Tiny Buddha

Category: mindfulness & peace

  • When You’re Tired of Trying: Lessons in Mindfulness from a Woodpecker

    When You’re Tired of Trying: Lessons in Mindfulness from a Woodpecker

    “The antidote to exhaustion isn’t rest. It’s wholeheartedness.” ~David Whyte

    Crouched down in a cold clump of leaves in the woods, I watch a woodpecker. Persistent, unbothered, moving up and down a tree next to me. It is methodically tapping its beak bit-by-bit looking for something to eat. I watch and wonder… Aren’t you tired of this relentless pursuit? Tired of smashing your face again and again with the odds stacked against you? How fleeting disappointment must be for you.

    Not me. I take one bump and the disappointment reels through me. I desperately seek ease, my eyes always halfway gazing elsewhere looking for relief, wondering when I can stop trying so hard.

    My mother used to talk about her own persistent struggles like “smashing your head into a brick wall.”

    But you, my woodpecker friend, don’t seem to be struggling or frustrated. You simply move on moment by moment in pursuit, unbothered by the repetition of trying again and again. Not worried about what happens next, what the outcome of each tap against the tree is. This is your life, the persistent pursuit of nourishment moment by moment.

    Tap, tap, tap—look for food. Tap, tap, tap—try again. Tap, tap, tap—no time for disappointments. Tap, tap, tap—that would be silly, counterproductive to living.

    Today I sit and watch you. It’s early morning and my body is already buzzing with stress. My baby crying, children fighting, another night without sleep.

    I am six months postpartum with baby number three, and I have been struggling to adjust to my new life. All my energy has gone into trying to cope, provide for, and nourish my growing family.

    I am supposed to have it together at this point in my life, I should have made some progress by now. I wasn’t supposed to have to try this hard. I teach people how to manage their stress through art, the daily grind is my muse! But today I can’t step out of my own fog. I can’t prescribe myself time to create and breathe, I am just too tired.

    We hear the word “grind” a lot these days. A collective acknowledgement that daily living in the western world is full of bumps, abrasions, and sparks. The notion that not all stress comes from the big dramatic life moments of life and death, pain, and suffering. Much of it comes from the momentary energy we put into trying to shape and survive in our day to day lives.

    The details of my life’s challenges are specific and particular to me, but most of us can relate to this feeling of a boiling point—where we can’t take it anymore, where the stress is too much, and we are tired of trying. Each of us dances between our own tiny stories of struggle and joy in a day.

    Sometimes coffee isn’t enough.

    Sometimes more sleep can’t help.

    Sometimes it feels like all my trying is only making it worse. Like there is no influence, no mark I can make in this world, or in my life.

    Sometimes all my therapy, self-help books, and good advice are just beyond my reach.

    Sometimes I am locked in a moment where showing gratitude feels like a boulder I just can’t lift.

    It’s so hard to pick yourself back up when all you want to do is close your eyes and find some quiet.

    Usually, I am the kind of person who thinks that change is always possible, that my pain is fleeting, that improvements can always be made. That it’s my duty to try and make the world a better place.

    My husband and I joke that we are constantly tweaking things searching for a better flow in our lives. We are always informing each other that we have made a new change for something in our home, moving a pot from its old drawer to a new one, trying to make new systems for managing the chaos of laundry, children, and our lives. We just keep trying.

    We each hold a sincere belief that with each new tweak it will improve things for us. It’s easily one of our best attributes as a couple, we are both persistently interested in bettering ourselves, our lives, and our community. We know that we have agency and influence in our world, so we try to use it for good.

    But it’s also a trap. A set up for disappointment. Call it attachment, call it the grass is always greener. Whatever you call it, the outcome is the same: You become swept away looking for something better, more, or just different. All this trying and lifting and doing can be a setup just weighing us further down.

    And then before you know it, you find yourself on the verge of tears, fleeing your life, huddled in a cold clump of leaves in the woods with no resolve or ounce of resilience to be found. And this is the morning I found the woodpecker, the morning I fled my house in exhaustion. Tired of feeling like I can’t catch up.

    On this day I was tired of enduring the grind of wanting more. So, I sought refuge in the bluff behind my house. I closed the door and walked away from my family and the stress, setting the intention to find a place to just be still in the woods, hoping it would offer me some peace.

    And this is the morning where things shifted for me, where the woodpecker came to me showing me how to be in between each tap of its beak. You, my persistent woodpecker friend, have come at just the right moment…

    Tap, tap, tap, the persistent woodpecker calling to me. I watch and I listen. It’s showing me how it’s done. To keep showing up in each moment. Tap, tap, tap, a genuine presence. Tap, tap, tap, just try again. Tap, tap, tap each moment born anew.

    What if I never get it right, never quite arrive, never work it out? But what if it’s actually just about showing up again and again, finding little treasures in the moment and continuing on? No past resentments, no future longings. Just a willingness to show up each day and try, and try, again and again and again.

    I watch and listen to the woodpecker. I watch and see that it doesn’t stop and wallow in disappointment when it works so hard without reward. It moves on persistently trying because it has to, because that’s what living is. Tap, tap, tap.

    It felt like the woodpecker was here to show me how to be. Reminding me that with each moment I feel amiss, that all I need to do is show up again to the next. That this grind is temporary, that I can feel it, notice it, and come to the next moment fresh and continue to try. I don’t need to endure the grind; I can use my influence and agency in this world and keep trying to find the nourishment I need to thrive. Each moment is a new beginning, a new chance to shape my world again.

    So, I took a breath and decided to do what I know helps me be present and whole—I created. I walked for a while and then hopped off the path… and that’s when all the magic began (and just for the record this is always where it happens, in that moment when we hop off the regular route and move to the land of curiosity.)

    I found something I had been longing to find all summer and fall. Wasp paper. A bird had found an old wasp nest and torn it apart. Tattered little bits of the former hive were strewn about. It felt like a gold mine. It was a piece of magic right in my hands.

    So, I breathed. I tinkered. I made a few installations with all of the wonders around me. I tried. I showed up in this little pocket in the woods. I let my thoughts and stress fall to the foreground, and I found my breath.

    I tried again looking for stillness. I let go of the desire to brood, to wallow, to hold onto the fretting that occupied my morning. I found my breath and I just tried to be in the woods with these treasures. I spent time with them, slowed down, and played with their arrangements taking a few photos.

    As I began to create with presence, I could feel a shift happening inside me. I was shaping the world around me, and as I did, I could feel my inner landscape being shaped to. I felt relief. I felt my fog lifting. I began to feel calm, but my gaze was already tempted to move to what was to come next. The temptation to be anywhere but now, is a constant lure.

    Then I reminded myself that today I showed up, in this moment here and now, I actually did it. I remind myself that it’s the act of showing up, not the outcome that’s most important. I release myself from future progress. Today I showed up in this pocket in the woods and made something. Tap, tap, tap because that’s what living is.

  • The Simple Changes That Reduced My Phone-Induced Anxiety

    The Simple Changes That Reduced My Phone-Induced Anxiety

    “Simple living doesn’t solve all my problems, it just removes distractions.” ~Melissa Camara Wilkins

    At times it’s felt like my phone was my only access to the outside world. A place to connect in the middle of the night. The means to stay in touch with friends and family on the other side of the globe. It was a lifeline.

    Until it wasn’t.

    Improved sleep, reduced stress, and a mindful relationship with technology—they were high on my wellness “should have achieved by now” list.

    I’m not sure which was bothering me more, the actual stress of not having a mindful relationship with technology or the fact that I had not been able to achieve a mindful relationship with my smartphone.

    It was a cycle in my mind I just couldn’t stop. And I was struggling. All the tips and current trends to “digital detox” were not making my life easier. In fact, they were making it much harder.

    Being unable to successfully follow advice for my health made me feel like a failure, especially as it was connected to my mental health. Did that mean I didn’t care about my well-being? Was I a fraud?

    My phone was disrupting my sleep and worsening my anxiety. But all it took was one small change to break my bad habits and create a new, more mindful relationship with technology.

    Where It All Began

    Growing up I was a self-proclaimed night owl. As a child and young adult, I stayed up late reading. In university I would study late into the night.

    As I got older, falling asleep was always a struggle. I decided I was a night person and would use that time to get ahead of my to-do list for the next day. I figured the more I got done the night before, the easier the next day would be.

    When my first child was born, I was introduced to the late-night social media scroll. I was up feeding the baby in the middle of the night, trying not to fall asleep in my chair. And it turned out there was something that would keep me awake and entertained, but not disrupt my son: the blue screen of my phone. I knew it wasn’t ideal, but the thing is, it worked.

    Even after the late-night feedings ended, the screen still kept me awake. I would go to bed with the intention of reading a downloaded book or an article on my phone. It was so convenient to have all in one place!

    But inevitably a notification would distract me. An email. Or an update on social media. A message from my parents.

    To this day I’m a bit ashamed to admit I was guilty of not turning off my work email notifications, even though I was on maternity leave!

    What’s funny in hindsight is that at the time, those notifications annoyed me. It bothered me that I was still getting work emails. But I didn’t turn them off.

    I wondered who would send me a message in the middle of the night. I would check, knowing it was likely from someone in a different time zone, not expecting me to check my messages until the morning. But I looked anyway.

    I found myself often unable to sleep. Remembering the advice I’d received to “get up and do something different” if sleep didn’t come, I figured I’d found a solution: I could take a break from trying to sleep without leaving my bed, by using the endless options available on my phone. Located conveniently next to my bed, charging.

    And there I would be, hours later. Still awake, exhausted, and unable to fall asleep.

    I Needed to Make a Change

    I knew I needed to make a change. The demands of working and having young children were starting to make an impact on my health. I was tired, and not getting the sleep I needed.

    I decided that if my phone was keeping me up, and I was pretty sure it was, then I’d remove it from my room. That’s what the influencers and thought leaders were recommending! Or so it appeared as I researched the topic on my phone, late at night, in bed!

    The irony is not lost on me.

    My Mistake Was Following Influencer Advice

    On the very first night I failed. My son woke up, and I scrambled to find what time it was, but my phone wasn’t next to my bed. I crashed into several things trying to get to his room in the dark because my flashlight was an app on my phone. While this was happening, my son woke up my daughter.

    Insert several curse words that my children probably didn’t need to hear.

    By the time I got them both back to sleep, I was very much awake, alert, and a bit annoyed. Mostly at myself. What was I thinking? Why was I trying to follow this ridiculous Internet advice?

    And then I turned on myself.

    Why couldn’t I follow this ridiculous Internet advice? If it was working for everyone else, why couldn’t I do it? Was I just generally failing at adulting?

    Heading back to bed, the annoyance shifted into worry.

    Would I wake up with my phone alarm in the other room? What if I didn’t wake up to get everyone where they needed to go on time in the morning? Would I hear my alarm from the other room? Wait, the alarm won’t work, the phone’s off!

    Logically, I knew I was being a bit silly. I would get used to having my phone in another room.

    But I was tired. And time poor. And so frustrated. I wanted simplicity, and this was making my life more complicated.

    Why Did I Have So Much Resistance?

    Reading this, you might be thinking, “You could have just…” And yes, you’re right. I could have done several things differently. I could have made it work, having my phone overnight in another room.

    But here’s the thing: For changes to stick, I needed to start by making my situation easier, not harder. Sustainable change was what I was looking for.

    So, the first step couldn’t be too big or too hard. I was making the common mistake of trying to jump from one extreme to another. If I’m already tired, and my goal is to be less tired, then the first step has got to help with that.

    If the barriers are too many, if it’s just too hard, then there will be too much resistance. Then I’m probably not going to stick to it.

    There was a second reason I was not comfortable with having my phone off and in another room at night: We don’t have a landline, which is pretty common here in Australia. My family lives overseas. I want them to be able to reach me. At crazy hours if necessary.

    A solution that involves them not being able to do so will not help me sleep. Not at all.

    At the same time, I agree with the arguments for having digital devices out of the bedroom. And I did feel the phone was impacting my ability to fall and stay asleep. Was there an alternative?

    Sometimes being “best practice” doesn’t mean it’s going to fit into every person’s lifestyle. Nor should it. A healthy lifestyle is about finding the right fit and sticking to it.

    I needed to find an alternative. And I did.

    Focus on the Desired Outcome, Not the Popular Steps to Get There

    Instead of focusing on the rule, or the advice, I decided I needed to be realistic. Forget what the influencers were saying!

    What really was my problem? It wasn’t about the phone. What was I trying to achieve? Less stress and more energy, which meant I needed better sleep. And fewer distractions and interference from digital devices. Including my phone.

    Keeping that in mind, the rules didn’t matter as much. Rules that put me into a success v. failure mindset.

    Focusing on the outcome, or the goal, I didn’t have to engage with rules. Like where specifically the phone needed to be. Instead, I could address the changes I needed to get me where I wanted to be.

    To get there, I needed to change my habits and how I interacted with my phone at night. To get better sleep.

    Once I started thinking about it that way, everything became a lot simpler.

    The Change That Worked Was the One I Could Commit To

    Instead of turning off my phone or putting it in another room, I did something else. I turned it back into a phone, every night. A phone with no Internet access! And a blue light filter set to a timer, which now comes built into many mobile devices.

    Every night at 8:00pm, regardless of where I was or what I was doing, my screen changed to night mode to lessen the blue light interference.

    I considered putting my phone into flight mode. And if this is a possibility for others, I highly recommend it. Flight mode allows access to many frequently used features.

    But it does create the potential issue of completely barring communication. That didn’t work for me, so I made an adjustment. Instead of flight mode, I turned off the WiFi and data instead. A two-click solution.

    And it worked.

    For me, I find the best solutions when I’m realistic about where I’m at. If the barriers are too great, even if they’re perceived barriers, change probably isn’t going to happen. And even if it does, it’s probably not going to stick.

    What can I do instead? Focus on the goal. Create a series of low barrier changes guiding toward that goal. For me, this is the answer to sustainable lifestyle changes.

    The First Step Improved My Sleep, the Second Was for My Mental Health

    Every morning I wait an hour from when I wake up before I reconnect my digital devices. I don’t turn back on WiFi or data for at least an hour. Every morning.

    When I implemented my original habit I found that some days, I forgot to turn the data and WiFi back on. Those mornings were wonderful! I was more present with my children, and I was significantly less stressed about what I had on my to-do list.

    And when I did reconnect, it was my choice. The notifications started rolling in, and it didn’t bother me. Emails didn’t get me feeling overwhelmed. I stopped falling victim to “compareitis” while scrolling social media. My phone stopped impacting my mood.

    At first, I didn’t understand the connection.

    But on the days when I woke up and immediately reconnected, it was the opposite. I was inundated with notifications. And, I usually checked them. It was overwhelming, and I was only barely awake. It made me stressed before I even got out of bed, and it set the tone for my entire day.

    It was hard for me to accept, but my mood was influenced by notifications and what I saw social media. This bothered me because I felt like I should be better than that. As if just by knowing that it could be a negative influence, I should have been able to rise above it.

    Why Does My Morning Habit Matter?

    First thing in the morning I’m a lot less resilient. I’m more likely to react emotionally to what I see, hear, and read. And my early morning choices can set my mindset and mood for the rest of the day.

    So basically, my mood was being set by whatever popped up first on my social media feed. Or whatever was at the top of my inbox. By doing turning to technology immediately, I was handing control of my mood over to my phone.

    By delaying my digital start to the day, I found I was more mindful. And completely in control—of what I did first, what I saw, and how I reacted. I had taken control back of my mindset and how I would approach the day. I stopped allowing my mood to be dictated by whatever happened to pop up first on my mobile phone.

    The Lesson I Learned Was Simple but Powerful

    There are three key actions that help me be more mindful of my relationship with my phone and digital technology.

    My reality is that I don’t want to simply discard my smartphone. It makes my life simpler and allows me to spend more time doing things that matter. But only if I keep my relationship with it balanced in a way that suits me and my lifestyle.

    While I might not always be able to do them all, these are still my goals. In addition to improving my sleep, this strategy had improved my mood and mindset.

    My Top Three Tips for a More Mindful Relationship with Your Phone

    1. Disconnect your phone from the Internet at night, using flight mode or turning off the WiFi and data.
    2. Keep your phone disconnected from the Internet for at least an hour in the morning.
    3. Disconnect periodically during the day when you want to be present and mindfully engaged in an activity.

    The biggest thing I learned is to worry less about the tools and rules, and more about what works for me. The best changes are the ones you can stick to because they’re the only ones that will become habits. Once something becomes a habit, it doesn’t require much thought to keep doing it. There are many different paths to reach the same outcome. Find yours and follow it.

  • The 6-Minute Diary: More Mindfulness, Success, and Happiness (Book Giveaway!)

    The 6-Minute Diary: More Mindfulness, Success, and Happiness (Book Giveaway!)

    The winners of this giveaway are:

    Please send your mailing address and cover choice (grey, dusty rose, or sky blue) to me at email@tinybuddha.com.

    —

    We all know that we should be grateful. It’s right up there on the list of things we’re supposed to do regularly like get enough sleep and exercise regularly. But we don’t always prioritize the things that are good for us, which means we don’t often get to enjoy the benefits.

    For many, gratitude doesn’t become a habit until life gives a reason to deeply reflect and recognize all the things we treasure and couldn’t imagine living without. Consequently, most of us don’t acknowledge and appreciate the little things until they suddenly don’t seem so little anymore, once big things have cleared our vision.

