support the opposite belief.

    Once upon a time I believed I was ugly. I truly believed my face was offensive when not covered in makeup, because I have light features.

    I know where this belief came from—when I was a kid, someone told me light-skinned blonds are homely. And because this person valued physical appearance, and I desperately wanted them to accept me, I started caking on layers of paint.

    Over the years I’ve met people with varied looks who I found to be incredibly beautiful, and it had nothing to do with the color of their skin, eyebrows, or eyes.

    It had to do with the light in their eyes and the joy behind their smile.

    I, too, possess the capacity to shine from within and exude joy. More importantly, I feel good about myself when I access my inner spark, and how I feel about myself matters far more than what I look like.

    Challenge your thoughts.

    While you can identify evidence to support a new belief, it’s likely you’ll get stuck in engrained thought patterns from time to time. It’s a process, not a one-time choice.

    My mind will occasionally formulate reasons I am not good enough.

    You aren’t where you should be professionally.
    You didn’t respond to that conflict wisely.
    You reacted too emotionally.  

    As often as I can, I catch these thoughts and challenge them with compassion:

    There’s nowhere you should be professionally—and you’ve done a lot more than you give yourself credit for.
    You could have responded better to that conflict, but that’s okay; this is an opportunity for growth.
    You reacted emotionally, but that’s okay too—you’re not a robot. And at least you’re self-aware enough to recognize when there’s room for improvement.

    You may not catch every self-critical thought, but over time you’ll catch more and more, and tiny bits of progress add up.

    Slow your thoughts. 

    It’s all well and good to challenge thoughts, but if they’re coming at you like baseballs from a pitching machine, you’ll probably end up feeling too overwhelmed to be effective.

    I’ve come up with a list of mindfulness practices that help me find relief from my loud, persistent inner monologue. These are the ones I’ve found most effective:

    • Five minutes of traditional meditation or deep breathing
    • A five to ten minute walk, focusing on my senses and the experience of being in nature
    • A yoga class or five to ten minutes of deep stretching, synced with my breath
    • Listening to music (on YouTube) with subliminal messages for confidence
    • A repetitive creative outlet, like crocheting
    • Anything that gets me into a state of flow, like dancing

    Take a little time every day to clear your thoughts, and it will be a lot easier to tame the fear-based voice that makes you feel bad about yourself.

    Change for the right reasons.

    With all this talk about accepting yourself and taming the voice that makes you feel unworthy and dependent on approval, you may assume you should never again strive to change.

    When I considered that possibility, I came up against a lot of internal resistance. But it wasn’t because I felt I needed to become someone else to be lovable. It was because I realized growth provides me with a sense of possibility and purpose.

    In much the same way I wouldn’t berate my child, if I had one, for having more to learn, I didn’t have to motivate change from a place of self-disgust; instead, I could encourage myself to continually grow into a stronger, wiser version of myself.

    I could regularly identify areas for improvement without concluding I needed to change because I was intrinsically flawed.

    If you’re not sure how to tell the difference between change rooted in shame and change rooted in self-love, ask yourself: Do I want to make this change because I know I deserve the results, or because I fear I’m not good enough unless I do this?

    Take power back from others.

    I still want you to like me. I do. I want you to think I’m witty, and funny, and wise, and interesting, and worthy of your attention.

    But these days I focus a little more on you and a little less on your approval. I think back to times when you were witty, and funny, and wise, and interesting, and I’m grateful that I get to give you my attention.

    And if you don’t feel the same about me, well, it can hurt. On days when I’m at my strongest, I’ll acknowledge the pain and let it run through me.

    Then I’ll remind myself that I can like me even if you don’t. Because that’s what happens when you learn to view yourself through a clearer, more compassionate lens: You start seeing how lovable and wonderful you really are.

    I am imperfect in so many ways. I’ve made more mistakes than I can remember or count. I have struggles that I sometimes think I should have completely overcome.

    But I’ve been through a lot. I’ve been beaten down. And I’ve risen up every time. I’ve kept playing my hand when it would have been easier to fold. I’ve learned and grown when it would have been easier to stagnate.

    I am no longer ashamed of where I’ve been; I’m proud of the journey through it.

    I am no longer ashamed of being imperfect; I’m proud that I’m brave enough to own it, and humble enough to continually grow.

    That shift in perception has helped me accept that you may or may not accept me.

    I’m going to show you who I am, in every moment when I find the strength and courage to be authentic. Maybe then you’ll like me. And if you don’t, it might hurt, but that’s okay. Because I’m going to love myself through it.

  • There’s More Right in the World Than You Might Think

    There’s More Right in the World Than You Might Think

    Good News

    “When you turn on the television … you run the risk of ingesting harmful things, such as violence, despair, or fear.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    I passed the rack of newspapers on my way into story time at the library, ignoring the latest headlines. Murder, mayhem, war, disaster—it all calls like a siren at sea. My pace picks up as I turn the other direction.