    This was the case for Dominik Spenst, creator of The 6-Minute Diary.

    Everything changed for Dominik one day in Cambodia, far from his hometown in Germany, when he found himself covered in blood, lying face up on burning hot asphalt with his left calf bone jutting through his skin.

    In a split second he’d gone from a motorcyclist enjoying the countryside to a long-term patient, with twelve surgeries and a full year of recovery ahead of him—and the prospect of losing a leg.

    Many people would become despondent under such stressful, uncertain circumstances. But something shifted in Dominik when he realized he couldn’t depend on externals to fuel his attitude and state of mind.

    He couldn’t go back to who he was before—someone constantly searching for joy in accomplishments and milestones, each more disappointing than the last once achieved.

    Before the accident, he was constantly obsessed with making a career and getting outside validation: If he made it to the top 5% of his graduate class, all doors would be open for him. If he worked for this and that prestigious company, a house and family would follow automatically (although the wife was yet to be found). While none of these IF’s actually made him happier, he was still trapped in their treadmill… and had it not been for the accident, he would most probably still be chasing the same outside successes today.

    He couldn’t keep postponing his happiness to someday in the future when everything lined up just right.

    If he was to rise above his pain and find joy in the now, he needed to shift his perspective and focus more on the good than the bad.

    True, he was confined to a hospital bed, but he still had one working leg, a healthy brain despite the concussion he’d endured, and family who loved and supported him through this trying time.

    Armed with his own personal experience, Dominik began researching gratitude and positive psychology to learn how we can train our brains to develop optimism and a growth mindset—both crucial for our mental health and happiness.

    Since the accident Dominik has spent thousands of hours studying the human psyche and has helped more than 400,000 users worldwide transform their lives through the power of small habits. The book has been translated into fifteen languages ranging from Russian through Chinese to Spanish.

    And the beautiful thing is that it doesn’t take much time to see monumental changes in our lives.

    We all have six minutes to spare in our day, no matter how busy we may be. And that’s all it takes to become a happier, more fulfilled person.

    Don’t let the title fool you—The 6-Minute Diary is so much more than just a journal. It’s a powerful tool, fusing theory and practice, that can help you transform both your internal and external world.

    The seventy-page introduction explains the power of habits, self-reflection, and positive psychology, citing cutting edge research for neuroscience and psychology.

    The 210 pages that follow offer scientifically proven writing techniques to help you foster a positive mindset and build habits that can help you grow and flourish every day.

    All you need is three minutes in the morning and three at night—a tiny window upon waking and right before bed—and you’ll soon find yourself starting your day with excitement and ending it with peace and satisfaction.

    In addition to daily pages for your morning and evening routine, the diary also includes:

    • Weekly questions to help you self-reflect and connect with yourself
    • A monthly check to help you record and track progress in different areas of your life
    • A habit tracker to help you establish healthy habits and break unhealthy ones
    • More than thirty-three pages for free notes and ideas

    The Giveaway

    If you’d like a copy of The 6-Minute Diary now, you can grab one on Amazon at 20% off using this discount code (available for US only):

    20HAPPYYOU

    This code will only work until Monday, November 25th.

    If you’d also like to try your luck at winning a copy, all you need to do is leave a comment below. I will list the winners’ names at the top of this page on Sunday the 24th, so please check back then for an update!

    Two winners will receive a copy of The 6-Minute Diary, and one winner receive The Happiness Bundle, including both The 6-Minute Diary and The 6-Minute Diary Pure, a second edition journal with more pages for the practice.

    Winners can choose between grey, dusty rose, and sky blue covers.

    I hope you enjoy The 6-Minute Diary as much as I have!

    **Though this is a sponsored post, you can trust that I only promote products and services I truly believe in.

  • Your Emotions Will Not Drown You; They Will Save You

    Your Emotions Will Not Drown You; They Will Save You

    “You weren’t built to be calm, cool, and collected all the time. If you were, it wouldn’t feel so exhausting.”~Ryan O’Connell 

    There’s a lot of talk nowadays about “highly sensitive people” and “empaths.” It can be difficult for people who don’t relate to these labels to understand, or even believe what more sensitive folks experience. As a culture, we’re just beginning to grasp what sensitivity is and how to manage our energy.

    What Sensitivity Actually Is

    It’s easy to get caught up in cultural biases and stigmas concerning personality traits, and sensitivity has always been a part of that. This is why I believe it’s important to define sensitivity in the most objective way possible.

    Sensitivity is simply about attunement, which is a fancy word for how much attention your nervous system is paying. Sensitive folks have more highly attuned nervous systems than others.

    For this reason, our nervous systems are both in a position of advantage and vulnerability at the same time:

    1. You will likely be the first to recognize a genuine threat in the environment. That’s a great evolutionary adaptation! In other words, sensitive people are pretty much designed to outsmart danger and stay safe in the world. (Contrary to the stigma that sensitivity is weakness, sensitive people would probably make the best Jedis ever.)

    2. You will be more susceptible to stress-related symptoms, exhaustion, and mental health issues. In other words, threats that aren’t worth considering will still be considered threatening by the sensitive person because they may struggle with discernment.

    If my nervous system is signaling a threat, how am I supposed to ignore that?!

    Imagine tuning a guitar; as you turn the knob, you create a higher pitch. The string becomes tighter and the notes higher.

    I think this is the perfect metaphor for sensitivity, and one I discovered in college after reading the work of a troubled 1800s poet, Charles Baudelaire. He said, “My nerves are strung to such a pitch that they no longer give anything but piercing and painful vibrations.”

    He wrote this after describing a beautiful landscape he was looking at. He loves it, only, as he takes more and more of the scenery in, it begins to overwhelm him. His nervous system is easily overstimulated by the sights, even positive ones. Lacking the wisdom to glide with this energy, he is tormented by it.

    In all of my angsty college depression, I thought, “This guy gets it!”

    Back then, I was brand new to adulthood and had no idea how to use my sensitivity in any advantageous way. As a result, I developed chronic symptoms doctors couldn’t explain, did poorly in school, and attracted negative relationships with people who didn’t experience the world like I did.

    I simply believed there must be something wrong with me—and so all my efforts went toward fixing myself. I tried developing new skills, making new friends, and applying for various types of jobs. My assumption was that as soon as I figured out how to be “valuable” and well-liked, I’d finally be happy.

    But these pursuits never quite panned out. After college I found myself confused and depressed, and much like Baudelaire, tortured by my sensitivity to the world. I started looking elsewhere for answers and stumbled upon yoga and meditation for the first time.

    In the years following, I worked from home more and more, increasingly turned down parties and unfulfilling trips to the bar, and settled into a healing phase in which I kept to myself.

    The depth of this phase surprised me. There was so much baggage, so much pain to sort through, and so many confusing emotions to sit with. But the more I sat, the more the emotions spoke, revealing my guilt, grief, dissatisfaction, and many more realities I was unaware of. Life was hard because I wasn’t listening to their feedback.

    The more I let them speak, the more positive they became, inspiring new emotions and new behaviors that moved me forward in life.

    Wielding Your Power

    Thankfully, we no longer live in an age that demonizes sensitivity. We are, in many ways, free to arrange our lives in ways that support us, rather than pull us deeper into the currents of overwhelm.

    Imagine walking down the street and realizing that every little stimulus is an invitation—an invitation to feel an emotion, experience a memory, or share in the emotional stream of others’ conversations, etc.

    It’s no wonder sensitive people shut themselves away from the world! It’s so much easier to just avoid all stimuli and hyper-control your environment.

    Unfortunately, doing this 24/7 actually enables the sensitive person to avoid practicing their power. It helps us stay stuck.

    Imagine if Luke Skywalker simply said, “Man, the force is too draining! I think I’ll just stay inside forever.”

    As a newly awakened sensitive person, you may need to hibernate for a while. However, this is only part of the growth path.

    The tough truth is that those with highly attuned nervous systems must master emotion… or suffer. Mastering emotional fluency is an extremely fulfilling journey because you get to experience the full spectrum of human emotion. Whereas many people are just going through the motions, you feel everything, which gives you a unique power and ability to handle anything.

    But for those at the starting line, it can seem like a punishment.

    Why me?

    How to Master Emotional Fluency

    It is unlikely that any of the following points I make will shock you. In fact, they may frustrate you because you already know them. They’re just so hard to implement!

    The thing is, the human nervous system has evolved through many, many centuries. This means that the patterns you are now trying to change or guide in your body are very well established.

    It’s important to not look at this as you trying to work against or change your tendency to become stimulated in uncomfortable ways. When people get caught up in this mentality, they adopt the notion that they are unwell, victims of their own bodies, broken and powerless to direct their own lives.

    As someone who has been through that pain, I want to tell you: That is so far from the reality of your situation.

    You are not here to make yourself less sensitive. You are not here to be like everyone around you.

    You are here to:

    1. Heal your own recurring trauma patterns so that you can lighten the load for your nervous system.

    In essence, this means reducing unnecessary triggers that disrupt your day and cause a full-body stress response. Start to notice things that continuously upset you and catch yourself in those moments. Simply stop and watch the reaction. What specific emotions create a downward spiral in your day?

    It will help you to write down each time you feel triggered so the underlying issues can slowly reveal themselves. For example, you may find that each time you feel anxiety, you’re in a crowded space, or you recall the same painful memory. (This is not only lightening the load on your nervous system, but your adrenals and hormones as well.)

    2. Start cleaning house—what has to go?

    Whereas step 1 is about past trauma that keeps haunting us, this step is about recurring present-day stressors. These have the same, if not more of a detrimental effect on you because they influence daily stress levels.

    This step often takes sensitive folks the longest because they must find ways to restructure their lives (leaving behind toxic relationships and jobs, letting go of old routines, etc.) This may require creativity and outside-the-box thinking because the world is currently designed for less sensitive people, which research shows is the majority.

    Grabbing a stimulating coffee, running off to a stressful job, taking care of your kids with little support, eating stimulating foods—all of this stimulation is “normal,” but for you, it is not sustainable. These habits will lead you in a downward spiral of mental and physical exhaustion.

    For me, this meant finding more flexible jobs that didn’t demand much from me emotionally. Inevitably, it also meant distancing myself from people who were not right for me – even when it was painful to do so.

    3. Rebuild, rebuild, rebuild.

    Begin welcoming in that which fuels you, and begin creating a life that is lighter, simpler, and freer. This life will lack drama that distracts you from who you are. By learning and exploring what matters to you, you will move closer and closer to a reality of true joy.

    Your heightened emotions can come along with you in this new life. Only, you will experience a new side to them—the positive. You will finally begin to feel the ups along with the downs, and it will reveal how more and better was always possible for you.

    This is a slow, challenging process, and by no means have I reached the finish line. For me, refueling has been about getting back to the root who I am and moving toward my genuine goals without rushing myself. The rebuilding phase is all about how you spend your time. Do what feels replenishing and step away from what feels draining.

    No matter how many hurdles you see ahead, you have more power than them. You are not here to bear the weight of society’s chaos. You are here to bring it into order so your sensitivity can work for you, not against you.

    Are you ready to begin?

  • When It’s Hard To Be True To Yourself, Remember These 7 Things

    When It’s Hard To Be True To Yourself, Remember These 7 Things

    “Sometimes when you’re in a dark place, you think you’ve been buried, but you’ve actually been planted.” ~Christine Caine

    The phrase “personal growth” has always felt counterintuitive to me. Personal growth feels less like growth and more like stripping away—of peeling back the expectations, fears, and shame that we’ve been conditioned with since birth. Beneath these layers lies our truest nature—our inner divinity—our most aligned selves. I view my work on this Earth as getting as close to that aligned self as I can.

    Despite the barrage of positive affirmations and uplifting memes encouraging us to “live our truth,” learning to live in alignment can be deeply uncomfortable. Hundreds of requisite growing pains accompany the process. We shed skins that no longer serve us, which at first leaves us raw and exposed.

    Over the years, I’ve worked to break addictive patterns and speak my truth against enormous inner resistance. When I began to live in alignment, I experienced seismic discomforts. This new territory was entirely uncharted, and with it came bouts of newfound anxiety, fear, and hyper-sensitivity.

    I worried that these unpleasant emotions were signs of “doing it wrong.” Of course, judging my reactions only exacerbated my discomfort—which eventually passed, on its own, in time.

    At first, living in alignment is tough. It gets harder before it gets easier. Here are eight reminders to help you trust your gut and keep going.

    1. It’s normal to break up with partners, friends, and acquaintances.

    Living in alignment looks different for everyone. For me, it largely meant quitting drinking, changing careers, and setting firmer boundaries around my time, space, and body. The first thing I noticed was how many of my relationships—relationships that fit like puzzle pieces with the old me—now felt inauthentic, empty, or downright wrong.

    One of the most important parts of my journey was leaving relationships that no longer served me. This meant  “breaking up” with four to five friends over the course of a few months, a process that left me feeling guilty and lonesome at first.

    The flipside? Now, relationships formed on the basis of people-pleasing, codependency, obligation, and guilt are not a part of my life. These “breakups” leave room for authentic, nourishing, reciprocal relationships to blossom. Be patient as they form.

    2. It’s normal to feel a boatload of guilt.

    For me, living in alignment meant giving up old people-pleasing behaviors. Suddenly, I wasn’t the person who others could count on to go along with the flow. I spoke up. I set boundaries. I stayed in when I wanted to stay in, cancelled plans when I needed to, and set non-negotiable expectations for my relationships.

    In other words, I no longer prioritized other people’s comfort over my own feelings.

    If you’re not used to putting your own needs first, doing so can spark an avalanche of guilt. You might feel unforgivably selfish. You might wonder if you’re a bad friend/mother/colleague/[insert role here].

    Guilt in the early stage of living in alignment is totally normal. Understanding this helps you to notice and accept the guilt instead of reacting to it. Talk through it with trusted friends, a coach, or a therapist. Learn what it feels like in your body. Write about it in your journal. Over time, meeting your own needs will feel second-nature.

    3. It’s normal to feel hyper-sensitive and/or need more solitude.

    Giving credence to my feelings, emotions, and needs was like breaking a dam. Once they started flooding, they keptflooding. And flooding. And flooding.

    By honoring my anger, I began to realize how painful certain relationships felt. By honoring my need for time and space, I began to realize how energetically draining some environments were. By honoring the ebbs and flows of my body, I began to notice when I needed more sleep or a change to my diet.

    As a result of these sensitivities, I needed more time to myself, more naps, fewer plans, and more space to process my emotions via journaling and meditation. At first, this baffled me. I thought living in alignment with my inner self would make me feel more resilient…. not less!

    Keep in mind that what feels like “hyper-sensitivity” may just be “sensitivity,” and it is a completely normal reaction. You are giving your feelings and needs space to surface, maybe for the first time ever. You might be surprised by how many feelings you have—or by how forcefully they arise—when they’re no longer under lock and key.

    4. It’s normal to freak out after setting a boundary or speaking a difficult truth.

    Once, shortly after I’d made the decision to quit drinking, a housemate of mine made a rude, taunting comment about my sobriety. Instead of brushing it off, I turned to him and said forcefully, “That was really inappropriate. I don’t appreciate it.”

    I had never stood up for myself so confidently. I went upstairs to my bedroom with a grin, feeling righteous and strong. Five minutes later found me hunched over in a sobbing fit. Everything in my body screamed, “You are mean! You’re an *sshole! Take it back!”

    In a frenzy, I ran down the stairs, threw open my housemate’s bedroom door, and gasped “I’m-so-sorry-I-said-that-I-got-out-of-hand-Please-forgive-me.” He accepted my apology, bewildered, and thirty minutes later, back in my bedroom, I threw up my hands in frustration.

    Yes, I redacted an appropriate boundary. Yes, I confused the hell out of my housemate. And yes —it was progress.Baby steps, baby.

    It’s totally normal to freak out after setting a boundary. If you grew up in an environment where you were punished or neglected when you expressed your true feelings, learning the art of honest expression is a radical act. In adulthood, your heart, mind, and nervous system is learning how to process, hold, and express difficult emotions. Fear may accompany this process,  especially fear of retaliation or fear of abandonment.

    Remember: the simple act of setting a boundary may feel like an enormous emotional upheaval. You’ve just done some serious emotional work. After setting a challenging boundary, hold yourself with compassion in those moments and give yourself permission to rest and recuperate. With time, your muscle of authentic expression will strengthen.

    5. It’s normal to experience previously unaddressed trauma.

    When I lived out of alignment, I drank too much, slept around, and chased the reckless highs of my compulsions. In hindsight, it’s easy to understand that, because my reality was so painful, I used any means possible to escape it. Unfortunately, when I began to live in alignment, I realized that the means I had used to numb my pain were painful, too.

    My body and heart carried the scars of my compulsions gone awry. Living in alignment meant giving those buried pains and traumas voice. I was bewildered when my healing journey became home to unexpected triggers, panic attacks, and hypersensitivities. At first, I felt more broken than I’d felt before.

    Little did I know that part of healing it was feeling it in the first place—something I’d never let myself do. As they say: it gets dark before the dawn.

    Especially if you find yourself experiencing previously unaddressed trauma, seek support from your partner, friends, or a therapist. Letting your trauma surface and heal allows you to integrate the many parts of your story that may have been disparate and disconnected before. This is part of your journey to wholeness.

    6. It’s normal to get angry AF.

    For years, I shrunk myself for the sake of others’ comfort. I hid my voice. I settled for less. I participated in imbalanced relationships. I stomached unkindness.

    When I began to live in alignment, I started to see with new eyes all the s%&# I’d settled for over the years. I became resentful and enraged. I felt white-hot anger toward the individuals who had taken advantage of me.

    Like a captive animal released from her cage, I pounced with a vengeance. I vented to my friends. I shook my fist. I wrote searing poetry and wrathful songs. I let it out.

    That anger was holy. It was the righteous indignation of my innermost self coming alive. Over time, feeling it and expressing it led me to an equilibrium: I could hold my anger while also understanding the part I’d played in subjecting myself to these toxic patterns.

    Honor your anger. It will not annihilate you. The more familiar you become with your resentment, the more you can use it as a signpost to set boundaries in the future.

     7. It’s normal for your dreams to shift rapidly.

    As we strip away our conditioning and get in touch with our innermost selves, dreams that others have for us lose their glossy appeal. We may find ourselves bucking opportunities for fame, fortune, and legacy in favor of dreams that illuminate us from within. Our intrinsic desires become paramount.

    That sounds awesome—in theory. But when it happened to me, I had a major identity crisis. I had spent countless hours, thousands of dollars, and a college education following a very specific dream of a career in politics. For years, I’d told anyone who would listen that my dream job was a seat in the Senate. Without this societally sanctioned goal, who would I become?

    Especially for those of us who live out of touch with our innermost selves, we rely heavily on external roles and rewards to feel a sense of purpose and identity. As we begin to live in alignment, those external rewards begin to matter less. Sometimes, we realize we never really wanted them at all.

    It’s normal if your dreams, desires, career, or values shift rapidly. It’s normal if your work suddenly feels deflating, boring, or downright awful. It’s normal if you suddenly feel the need to quit your venture or back out on your business plan. It’s normal to cease your involvement in organizations, boards, or volunteer roles that no longer resonate with you.

    You’re not being impulsive. You’re not “wasting” anything. You’re not crazy. You are adjusting your external world to align with your newfound inner world — and that is an act of self-love and self-respect.

    —

    Despite my work as a life coach and my proclivity for collecting self-help books, the best piece of advice I’ve ever gotten is, simply: You’re right where you’re supposed to be.

    So often, we get in our own way by judging our (very valid) reactions to unfamiliar circumstances. In a culture that lauds the shiny, happy, green-smoothie version of personal growth, we forget that self-care can be fearful, anxious, and downright painful.

    Keep going. That fear, anxiety, and pain is all part of your process. Hold it with compassion and watch who you become when you reach the other side.

  • 4 Simple Habits That Can Soothe Your Anxious Mind

    4 Simple Habits That Can Soothe Your Anxious Mind

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

    There is so much noise and overwhelm these days it’s almost impossible to not feel crippling anxiety on a regular basis.

    With a march of commitments, appointments, and obligations that never seem to end, we’re a nation of chronically stressed and overwhelmed.

    We often spend our lives in a rush, running on autopilot, completing task after task until we finally collapse into bed utterly exhausted. Amidst the noise and demands our minds are scattered, in a perpetual state of thinking, planning, regretting, and worrying.

    Hence the anxiety—a normal response considering how little time we spend in our bodies, grounded, connected, and still.

    I’ve struggled with anxiety for as long as I can remember. My sensitive nature and rough childhood undoubtedly shaped me. Chronic fear and anxiety manifested as perfectionism, people-pleasing, and perpetual shame. I didn’t feel that I belonged with my family, friends, or the world.

    I learned to treat myself just as badly as others did. I was my worst critic and abuser. I felt broken, unable to navigate these huge feelings of fear and shame on my own. Surrounded by negativity, aggression, and chaos, I closed my heart and disconnected from myself.

    Motherhood cracked me back open with a force I was not ready for. I wanted to give my children the kind of love and safety I was deprived of as a child, but the stress of raising three little kids was overwhelming, and anxiety kicked in full force. It took me years to recalibrate my mind, reconnect with myself, and find my footing again.

    There’s a gentle way out of habitual stress and overwhelm, but it requires our full presence and attention, and developing new habits that will help us heal and change.

    With practice, we can transform our lives through small, incremental changes that can shift our lives away from chronic stress and anxiety toward a more adaptable and peaceful way of living.

    While we have little control over most things in life, certain things we do have control over, and that’s what we need to focus on.

    There are many body-based ways we can control our stress and reduce cortisol levels, like cutting down on caffeine, alcohol, sugar, and refined carbs, and getting quality sleep and exercise. But those alone will not shift you out of anxiety. You have to tackle what goes on in your mind as well. Here’s how.

    1. Carve out time for stillness and flow.

    To counteract our incredibly fast pace of living, we must carve out time in our busy schedules to slow down and immerse ourselves in activities that give us moments of flow, peace, and space.

    Our days are filled with noise and events that require our constant attention. Therefore, we have to be deliberate in setting aside time for stillness, nature, and creativity, time for things that nourish and replenish us.

    I reconnect with stillness and flow through yoga, art, and nature. Whether holding a pose, drawing, or walking through the woods, I find the silence and slow pace soothing and comforting. I forget all my troubles and find bliss in the sensations I get to experience: the sounds, the smells, the beauty around me.

    It’s like my existence is temporarily suspended as I immerse myself in an act of awe, wonder, or creation. It’s incredibly rewarding and relaxing.

    Create daily rituals that purposely slow you down and shift your attention inward. Incorporate those moments in your self-care routine. Unplug from the busyness and give yourself the luxury of solitude and stillness.

    Plan some alone time every day, if only for fifteen minutes. Spend this time on your own—in your garden, on a mat, in bed—and bask in the space and joy of solitude and silence. Reignite your inner sacred space and nourish yourself in a new, rewarding way.

    2. Befriend your mind.

    We spend most of our day on autopilot, and that’s by design. At the same time, if we don’t pay attention to where our mind goes and what it does, we’re just allowing habitual thoughts and behaviors to lead our lives, for better of worse.

    I used to be quite oblivious to what was happening inside my head. This lack of deep self-awareness was alienating and affected every aspect of my life, especially my relationships.

    For example, having never learned how to handle conflict constructively, I would mindlessly react from pain and shame (yell, shut down, get defensive or overly emotional), which only distanced me from others and perpetuated problems.

    Feeling guilty and ashamed, I’d then ruminate on unresolved conflicts and past hurts, fueling my anxiety and making me feel depressed, helpless, and unable to move past them. Still, I didn’t understand why everything seemed to always work against me, and why I struggled so much relating to others despite succeeding in school and at work.

    Eventually, I realized that living in a perpetual state of worrying about the future while resenting what had happened to me in the past was self-destructive and harmful to others as well. Living in my head was perpetuating my own anxiety and slowly destroying my life. So, I finally decided to try mindfulness in order to find some peace and learn to live differently.

    Mindfulness brought clarity and pushed my unconscious beliefs and patterns to the surface. I now saw how having grown up around chronic anger, chaos, and pain and without much love and support led me to internalize a lot of shame, fear, and distrust. And that’s what was quietly in charge of my life—until now!

    With mindfulness, I learned to observe my thoughts and where they lead me, see where I self-destruct and work against my values and goals. And instead of judging myself harshly for my weaknesses and failures, mindfulness taught me to take ownership of my actions, and my life; that I have a choice to do things differently; that I’m not damaged, I just don’t have the skills—yet. In time, mindfulness broke the shame, pain, and anxiety spiral I was in, and allowed recovery.

    Mindfulness is empowering; it’s the opposite of anxiety. Instead of worrying and frantically trying to control our environment, it teaches us to be open, slow down, and observe what is happening within us and around us, and to respond authentically instead of reacting habitually out of shame or fear.

    This deepened awareness allows us to fully experience the world in all its richness. Slowly, we awaken to life’s small pleasures, dropping chronic worry and endless distractions from taking over our lives. We develop the freedom to think and act differently, build new habits, deal with difficult emotions, overcome our struggles, and learn to flow with life as it unfolds.

    3. Practice grateful living.

    Our minds are biased toward negativity, and we habitually focus on problems giving them much more attention than is necessary, inducing anxiety in the process. If left unchecked this can put a negative spin on our day, keeping us in a perpetual state of chronic stress and worry.

    The good news is that this bias is not set in stone. We can shift it by bringing our attention to the positive things, the little things that spark joy and bring light into our day, moments that we’d otherwise missed amidst our stress and overwhelm.

    Gratitude is about being and celebrating the present, but in order to do that you need to be honest and aware of your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. When you slow down to do this, you begin to include everything in your life, the good and the bad, the ups and downs, equally. In time, a gratitude practice can shift your perspective on life. You realize there’s much beauty and joy in it, in spite of all the difficulties.

    I am a huge fan of keeping a gratitude journal. In fact, this is how my own journey of healing started. Gratitude was like medicine for my anxious mind.

    You can buy a journal specifically for this use. Use colored pens and decorate it to make it beautiful so that you feel good when you open it. Write three to five things each day that you are thankful for.

    When did you feel a moment of peace? What brought a smile to your face? What moments of kindness or beauty have you experienced? Immerse yourself in those moments—bring them fully to life again in your mind.

    The more time you spend reflecting back on things that brought you joy throughout the day, the more time you spend keeping alive those connections that give you the feeling of calm, peace, and wonder. This will train your mind to focus on the good, and keep you away from fear.

    4. Reconnect with yourself.

    A big part of what fueled my anxiety was the feeling of being lost in a sea of errands, work responsibilities, and family obligations. Always on the go, I never slowed down long enough to notice how I felt, what I wanted, or what I needed in a given moment.

    Raised to be helpful and anticipate others’ needs—as our patriarchal systems demands—I had lost touch with my own desires and my core self.

    Change can be hard, especially if we don’t have a strong sense of self. That’s why it’s important to reconnect with your deep inner essence, whether through journaling, meditation, play, or therapy. I tried many modalities, and I found writing to be the therapeutic tool I needed to reconnect with my innermost self.

    Journaling allows us to build an intimate relationship with ourselves, and connect with our inner world in an authentic way. We gradually deepen our understanding of ourselves and our experience as we connect with our deep needs, desires, fears and hang-ups. Through journaling, we can reconnect with our inner strength and courage to overcome our obstacles, strengthen our resilience, and regain our power over how we experience and respond to life.

    Once I reconnected with my inner essence—my inner child—I wanted to do everything to protect and nurture her, and give her everything she wanted but never received as a child.

    For example, I offered myself compassion when I failed or felt hurt instead of just pushing through the discomfort and repressing my pain. I wrote in my journal about things that bothered or confused me instead of stuffing it down. I took breaks before getting overwhelmed. I made time to be alone and do things I love—reading, dancing, drawing, bubble baths.

    This was like self-parenting and it was all about nurturing and love, something I felt was lacking in my own childhood. And it gave me the strength and motivation to show up for myself when things got hard. It empowered me to keep going and improved my ability to make lasting changes in areas that mattered to me most.

    —

    The above strategies may sound simple, but when you start putting these small habits together, the body and mind respond.

    Stillness is like a balm that calms our frazzled soul. Mindfulness allows us to slow down and better respond to anxiety-inducing challenges we so often face. Gratitude gives us perspective, and self-awareness helps us recognize and understand our emotions, and that builds strength and resilience.

    Combined, those habits can greatly reduce your daily stress and anxiety. And as you are nourishing and supporting yourself daily, you allow healing to take place.

    This takes practice. Healing requires us to have patience, to slow the pace down and to be with what is. We need to trust ourselves knowing that we are growing our capabilities and making the changes that we can at the time, and when we’re ready to do more, we’ll go deeper.

    Whether anxiety is something you’ve developed in recent years or you’ve lived with it your whole life, these four practices can have a soothing effect on your body and mind, and can shift you from perpetual state of stress and overwhelm into a more peaceful way of living.

  • How to Mindfully Calm Your Anger and Stop Doing Things You Regret

    How to Mindfully Calm Your Anger and Stop Doing Things You Regret

    “Neurologists claim that every time you resist acting on your anger, you’re actually rewiring your brain to be calmer and more loving.” ~Unknown

    One of the most impactful ways that mindfulness has changed my life is how I’m able to work with my feelings of anger.

    Anyone who has met me in recent years would never know how anger used to run my life. I often wish that people who are just now meeting me could realize the transformation I’ve gone through from my past. If people could see how mindfulness has changed me from an angry, irritable person who hated the world to a fun-loving, happy-go-lucky guy, I think everyone would give mindfulness a try.

    My mindfulness practice has allowed me to pay attention to what’s happening in my mind and body when anger is rising. I often call this the “volume knob” of anger, and I’ll dive a little more into that shortly.

    First, I want to give you a glimpse into my past so you can have a better frame of reference of where I used to be and where I’m at now through a practice of mindfulness.

    The Child of an Alcoholic

    I grew up as a child of an alcoholic mother, and this gave me a host of issues while growing up, but the biggest one was anger.

    I was extremely angry with my mom because I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t stop drinking for me. I thought that if she truly loved me, she’d be able to quit drinking for me, but she didn’t. My mom ended up getting sober when I was twenty years old, but it was twenty years too late, and I still had two decades of resentments toward her.

    Aside from the anger I had toward my mother, I had anger toward the rest of the world.

    Looking back on it, it seems completely insane (and it kind of was). It angered me growing up with kids who didn’t have to go through what I was going through in my home life. The kids I grew up with had great parents who made a decent amount of money and could buy them whatever they wanted. But it wasn’t just the material things; they actually had parents and family members who cared about them.

    A Life Full of Anger

    Being angry all the time was exhausting, but it was the only way I knew how to be. Because of this, I took my anger out on anyone who crossed paths with me.

    Although I wasn’t someone who got into many physical altercations growing up, I had words that were venom. I hurt many people throughout my life by saying the most hurtful things I could think of, and then I felt extremely guilty about it. While I thought that every woman I dated was at fault, I could look back at my past and see how toxic I was to anyone who had the misfortune of dating me.

    I forgot to mention that I turned into a drug addict and alcoholic myself around eighteen years old, but I managed to get sober on my twenty-seventh birthday in 2012.

    Part of the program of recovery that I work says that one of the main reasons we drink and use is because of resentments, which I could definitely relate to. Another part of this program is making amends. Making amends to the people I had hurt in my past was something that helped me forgive myself, but I’m also not a big fan of making amends.

    One of the issues with getting sober is that you don’t immediately become this spiritual being. I still had a lot of anger, and I still couldn’t control my temper. I was the epitome of someone who reacted rather than responded. Whenever I would react poorly, I had to humble myself to apologize. I needed to figure out a way to manage my anger before it got to that point, and that’s when I found mindfulness.

    Mindfulness is My Anger Management Tool

    I didn’t find mindfulness until I was three years sober. My anger wasn’t nearly as bad as it used to be, but it was still there. I knew that I still had a lot of self-improvement to do, so I gave mindfulness meditation a try.

    From the first time I tried meditating, I immediately understood how transformative it could be in my life, but I didn’t realize how much it would help me with my anger issues.

    One of the reasons I love the practice of mindfulness is because there are so many informal practices. As I started introducing different practices like mindful walking, mindful listening, and mindful communicating, I was becoming more mindful in my everyday life.

    What I began to realize was that I was only acknowledging my anger when I was ready to explode, and it was often something that had been building up for a while. Since I wasn’t recognizing the early triggers of my anger, I wasn’t able to deal with it before reacting in a way that I would regret.

    Some of the patterns of my anger triggers I started to recognize include:

    • Disrespected
    • Lied to
    • Being talked down to
    • Not being treated fairly
    • Not given credit
    • Not appreciated

    When I speak of the “volume knob” of anger, I mean that mindfulness has helped me begin catching my anger at a volume level of one or two rather than at a nine or ten. By the time my anger gets to the highest volume, it is controlling me rather than me controlling it.

    Being more mindful throughout my day has given me the opportunity to not only spot my anger in its earlier stages, but it’s also allowed me to treat it with compassion and curiosity.

    Now, when I feel that initial anger within my body or mind, I get really curious. I take a calm breath and simply think, “That’s interesting. Why am I feeling this way towards this person or situation?”

    Mindfulness helps declutter the mind and help me get to the root of what’s really happening within my own mind. Often times, I find that my anger is based on circumstances that are completely outside of my control, or they’re based on other circumstances that have nothing to do with the other person or people involved.

    Perhaps the most profound way that mindfulness has affected me is that it’s had me realize that my anger is often based on belief systems that are rather closed-minded.

    A Mindful Communication Practice

    A great practice you can begin using is mindful communication. This involves being fully present during a conversation, which involves listening while also being mindful of what your own mind and body are doing.

    I suggest you begin practicing this with someone who you may not get along with too well, but not someone who makes you overly emotional. This could be a coworker you’re not too fond of, a family member, or a friend in your inner circle. If this is too much for you, you can do it while browsing social media posts or watching the news.

    While communicating with this person, be mindful of the emotions rising in your body and the sensations you’re getting. Begin to notice what they’ve said that’s triggered this initial emotion and be aware of where you’re feeling sensations in your body.