    My two-year old charge, whom I affectionately call Little Man P, is captivated by the animated librarian. She impresses me with her liveliness and ease in handling a room full of kiddos. It is clear she loves her work and those that come to story time.

    After everyone else left, she lingered to talk with me and Little Man P. He’s shy and bashful, but loves attention. Since he insists in going out in his superman outfit, he certainly gets noticed.

    I’ve enjoyed caregiving most for Little Man P because he has reminded me how to have fun and use my imagination.

    There’s hardly a moment he isn’t asking me to tell him a story. He’s more interested in elephants that can climb trees and fire hydrants that can talk than he is in anything else. I tell the librarian how my imagination has come alive since I’ve been babysitting him.

    With this comment, she seizes the opportunity to plug a special kids program coming up that weekend at the library. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to be available to attend. I explained I would be spending a few nights staying with an elderly woman at risk of falling whose husband had to be out of town for a funeral.

    I shared with her what I consider to be the greatest downside to working with the older end of the age spectrum. Many, if not all, of my clients are really into the news. I can pretty much count on a newspaper at the table and the television turned on.

    Rather than participating in a fun and imaginative weekend program, I’d be stuck listening to CNN running 24/7 in the background. I complained about this with my new librarian friend, commenting how difficult it is to hear all the bad news in the world.

    She shook her head sympathetically and muttered an agreement. I went on to express my frustration with the news media for mainly reporting what’s wrong in the world. I asked her, “Don’t you think there are just as many good things going on in the world?”

    She agreed, but then said: “Yes, but it seems things are getting worse every day.”

    I felt the familiar flare of passion rise up when a topic really pushes one of my buttons.

    I passionately exclaimed, “People only think that because that’s all they hear about on the news! Isn’t it just as likely there are an equal amount of miracles happening every day, or good Samaritans doing heroic deeds that we don’t hear about?”

    I think my enthusiasm must have turned her off, as she made a rapid exit after my outburst. Our conversation, however, reminded me of why I have such a ban against reading or watching the news. My desire to know what’s right in the world instead was ignited.

    Although not everyone agrees with the belief that we focus on is what we create, chances are if you’ve ever thought about buying a certain kind of car, you’ve experienced suddenly seeing that kind of car everywhere.

    This phenomena is referred to as frequency illusion. Our minds sift out all the other data we are receiving and starts to see more of something we have just noticed or learned. It is amazing how we will begin seeing things previously unnoticed based on where our thoughts and focus are directed.

    I’ll concede, simply watching or hearing about murder, terrorism, or the bad economy isn’t necessarily going to mean we see more of those things as we go about our day to day lives. However, it does increase the likelihood we start living a more fearful life.

    As such, we might notice the unusual looking man at the grocery store. Then, when he pulls out behind us in the parking lot, we worry he is following us. Or perhaps we become suspicious of the neighbors who just moved next door because of their race or religious orientation.

    Similar to “frequency illusion” is the experience of “selective attention.”

    Numerous studies demonstrate when our attention is occupied with one thing, we often fail to notice other things right before our eyes. In one study, few people noticed a woman with an umbrella cross the field while they were counting how many times a football got passed from one player to another.

    Likewise, if we are preoccupied with the strange looking man in aisle two of the grocery store, we might not notice the cashier pull money out of her own pocket to help the customer in front of us who didn’t have enough to pay for their groceries. Or see the young man help the elderly woman carry her groceries to the car.

    Constant bombardment of all the horrible things happening in our world can only lead to greater and greater distress and mistrust.

    What we need instead is more hope, faith, and love. In an information age where what happens on the other side of the world is known immediately everywhere, why does the media report mostly on what’s going wrong?

    Imagine a primary news channel devoted predominately to the announcement of miracles or to reporting various good deeds.

    What if we were constantly seeing pictures of people helping each other, babies being saved by the latest in modern medicine, or politicians shaking hands in agreement over important issues?

    What if we were to hear stories about the rising inner peace movement, or new and innovative programs to assist the elderly, sick or disabled?

    Is it possible we would all smile a bit broader and greet strangers with a warm hello?

    Perhaps we would feel encouraged to do our own generous act of kindness or join an existing worthy cause.

    Would not knowing about some of the things we hear about on the daily news make a huge difference to us in our day-to-day lives?

    How can we possibly know if things are getting better or worse when we aren’t given even a 50/50 accounting?

    Steven Pinker, in his 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, argues things actually are getting better. He asserts violence has been in decline, despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism.

    We just can’t see it because no one is focused on what’s right it the world.

    Since I’ve stopped watching the news and reading the paper, my life is happier and more fulfilling.

    If there is something really important happening in the world, I will hear about it elsewhere. If there is some action I can take to make things better, I will do it. But most the time, I’m quite content to live in my bubble, smiling at people and extending kindness to strangers.

    Good news image via Shutterstock