    Rather than turning to judgment, just be curious. Be fascinated by why your body and mind are reacting the way they are in that moment. When you treat these thoughts and sensations with equanimity, you’re less likely to react poorly in the situation.

    When I speak of being fascinated, I mean to treat your experience with the curiosity of a child. This was one of my first lessons in mindfulness. When you’re being curious, you’re not judging. Inspect your experience like a child closely examining a leaf for the first time. This helps takes the power away from the strong emotion you’re feeling in that moment.

    This whole practice is extremely important because it gives us a chance to pause. When we pause, we’re able to respond rather than react. Reactions are often what the primitive part of our brain wants to do, and we don’t put much thought into it. This typically leads to regret and suffering. By being able to pause, and then respond, we make much wiser decisions.

    This is going to take practice until you have your temper under control, but over time, you’ll begin to reflect on situations that would have set you off. I’m personally amazed at how well my anger is managed today, and it’s something I continue to work on. Now that I know how to respond rather than react, I don’t find myself regretting the decisions I made out of a knee-jerk reaction to anger.

    As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I wish more people could truly understand how much mindfulness has changed me. Whenever I see senseless acts of violence such as domestic abuse, physical altercations between strangers, or even murder that happens due to somebody’s inability to manage their anger, I just think of how much different this world would be if more people learned this practice.

    My hope is to be an example to others when it comes to managing anger through mindfulness. If they can see how I respond to life’s difficulties on a daily basis, maybe they’ll decide to give this mindfulness thing a try.

  • A Guide to Peace for Anyone with a Crazy, Messed Up Mind

    A Guide to Peace for Anyone with a Crazy, Messed Up Mind

    “No thought has any power. You have power. And when you identify and believe in the thought, you give power to the thought.” ~Mooji

    It was 2004. I was on day three of a six-month meditation retreat, and my restless and turbulent mind was driving me nuts.

    The prospect of sitting on this wretched cushion for another five minutes (let alone six months) was freaking me out.

    “What on earth have I let myself in for? This is a crazy idea. I want to go home.”

    My restless monkey mind was more like King Kong on amphetamines.

    “No, remember how messed up you were before you arrived—and the crazy synchronicity that led you here,” a second, conciliatory voice chipped in.

    Destiny had indeed dragged my ass across the world onto this bright red meditation cushion in mysterious ways.

    Long story short, my housemate Jack had come to this meditation center after spraining his wrist and having to pull out of a yoga retreat he was supposed to attend in the US.

    A few days later, he called me to say he loved it there and believed he’d found his teacher. He was really excited.

    At the time, I was going through a particularly difficult period in my life. I had hit a brick wall and had no idea where to turn. So you can imagine my delight when I received a message from Jack, saying, “You’ll never guess what happened. I was talking to my teacher about you and he said, ‘Tell him to come to Canada as soon as he can and not to worry about the money. Just come.’”

    Ten days later, I found myself perched on a bright red meditation cushion on a stunning property in the Canadian Rockies.

    And this is where the real story begins.

    As I sat on my cushion on day three, my restless mind was spinning out on overdrive. I needed help.

    Unable to sit any longer, I stood up and approached the head monk:

    “I’m really struggling here. I need to talk,” I said.

    The conversation that ensued remains etched in my mind to this day. It went something like this:

    “What’s the problem?” he asked with a look of compassion.

    “I can’t stop thinking,” I replied.

    “No, you can’t,” he smiled.

    I was taken aback. It wasn’t the answer I was expecting.

    “Nobody can. If you didn’t have a crazy, messed up mind, you wouldn’t be human.”

    “But I’m going nuts. My mind is driving me crazy,” I pleaded.

    “What the mind gets up to needn’t be any of your business,” he continued. “You are suffering because you’re open for business. You need to shut up shop. Just relax, be alert, and focus on your breath. Let the thoughts come and go without resistance. Leave the mind in peace to do its thing and it will leave you in peace to do yours. The mind can only trouble you if you entertain it.”

    If You Didn’t Have A Crazy, Messed Up Mind, You Wouldn’t Be Human

    Boy, that’s quite a statement!

    We tend to see ourselves as special cases.

    Nobody is quite as screwed up as I am, right?

    If people only knew the nonsense that goes on inside my head, I’d have no friends at all, right?

    Over the following six-month period, many of my long-held beliefs about the nature of the mind and the causes of suffering crumbled away.

    When I showed up in Canada, I was riddled with self-judgment. I believed that finding peace (if it was even possible, which I doubted) would be a monumental task, requiring a complete overhaul of my broken mind.

    Here are some of the key points I came to understand:

    • Being messed up is an inevitable and unavoidable part of being human. Don’t beat yourself up over it.
    • Peace of mind is an illusion because restlessness is the nature of mind. Disturbance and mind are one and the same thing.
    • You don’t need to change or fix your thoughts in order to experience peace. You need to recognize the mind for what it is.
    • There is no distance between you and peace. It is available to each of us in every moment… no matter what is going on in the mind.

    Over time, I began to grasp and apply what my teacher meant by shutting up shop and minding your own business.

    I learned that the key to experiencing ongoing contentment is to leave the mind in peace to do it’s crazy, messed up dance—in other words, to mind your own business.

    “Allow thoughts to arise but don’t give them a place to land.” ~Papaji

    Peace is the natural consequence of not minding what the mind gets up to.

    Fast forward six months and I was a person transformed.

    I was now finding my time on the cushion enjoyable and hugely rewarding. I was quite prone to experiencing blissful episodes… even with a chaotic mind. I had never known peace like this before.

    I had also, much to my own surprise, taken my novice vows as a monk and received a new name. I wondered how that was going to go down with my family at home!

    The following are seven key lessons I learned for dealing with an unruly mind to experience ongoing peace.

    1. See the thoughts, don’t be the thoughts.

    The first and most important step toward reclaiming your peace is to create some blue sky between you and the mind—to see your thoughts as objects rather than being enmeshed in them.

    See the thoughts, don’t be the thoughts.

    Thoughts are like clouds floating across the vast sky.

    White clouds come and go. Dark clouds come and go. They are temporary and don’t affect the sky in any way. Every cloud is welcome. The sky has no preferences and remains untouched.

    And it’s the same with the mind.

    Thoughts constantly change but your awareness is like the sky— vast and unchanging.

    Learning to step back and observe the passing thoughts with an attitude of dispassion and non-judgmental acceptance is the key to experiencing peace.

    The thoughts are not the problem. The real issue is your identification with them. Recognizing this can transform your life in an instant.

    2. Know there is nothing wrong with you.

    This was a big one for me.

    An ‘unholy’ thought appears in your head—a judgmental thought, a resentful thought, or a jealous thought—and you beat yourself up for having it.

    You believe that you shouldn’t be having thoughts like these—that there is something wrong with you.

    Well, there is nothing wrong. Everybody, without exception, has these kinds of thoughts. It’s called being human.

    The mind is part of the human apparatus, just like arms or eyes.

    It is very much like a computer. Your cultural conditioning, your DNA, and your unique set of life experiences determine the thoughts it churns out.

    Given your background and history, your mind could not be producing thoughts other than the ones it’s producing.

    Your thoughts are not personal. They are part of your programming, part of the human condition.

    3. Roll out the red carpet.

    When thoughts you label “good” enter your awareness, they meet with no resistance. You are quite happy for them to hang around.

    When you label a thought as “bad” or “undesirable,” you reject it. It’s unwelcome.

    It is this tendency to judge unwanted thoughts as bad or wrong that creates suffering.

    Thoughts are not inherently good or bad. You make them so through your labeling. They are neutral events passing through your awareness and left alone, have no power to make you suffer.

    Let them come and go. Remain as the observer. Don’t give them a place to land.

    Roll out the red carpet for all thoughts—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

    Treat all thoughts as honored guests and watch your peace and happiness blossom.

    4. The mind is a bigger liar than Pinocchio.

    “I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional.” ~Byron Katie

    Take everything the mind tells you with a large pinch of salt.

    Question, in particular, your beliefs and assumptions.

    Every day, we unconsciously make so many assumptions.

    If you dislike your job, for example, you probably make the assumption, before you even leave the house in the morning, that your day won’t be enjoyable.

    Be innocent. Be prepared for surprises.

    Ask yourself the question: “Do I know for certain that this belief, this assumption, is true?”

    Can you find evidence to support the opposite?

    You may well find that it is surprisingly easy to disprove some of your long-held beliefs.

    5. Don’t allow thoughts to turn into thinking.

    Thoughts are self-arising. They appear by themselves from nowhere. There is nothing you can do to stop them from appearing. It is simply the mind doing what it does.

    Thinking, on the other hand, is a choice.

    A thought such as: “She hasn’t called for two hours” triggers a stream of thoughts:

    “Did I say something wrong? Maybe she’s having second thoughts? She probably finds me unattractive. She looks like she works out a lot. Maybe she thinks I’m not good enough for her.”

    This is thinking (and it is also based on unfound beliefs).

    The original thought arrived by itself. You didn’t choose it. The resulting stream of thoughts, on the other hand, is something you can choose to indulge in or not.

    Thinking is a choice. The more you become aware of your tendency to do this, the easier it becomes to stop yourself mid- sentence.

    Most of our thinking is unconscious. We create so much unnecessary suffering for ourselves through a simple lack of awareness.

    6. Know you are not your thoughts.

    Think of it logically. 
Anything you can objectify cannot be who you are.

    I (the subject) am aware of the book (the object) lying on the table. Therefore, I can’t be the book.

    You can apply the exact same logic to thoughts, feelings, emotions, or the mind. Anything I can observe, I can’t be.

    Anything I call “my”—my thoughts, my feelings, my emotions—cannot be me.

    When you believe you are your thoughts, it is natural that you will judge them as “bad” or “wrong” and judge yourself for having them.

    Another metaphor used in meditation is the analogy of the screen and the movie. If there is a fire in the movie, the screen doesn’t get burned.

    The awareness that you are remains untouched by anything you are aware of. Your thoughts are not you. They are events passing across the screen of your awareness. Who you are doesn’t change.

    The awareness that you are doesn’t know happiness or unhappiness. It is only aware. It is always at peace.

    7. Withdraw your attention from the mind.

    When I first ‘got’ these simple truths, I had a massive Homer Simpson “DUH” moment.

    Why doesn’t everyone see this? It’s so obvious.

    And yet, without having had it pointed out to me, I would never have seen that engaging with the mind is optional, not obligatory.

    Having better understood the nature of the mind and the difference between thoughts and thinking, I now give it far less importance than I used to.

    I am much happier as a result, regardless of what kind of thoughts appear.

    Fear thoughts, doubt thoughts, and anger thoughts continue to arise as before. Now I know it’s simply the conditioned mind doing its thing. There is nothing wrong with any of it. I only suffer when I unconsciously resist or judge.

    Happiness is not about the absence of unhappy thoughts, feelings, and emotions. It comes from understanding that I am not defined by any of these. They are free to come and go as they please.

    The mind has as much or as little power over you as you give it.

    The mind is not your enemy. It is your most valuable ally—an incredible servant that is always there for you to use as you choose.

    “Mind: a beautiful servant or a dangerous master.” ~Osho

  • How I Started Enjoying My Alone Time Instead of Feeling Lonely

    How I Started Enjoying My Alone Time Instead of Feeling Lonely

    “The only way we can change the way we feel is by becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going inside ourselves.” ~Bessel A. van der Kolk

    Learning to be alone as an adult has been a struggle for me. It’s taken quite a while for me to adjust to spending periods of time by myself. It may sound strange to those who know me because I am most definitely an introvert and need my quiet time. However, my time alone was never quite as satisfying as I’d hoped it would be.

    Often my solitude dissolved into sadness, and I didn’t have a particular reason why. My alone time wasn’t productive, and it just made me feel out of sorts. It was frustrating because I knew I needed time to myself, but I couldn’t stand to be alone.

    Once I began to get curious about the sadness and apathy I’d feel when I was alone, things started to shift.

    One day, I noticed that a particular script would begin to play in my mind over and over again. No matter what time of day or the length of alone time, I could begin to hear it play. It said, “You are alone. You are always going to be alone. No one could truly love you. You are unworthy of love.” This tape has played for so long I am unsure if it will ever fully go away.

    In the past too much alone time would leave me depressed or even suicidal, and it’s no wonder why. Hearing such awful things on a loop for an extended period of time would wear on anyone.

    I spent long periods where I was afraid to spend time alone because I knew I’d end up in a rough spot. I did all I could to avoid it. I’d go to bed early, keep my schedule full, spend all my time with my roommate, and more.

    Spend enough time trying, and you’ll soon learn that avoiding solitude is very difficult as a single adult. I knew that, at some point, I had to stop avoiding and figure out what was going on.

    At first, all I did was notice these thoughts happening. I found that this script was common in my life. This same tape would play when I made silly mistakes at work or a friend didn’t get back to me right away. Maybe it wasn’t just about being alone after all. Maybe this was something deeper.

    So I stayed curious about this dialogue in my head. I kept thinking through it when I could. I talked to my therapist and my mentor about it too. Eventually I had a realization that this script and my time alone were a reflection of all the down time I had as a child.

    Growing up, I didn’t see my friends outside of school very often, and I didn’t spend a lot of time with my family. Instead, I spent a lot of time alone.

    When I first thought it through, I just figured I was a normal kid who got bored a lot. Thinking further, however, I realized those moments alone went well beyond typical boredom. What I wanted most during those times alone was attention and love. I wanted to feel valued and appreciated, but I didn’t.

    I didn’t have the connections with others that I truly wanted or needed at the time. I spent long periods of time being pretty sad and feeling deeply lonely. I felt unloved and unworthy of being loved. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It’s exactly how I feel when I am alone as an adult. It’s that damn script again telling me I’m alone in the world.

    This realization was huge for me because, though my life as an adult is drastically different than my life as a child, I recognize that I’m still healing from past trauma and neglect. Something in me still connected being alone with being lonely. My inner child was still suffering, and it made itself known through this terrible dialogue playing on loop.

    I am in a different place as an adult. I have made choices to surround myself with a community of loving people who support and care for me. I’m not actually alone anymore. Somehow making this connection felt empowering.

    That was then, I thought. This is now. I decided it was time to take my power back and resist the script. Next time I had the chance for some alone time, I was determined to move through it differently. I wanted to teach my inner child that not all solitude is lonely.

    So the time came again where I was alone and the familiar sadness began to well up, but I was prepared. I knew it was coming and I had a plan.

    I had calming music playing in the background and some of my favorite activities ready for me. My journal was out for writing, my canvas was out for painting, my machine was set up for sewing, and I had a book out too. And you know what? The tape in my head didn’t seem so loud. I could still hear it, but it didn’t paralyze me or send me to bed early. I enjoyed being alone.

    I share this all in hopes of encouraging anyone else who might struggle too. There were a few key things that helped me move through this experience.

    First, I stopped avoiding and fighting my feelings. Avoidance keeps us stuck in the same patterns. It’s important to get curious about our thought patterns and our feelings.

    Asking questions like, “I wonder what perpetuates that thought?” and “Does this emotion happen at certain times?” can help things begin to shift. If it may help, I encourage you to sit down with a mentor or a therapist and talk it out.

    Getting really honest about the answers to those questions requires that we sit with the discomfort for a bit and connect in to our inner selves. It’s uncomfortable, but so very worth it. Ultimately, this can help us nurture ourselves. Once we know what we need, we can begin to nourish the parts of ourselves that desperately need it.

  • The Art of Slow Living: How to Reclaim Your Peace and Joy

    The Art of Slow Living: How to Reclaim Your Peace and Joy

    “In today’s rush, we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just being.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    We’re going to start with a visualization exercise. Set a timer for one minute, close your eyes, and reflect on your happiest childhood memories…

    I was born into a family of wanderers, individuals who held a deeply rooted love of travel, and an even deeper sense of adventure. My happiest childhood memories are the times when we packed up our suitcases and hit the road (or the sky or the sea).

    In the quiet stillness of my mind, I float away to a Hawaiian beach. Suddenly, I am once again a young adolescent lying in the sand with the ones I love as we watch the leaves of a large palm tree sway overhead, moving in front of the sun and casting long, warm shadows on the seemingly endless stretches of beach on either side of us. The crash of the waves reverberates through our ears, and a sense of peaceful stillness permeates our entire beings.

    Here, we have no responsibilities, and our attention is simply focused on being present with one another.

    Maybe for you, the happiest childhood memories that come to mind revolve around a favorite holiday when friends or loved ones laughed together without distractions, or spending time with brothers and sisters talking about everything and nothing, growing closer to one another.

    No matter the memories that come to mind, they undoubtedly had one thing in common—in those moments we (and those around us) were free.

    That’s the secret to intentional, or slow, living; when we practice patience with ourselves and others, and allow the busyness of our lives to fall away, we can feel the emotion that exists in every moment, and truly connect to the people and things around us.

    Childhood is, by its very definition, an opportunity to practice slow living. When we are children we do not have the stress of our jobs, our social status, or providing for others weighing on our shoulders. Not only are our days free from responsibility, they are also free from anxiety and worry.

    As we age, we have a tendency to forget the purpose of intentional living, and instead allow our days to be managed and monitored by the incessant beeping or text and email alerts and the allure of amassing social media likes.

    We allow our souls to be turned away from spiritual clarity and light, believing instead that the more “stuff” we allow to fill our days, the happier we will be.

    But the truth, friends, is that the happiness we so desperately seek on our busiest days is not found in the countless distractions of the world around us, but in the innocence of our hearts—the stillness and presence that has dwelled within us since we were children.

    Of course, I’m not recommending that you quit your job tomorrow, forgo all of your responsibilities, and craft some sort of bubble-like lifestyle for your days.

    I am suggesting that you evaluate where your priorities lie, and if you find your life has become too fast-paced to truly connect with yourself and others, that you take small action steps toward decluttering your spiritual core—the part of you that knows the answers to life’s greatest mysteries do not lie in the rush, but rather, in the moments of connection.

    Living intentionally is an art, and is not something that we can master overnight, but by committing to a practice of cultivation, we can encourage relaxation of our nervous systems, begin to avoid the people and things that take our time and energy without giving us anything in return, and create a life we love—a life that is full of peace and genuine joy. Here’s how to get started:

    Evaluate your life.

    What do you truly want out of your life? If there were no barriers like money or power, what would you want to do and with whom would you want to do it? Consider the answers to these questions to be your sense of inner wisdom and trust the messages you receive.

    Identify the people and activities that you desire to willingly surround yourself with, as well as those to whom you feel obligated, and notice how you feel when you think about these people and tasks, responding to your thoughts without judgment. Then, work on increasing the amount of time you spend doing what you love with those you love.

    Little by little, you will find that you are able to take control of your life and live in a way that fulfills you, allowing you to practice intentional presence in all areas.

    Understand that busyness does not equal importance.

    Answering all the emails in our inboxes while we sit at the dinner table is not going to mean anything to the people who mean the most to us. While many responsibilities are unavoidable, there is something to be said for committing to presence of mind, no matter how much we may struggle with feeling like we’re missing out on something that only our devices can tell us about.

    Generations ago, when professionals did not have electronic tools like cell phones or tablets, they somehow managed to complete all of their tasks and were considered by others as having contributed to society.

    Somewhere along the way, that understanding became skewed, and now, we have lofty expectations for how quickly we can respond to a summons and the number of commitments we can successfully juggle at one time.

    Understand that being busy does not make us successful or important; in fact, often, being too busy serves no purpose other than to detract from our connection with the people that are nearest to us.

    Choose a place in your home where you will stow your cell phone and other electronics upon entering the house. When our phones are out of reach, they will almost automatically leave our minds, and we can focus on being present with the people who are physically with us.

    If you find that spending all your time at home without your phone is too difficult or not reasonable for your lifestyle, establish small blocks of time (five to ten minutes maximum) that you are allowed to check your phone before re-stowing and returning your attention to the present. Over time, you will find that your need to have these phone breaks becomes less and less frequent.

    Find silence.

    Our world is noisy—there is no other way to describe it. Yet, we’ve become so accustomed to the din of our environment that we have seemingly become immune to noticing how this constant chaos negatively impacts us physically and spiritually.

    When was the last time you spent a moment in silence? It’s probably been quite some time, if you can even remember a moment free from noise at all. Our culture perpetuates trepidation around quiet, wanting to fill every pause with some sort of sound effect or reverie, so it’s important for us, as we pursue a slower lifestyle, to create a space in our lives that is free from distractions.

    Find a way to bring calm and quiet into your life whether it comes through a daily practice of meditation, a walk through the silence of nature, or a peaceful moment spent in bed before you close your eyes to rest. Pursuing peace will lead to a regular commitment to quiet and allow you to grow in your understanding of what it means to be truly present.

    —

    I’m not the little girl on the Hawaiian beach anymore. I have real responsibilities and accountabilities just like you do. But, by committing to a practice of slow living, of practicing intention and presence in my days, I am helping her to continue to grow and thrive.

    No matter your age or where you are on your journey, you can reclaim a piece of your innocent joy as well—the childhood version of yourself is still inside you, waiting for you to commit to their well-being.

  • What a Month of Daily Panic Attacks Taught Me About Anxiety

    What a Month of Daily Panic Attacks Taught Me About Anxiety

    “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

    It happened in the middle of an intimate moment, about a month before my wedding.

    One minute I was enjoying a kiss from my fiancé and the next thing I knew, I was clutching my face and writhing in agony.

    At first, there was a loud thud in my chest, as if my heart had skipped a beat.

    Then out of nowhere I started getting this strange sensation—like the kind of feeling you’d get on an elevator that’s going down too fast. The feeling was so disorienting I couldn’t help but let out a startled cry.

    I felt what I would later describe as “the draining”—it was as if all the blood had poured out of my body in a split second and I was left with an icy, numb, and shaky shell.

    I was convinced that I was going to die.

    But I wasn’t dying. Ten minutes and many repetitions of long, deep breaths later, I calmed down enough to shake off the fear and I was able to see the ordeal for what it really was—a panic attack.

    It Wasn’t My First Time

    I was no stranger to panic attacks—I’d already had a few in my life up till then. The first one hit me shortly after I was diagnosed with Leukemia at age nineteen. From then on it would rear its ugly head from time to time when things get overwhelming.

    So when I had this panic attack a month before my wedding, I didn’t think much of it at first. I chalked it up to excitement over the impending wedding. I thought once I rested up for the weekend, everything would go back to normal.

    But I was wrong.

    I went on to have another panic attack, and then another one—until I lost count.

    I continued to have panic attacks every day for an entire month. The experience opened my eyes about anxiety—I learned a few valuable lessons in this journey that taught me how to cope with anxiety and helped me get to a better place.

    And I’m here to share those lessons in the hopes that my experience may be able to help someone else who’s suffering from anxiety.

    3 Important Lessons About Anxiety from My Month of Panic Attacks

    1. You don’t need a reason to explain or validate your anxiety.

    I used to think that anxiety was something you’d only feel if there was a good reason for it.

    For example, just right before an important exam or after a life-changing diagnosis.

    So when I first started having those daily panic attacks, I kept asking myself why?

    I know what you’re probably thinking: Maybe it was the wedding planning?

    After all, many brides do get stressed just before their wedding. But I assure you that wasn’t the reason. I was a happy, relaxed bride-to-be who already had everything planned out months in advance. There was little left for me to do except to wait for the day to arrive.

    Perhaps there were other stressful things going on at the time? No, not a thing.

    My job was wonderful, my health was better than ever, and I was having a great time with my family and friends. I’d been through rough waters before and in comparison, this period of my life was all smooth-sailing.

    Could it be from chronic stress that had been building over time? I doubt it.

    I was practicing Tai Chi and Qigong meditation for at least forty-five minutes on a daily basis—a habit that I’d kept up for a couple of years already by then. I was in a good place mentally and physically. In fact, I hadn’t had an obsessive thought or lost sleep over anything in a long time.

    I was feeling on top of the world.

    But despite all of this, I began to experience some of the most terrifying symptoms of anxiety I’d ever experienced in my life. And the more I tried to look for an explanation, the worse I felt. As my mind desperately searched for an answer, it became more and more fixated on the anxiety itself.

    I started to examine myself inch by inch—with a giant imaginary magnifying glass—for any clues that would explain the tightness in my chest, the tingling in my hands, or the throbbing in my neck. Soon, my anxiety was all I could think about.

    In order for me to stop ruminating over my anxiety, I had to surrender to the fact that I didn’t know the explanation.

    I had to accept that anxiety can strike at any time for no reason.

    I came to realize we don’t need a reason to explain our anxiety, as if a solid explanation would somehow validate the way we feel. Sometimes anxiety just shows up. And once I accepted this fact, I felt more at peace with myself.

    So if you’re stuck running in circles wondering why you feel the way you do, try this:

    Instead of beating yourself up looking for a reason for your anxiety, accept that it is happening and you may never know why.

    The sooner we make peace with the fact that there is no clear answer, the sooner we can stop scrutinizing our anxiety—and concentrate on healing.

    2. Incredible things can happen when we open up about our anxiety.

    I used to think having anxiety was embarrassing.

    My family never talked about mental health when I was growing up. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. A couple of my relatives had mental health issues, and everyone in our extended family treated them like they were the family shame.

    So when I started having the daily panic attacks, I felt I had to keep up the act that nothing was wrong.

    “I’m fine,” I told my friends and coworkers when they noticed I wasn’t my usual cheery self. “I’ve got it under control.”

    But as the days went by, it began to dawn on me that I was not fine. I was rapidly loosing grip on my normal life. I needed help.

    I finally opened up to my friends and coworkers about my anxiety. I was skeptical and nervous at first. I’d imagined I’d get a lot of caring but suffocating questions, plenty of warm but generic words of comfort, and a few well-intended but over-simplified comments like “just relax.” I expected some people would want to jump in right away and try to “fix” me. But to my surprise, I got a very different kind of response.

    Instead of doing all the things I’d imagined they’d do, the people I talked to listened to me with compassion and understanding. Many of them even opened up to me about their anxieties too.

    They shared with me their encounters with panic attacks—their symptoms, worries, and coping strategies. Their stories gave me an incredible sense of relief, comfort, and hope. The experience gave me the courage and reassurance I needed to keep going. Because I knew I was not alone.

    So if you’re suffering from anxiety, don’t bear the burden alone. Talk to someone. Find your support tribe. Give people the benefit of the doubt that they’ll understand you and do whatever they can to help you. Incredible things can happen when you open up about your anxiety.

    3. Believing you can get better is the key to getting better.

    I used to think I was helpless against anxiety. Panic attacks would come out of nowhere like rogue waves, and all I could do was flail my arms in the air and wait for them to pass.

    But what I learned from this month-long struggle with anxiety is that believing you can get better is key to getting better. It’s called “sense of agency.”

    Sense of agency is the belief that you have control over your own life. When you have a sense of agency, you feel you’re in charge of your actions and you have the ability to influence your reality.

    When you believe you have the power to control what happens in life—despite the fact that there are things that are clearly out of your hands—you act in a way that aligns with that belief. Instead of being a “victim of circumstances,” floating in every which direction life takes you, you become the driver of your own destiny.

    When you have a sense of agency, magic happens. You complain less. You become more optimistic. And you focus on what you can do instead of ruminating over what you can’t. As a result, you feel better.

    I didn’t always have a sense of agency. In fact, I spent much of my childhood and teenage years feeling helpless. Life at home was hell—a stewing pot of anger and disappointment from my parents’ unhappy marriage. School wasn’t much better—I was this awkward kid who was on the fringe with exactly two friends out of the entire school. And then I won the lottery from hell when I got cancer. I frequently asked myself the question: “Why do bad things happen to me?”

    But my thinking started to shift during my early twentiess. I realized in order for me to win the fight against cancer and live a fulfilling life without the constant fear of relapse, I needed to change. I was sick of being a victim—I wanted to be a victor.

    So I began to take actions to improve my health and my mindset.

    I admit, I was doubtful at first.

    Do I really have the power to make a difference in my life? I would think to myself. But I pushed forward anyways, taking one small step at a time. And my efforts paid off. Once I started seeing some improvement in my life, I started to gain confidence. And the more confidence I felt, the more I believed in my own power.

    When I started having those daily panic attacks, my initial response was to cry, complain, and throw my hands up in the air and say, “I can’t deal with this!”

    I was scared and lost.

    But I reminded myself that the power to heal was already within me—I didn’t have to settle on being frightened and helpless. So I started to learn and practice strategies to help manage my symptoms—everything from breathing techniques and meditation, to acupressure and cardio exercise.

    I believed I could make myself feel better, and that belief helped me feel better.

    So work on building your sense of agency. Start with just making one small positive change such as adopting a tiny habit. You’ll be amazed how much impact your actions—even if seem insignificant—can have over your life.

    The good news is I haven’t had a panic attack in over a year now. My anxiety still rises up from time to time like waves in the ocean, but for the most part, it remains quiet. I know one day, my anxiety might get out of control again and I could have another panic attack, but I’m not scared anymore.

    I’ve learned how the surf the waves.

  • The Life-Changing Benefits of Two-Minute Meditations

    The Life-Changing Benefits of Two-Minute Meditations

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

    I felt everything, from my lower back pain flaring up to tightness in my jaw where I clinch and carry my stress. With my eyes still closed, I rolled my shoulders and repositioned the pillow under my butt. Five minutes had passed, and I had no idea how I would ever make it to forty.

    I opened my left eye to see if anyone around me was fidgeting as well and saw rows of people sitting in perfect, cross-legged lotus position with straight necks and relaxed jaws next to me.

    Our teacher, mindfulness author David Richo, sat in front, a relaxed calm floating around him like morning mist. I sighed, shut my eye again, and tried to concentrate on not concentrating so I could make it through the rest of the group meditation.

    Once I remembered that I’d forgotten to pick up my dry cleaning and that I still hadn’t called my best friend back, I relaxed a little more and tried to just “be.” I heard a rooster crowing in the wilderness above the Spirit Rock property, noticed it, and let it go. I re-recognized the back pain and let that go as well.

    Next, I heard what sounded like a cross between a snorting pig and an old rusty shed door opening up. The crackling sound lasted a couple of seconds before it caused my body to jerk and jolt both of my eyes open.

    I looked around confused. No one else moved, and I realized that the sound had come from my nasal passages. I had fallen asleep and snored on or around the twenty-seven-minute mark.

    Mortified, I clasped my hand to my mouth, shut my eyes tight, and prayed to disappear. So much negative talk flooded my brain, I had to stop it right down at, “You suck at this. Who are you trying to be here, Michelle?”

    I nervously picked up my notebook and reread what David had taught us that day. To be healthy, we must be kind and patient with ourselves.

    I took a deep breath and remembered that my meditation skills were new, and that forty minutes simply might have been too much to expect at that particular time in my life. Despite my attempts at self-compassion, my cheeks still burned with red embarrassment.

    I didn’t feel like trying again, so I sat quietly and continued to review my notes from Richo’s lecture while the rest of the group finished. I pined over the snore for the remainder of the afternoon and found it impossible to simply love myself for being human.

    In Eat, Pray, Love, Liz Gilbert writes about spending entire days struggling to meditate at an Ashram in India. I remember, when the book came out, reading a FAQs page on her website where she addressed questions and encouraged beginners not to start out at the ashram. Hours of meditation are difficult even for experienced meditators. Forty minutes is still hard for me.

    What I have found is that I am much more comfortable practicing small doses of meditation throughout a day, rather than forcing myself to plan extended stretches that make me so anxious, I end up avoiding the meditation all together. Even just two minutes can make a tremendous difference.

    Meditation and yoga force us to sit with ourselves. That means we sit with anything we are avoiding, as well as anything that is hurting us mentally and/or spiritually. I have a tendency to avoid feeling discomfort.

    So, sitting still is incredibly counter-intuitive for me and, I believe, many other people. By going easy on myself with how long I “should” sit, I am more likely to sit at all.

    Through practicing short meditations, I have seen the positives in my life grow and the negatives decrease.

    Self-Compassion 

    I’ve cultivated more self-compassion through meditation. The more I can get quiet and turn the Michelle who is a “human-doing” off, the gentler I am with myself. By giving myself the time to be still, even if it’s for two minutes, I am showing self-love and learning to become more comfortable in my skin. In that stillness, I am able to see where I am self-critical in a clearer way.

    For instance, in meditation, I often criticize myself for not being able to quiet my mind enough. I also look at what I didn’t accomplish that day rather than what I did. Inside of the practice, I am given the space to see these things so I can bring compassion to my critical mind and practice loving kindness instead.

    Acceptance of Discomfort

    When I can sit with painful feelings, I usually realize fairly quickly that the wolf at the door wasn’t as big as I thought. Meditation reminds me that I am more than capable of handling the thing I am dealing with.

    Some of the biggest discomfort I encounter is related to conflict with others. Even if the problem is small, like when I had to ask my guitar teacher to stop texting during our lesson last week, I still feel uncomfortable. My teacher kindly apologized, and once again I remembered that conflict is part of life. Meditation helps me to approach conflict with grace and to remind myself that the world isn’t going to end if someone reacts negatively when I speak up.

    Pronounced pain, like disagreements with family members, takes more time for me to process. The strength that’s grown out of facing that pain through meditation, has helped me to approach uncomfortable emotions with less fear.

    Compassion for Others

    Sometimes when I meditate, I send out positive energy toward people I’m not super fond of. I bring compassion for them into my body and out into the universe, and I feel less pissed off as a result. I wish for them the best of everything, and this often helps me to let go of the thing I was mad about in the first place.

    I don’t understand why this happens, but it does, and holding as little negative energy as possible eases tension and makes me gravitate toward the next meditation.

    Ability to Pause

    The more I meditate, the more I am able to pause in tough real-life situations where I might have reacted in the past.

    Road rage comes to mind here. Most of us have gotten mad at someone else’s driving skills at some point. What I think about now in the pause is that I don’t know what the other driver is going through or who else is in the car. I usually have no context as to why they are driving the way they are. Where I used to honk, now I can wait and calmly move around them.

    A yogi once told me, “Imagine that driver is a cow standing in the parking space you want. You would probably laugh and just find another space. When it’s a person, why do we suddenly rush to honk and yell?”

    Meditation simply makes me calmer. It is far from perfect, but it has given me more of a capacity to marinate before I respond to sticky situations.

    Increased Connection

    Meditating reminds me that I am a tiny part of an incredibly larger whole. My problems feel smaller when I can stop and remember that I am a grain of sand in a giant universe. The practice puts life, and my place in the world, into perspective.

    It really doesn’t take much to experience these benefits. Two minutes of meditation can make a huge difference. Focus on your breath. When you think of or hear something, notice it, and then get back to your breathing. See how you feel, and then, if you’re able, work your way up.

    You can sit quietly, or you can also listen to the myriad of guided meditations available through YouTube, iTunes, and many other platforms. Sometimes it helps in the beginning to listen to a nice soft voice telling you what to do.

    There are also meditations that include cool music with those bowl sounds as well. Just make sure the sounds aren’t so relaxing that they put you to sleep and then you snore in front of 200 people. Let it go, Michelle.

    I could be better and more consistent with meditating. I could also harness more self-compassion and less negative self-talk. I know that the more I meditate in short increments, the closer I will get to achieving these things.

  • Living with Depression and Anxiety: How to Lessen the Pain

    Living with Depression and Anxiety: How to Lessen the Pain

    “I am bent, but not broken. I am scarred, but not disfigured. I am sad, but not hopeless. I am tired, but not powerless. I am angry, but not bitter. I am depressed, but not giving up.” ~Unknown

    Depression and anxiety. Two words we hear often, but unless we have actually lived with them, we cannot come close to understanding the tremendous impact they can have on one’s quality of life.

    Depression and anxiety can make people feel as if they are worthless and better off dead. What a horrible plague. But it is 100% possible to tame these two demons and live a happy, optimistic life that is full of wonder, gratitude, and contentment.

    I have lived with the twin tornado for as long as I can remember (since around the start of secondary school), and it’s been a battle of trying to find things to help me to live a good life—one in which I don’t constantly feel a knot in my stomach and a numbness toward living.

    When you tell your doctor you’re struggling with depression and/or anxiety, they usually suggest taking medication. This approach can work for many people and is a viable temporary option; however, what happens when the medications don’t work? What happens if the medication turns you into a walking zombie—numb, passive, and cold?

    That was my experience. Fortunately, I had enough self-awareness to realize that I wasn’t living; I was just surviving.

    There has to be another way, right? That is the question I asked myself night after night. Luckily, my interest in self-development and self-help led me to a few alternative options for healing, many of which sounded promising and were very effective.

    I stumbled across the work of Anthony Robbins, which really blew my mind. Many of his NLP ideas were great, ideas such as reframing the way one perceives a problem, creating a radical change in one’s physiology (posture, breathing rate, facial expressions, etc.), and changing the images in our head as well as the story we tell ourselves when we get depressed or anxious.

    I found this new information exciting and put it into practice straight away. Sure enough, I started to become more socially confident and began feeling more comfortable in myself.

    Much of the change in my life came about because now I had tools that I knew could take the edge off my depression and anxiety whenever they cropped up.

    These psychological tools continued to work time and time again; plus, I knew just how effective they were, so my self-belief improved.

    Before long I started training in martial arts and kickboxing, began attending public speaking classes, and also landed myself a girlfriend. These were feats that had seemed daunting, intimidating, and impossible back when I didn’t have a handle on my depression and anxiety.

    I want you to know that if you are suffering right now, things can and will get better.

    Many of you are likely reading this article to get the ‘answers’ for defeating anxiety and depression in order to help yourself escape a dark place. Many of you are reading this in order to help a friend or loved one do the same. Some of you might be reading out of curiosity.

    For those of you who are struggling right now, you might feel pessimistic about my advice, and that’s totally understandable. I ask that you dedicate a week to trying some of my suggestions and make a point of noting your mood throughout the day; you’ll see how these things will help you, again and again.

    For those of you reading this who aren’t struggling too much but are looking for suggestions to promote happiness and well-being, or simply to fight off a bad mood when one arises, I also urge you to keep reading, as well as to take on any of my suggestions that may suit you.

    Before I share the main things that have helped me manage my depression and anxiety, I want to let you know that I still have bad moods (I am human), I still get nervous (I am still human), and that life is not a fairy tale.

    This being said, I have made tremendous leaps forward and feel in control of my depression and anxiety. These two demons are still in my life, but now I control them and not the other way around.

    Okay, so let’s take a look at some of the things that helped me—things that can help you too.

    Practical Steps for Managing Depression and Anxiety

    Meditate.

    This is easily the most overlooked and simple practice that can make a world of difference in improving the quality of your life.

    It is so frustrating to see people who know all of the vast benefits meditation has to offer and yet do not meditate. Due to the fact that it seems too simple to be truly helpful, many people never start a practice. (Rant over!) I lovingly suggest you make it a daily habit, as it can help you train your brain to respond differently to negative thoughts and stressful situations.

    There are many different forms of meditation (including walking meditation, so “having no time” cannot be an excuse). I suggest you experiment and find one that suits you.

    If you’re suffering with depression and/or anxiety, I recommend Loving Kindness Meditation. (Google it—you’ll find lots of articles explaining how it’s done).

    Start with a short practice to ensure that you build the habit of practicing daily. If you can only manage three minutes a day, then perform three minutes of meditation per day. If you feel as if you can do more, then go right ahead. The goal is to eventually practice twenty minutes a day.

    Ask better quality questions.

    Thinking is nothing more than the process of asking and answering questions in our heads. We need to develop the habit of asking ourselves more empowering questions whenever we fall into a downward spiral.

    If we ask a question such as “Why do I always fail?” or, if we make statements to ourselves like “Life is pointless,” we can’t be surprised that we feel bad. Imagine somebody following you around all day pointing out the negatives in you and in life; your self-talk can have the same damaging impact on you and your emotions.

    Whenever I felt as if the cycle of depression was coming on strong, I would take the time to answer the following questions in as logical as manner as possible. Why logical? Because logical thinking negates irrational thinking and helps stop the spiral of depression (or anxiety) from getting worse.

    It’s easier said than done to be purely logical in our thinking when we’re depressed or anxious; it’s still worth a shot, though, because it can help.

    • What is the issue that is upsetting me? (Be factual here—what do you know for sure?)
    • What can I learn from this problem/situation?
    • What is one good thing about this? How can this be an opportunity?
    • What is great about this situation?
    • What action can I take right now to better the situation or how I feel?
    • What is the worst-case scenario here? How can I handle this should it become a reality?
    • What am I grateful for in my life right now?
    • What am I excited about or looking forward to right now?
    • Who do I love and who loves me?

    These questions can get us to acknowledge all of the good in our lives and helps us to get away from a downward negative spiral of emotions when we encounter situations that might otherwise trigger depression and anxiety.

    Practice acceptance.

    Many people have different ideas of how we can truly accept the obstacles and struggles that life throws us; they all involve non-resistance to the present moment (how things are in your life right now).

    I practice acceptance by stepping into the body, becoming present, and identifying how depression and anxiety feel. This does not mean how we think our depression and anxiety feel but how it actually feels.

    Is it a tension, a tingling, a pulsing? It usually feels like a knot in my stomach. I often feel my heart beating stronger and stronger, while I also experience a slight tingling or even shaking in my legs.

    Where do all of these sensations reside? Are they in your chest, stomach, or throat? How about all three?

    I have found that depression usually occurs in the mind first—our thinking is what gets us depressed. Accepting how your body feels in the moment takes your attention out of your head, giving you a much-needed break from the relentless thoughts that depression and anxiety bring forth.

    Try not to get roped back in to wrestling with your thoughts. Simply acknowledge them and let them drift in and out, or even dissipate. This kind of acceptance is likened to a mindfulness approach—again, very simple but extremely effective.

    Side note: Another great way to get outside of your head is to help somebody else. Spend some time helping somebody feel better, sleep better, live better, and notice how this makes you feel.

    Tell people how you feel.

    Sometimes it can feel as if those around us, whether family, friends, or colleagues, don’t truly understand how we feel. You might think people can sympathize but cannot empathize, but more people struggle with anxiety and depression than you may realize.

    When we tell people how we truly feel it’s as if a weight has been lifted off of our shoulders, and also, we are more likely to receive their support and understanding, which makes our lives a little bit easier.

    I understand how difficult it can be to let people know that you suffer with depression and anxiety, especially since we have been taught to ‘soldier on’ and put on a happy front to the outside world. But believe me, there is nothing embarrassing about admitting that we struggle. In fact, quite the opposite is true; it’s admirable because it takes a huge amount of courage to do so.

    Try telling somebody close to you how you feel and ask for their support and understanding. If you are really struggling and even battling suicidal thoughts then this is an even more important action step for you; I know it is extremely difficult but I promise you will not regret it.

    Give yourself time to be happy each day.

    This may seem too simple and perhaps even patronizing, but stay with me while I explain what I mean. Actually, I mean two things:

    First of all, we must be kind to ourselves and allow time for relaxation and enjoyment. Seems obvious, but many people (including myself) find ourselves feeling guilty or lost in thought during times in which we ought to be relaxing and having fun.

    Take an hour each day to do something you truly enjoy, something that makes you lose track of time and feel joyful and vibrant.

    One element of depression is a lack of enjoyment in activities, so you may need to think hard about what you can do each day that will bring a smile to your face; but I’m certain there is something!

    You could go for a walk in nature, read a book, watch your favorite television program, talk to a friend—the options are truly limitless.

    Now, if you struggle with both depression and anxiety (like myself), you may find that many activities you truly enjoy involve being alone. This is perfectly fine, but I urge you to push yourself at least once a week to spend time with close friends or loved ones; you will likely see an improvement in your mood and increase in your energy once you do so.

    The other element of giving yourself time to be happy is slightly different from what you may have heard before. Sometimes we forget that being happy can actually require work! In fact, most of the time we need to exert self-discipline in order to do those things that we know are good for us, such as eating a healthy, balanced meal and taking part in regular exercise or meditation.

    Set aside ten to twenty minutes a day to write in a journal. This is a great way to vent your thoughts, feelings, frustrations, fears, and dreams. A journal can give you more clarity and objectivity so you get out of your own head and escape your sometimes-malicious thoughts.

    I personally like to journal for five to ten minutes each morning and then again every evening. I noticed a world of difference to my mood once I became consistent, especially with regards to my anxiety.

    If you don’t know what to write or how to structure your journaling sessions, then start with the basics: how you feel, what you have been doing, anything on your mind, anything you are worrying about, etc.

    Try and write at least one thing each session that you are grateful for or looking forward to, as this will likely lift your mood. Remember that this will be your journal; you are free to do with it what you will. Give it a go yourself and see how you get on.

    —

    A quick word before I leave you: You might not experience any benefits immediately after you begin implementing these practices, so it’s important to be patient and to keep moving forward.

    As I already mentioned, applying some of what you may have learned here will require discipline, but I know that you can do it.

    Also, remember to be kind to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for feeling down or anxious or uncomfortable. We all have bad days, especially when we are dealing with the twin terrors of depression and anxiety. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others.

    I wish you all the best, and I sincerely hope that this article has been of benefit to you.

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

  • 6 Ways Meditation Improves Your Life

    6 Ways Meditation Improves Your Life

    “Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our hearts, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Back in 2001, I was a freshman in college, and my saving grace from anxiety was a yoga class. More specifically, it was the most glorious of poses we call savasana that kept me sane.

    For those unfamiliar, savasana—or corpse pose—is a pose of surrender and noticing thoughts and sensations without judgment, much like meditation. (It’s the pose that looks like everyone is just lying around napping.)

    Back then, yoga and meditation were still mostly seen as these hippie things that flaky people do. There were certainly no yoga classes anywhere near my hometown in Connecticut, so I hadn’t had the chance to even try yoga before college. And as far as I knew, meditation was something that monks did on a mountain side.

    Without the three physical education credits my college required, it likely would have been years before I experienced the peace that is savasana.

    College was a very stressful time for me, as it is for most people. I still had no idea at this point that what I had been experiencing most of my life was anxiety. All I knew was that there was a bee’s nest living inside my chest, vibrating at an angry frequency that made my skin crawl.

    I rarely went to parties or out to bars (even though I had my handy fake ID, which was surprisingly easy to get back then). The fear of what the “much cooler” kids would think of me kept me in my dorm room watching Empire Records, Tommy Boy, and The Emperor’s New Groove on VHS over and over and over again (we didn’t have cable and YouTube wasn’t a thing yet).

    The worry of making my parents proud exhausted me. The fearful anticipation of being called on in class and not knowing the answer haunted me. The pressure to be at the top of every class crushed me under the weight of receiving a B.

    I didn’t know how to escape these feelings. I wasn’t given the tools. I wasn’t told what it was. I was raised in a “suck it up” kind of household and thought I just needed to “deal with it.”

    To distract myself from the internal pain, I started inflicting some externally. I’d gnaw at my skin with a dullish blade or dig my nails into my arms—not to break the skin, but to have a more tangible pain to focus on. One that I could control, one that I could look at and point to and know where it came from.

    I knew it wasn’t constructive or healthy, but I didn’t seem to have the words to talk about how I felt. I just knew that was the best idea I had at the time.

    That “solution” thankfully didn’t last for long. Soon I was introduced to the saving grace that was the last eight minutes of yoga class.

    The class was held on the hard, barely carpeted, cold concrete floor of my dorm building’s basement. It was right in the middle of the day, and the beautiful final pose of the class always made me feel fantastic. It became the reason I went and still is my favorite part.

    The peace would last anywhere from five to ten minutes. I was told to listen to the space between my breaths. I started to notice that there was this place I could go that didn’t have noise that would last for mere seconds, though it felt much longer.

    It was so tranquil. It sometimes felt like a rush of calming chemicals were being released in my brain. It was, for lack of a better term, amazeballs.

    Amazeballs
    a·maze·balls (əˈmāzbôlz)
    Adjective, informal
    Extremely good or impressive; amazing.

    In those moments there was no bee’s nest, no crawling skin, no need to escape. For a few minutes a day for three days a week, I felt peace.

    After a while I noticed that I was carrying that stillness with me through the rest of my day. It fueled me.

    But sometimes I thought I was doing it wrong because I couldn’t “shut my brain up.” I didn’t realize that I was essentially meditating. I didn’t truly know what I was learning through the process. I had no idea just how impactful it was. I only knew I felt great afterward.

    That is why I’m writing this post. Through years of meditation practice since those glorious days on the cold basement floor, I’ve learned how and why meditation was helping me and my anxiety, my confidence, and my overall mental health.

    These are the things I wish I knew meditation was doing for me earlier in life. Had I known these back then, I would have sought out a proper teacher much sooner and made it a daily practice instead of weekly, and learned to practice mindfulness off the cushion as well.

    1. Meditation teaches us the difference between ourselves and our thoughts.

    When we meditate, we learn to notice when a thought is happening, as well as when it has taken our attention and we’ve become absorbed in it. Once we recognize this, we bring our attention back to a point of focus.

    In learning meditation you will be introduced to the concept that you are not your thoughts. That they are not one in the same.

    This idea blew my mind when I was first heard it. “If I’m not my thoughts, then what am I??”

    Some call it our Wise Advocate. Others call it our Inner Self, or our Soul. I just call it Me.

    Think of your brain like another sensing organ. The eyes see, the ears hear, the brain thinks. You are not your thoughts as much as you are not the things you see.

    Our brains serve up ideas, not truths. A thought is merely a sentence constructed by the neurons in our brains. It’s up to us to decide if we believe the thought, or if we want to choose another one that feels more true to ourselves and our values.

    When we differentiate between the two—there’s me and there’s my thoughts—it gives us the power to choose. We are not subjected to or victims of the ideas we hear our brains serve up.

    When thoughts like “I suck” or “I can’t handle this” or “No one will like me” come to mind, these are not truths, these are ideas our brains came up with.

    It’s up to us to recognize that is a thought, not us. We can choose to believe it or choose to question it, reframe it, and find a thought that serves us better.

    Meditation is a practice that builds this skillset of noticing thought, recognizing it for what it is, and stepping back far enough from it to choose where to go next.

    2. Meditation teaches us how to let go of thoughts, and improves sleep.

    “My brain won’t shut up!!!” I told my doctor when I asked him for something to help me sleep.

    Meditation is like a workout for your brain. Except instead of picking up weights to build muscle, you’re putting down thoughts to build strength of mind.

    When we meditate, we notice when thoughts arise, then gently bring our awareness back. That awareness could be on the movement of your breath, the feel of your body, the sound of a mantra, or the visual of a mandala—an anchor to bring you back to the present moment.

    Then your mind will wander again. Then you bring it back. Then it wanders. Then you bring it back.

    It’s like doing reps at the gym. You’re building the “muscles” that bring your mind back to the present moment, giving you more control over the direction of your attention.

    And over time your ability to let go of thoughts—especially those that do not serve you—grows. This makes it easier to fall asleep, to get out of a funk, and to clear your mind and find more peaceful moments in life.

    Thoughts, worry, rumination, fear—these keep us up at night. These thought patterns became so habitual for me that it even felt impossible to let go daydreaming while I was trying to fall asleep.

    By learning to disengage from the thoughts spinning on the hamster wheel, we’re able to drift off to sleep.

    3. Meditation teaches us self-compassion and patience.

    Meditation is a pretty simple concept, but it isn’t always easy, especially when we are just starting out.

    Thoughts come and go all the time. That’s what our brains do—it’s one of it’s jobs, to give us thoughts. When we meditate we’re continually recognizing that we are thinking. “Ah, that’s a thought.”

    Learning to not attach ourselves to that thought takes practice. And practice takes time.

    Just like how you can’t force yourself to fall asleep, you can’t force yourself to ‘go deeper’ into meditation. You allow it to happen. It takes patience.

    And a lot of our anxiety comes from a place of impatience for the feeling to be over, for something in the future to make us happy.

    With practice, meditation teaches us acceptance.

    There may be times where you feel like you were thinking the whole time you’re meditating and you may find that frustrating, like you’re doing something wrong.

    Or you may have been meditating for some time and feel you “should” have progressed faster in your ability to not get attached to your thoughts so often.

    But, through the practice, we learn that we need to be kind to ourselves and accept that this is how our brain works. That there isn’t anything wrong with us.

    It takes self-compassion to accept the present moment for what it is, especially when the present moment isn’t to our liking.

    4. Meditation teaches us to be less judgmental.

    We’re constantly judging ourselves and others. We put labels like “good” or “bad” on people based on their actions or appearance.

    Judgment separates us from others. It’s isolating.

    And when we judge ourselves we do the same. We’re separating ourselves from others. We might feel like we’re bad because we’re not as pretty, or smart, or talented. This judgment puts us in another category, separate from others, which is a lonely place to be.

    Non-judgment is an important part of meditation, especially in mindfulness meditation.

    Mindfulness is paying attention, on purpose, to the present moment, without judgment. That means experiencing without labeling in judgement.

    Nothing is good or bad in this moment, it just is. A thought in and of itself isn’t good or bad. It’s just words or pictures. Just a fleeting idea. It is meaningless unless we choose to apply meaning to it.

    When we meditate we witness our thoughts. We observe our feelings. We experience our bodily sensations. But we don’t judge them.

    We approach them with curiosity. “Isn’t that interesting, I felt self-conscious when I noticed my stomach roll while sitting here.” Then back to the breath.

    5. Meditation teaches us to not run away from our feelings and become confident.

    During meditation, we’ll notice emotions coming up. Some are pleasant, some are not. But since we’re learning to not judge these things that come up, we’re also learning to allow them to happen.

    When we experience emotions that are unpleasant—fear, anger, sadness, irritation—we naturally want to avoid them, hide from them, or dull them with food, alcohol, drugs or TV.

    We gravitate toward comfort because comfort in our minds equates to security.

    But emotions aren’t things that can physically harm us. They can cause muscle tension, queasiness, heat, a sense of heaviness… but there is no physical harm involved in a single instance of an emotion.

    When we feel this afflictive emotion, we think “I don’t want to feel this, I shouldn’t feel this, it is bad to feel this.” And this resistance causes us more pain.

    It’s like getting hit with a second arrow. The first arrow caused the negative emotion. This happens and it is part of our lives—we are meant to experience a range of emotions, both pleasant and unpleasant.

    The second arrow, however, is avoidable. Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. When we apply resistance to that negative feeling, instead of leaning in and allowing it to be and to flow through us, we cause ourselves more pain.

    We need to allow these feelings, to let them flow through and watch them pass. We witness how a thought or a feeling can’t harm us. It’s just passing by.

    This is such an empowering skill because it makes us feel like we can handle anything. It builds confidence, because confidence is simply the willingness to experience a negative emotion.

    6. Meditation can help you break habits and literally rewires your brain with new patterns.

    Did you know that your thoughts can shape your brain? Like, literally. What you think and what you experience shapes the connections in your brain.

    Thoughts and behaviors form neurological connections. If we do something often enough, or if our actions result in a desired outcome then the brain says, “Hey, let’s store this as a habit.” Like saving a computer program.

    Worry, rumination, anxiety, stress, even daydreaming—these all can become habits.

    The brain likes habits. It helps it work more efficiently. If you’ve done something in the past and it worked even a little, it will store that in a secure part of the brain for safe keeping.

    For example, rumination can be a habit. If in the past you worried about something and that felt like it was helpful to prepare for what is coming, the brain sees that as a successful pattern and voila! You have a habit of worry.

    In the future, your brain will play this program when something stressful arises, because that is easier and more efficient than coming up with a new idea from scratch.

    Just like it would be a lot of effort to have to re-learn how to drive every time you get into a car, you store those behaviors and automatically run that program once you sit in the driver’s seat.

    Meditation rewires your brain through the process of neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to form new connections (you can teach an old dog new tricks!). Habits start to break. And we start to gain more control over what we think, how we feel, and what we do.

    I think this is the coolest part about meditation. It eventually allows us to respond to situations in the way we choose instead of always automatically reacting with our old, afflictive patterns. It allows us to fully become the person we know we are, the person we want to be.

  • When You Start Thinking That You’re Not Good Enough…

    When You Start Thinking That You’re Not Good Enough…

    “You are strong when you know your weaknesses. You are beautiful when you appreciate your flaws. You are wise when you learn from your mistakes.” ~Unknown

    The most annoying thing for me is to hear someone tell me, “Just stop it!” whenever I am frustrated or discouraged and looking for answers and solutions.

    When you’re anxious, and someone tells you, “Stop worrying, it will all be fine…” these words only add fuel to the fire and often make you angry. At least this is true for me.

    It reminds me of a funny video I watched about a “unique” therapeutic approach, when a therapist just tells a patient, after listening to their problems with deep emotional issues, “STOP IT!”

    “But I can’t just stop it,” the patient responds. “This issue has been within me since childhood, and my mom used to do the same.”

    But the therapist just calmly responds, “We don’t go there. Just stop it.”

    If only it were that easy to stop it: the limiting beliefs, the destructive behavior, the unwanted outcomes, the toxic relationships, etc. All people would be skinny, rich, and happy, and we’d live in the ideal word, but unfortunately, that’s not the case.

    You can’t just stop a feeling, especially one that tells you “you are not good enough.”

    No matter how hard I work on my personal growth and myself, the feelings of inadequacy and comparisons to others creep in occasionally, especially when things don’t go according to my plans. It is so easy for me to blame myself when I’m feeling frustrated.

    No matter how hard I try to push away the feeling that I’m not good enough, it doesn’t go away. In fact, it just strengthens. The more I resist that feelings, the more it persists.

    The ironic part is that my intellectual mind knows it’s not true that I’m not good enough. On a good day, I feel powerful and anchored, and I know my value. But on a bad day—when I fail at something or take things personally—I can’t seem to stop the wave of negative emotions that take me over.

    I’ve learned that I can’t just snap out of a negative feeling. I can’t just stop it. And I can’t bottle it.

    So what can you do when your inner voice tells you “you are not good enough”?

    Well, first of all, you need to acknowledge what you’re feeling. When you accept your feelings instead of trying to change them, they have less power over you, and can even serve you by encouraging your growth.

    For example, I recently attended a local speaking club where a French lady presented a speech. She spoke in English, but, as I speak French, I wanted to complement her speech in the French language.

    To my big annoyance, my mind just went blank after “Excellent travail!” (Great job!) I couldn’t think of another word. I quickly switched to English, but I felt like a failure.

    My logical mind was saying, “It’s okay, you don’t use French often, that’s why you forgot,” but my emotional mind woke up all my gremlins, who were screaming at me “You are not good enough!”

    I felt really frustrated, but that incident encouraged me to go back to my French books to refresh my memory. I enjoyed rereading Le Petit Prince, and in the end, I felt good about myself.

    It might be a simple example, but that’s how our psychology works.

    When you look your insecurity in the eyes, it often reveals an opportunity for fulfillment or improvement. Don’t deny it; listen to it. Don’t engage in the emotions it produces—the feelings of inadequacy, inferiority, and shame; just listen to what it has to say.

    It doesn’t matter how many times I tell you, “You are beautiful and amazing just the way you are” (and by the way, this is absolutely true); when you look at yourself in the mirror and you don’t like what you see, you will find it hard to believe this. You inner voice might tell you, “You are not good enough as you are right now.”

    Acknowledge that voice and consider that maybe your insecurity has some constructive value; for example, maybe your inner voice is trying to encourage you to start eating healthier or working out.

    You also need to accept the fear that you’re not good enough as part of yourself. I don’t care where you are in life—how successful, loved, and fulfilled you might feel—we all focus on our flaws and imperfections from time to time. It’s called being human. We can’t always be at our best and most confident. And this is okay.

    It’s okay to occasionally feel like you are not good enough, as long as you recognize that thoughts and feelings aren’t facts and don’t dwell in that state.

    These wobbly moments are unpleasant but inevitable; you can’t avoid them.

    Give yourself permission to be imperfect, to question and doubt yourself occasionally. Without questions and doubts we wouldn’t be able to grow and develop.

    I believe through wrestling with our weaknesses we are able to get to the other side of our strengths. But we can’t just ignore our shortcomings. They’re an undeniable part of us. We have to be aware and own the good, the bad, and the ugly within us, so we are better equipped to deal with our limitations.

    So, the question is not how to eliminate the negative voice, but how to learn to deal with it in an intelligent, mature, and conscious way. Listen to it, learn from it, but don’t let it define who you are, don’t let it write your story.

    Don’t be afraid of it and don’t try to stop it; allow it to help you learn more about who you are and who you can be.

  • Why Positive Thinking Drained Me (and How I’ve Found Peace)

    Why Positive Thinking Drained Me (and How I’ve Found Peace)

    “Glimpses of love and joy or brief moments of deep peace are possible whenever a gap occurs in the stream of thought.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Eleven years ago I read a book that was life changing for me. It taught me something I never considered during the previous twenty-nine years—that I could change my thoughts.

    The book was Loving What Is, by Byron Katie. It set me forth on a journey that included dozens of books that communicated the same thing: We think the same thoughts all day long, over and over, and many of them are negative, filled with worry, and not at all helpful. And we have the power to change those thoughts.

    I’ve lived by that belief ever since—that I have the power to change my thoughts and that reframing negative thoughts to better ones makes my life happier.

    This year, though, I hit a wall. Although my life and confidence and sense of self have improved tremendously in the past decade, some things were still not as I wished them to be.

    I felt unhappy much more often than I would have liked. I felt a low level anxiety on and off most days. I worried about money frequently. I just didn’t feel the way I wanted to feel.

    I kept reading more books. I kept trying to find a way to be consistently positive. I remember one weekend when I was feeling down I just repeated positive phrases to myself over and over all day long, but felt like I was barely keeping my head above water.

    In fact, it was the very next day that I hit a breaking point. My mind was tired from trying so, so hard to be positive all the time. I was struggling to keep it together and to stay upbeat.

    That morning I took my daughter to her swimming lesson, the first after a weeklong break, and things started to unravel. I wasn’t sitting where she expected me to be, she got upset, and after she found me, she clung to me. She wouldn’t get back in the water. She wouldn’t do what I wanted.

    I got frustrated. I got angry. In fact, when I looked back over the previous few weeks, I saw I’d been getting angry a lot lately. It was as if the harder I pushed myself to be positive, the more resentful I got about what I didn’t have.

    Eventually I calmed down. I brought my daughter home but still felt tied up in knots. I expressed anger to my husband, I cried, I felt out of control.

    By the next day the fog had lifted. I knew I couldn’t keep going like I had been. I knew forcing myself to try to be positive all the time was not the answer and was completely unsustainable for the long term.

    That’s when I picked up my copy of The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I’ve had this book on my shelf for probably that entire eleven years I was trying to change my thoughts, but I’d never read it. I guess I just wasn’t ready for it.

    Tolle tells the reader what he knows to be the truth: What’s happening in this moment is the only thing that’s ever real, and the only thing that ever matters. The mind wants us to worry about the future and ruminate about the past. But that is what keeps us disconnected, and separate from inner peace.

    I finally felt, deeply, what I’d been missing for all those years: That for me to feel completely free I didn’t need to keep trying to think positively, I needed to stop attaching to my thoughts at all.

    This has been such an enormous shift for me that it’s hard for me to even put it into words. I spent so much time, so much energy, trying to reframe thoughts, to question if they were true, to choose thoughts that felt better, and now I feel free from that.

    There’s absolutely nothing wrong with reframing your thoughts. Nothing at all. It did improve my life, and it will improve yours if you’re used to believing everything your thoughts tell you.

    But, for me at least, it’s no longer the way to a better life. Noticing my thoughts and just letting them go by brings me greater inner peace than I have ever felt.

    Here’s what I’m doing differently now that I’ve had this realization.

    I’m no longer setting specific goals. I’m a bit start-and-stop on setting goals anyway, but for now I’ve just stopped setting them completely. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to get things done, it just means I’m not putting a lot of energy into letting my mind come up with a big list of things it “should” be doing.

    None of that really means anything. Yes, making more money or being more “successful” in my work might mean more travel or newer shoes, but that does not lead to sustained peace.

    Being right here, observing what’s happening in this moment, is what leads to sustained peace.

    I’m not trying to think positively. This is a big change and a positive one for me (oh, the irony!). Trying to think positively all the time was truly energy draining for me.

    This non-attachment to thought, though, is peaceful. It’s not easy, and it does take some effort, but I don’t feel like I’m trying to push an elephant through a keyhole with my mind anymore. Having glimpses of being truly present is fun and joyful.

    I’m coming back to the present moment over and over and over again. I’ve been saying “be here now” and “be mindful” for years now, but I’m not sure I really, truly got what that meant.

    What it means to me now is this: Breathe in and notice what it feels like. Notice what the inside of your body feels like. Look around you but don’t make judgments about what you see. When thoughts start to fill in the empty spaces, stop them. Refocus on what’s happening in this exact moment.

    I’m noticing when my mind is racing. In the past, I’d probably try to think happier thoughts. If my head was full of thoughts about how much I had to get done, I’d try to soothe myself with “I have time to do what’s most important” or something similar.

    Now when I notice my mind is racing, I see it as a reminder to get back to the present moment. If my mind is running away with thoughts, then I’m mostly definitely not in the here and now.

    I breathe. I look around. I see that my mind doesn’t want to stop thinking. It’s afraid to lose its job.

    No matter what you choose, if you want to live a more peaceful life, you’re going to have to make a change.

    You may choose to observe your thoughts and then switch them to ones that feel better. Or, like I’ve done recently, you may choose to go beyond your thoughts to the moment that’s unfolding right now. To stop letting your thoughts, good or bad, have any power over your life.

  • Even in the Hospital, He Found Joy in the Now

    Even in the Hospital, He Found Joy in the Now

    “Don’t let the sadness of your past and the fear of your future ruin the happiness of your present.” ~Unknown

    Back in the day when I was a stay-at-home mom, “mindfulness” wasn’t even a word in my vocabulary. The only mindfulness I was aware of was my own mind-fullness just trying to navigate a busy, full schedule with three children. It wasn’t until later in life that mindfulness was brought to my attention through the examples my oldest son Sean exhibited.

    Sean was my mindfulness teacher. He showed me how to be in the sweet spot of the now. He had an ability to hold a singular focus on what was happening right in front of him. There wasn’t any moment other than the one he was in, which made mindfulness look effortless.

    Mindfulness became a necessary skill especially because in the first year of Sean’s life, he developed an unexpected seizure disorder. As soon as the seizures began, we were on a life-long medical treadmill of doctor’s visits, prescriptions, surgeries, and therapies.

    Professionals wanted a recalling of the past as they asked a myriad of questions about family history, Sean’s developmental milestones, seizure activity, and responses to various medications tried. Noting past events took up a lot of room in my head, which made it hard to keep my mind focused on the present. Often I was busy corralling my thoughts from the detour they had taken into the past territory of “what used to be.”

    In those early days of seeking medical opinions, doctors gave optimistic reassurances about Sean’s future. Over time, as the seizures continued the prognosis grew more grim. I never wanted to think about Sean’s future for long, as down-the-road possibilities only caused apprehension and heartache. The what-if scenario’s easily swept me away from the present into feeling overwhelmed.

    I needed to practice mindfulness to cultivate calmness. Whenever I was present to the “what is” at any given moment, I could breathe more easily. I didn’t fret, re-hash, or ruminate over what had happened nor fear what could happen.

    Later in Sean’s life, his balance became more precarious. Despite wearing a helmet to protect his head, the helmet failed on many occasions to keep his face totally protected. If he lost his equilibrium or fell due to having a seizure, often a subsequent trip to the local emergency room occurred.

    One particular time after Sean had fallen, the ER visit was particularly challenging. Sean had received a nasty laceration just barely above his eye. It was a jagged, mean-looking, gaping wide-open cut. Sean’s eye had already swollen shut. The doctor explained how the sutures had to be intricately stitched in the inner and outer layers of skin.

    “Sean, you are the bravest boy in the whole wide world” was what I would always tell him. It was true. He suffered in a way that I know most people will never experience in their lifetime. I found as the years progressed, it became harder and harder for me to witness his suffering, to stay present during medical procedures.

    I talked and sang to Sean to distract him from what was happening, to reassure and comfort him. However, I knew I was losing my bearings. My thoughts were already in the instant replay of the traumatic scene we were in, in technicolor, on one endless loop. I couldn’t stop my thoughts from fixating on the suffering Sean was enduring.

    Sean looked as if he went a few rounds in the boxing ring. I knew this had to hurt and attempted to hold an ice bag on his face to minimize further swelling. I internally shuddered as I watched the wound being cleaned, the pain numbing injections and the sutures being threaded over and over in such a tender area on his face as I tried to hold him still.

    All these painful scenes got filed into an already extensive compilation of memories.

    Once the doctor finished, while we waited for discharge orders, Sean showed me a different way to live with his example of mindfulness on full display. This ER trip was where I learned that instead of re-immersing myself in the upsetting experiences of what had happened, I could stay present.

    I could find something to appreciate right in front of me, and allow myself to enjoy it fully, without revisiting painful experiences from the past and worrying about what might happen in the future.

    I moved a phone over to Sean’s lap and told him we would call Catherine, his sister. Ever since Sean was a little boy, he loved to make phone calls or ‘talk’ on the phone. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but you could see his glee whenever he was on the phone.

    I held the phone to his ear as he put his hand over mine to cradle it. As he talked to Catherine, he stretched back comfortably in the bed, tilted his head to the side, intently listening.

    It was stunning to watch how, in a matter of minutes Sean, understandably upset, was now beaming a big smile. He was totally there, in that moment, so totally tickled to be on the phone with Catherine.

    What he just went through receded into the past almost as if forgotten. He was not re-living in his mind the awfulness of the fall, how horrible of a cut he had nor the pain he had endured. No, not at all. Sean was on the phone, that’s all there was right then, and he was happy.

    Our positions reversed, with Sean, the calming presence, and I reassured by him. He showed me how freeing it was to release the past. To let go of the suffering, be right there in the now. How truly it’s a grace to have mindful moments like that and stay in the awareness of the moment.

    Sean showed me more than once how trouble-free life could be if one is mindful. No past considerations or future possibilities. When I was mindful, I saw Sean just as he was.

    I did not settle into thinking of the past when once upon a time, Sean was a normally developing, beautiful baby. Nor did I focus on the skills he lost along the way or how fragile he had become. Or abide in the fear and apprehension of what would happen next.

    Being mindful kept my thoughts in the present moment, which allowed me to more fully appreciate and enjoy the limited time I had with my son. It was only from there that I could sustain my immense gratitude for the gift of Sean’s presence in my life just as he was. His lessons on mindfulness are indelibly written in my thoughts and heart.

  • Why I Now Complain Less and Appreciate More

    Why I Now Complain Less and Appreciate More

     “It is not happy people who are thankful. It is thankful people who are happy.” ~Unknown

    I used to be a complainer, a fault-finder, a grumbler. I would grumble a hundred times a day about mundane issues, be it the weather, the traffic, or my husband.

    I complained when my husband didn’t help me around the house, and grumbled when he helped. It took me some time to realize that it was not him or his lack of housekeeping skills that made me unhappy. I was unhappy because I was turning into an ungrateful person.

    I have some fond and not so fond memories of my childhood. When I was a kid, my parents force-fed me green vegetables and limited my television and playtime. They wanted me to study and do my homework, and made me go to sleep every night at 8:30 PM. But all I wanted was freedom, freedom from homework and freedom to do whatever I wanted.

    I was nine years old when I first expressed my ingratitude to my parents. One day, after school, instead of boarding the school bus that would take me home I boarded the one that took me to my friend’s house. I thought this would be the end to the horrible veggies and boring homework. But things didn’t go as planned.

    My friend’s father got in touch with my dad, who drove down to take me back home. As I nervously watched my dad step out of the car I noticed worry etched on his face. He gently put his protective hands around my shoulders and said, “Come, let’s go home.” We drove home in silence, and gradually guilt found its way into my heart.

    When we approached home, I peered through the windows of the car and spotted a tired, lean figure standing by the gate of the house, my mom. I got down from the car and tentatively took one step toward her. Gazing into her moist eyes I gingerly called out, “Mummy.”

    She took me in her arms and hugged me tightly, while crying into my school shirt. As my tiny hands held her I realized my mistake.

    Today, when I look back to that incident, I realize now that as a child I took for granted all that my parents did for me.

    In a world where girls are denied education, at times buried alive, where orphanages are filled with children abandoned by their parents, here were my parents who catered to all my needs and prepared me for the future. In this unfair world, I was blessed with parents who gave me a fair chance at life, to grow and to prosper.

    My parents indeed planted the first seeds of gratitude when I was still a kid. But it wasn’t until I attained motherhood that I truly understood the importance of showing gratitude.

    Like every first-time mother, I went through anxious moments looking after and raising my baby. With my hyperactive daughter, things just seemed like a never-ending battle, with crayon painted walls, carrot juice stains on the carpet, moisturizers and lipsticks tested on every piece of furniture, and toys scattered around.

    I longed for peace, I longed for rest, and I longed for a clean house. I complained and cribbed about how being a mother was the toughest job in the world.

    Until one day, I visited a friend whose six-month-old son was admitted in the hospital, as he was diagnosed with Muscle Dystrophy, a genetic disorder that affects all the muscles including the muscles of the heart.

    That tiny baby lay on a bed motionless, strapped to a heart monitor. It was heartbreaking to watch the grieving mother coax and beg her frail baby to wake up, to cry, to whine, to do something, anything, while he did nothing. He just lay there, motionless.

    As I stood there, watching helplessly, an image of my little devil—my daughter—scribbling on the walls flashed through my mind.

    What had I been complaining about? An active child, a healthy child? Isn’t this what I had prayed for when expecting her? Surely, there would be plenty of women out there in this world who would give anything for my sleepless nights and messy house.

    From that day on, whenever my daughter was unable to go to sleep even at two in the morning, I didn’t complain. In fact, as I held her and kissed her forehead, I was thankful knowing I have such a wonderful gift.

    It’s human nature to forget our blessings and concentrate on our problems, but when we complain, our mind plunges into negativity, and like a domino effect everyone around us gets impacted by it.

    Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita would often finalize a candidate selection by asking his famous concluding question. “Do you think you have been lucky in your life?”

    The purpose of this question, according to him, was to comprehend if the candidate was thankful for the people who helped him in his life. He believed that this attitude of gratitude in employees leads to a happy work environment, which in turn boosts company productivity.

    Most of us tend to connect happiness to major events, like a promotion or winning the lottery. But these events don’t happen often. Gratitude is what makes our life richer, more beautiful, and a lot happier as we start to enjoy the little things in life.

    We often take people in our life for granted, or get caught up in complaining and grumbling. It’s true, my husband can be lazy sometimes, my parents keep nagging me, my teenage daughters never listen to me, and I have some crazy friends, but you know what? My life is incomplete without all of them.

    Life is a celebration. When we love everything we have, we have everything we need. So, let us make this journey of life worthwhile and take that huge leap from grumbling to gratitude.

  • My Life Will Be My Message

    My Life Will Be My Message

    “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” ~Gautama Buddha

    I have meditated for over half my life. It didn’t always look like meditation, and I didn’t always refer to it as such, but the driving need to introspectively understand my universe has been an ever-present presence,.

    For a long time, there was a certain guarded nature to my practice. It was intimate for me. I didn’t have words to explain what I was doing in a way that didn’t seem crazy. I didn’t realize that there were other people who were pursuing the same path. And so, I remained solitary.

    A series of fortunate events led me to spend the past fifteen years working in alternative education.

    I spent thirteen years working with adolescents living with the challenges of addiction. As a result, my practice began to take on new elements. Self-care became paramount, and I used the refuge of meditation to handle the day-to-day heartbreak.

    My introspection became a way to get a shore leave from the battle against addiction. And still, it was solitary.

    Then one of my coworkers, a wonderful mentor, took a course on mindfulness meditation and began using it with the students. Amazingly, many of them gravitated toward the practice and began to look forward to the time carved out during the day for relaxation and mindfulness.

    I stood on the outside, wanting to participate in a more active way but still feeling a sense of almost shame of the weirdness, the apartness that I had unconsciously associated with my meditation practice. When my mentor left he took that time with him. I didn’t feel qualified to continue it. So we let it lapse. I didn’t even offer.

    Over the next few years my practice continued to deepen and take on a central role in my personal development. I began to talk more openly about my meditation with my colleagues at first, and then with a few students who I felt close to and thought might be receptive. I invited them to come sit with me during lunch.

    Our cafeteria was often an incredibly negative place for both the students and the staff. I thought I would offer an alternative to that. We had recently built a space for teaching yoga that was being woefully underused that fit my needs exactly.

    I wish there was a happy ending. That the students came by the cartload and blossomed, and that my colleagues rushed to my side to begin meditating as they saw the infinite benefits of the practice.

    Instead, my colleagues politely declined citing their own classroom needs or lunchtime responsibilities, and other than a few students who took me up on my offer a few times and then returned to their regular lunch, I found myself alone… again.

    Strangely enough, or perhaps not, what seemed like defeat bore fruit. My solitary lunch became my moments to reach for my own compassion and to try to find the humanity that at times seemed so lost in both those suffering from and those trying to aid people in addiction.

    I began to see that not my words, but my life had to be the message. If I truly believed in what I was doing, the way that I comported myself would be far more profound than discussing the effects that meditation had for me.

    So I began to talk openly about my practice without reserve whenever it was appropriate. When a student would come to me for advice I would invite them to sit with me while we talked.

    I began to try to remain still during my staff meeting instead of squirming and joking with the people next to me. I learned how to try to give my single-pointed attention to those who were with me more often. I began to talk less and listen more to my colleagues.

    I began to try to see the middle way in the frequently passionate meetings we would have after school, finding compromises instead of pushing for my point of view. Especially as those meetings took on an increasing layer of gravity and an almost frantic quality as our students began to fall victim to the opiate epidemic. One death after another, sometimes within weeks of each other. Beautiful young lives ended.

    I learned about holding grief and sharing pain. I learned about being present in the moment because the blatant reality that the next day was no longer guaranteed was ever present.

    I left that job after ten years, with a heavy heart, amidst what felt like an interminable sea of personal troubles that had prompted my decision to leave a community I had quite literally grown up in.

    When I reached my new employer the next school year I set up my desk. I put my singing bowl out and hung up my banner with a quote from HH the Dalai Lama. My new students started to ask me about them. I told them quite openly about what they were for and about my meditation practice.

    I asked a few of my colleagues if they would let me do a short meditation before they started their class, and for the first few months of the school year I took five or seven minutes to try to teach some of the most basic elements of meditation: relaxation, finding the breath, body position.

    Once again, most of the students weren’t particularly interested, and my colleagues quickly reclaimed their “time on learning” for more important things. But I persisted.

    My openness brought other colleagues from other grades to me, and we began to have a small community of teachers who not only all had a practice, but all shared the hidden shame and frustration of knowing the impact of meditation but not knowing how to implement it, or how to even discuss it with our students. We found each other.

    We began to talk about how to bring this into the classroom and into the school community. I began to offer a short twenty-five-minute class on meditation during a recess on Friday.

    I expected maybe three or four students. Those who seemed receptive to our conversations over the course of the year and who would frequently request that I return to leading meditation before class. Instead, I got eight. And to my surprise it was not the students I expected. I had made my own poor judgments. Most of the students at my door that first day were not even on my radar. Over the next few months they became some of my best students.

    I left that first class with a deep gratitude. The students were hungry for this. For a time and a place that was unscheduled, safe, and without threat, where they could simply be.

    I saw what I had always believed, that these practices were powerful, useful, and practical for anyone who was willing to try, even a little.

    I’ll never forget the first time I had a meeting that ran into that time, and one of my sixth graders stomped up to me and demanded to know where I had been and informed me that I owed them a meditation!

    This small class turned into a bigger and longer class. I got an official class period once a week and told the specialist coordinator not to cap the number thinking, once again, that I wouldn’t need to. On the first day there were seventeen that came. By the end there were nineteen. I had planned for eight.

    I learned about a different kind of at-risk student: High drive for success, high socioeconomic status, high expectations. The achiever. The over-scheduled. The listless and bored. It was incredible to me how infrequently these children got to be children.

    The first time one of them relaxed enough to fall asleep during a class I felt like I had achieved something important. They were safe, they were calm, they were able to relax and for a few minutes experience the solace of not being asked to do anything. To be allowed to just be.

    What is the point of all this? For me, it was the realization that if I wanted to make an impact on my students, my community, my world, it required the courage of truth. It required me to be exactly who I was.

    I have no illusions that my students came to me to learn meditation. The novelty of the experience wears off fairly quickly. They came to me to learn meditation because they saw how I lived.

    I own who I am. Waking up doesn’t make you less human. It makes you intensely human. Emotions bloom like flowers and then fade and die. I enjoy the flower. I let the flower go. I live openly and it draws the openness out of others.

    I don’t know if meditation will have a place in my students’ lives in the future. I do know that my life has gently jostled theirs in that they now know, consciously or otherwise, that there is someone in the world who cultivates peace and serene silence.

    One of my favorite students commented that he had never seen me upset for more than a few minutes. He was a deeply anxious child with tendencies toward obsessive-compulsive disorder and ADHD.

    Without my saying anything he remarked, “That’s because you meditate right?” “Every day.” I replied. He smiled. I smiled. We were present, together for a moment.

  • Being Busy Made Me Feel Important, But Now I Feel at Peace

    Being Busy Made Me Feel Important, But Now I Feel at Peace

    “You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes a day, unless you are too busy, then you should sit for an hour.” ~Ancient Zen proverb

    I used to think that life was about powering through things. I’d grab a latte, write my to-do list, and proudly cram as many things as possible into my day.

    At work, there was staff, payroll, invoices, customers, marketing, and the occasional cleaning of an office bathroom. At home, there was parenting, dinner, cleaning, homework, bedtime, laundry, and plans for the next day. When my eyes could no longer remain open, I’d fall into a restless night’s sleep accompanied by a busy mind and grinding teeth.

    I figured I had no choice. I had two kids, a husband, a landscape business, a school that wanted parent participation, a co-housing community with obligations, and an overachiever complex.

    There was plenty on my plate just being a mother of two with a family business. But what made matters worse was me going above and beyond. I was president of the school foundation, head chef for community meals, point person for committees, and in my free time, (when was that exactly?) an aspiring athlete training for triathlons. I wanted to be the woman who could do it all, and do it well.

    Being busy made me feel important. The more I juggled, the more praise and attention I got from others, fueling my sense of purpose. It fed my ego and gave me the adrenaline to keep going.

    Without being busy I thought my life would look insignificant. I might disappear like a beige house in a sea of endless tract homes, bland and provincial. So I filled every second of every day with a sense of purpose and a mission that never left room for rest. When no one needed me, I scrambled for something or someone to engage with. I’d repaint a bedroom or rework our website to keep from being unproductive.

    My busy-ness became an addiction. Another project complete, another shot of adrenaline. I felt good and sh*t was getting done!

    But similar to a person with anorexia who starves herself to the point of hospitalization, I was so focused on getting results that I didn’t realize the toll it was taking on me.

    I told my concerned parents I was fine, and that it all needed to happen. I rationalized that I had to do it all for the sake of my family. But underneath it, I was wearing out. My back hurt, my jaw ached, and according to my Ayurvedic practitioner, I’d worn down my adrenal glands, which would eventually lead to other health problems.

    When my mother died, my father took up Vipassana meditation at a Buddhist retreat center in Northern California. For Christmas, he paid for me to attend a three-day silent meditation retreat. I was touched by his gift, but nervous.

    The thought of sitting still for three days scared me. How would I exercise? What if I had to go to the bathroom during a meditation? What if I couldn’t do it?

    The first two days were the hardest. I did everything in my power to summon my patience, but sometimes I let my mind wander on purpose, counted the minutes until the bell rang, and allowed myself to take walks instead of “walking meditations.” I did what any person new to meditation might do: I bent the instructions to fit what I thought were my needs.

    But by the third day, something profound happened. I surrendered to the moment, and the stillness felt good. A calm washed over me like the warmth of a bath. What once felt tense relaxed, and I experienced a deep sense of peace. In the absence of doing, I felt like I was coming home.

    That New Year’s Eve I made a resolution to meditate every day for one year. Though I knew it was one more thing to add to my to-do list, it felt important. There would be no schedule, no method, no particular length of time, and no particular place. It was just me, sitting in observation of my breath, every day. It needed to be on my terms and without judgment or pressure, or it wouldn’t work.

    I noticed my life began to calm down that year. My back pain eased a bit and I craved more quiet. I was quick to notice my feelings and follow my intuition, and my urgency about things getting done was beginning to diminish. By the end of the year, I had only missed six days of meditating. What was once a good idea had become a part of my daily routine.

    It’s been over six years since that retreat, and the results of my almost-daily meditation practice have been noticeable, but my proclivity toward being over-productive remains.

    Like a recovering alcoholic, I have to talk myself out of falling back into its socially acceptable, compelling grip. My smartphone taunts me like a flask I carry in my purse, begging me to engage with more causes, more conversations, and more people. It never goes away; I just have to keep on top of it.

    But unlike alcoholism, being addicted to busy-ness is not a disease; it can be a simple choice. I know that if I choose to indulge myself by packing my schedule, kicking back too much coffee, and going full throttle, I will feel depleted after the race. I know that if I choose to over commit myself, I’m actually looking for praise.

    So, instead of getting down on myself, I now close my eyes and focus on my breath. Though I feel impatient and annoyed at first, eventually the familiar warm water soothes my active mind and I am reminded that there is no need to panic, no need to rush. I just need to be still and present, the place where my feelings of insecurity are replaced with feelings of deep connection and gratitude.

    It is there that I can relax and just be.